One of the books I reviewed recently was the single volume history of the Italian campaign ‘A Hard Way to Make a War: The Allied Campaign in Italy in the Second World War’. That book says in page 326 about casualties:
German killed, wounded, missing 434,646 (48,067 killed, 172,531 wounded, 214,048 missing)’
Apparently the figures used by the author include troops that surrendered at the end of the war. That’s not the way combat losses are compared. If we look at combat losses during the period of actual fighting it is obvious that the casualty figures were not fairly balanced but the Germans had a slight advantage.
‘The casualty figures also are fairly balanced:
Allied killed, wounded, missing (September 1943 - May 1945) 312,000 (188,746 Fifth Army/ 123,254 approx in Eighth Army) German killed, wounded, missing 434,646 (48,067 killed, 172,531 wounded, 214,048 missing)’
That part has always bugged me! Wouldn’t the fact that the Germans were constantly on the defense be reflected in the loss ratios? (that doesn’t necessarily mean that the attacking force will always incur higher losses than the defending force)
Luckily I found interesting data in ‘Waffen und Geheimwaffen des deutschen Heeres 1933-45’. There is a table in page 314 with the monthly losses for the Italian front (killed, missing, wounded) for the period November ’43-April ’45. The numbers come to 36,362 killed, 126,474 wounded, 87,883 missing for a total of 250,719. Losses for September-October ’43 need to be added but these could not have been substantial. Apparently the figures used by the author include troops that surrendered at the end of the war. That’s not the way combat losses are compared. If we look at combat losses during the period of actual fighting it is obvious that the casualty figures were not fairly balanced but the Germans had a slight advantage.