Talk:Prague Offensive

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[edit] Prague Offensive Operation

What was the original name of that operation? Was it Operation Prague (Operatsiya Praga) or Prague Operation (Prazhskaya Operatsiya)? Halibutt 12:29, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Soviet encyclopedies refer to it as Prague Operation (Prazhskaya Operatsiya). Therefore I'd like to ask Philip about the reasons of the move of the page.

I am totally baffled with the total absence of the name in English-language sources. Google search for ("operation prague" + front) gives miserable numbers of hits, vast majority of them are translation from Russian and some actually refer to "Prague Spring". And (front + "operation prague") actually gives nothing relevant at all.

Hopefully, there are a couple of links that refer to Prague Offensive. So probably it would be the proper name.

In Soviet Encyclopedia of the Great Patriotic War (Великая Отечественная война 1941-1945. Энциклопедия. М., "Советская Энциклопедия", 1985) its full name is "Prague Offensive Operation", (Пражская наступательная операция, prazhskaya nastupatelnaya operacia).

Maps: http://rkka.ru/maps/tv24.gif http://rkka.ru/maps/praga.jpg

By the way,

http://www.fireonthevolga.com/Red%20Army%20casualties,%201941-1945.html

has the following useful list:

Red Army Casualties, 1941-1945

Total Armed Forces Losses, June 1941- May 1945

Killed in battle or died during evacuation: 5,187,190

Mortally wounded (and died later): 1,100,327

Died of illness (non-battle): 541,920

Missing in action or captured: 4,455,620

Non-mortal wounds: 15,205,592

Non-mortal illness and frostbite: 3,138,556

Total Armed Forces Casualties: 29,629,205

Equipment Losses, June 1941- May 1945

Tanks and self-propelled Guns: 96,500

Artillery: 218,000

Aircraft: 88,300


Soviet Losses in the Major Battles of the War

The Defense of Kiev (July-September 1941): 700,564 casualties; 411 tanks, 28,419 artillery pieces, and 343 planes

Battle of Smolensk (July-September 1941): 344,926 casualties; 1,348 tanks, 9,290 artillery pieces, and 903 planes

The Defense of Moscow (September-November 1941): 658,279 casualties; 2,785 tanks, 3,832 artillery pieces, and 293 planes

Siege of Sevastopol (October 1941-July 1942): 200,481 casualties; no data on equipment losses

Rzhev-Vyazma Offensive (January-April 1942): 776, 889 casualties; 957 tanks, 7,296 artillery pieces, and 550 planes

Kharkov Offensive (May 1942): 277,190 casualties; 652 tanks, 1,646 artillery pieces, and n/a planes

Battle of Stalingrad (July-November 1942): 643,842 casualties; 1,426 tanks, 12,137 artillery pieces, and 2,063 planes

Stalingrad Offensive (November 1942-February 1943): 485,777 casualties; 2,915 tanks, 3,591 artillery pieces, and 706 planes

Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive (November-December 1942): 215,674 casualties; 1,655 tanks, n/a artillery pieces, and n/a planes

Kharkov-Belgorod Offensive (March-August 1943): 255,566 casualties; 1,864 tanks, 423 artillery pieces, and 153 planes

Battle of Kursk (May-July 1943):177, 847 casualties; 1,614 tanks, 3,929 artillery pieces, and 459 planes

Lower Dnepr Offensive (September-December 1943): 754,392 casualties; 2,639 tanks, 3,125 artillery pieces, and 430 planes

Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive (January-April 1944): 313, 953 casualties; 462 tanks, 1,832 artillery pieces, and 260 planes

Crimean Offensive (April-May 1944): 84, 819 casualties; 171 tanks, 521 artillery pieces, and 179 planes

Belorussian Offensive (June-August 1944): 770,888 casualties; 2,957 tanks, 2,447 artillery pieces, and 822 planes

Baltic Offensive (September-November 1944): 280,090 casualties; 522 tanks, 2,593 artillery pieces, and 779 planes

