Talk:Western Allied invasion of Germany

Including German Losses for the entirety of 1945

the date range is clear, & your material is not sourced. Please start a discussion on the article's talk page. Thank you. Nick-D (talk) 09:53, 22 February 2018 (UTC) [edit summary from Nick-D posted here by Roddy the roadkill Nick-D (talk) 07:29, 23 February 2018 (UTC)]

You haven’t given a single actual refute yet. The date given by this article is March 22 to May 8, 1945. You’ve given German loss figures that refer to all of January, February, March, April and May. There is no argument here, because the date range difference being clear proves my point. Also, I have not added any material, I have removed information that is out of the scope of the article, or at the very least the infobox. -- Roddy the roadkill (talk) 19:26, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Yet you are retaining the dodgy POW figure which is referenced to calculations from a Wikipedia article, and so not a reliable source. Whatever the flaws of the current figures, the date range is made perfectly clear to readers, and is considerably more useful than nothing. Please also don't ever impersonate other editors' in talk page discussion again - that was my edit summary, not the talk page comment you have added. Please also stop edit warring. Nick-D (talk) 07:29, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

1.) I did not check the sources on either figure. I read the citations on both and the way the citation on the estimated number of German POWs cites Overmans made it sound like the calculation was directly from Overmans. Now that you have brought that to my attention I think it should also be removed, but frankly the disagreement is not about whether or not these were reliable sources but rather if the information was within the scope of this article’s subject to begin with.

2.) I have neither proof nor have I said that Overmans figures are flawed. If you want to add his figures to the analysis section or add a casualties section for them, I’m fine with that. However, the infobox should be immediately pertinent to the subject of the article; lacking a source is not an excuse to put info that is well outside that boundary. So far I have only brought up the issues of the timeline difference, even though there is also the issue that a significant number of German casualties on the Western Front in 1945 didn’t even occur on German soil; such as the majority of Colmar Pocket, Bulge, Nordwind etc.

3.) I wasn’t trying to impersonate you. Esemono did the same to me on the List of battles with most United States Military fatalities talkpage by using my edit as the original comment under the discussion “Battle of Normandy”. I honestly thought this was an appropriate way to directly address an edit, no malicious intent.

4.) There should be context for the accusation of edit warring; I’ve removed information and clearly explained the reason for doing so and others have re-added it without a response. You are the first to respond at all and even then your first response was simply “the date range is clear” without actually addressing the issue of the date range being far wider than the range of the article subject. -- Roddy the roadkill (talk) 19:13, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

I think that we're in agreement that the POW figure should go given it's not reliably sourced. I've asked User:Woogie10w (who is an expert on the casualties of World War II) to comment on whether there are more precise figures which could be used here instead of those currently in the infobox. Nick-D (talk) 07:16, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Please stop misrepresenting Overmans, I have the book and will provide jpgs for support if there is a dispute. I am not saying he is right or wrong only please do not misrepresent him and insert OR and POV--Woogie10w (talk) 16:41, 1 March 2018 (UTC)--Woogie10w

What about the POW estimate? -- Roddy the roadkill (talk) 17:58, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Read the info box 3.3 million--Woogie10w (talk) 18:09, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Also do not try to discuss your OR or your POV on the talk page. We should discuss only reliable sources that can be verified.--Woogie10w (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for adding these details and corrections Nick-D (talk) 09:12, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

The Source material for Overmans should be changed. He writes on page 265 that there were 238,000 deaths for 1944 from June 6th to December 31 but you included the 1940 deaths for Western Europe. He then states that the number of deaths from ALL causes including POW, sickness and cold could be as high as 410,000 for 1945 but that that number could be too high by 200,000. He gives no proof as to where these numbers come from and during our email conversations he wrote that he could not give an estimate as to how many were from combat but that they were high. I suspect they are too high by at least 150,000 due to the fact that there were few large scale battles on the Western Front inside Germany. The biggest was for Munich where according to 'Besiegt, besetzt, geteilt Von der Invasion bis zur Spaltung Deutschlands' by Heribert Schwan and Rolf Steininger German loses were 22,000 dead and 11,000 missing. (p.98) On the other hand loses were much lower for other battles. By April Germans were throwing down their arms and surrendering in droves. I also suspect that the number is the lower one because the Wehrmact is not likely to have lost twice as many men in three months of normal combat for that time than it had during the last six months of combat. FaladaHart78 (talk) 14:08, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

