Hungarian and Romanian casualties in the East

[4444]

I wonder what were the irrecoverable (KIAs + MIAs) Hungarian and Romanian military losses on the Eastern Front. If this is possible, I would be particularly interested in the figure until the Soviets rolled into these two countries. The numbers I found in the web vary widely:

A. HU 200, RO 450 at http://www.angelfire.com/ct/ww2europe/stats.html
B. HU 75, RO 80 at http://members.aol.com/vetcenter1/ww2stats.htm
C. HU unspecified (total 420), RO unspecified (total 460) at http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/t ... istics.htm
D. HU unspecified, RO 520 at http://www.threeworldwars.com/dload/index.htm
E. HU 120, RO 500 at http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob62.html

If this is not too much to ask for, I would be delighted to get these two figures also as a percentage of all these who served in the Hungarian and Romanian troops in the East.

[Victor Nitu]

For Romania:
1. Killed: 3,113 officers, 1,823 NCOs and 66,649 soldiers, in total 71,585
2.Wounded: 8,359 officers, 4,983 NCOs and 230,280 soldiers, in total 243,622
3. Missing: 6,042 officers, 5,470 NCOs and 297,821 soldiers, in total 309,333*
Grand Total: 624,740

*Note: in the missing personnel total are included also the roughly 130,000 men taken prisoners by the Soviets after 24 August 1944, when Romania was already fighting against German and Hungarian forces, i.e. on the Soviet side.

[4444]

For Romania

Thanks Victor very much, I have been to your and Dragos’ site before, but have not found the info needed.

I think I would not be erring very much if I say that whatever period you consider, there were usually around 25 Romanian divisions deployed in the East. Unfortunately, I have no clue whatsoever how many individuals served in these units between 1941 and 1944. Do you think 0.7m is a bit on the low side? If this figure is acceptable, than the irrecoverable losses (KIAs + MIAs, ca 250.000) would run up to 35%, which seems unbelievably high...

[Victor Nitu]

Thanks Victor very much, I have been to your and Dragos’ site before, but have not found the info needed.

[

The info was on the old site, but I haven't gotten to end of the war yet on the new one. There is still much work to do.

I think I would not be erring very much if I say that whatever period you consider, there were usually around 25 Romanian divisions deployed in the East. Unfortunately, I have no clue whatsoever how many individuals served in these units between 1941 and 1944. Do you think 0.7m is a bit on the low side? If this figure is acceptable, than the irrecoverable losses (KIAs + MIAs, ca 250.000) would run up to 35%, which seems unbelievably high...

It is haed to say exactly. See other discussions on this subject:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=2161

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=4078 (page 3)

[4444]

In absence of any feedback regarding Hungary, I made some calculations myself, maybe pathetically wrong ones:

In 1941, until the last units were withdrawn from the front in October, Hungarian losses amounted to some 5.000; The 2. Army suffered some 115.000 casualties; In 1944, the VII. and VIII. Corpses, plus 1. Army afterwards, suffered some 25.000. This brings me to the total of some 145.000. It is anybody’s guess how many of these were just KIAs and MIAs; given total demolition of the 2. Army, one probably can not apply the usual WWII ratio (which is 1/3, I believe), the real one must have been much higher. Around 110.000 irrecoverable losses is probably a more realistic bet (though http://www.geocities.com/kumbayaaa/hung ... efeat.html gives a surprisingly low figure of 35.000 KIAs and MIAs for the doomed 2. Army).

How many Hungarians served in the East? For the 2. Army this is easy, since the figure usually quoted is 200.000 and we can assume almost no staff turnover at all. For the units fighting in 1941 and 1944, I would steer towards 70.000 (1941) and 120.000 (1944), total 190.000. Now I subtract people serving in all 3 campaigns (1941, 2. Army, 1944), which are not many, I presume, so the overall total would be some 350.000.

Which produces a ratio of irrecoverable Hungarian casualties in the East running at ca 30% (until the Soviets reached Hungary!). Anyone with hard-fact data challenging my amateurish estimates?

[laszlo.nemedi]

From Magyarország a második világháborúban lexikon page 507:

The official KIA list of the Magyar Királyi Honvédség:

26/6/1941-30/6/42: 4099
01/5/42-30/6/42: 1431
7/42:1742
8/42:5802
8/42-9/42:15255
10-11/42:8570
12/42:2765
1-2/43:30775
1-2/43/B-3-4/43: 35107
1-2/43/C-7-9/43:28148
1-2/43/D-10-12/43:11429
1-4/44:18114

(I assume the 1-2/43/B, 1-2/43/C, and 1-2/43/D are a backward confirmation of KIAs.)
This lexicon assumes the total military KIA is around 120-160,000

[4444]

From Magyarország a második világháborúban lexikon...

Laszlo, many thanks, that was very informative. Any clue about the MIAs? If the ratio is similar to the Romanian one (why not?), than the number of MIAs should be 2.5 times the number of KIAs?

Perhaps I owe you and Victor some explanation why I need this info. In one of the other Feldgrau threads an „alternative” version of the Polish WWII history is considered. Using Hungarian and Romanian figures for benchmarking, I am trying to estimate how many Poles would have gone KIA and MIA in the USSR if Poland had joined the Axis. Probably working out a ratio of KIA/MIA vs all people serving in the East is too difficult, so I will settle for a ratio of KIA/MIA vs the entire population of the country. Judging by the figures you were kind to provide so far, this ratio for both Hungary and Romania seems to be hovering around 1.6%.