Budapest Offensive (October 1944-February 1945): 320,082 casualties; 1,766 tanks, 4,127 artillery pieces, and 293 planes

Vistula-Oder Offensive (January-February 1945): 194,191 casualties; 1,267 tanks, 374 artillery pieces, and 343 planes

East Prussian Offensive (January-April 1945): 584,778 casualties; 3,525 tanks, 1,644 artillery pieces, and 1,450 planes

Vienna Offensive (March-April 1945): 177,745 casualties; 603 tanks, 764 artillery pieces, and 614 planes

Berlin Offensive (April-May 1945): 361,367 casualties; 1,997 tanks, 2,108 artillery pieces, and 917 planes

Prague Offensive (May 1945): 52,498 casualties; 373 tanks, 1,006 artillery pieces, and 80 planes

Source:

Glantz, David M., and Jonathan House. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. (Lawrence, Kansas: UP of Kansas, 1995)

Glantz, David M. Kharkov 1942: Anatomy of a Military Disaster. (Rockville Centre, NY: Sarpedon, 1998)

Glantz, David M. Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars. 1942 (Lawrence, Kansas: UP of Kansas, 1999)

Mikkalai 00:34, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In English Operations can be either "Operation ABC" or "ABC Operation", but as a convention on Wikipedia, we seem to have settled on "Operation XYZ", so I see no reason why Soviet operations should be different. It makes finding the articles a little easier. "Prague Offensive" would be get my vote, but there are many people who write articles for Wikipeadia who prefer to use the operational names eg Talk:Operation Corporate. Sometimes the main article is at the name of the battle like the Battle of Normandy with a redirect from Operation Overlord, sometimes it is at the name of the operation Operation Market Garden with a redirect from the battle name Battle of Arnhem. As a general rule thought for security reasons, the operational name is a code name, so in the examples you have given, I think that if the name is "Prague Offensive Operation" I would drop the word Operation and go with "Prague Offensive". There is one problem though with this naming convention which is none NPOV. If it is the "Prague Offensive Operation" for the Russians it is the "Prague Defensive Operation" for the Germans. "Prague Operation" or "Operation Prague" implies a missing word of initiated or offensive and carries the same connotations. This connotation is not there if the term Battle of Prague is used. Articles using Western Allied operations carry the same POV connotations, but a lot of native English speaking people do not seem to realise this because Anglo-American books, TV histrical programs and newspapers use such terms all the time. However as the WWII receeds into history the Anglo-American media is starting to adopt German terms like the second happy time so I don't think that "Prague Offensive" should cause any problems. As most of the Soviet campaigns are not well known in the English speaking world (with the exceptions of the big Battles), you are free to trail-blaze the naming convention :-) --Philip Baird Shearer 02:11, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Any objections if I move this article to "Prague Offensive"? Philip Baird Shearer 18:29, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Did Schörner desert his command

On the Ferdinand Schörner page I added:

On the May 8 an OKW colonel, was escorted through the American lines to see Schörner. The colonel reported that Schörner had ordered the men under his operational command to observer the surrender but that he could not guarantee that he would be obeyed everywhere. Later that day Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria where on the May 18 he was arrested by the Americans.

Since I added this text which is sourced from "Battle of Berlin end of the Third Reich" by Earle F Ziemke, I have seen other sources which says that he formally surredered Army Group Centre to the Soviets on May 10 and then flew to Austria. Both can not be right. If you know the answer please post it with the source to Talk:Ferdinand Schörner, because it effects this page, the Schörner page, Army Group Centre and end of World War II in Europe. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:26, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Continued resistance

The mention about the continued German resistance until the 11th or even 12th May would need some exact reference. Since it seems rather unlikely, there is a suspicion that this data was provided by the Soviet side which in fact is not the right source for stydying events between 1917 - 1991. David

Right. Anti-Soviet sources are better. And I don't see this as unlikely. If the fought after May 8th, then why not after 10th? Some simply didn't know about the surrender. Others didn't want or were afraid to surrender to Soviets and tried to fight their way to Americal frontline or to break out of encirclement and disperse. Possible reasons abound to make it very likely. Mikkalai 19:23, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

A.J.P. Taylor in "The Second World War an Illustrated history" says on Page 223 "The last Germans surrender seem to have been in Heligoland which held out to the 11 May". (We know that is not correct because the Garrison of Alderney did not surrender until 16 May [1]) He goes on to say "Soviet forces entered Prague only on 12 May."