German loses on the West Front in Western Germany, Austria and Czech were no more than 200,000 killed including Germany POWs up until September of 1945, about 40,000 POWs including some civilians of which 20,000 died in the Rheinwiesenlager. Overmans is known here in Germany for not being quite reliable in his assigning casualty figures to various fronts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FaladaHart78 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC) Overmans may be right concerning higher numbers in the East but not in the West due to the fact the smaller lose rates in the West were easier to keep track of by either side. If the Germans left dead behind during their retreat they could expect that the Allied commanders would keep the dog tags and number the dead even if they were placed in unmarked graves so that there is no possiblity of very large or extra casualties in the West.

Another point is that the article shows Allied causualties for inside Germany and then gives German casualties, though too high in my opinion, for ALL of 1945 including for prisoners and hospitalized personel after the war was offically ended in May of 45. This is somewhat confusing for the reader to say the least. For Allied casualties for the entire year of 1945 we have Eisenhower's dispatch of January 26th 1945 which gave the numbers from the beginning of the invasion to that date as: 98,600 MIA, 389,783 WIA and 74,434 MIA. If 50,000 of those who were missing can be said to have become prisoners then we can say that by 26th January the Allies had suffered some 125,000 dead meaning that they would go on to lose another 65,000 dead for the rest of the fighting. This would mean that the Allies had lost between 90,000 and 100,000 for the year 1945. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FaladaHart78 (talk • contribs) 13:25, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Anachronistic reference to OMGUS

The occupation section claims that OMGUS administered occupied towns during the invasion but OMGUS was not established until after the fall of Berlin. Rather the Third Army had a staff office handle administration while the invasion was underway. I would fix this myself but I’m caught in an annoying rangeblock. 71.212.16.35 (talk) 16:17, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Eisenhower and paratrooper photograph

Photogrph of Eisenhower with paratroopers isfrom before D Day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CottageGarden1 (talk • contribs) 11:31, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Date of invasion to be changed

I tried to make a discussion about this a long time ago. But no progress or reaponce with discussion even though I was told to create a discussion about this topic.

I believe the date for Invasion of Germany started in February with both Operation Veritable and Operation Grenade , which was the crossings of the Seigfried Line into the Rhineland which was in fact Germany. I mean how is it the invasion of Germany started with crossings of Rhine river when the Western Allies we're already invading Germany before crossing to the river? There's needs to be a discussion on the on this. TwoNyce (talk) 14:58, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Why can't I get nobody to discuss this? Seriously. TwoNyce (talk) 22:27, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

This really needs to be discussed. The invasion of Germany started in February not in March with the Rhine crossings. TwoNyce (talk) 12:14, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 1 March 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. – robertsky (talk) 13:05, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

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Western Allied invasion of Germany → Western Allied 1945 Central Europe campaign – See discussion above, at User talk:Buidhe, and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Article_title_debate. Before a bold move, the stable title was Western Allied invasion of Germany. However, this article is about events beginning in March 1945 when the US first invaded Germany in September 1944; additionally, parts of the campaign took place in Austria and Czechoslovakia. The official US title was apparently Central Europe Campaign. (t · c) buidhe 04:39, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Military history has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 09:06, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject European history has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 09:06, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

• Move back to the original title I'd suggest moving this back to the accurate and stable title of Western Allied invasion of Germany. The rationale given for moving from this title was that there was an Allied invasion of German in 1939, but this was a famously small and unimportant operation. Western Allied 1945 Central Europe campaign isn't suitable given that the article also covers the British-led operations in northern Germany, which I don't think is considered part of central Europe. Nick-D (talk) 10:10, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
• I agree with Nick - Western Allied invasion of Germany. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:27, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I have reverted back to Western Allied invasion of Germany, per WP:RMUM. I would also oppose any move, this is the primary topic and common name for this. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:28, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support - The Western Allies originally invaded Germany in 1939 (See: Saar Offensive); even in 1945, the Western Allies invaded Germany initially in February 1945 (See: Operation Veritable). Moreover, I have not seen evidence that "Western Allied invasion of Germany" is the WP:COMMONNAME, commercial literature calls the campaign a myriad of different names. If there were a common name, it would be "Central Europe campaign", as that is what US Army sources refer to it as. Durchbruchmüller (talk) 20:51, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. And Britain calls it the France and Germany campaign. The current title is the best. This is not USArmypedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:53, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.