x.com/esaagar/status/2029979781576413468
1 correction found
support the Soviet Union taking 400K casualties in 1945 alone
The 400,000 figure understates Soviet 1945 military casualties. Archival-based military histories put the Red Army at 194,191 casualties in the Vistula–Oder offensive alone and more than 361,000 in the Berlin operation alone.
Full reasoning
As written, this claim uses "casualties" in the ordinary military sense of people killed, wounded, or missing. On that measure, 400,000 for all of 1945 is too low.
Two well-sourced 1945 Soviet offensives already exceed that number by themselves:
- A British Army urban-operations study states that in the Vistula–Oder operation (January 12–February 7, 1945), the Red Army suffered 194,191 casualties (killed, wounded and missing).
- A U.S. Army history of Berlin states that Operation BERLIN cost the Soviets more than 81,000 dead plus 280,000 wounded or sick.
Those two operations alone total at least about 555,000 casualties in 1945, even before counting other major 1945 campaigns such as East Prussia, Vienna, Prague, or the August 1945 war against Japan.
So the post's "400K casualties in 1945 alone" is not accurate as written. If the author meant deaths only, that would need to be said explicitly; but the word used here is casualties, and standard military casualty totals for 1945 are well above 400,000.
2 sources
- British Army Review, Urban Operations Volume 2
In 22 days they moved from the River Vistula to the Oder ... with a casualty list (killed, wounded and missing) of 194,191.
- The City Becomes a Symbol: The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Berlin, 1945-1949
According to Russian military historian Grigory Krivosheyev, Operation BERLIN cost the Soviets somewhat more than 81,000 dead ... plus 280,000 men wounded or sick during the action.