Antony Beevor: Berlin - The Downfall 1945: Annexes

  • 10 May Capture of Prague by Third Guards Tank Army. Surrender of German Sixteenth and Eighteenth Armies in Courland.
  • 14 May Surrender of last forces in East Prussia under General von Saucken.

At the end of the war, there were bands of armed German soldiers that had not surrendered weeks after the formal end of the war. Normally they were trying to sneak through Soviet lines to get to the Allies and surrender, or just get home. Some individuals surrendered weeks after the end of the war. For example Otto Skorzeny surrendered (with some difficulty) on May 16, Schorner captured May 18, Dönitz captured May 23. But what is of interest in this sort of article is not the odd group of stragglers, but coherent military units still in the field. It seems that all German Armies had surrendered by 11th. Philip Baird Shearer 22:45, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I do not mean to say explicitly that "anti-Soviet" sources are better to study the course of the WW2. I simply wanted to say that objective sources are better. Fortunately, the historiography is not divided into Soviet and "anti-Soviet" sources only, as many post-Soviets would like to stress. But let me be more exact. I am from Prague and I am aware of some basic facts. First of all the Red army did not enter the city until May 9th, at the time when Prague had already liberated itself on its own (not to mention the help of the general Vlasov's units). Right, there were many isolated gunfires the same day and the Soviet presence surely helped to pacify the fanatical remnants of German forces. But so far I have not found any evidence that there were some units continuing the struggle 3 or even 4 days after the German surrender. And therefore I hinted at the unreliability of the Soviet military encyclopedia. Because during the Communist era the Prague question used to be misused in the sense that it was in fact the Soviet side to whom the city should be grateful for its freedom. If I ever will find some then please accept in advance my apologies. David (User:194.108.138.184 10:23, 3 May 2005 (UTC) )

You can "sign" your entries on the talk pages by putting four squiggles ~~~~ at the end of your entry. It will add a date stamp for you and helps people see where one entry finishes and another starts.
A man on the spot. Do you have any sources and what specifically do the local history text books say? The trouble with English language sources, is that they tend to concentrate on the Western Front and the Esatern spectaculars like the Battle of Berlin. Mentions of Prague tend to be one sentence or at most one paragraph with no sources.
It seems to have been accepted in WWII that cease-fires took 12-24 hours after a surrender to come into effect probably due to communication problems. If Schörnher did agree to surrender his command to the Soviets on the 8th then the organised fighting probably finished on the 9th, but if he did not surrender until the 10th then it would be the 11th. So if we can find a definitive source for Schörnher's surrender (preferably with link to the document) then we can assume that organised fighting finished at army level with 24 hours. If he just did a bunk without agreeing anything and saying "fight to the last", then it would be down to the Armies in Army Group Centre to negociate seperatly in which case it would probably have been several days and centred on where they were in Czechoslovakia not specificaly on Prague. However if the Prague Offensive did not start until towards the end of or after the fall of Berlin then if the figures higher up this talk page of "52,498 casualties; 373 tanks, 1,006 artillery pieces, and 80 planes" are correct then there was very heavy fighting between May 2nd and the German surrender in Czechoslovakia. Philip Baird Shearer 11:23, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

