Romanian losses

What is the official number of Romanian casualties on the Eastern Front?

http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=2260

Thank you Dragos!

But 297,821 missing? That's a pretty big figure and a disproportionate amount considering the killed and wounded.

Maybe in the missing were included the POWs.

Yes, but isn't that strange considering this war was over 6 decades ago?

According to Wikipedia, around 280,000 were POWs, but of those only 80,000 survived:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_...endnote_Romania

Hence, at some point after the war those 80,000 weren't exactly missing anymore. They were known to be POWs and they were presumably returned to Romania. And the rest (200,000 or so) were known to be dead.

So I'm wondering shouldn't the figures be updated? Because it's one thing when someone hears Romania lost 72,000 soldiers in Barbarossa and another when the total deaths stand at 272,000 (even though not all of them were "in action").

I wouldn't trust Wikipedia, or the source quoted on this issue. Less than 30% survival rate is way too low, even if compared to the other Axis countries, who did not have high units raised from POWs that returned to their countries under Soviet flag.

Gen. Dénes

All statistics are based on unit reports, so the missing are given at the respective moment. It is impossible to have absolute values. For example, a wounded in action can be counted several times as after recovery he can return into action and be wounded again, or become MIA or KIA. A nominal database of casualties does not exists anywhere in the world, so you have to take it as it is.

The MIAs include POWs by definition.

The very high number of MIAs in the anti-USSR campaign (309,533) is generated by the general confusion in the wake of the Soviet Jassy-Kishinev Operation. Units got separated from their commands or were abusively captured by the Soviets after 23 August. All this resulted in a high number of MIAs (between 130 and 150,000), some of which later rejoined their home units a couple of weeks later. The majority though were shipped to the USSR, as their comrades were fighting side-by-side with the Red Army.

We don't know exactly how many died in detention and how many returned home. All I could find available is a statistic with how many had returned by September 1947: 89,696, out of which 19,612 had returned with the 2 volunteer divisions. Many returned later probably, as there were examples of people returning after 8, 9, 10 years even. I don't think there was any reason to stay willingly.

As a comparison, from the anti-Axis campaign, by September 1947 only 4,603 had retuned. Many others probably fled to the West.

Try to look at the events from the other side, too. Rumania declared cease fire unilaterally in the evening of 23 August, without Soviet agreement or consent. Therefore, the Rumanian soldiers were not captured abusively by the Soviet forces after 23 August, until Moscow acknowledged the cease fire and became a signatory party. The fact that they should have been released after the official armistice was signed (IIRC 12 Sept.?) is a totally different matter.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 15, 2012 02:20 pm

Actually they have been a number of deceptions and those Romanian troops were gradually disarmed and directed to the border, under armed guard.
An uncle of mine has reached Astrakhan, but his fellow thought a bit and then ran into a cornfield, from the beginning.

This post has been edited by Petre on March 15, 2012 06:55 pm

Remember that at Stalingrad alone, there was one number for the Germans, Romanians, Italians and Hungarians becoming prisoners, and a different number for survivors after war.
So, the difference between the numbers of those surrendering and the numbers of post war survivors is... "missing" ?

Some reached as far as Argentina...

No. The numbers of MIAs posted include those that returned after the war, because they are the numbers compiled at the end of the war from the available paperwork. Nobody in Romania then redone the calculations as far as I know. It's not an ongoing process, with number being updated regularly.

OK, not abusively, but arbitrarily. Some Soviet commanders used the Romanian troops they encountered in the offensive over the Carpathians, others rounded them up in POW camps, shot the wounded in some cases, etc.

The former was mostly the case of specialist units like tanks (Col Matei Detachment) or mountain troops (103rd Mountain Division), which the local Soviet commanders probably lacked. Furthermore, the Soviet units that crossed the Carpathian passes and started the fighting in Transylvania in early September, did so without imprisoning the Romanian troops present in the area.