[laszlo.nemedi]

I have to check at home, but I found my post in other forum, which is about POWs:
from Barbarossa start+4-5days to jan1943 (before Ostrogosk-Rossosh operation): 8-10,000
from 12jan1943 to aug1944: 95-105,000
from aug1944 to the end of Hungarian operations (apr1945): 150,000
and after that in Austria and Germany and Chech: 70,000

I will get back when I will be at home...

[Csaba Becze]

I estimeated the number of the Hungarian KIA's approx 120 000. The exact number of MIA's is not known, and very hard to estimate it, because the Sovietstaken a lot of civilians as POW's in Hungary.
Actually, again my estimate: more Hungarian POW's perished in Soviet camps during and after the war, that in fight against the Red Army.

[4444]

I estimeated the number...

Csaba, many thanks for your post. It would be interesting to learn the figure regardless of any specific purposes. Please note, however, that for my speculative comparisons I have limited the timeline until the moment the Soviets have reached Hungary.

[laszlo.nemedi]

I estimeated the number of the Hungarian KIA's approx 120 000. The exact number of MIA's is not known, and very hard to estimate it, because the Sovietstaken a lot of civilians as POW's in Hungary.
Actually, again my estimate: more Hungarian POW's perished in Soviet camps during and after the war, that in fight against the Red Army.

My POW figures are the military ones (of course estimates), the civilian "POWs" are different ones, and I don't include the malenkij robot figures...

Meg van neked a lexikon?

[Csaba Becze]

I wrote, that a lot of civilians were taken as POW's. It's a different from the 'simply' civilian deportated people.

Actually, I know the lexicon, but it contains a lot of mistakes.

[Stephen]

What seems to be missing in this thread is what the Germans thought her allies casualties were. After all it would be in the interest of Germany to know and keep track of those figures.
The numbers here come from captured German documents labeled “Personelle Ausfälle der Verbündeten, Heer und Luftwaffe” and there does seem to be a discrepancy between what Germany thought and what her allies said. So either the person(s) recording these numbers were making mistakes or the numbers provided to the Germans were inaccurate.
The numbers below are only for the Army and Airforce.

Rumanians, 6-22-1941 to 8-31-1944.

KIA 18,090
MIA 202,860
WIA 105,222
Total 326,172

Hungarians, 6-22-1941 to 11-30-1944.

KIA 42,372
MIA 30,489
WIA 72,230
Total 145,091

Italians, 6-22-1941 to 11-30-1944.

KIA 7,142
MIA 68,919
WIA 37,435
Total 113,496

If anyone is interested, these were the Slovakians numbers from 6-22-1941 to 8-31-1944

KIA 1,073
MIA 495
WIA 2,978
Total 4,546

Best Wishes
Steve

[4444]

The numbers here come from captured German documents labeled “Personelle Ausfälle der Verbündeten, Heer und Luftwaffe”

Many thanks Stephen, this is really fascinating. The casualties as reported by the Germans seem to be around a half of these reported by the Hungarians and the Romanians (or at least a half of these advised by Victor, Laszlo and Csaba). Either the Nazis were underreporting, or their allies were overreporting...

I have no idea how the Germans have arrived at their figures. Intuitivelly, I would assume they were unable to run their own calculations and had to rely on figures provided either by the Hungarian and Romanian staffs, or by their own liaison officers (who would get the figures from the Hungarians and the Romanians anyway). Which means Hungarian and Romanian figures should rather be viewed as primary sources... Also a quick glance at specific numbers (just 70.000 irrecoverable Hungarian losses until Dec 1, 1944? given destruction of the 2. Army, spring 44 battles and the Debrecen operation autumn 44?) leads to suspicion that it is the German figures which are distorted. But what was the distortion mechanism itself?

I see little reason why the Hungarians and the Romanians would have underreported their losses when discussing with the Germans. To my knowledge, both Hungarian and Romanian staffs felt overburdened with tasks laid on their shoulders by OKW; underreporting casualties would have not helped when trying to scale down the Hungarian and Romanian tasks.

Perhaps there is one reason why the allies might have misled the Nazis. The allied armies were notoriously undersupplied; whether it was ammunition, horses, tanks or food, the Hungarians and the Romanians were always at the end of the que. Maybe inflating the actual combat-capable figures (and decreasing the losses) was thought to be a means of securing better supplies? But that would have been playing with fire, given the feeling of having been overstretched anyway...

I am at a loss.

[Csaba Becze]

Te Hungarians not underreported their losses. We have lost most of our wartime materials, and it's impossible to write the exact numbers.
The official Hungarian loss list was counted just till the end of the Summer, 1944.
I wrote my estimates just about the KIA's, not about the POW's WIA's, etc. Sometimes very difficult to know the exact fate of the MIA's, but imho most of the MIA soldeirs and labour workers from 2nd Hungarian Army was taken POW's by the Soviets, but they perished nearly instantly in Soviwet hands (in camps because of the starvation and diseases, and sometimes by executing)

Actually, I don't know, what was the exact source of this German report.
The Hungarians had 145 000 losses - incl. all kind of losses - approx till spring, 1944(again my estimate).