That´s the right remark. I also have to admit that I might have misunderstood a bit the meaning of the context, since the sentence of the "continued struggle" followed the mention of Soviet troops entering Prague on May 9. Therefore it is not sure whether the given dates May 11 or 12 related directly to the fighting in Prague as such or whether they concern fighting of Schoerner´s army at other places in western Bohemia. As for Schoerner, I caught an information in Robin Cross´ Fallen Eagle that he ignored Keitel´s order to immediate capitulation for three days, that is from May 8 to May 11. On May 9 he simply boarded a plane and fled to Austria. So that might be a hint. In south-west Bohemia there are several places which claim to be the stage of "the last shots of the WW2", the most prominent of them Milin which witnessed a clash between Red army soldiers & allied Czech partisan units and some SS and Wehrmacht units at night between May 11th and 12th. So that might be the answer. If so, I should maybe try to write it into the text so that it is clear that Prague was not that place. Sorry if I caused any confusion before. 194.108.138.184 13:18, 3 May 2005 (UTC) David

[edit] German casualties

Currently the article says "troops were captured (~850,000)" ... It was opposed by about 900,000 troops of the 1st, 4th and 17th Panzer Armies of the Army Group Center (Ferdinand Schörner) and some Austrian corps under Lothar Rendulic." This would mean that German casualites killed and wounded in action would be around 50,000 if the other two figures are correct. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:27, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I would be very reluctant to put any such calculations into the article. The figures are very unreliable for this period, due to the total chaos that reigned at the time. Unfortunately the best that can be done is to give a general range of casualties, in my view. Andreas 07:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no problems with that but putting 850,000 as it was yesterday is misleading. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:49, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Since most of them became POW it is a bit tricky what to select exactly. Casualties include POW for the Soviets (under irrecoverable), so normally POW should be included for the Germans as well for comparability, but I guess it is hard to draw a line in the case of the last days of the war. Andreas 14:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Whatever the Soviets choose to do is not realy of much relevence, it is not ususal to lump POWs wounded and killed together as just casualties in Wikipedia. If the wounded are captured then they may be lumped in with the other POWs. Take a look at the Fall of Singapore as an example. --Philip Baird Shearer 15:09, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

First of all, why is the Soviet approach not of much relevance? I fail to see how the German/US/British/Sri Lankese approach has more to recommend it. Secondly, I suggest you check Casualty (Person) on Wikipedia and e.g. "casualty" in the online Cambridge Dicitionary to see that you are simply wrong. Casualties should include wounded, where these wounds are sufficient to render the combattant combat incapable. They should also include POW and MIA. If Wiki is not doing that at the moment it is doing something wrong, and the numbers should be adjusted. Andreas 15:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes I agree with all you have said about "should", but they have to be in catogories to be of any use. KIA is usually the minumum which is needed. The reason for showing Singapore as an example by the way was just that it was a battle in which there were only a handful of Brits that did not get captured, so it is simlar in outcome to this one. The Japanese were unlikely to be bothered to keep a lists of sick and wounded Brits, so the military records are likely to be able to indicate only that so many were taken POW, not their health at the time of capture. Given the realationship between the Germans and the Russians at this time, I would not be at all surprised if the antagonists did not keep such records. At the end of a war most the Western Powers attempt to break the numbers down as you have suggested and went to a lot of trouble doing so for their own soldiers (as they do in all wars). If however some Nations did not do so in World War II, that should not be refelected in these articles is all I am saying. We should put in at least KIA in the causualties and not lump them all togehter as ~850,000 which I think that is less than useful. --Philip Baird Shearer 16:41, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The Germans did attempt to break down these numbers, but for understandable reasons their reporting system broke down. It became unreliable beyond November 1944, and pretty much non-existent beyond March 1945. I agree the 850,000 number is not really helpful, since it does include all the POW taken after surrender, and to get an idea of the combat history for this battle it should only include the (almost certainly much lower) number of casualties up to the surrender. In that case I think the best that can be done at this stage is to enter "unknown" for the German side with a footnote that most men on strength of Army Group Centre were taken POW during the battle and after surrender. Andreas 08:02, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General Vlasov

The link given to the Soviet commander is wrong. It leads to a site about the traitor Vlasov, who early in the war got captured by Germany and then worked FOR Nazi Germany.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thestor (talk • contribs) 10:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

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