Talk:Battle of Kiev (1941)

message: The consequences paragraph bugs the heck outta me.  Why is this sort of thing so frequently written from the German point of view?  Wouldn't it make more sense to say something like:
While the Soviet forces suffered heartbreaking losses in the battle of Kiev, they at least bought time for the defense of Moscow, thereby contributing to the eventual Allied victory.
That is faulty reasoning. The fact that throwing hundreds of thousands of troops and armored vehicles away coincidentally led to a positive future outcome doesn't change the fact that it was a big tactical and strategic mistake. New books written by historians analyzing Operation Barbarossa show that the war in the east was really lost when it started. There was no way that Germany could have made good their losses and won against the USSR unless there was some political division within the USSR leading them to a negotiated peace or a lack of "desire to fight." German intelligence of the Soviet Union's military might was very poor; they frequently underestimated Soviet tank strength as half of what they actually had, for example. 
The only way Germany could have beaten the USSR in a direct frontal attack would be if they had really stream-lined their production capacity and let Albert Speer run the armaments industries efficiently from an earlier date. The Germans had much better tactical officers and better trained men and Hitler should have let them do their job. Thankfully for us they didn't succeed, although the USSR was a terrible regime also.
{WW2 guy}  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.61.41.73 (talk) 23:42, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Consequences

message: I'm not sure if this is right. Whilst it was an operational victory surely the failure to subsequently take Moscow makes it a strategic defeat? --J.StuartClarke 21:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Decisive Victory

message: Something wrong with numbers. 700 total strength cannot give 300 dead + 650 captured. mikka (t) 2 July 2005 01:44 (UTC)
Ok maybe someone got the numbers wrong but the fact remains that a lot of people died and were captured.
This is an extremely impressive victory. However, it also gave Hitler a big ego and over confidence which would doom him at Stalingrad.
Well, it had more consequences on the subsequent Battle of Moscow, because it delayed the latter for 4 weeks, which proved decisive. 
--Lucius1976 12:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well get an account first and then there is mostly only one person who goes around and minimizes axis losses and maximizes allied ones and that is  he has been doing this ever since he started on wiki so trying to create an article or just keeping one is very difficult because he goes around and changes the numbers and removes key paragraphs as he sees fit. Create an account and then you can report him for vandalism. (Deng 11:10, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The German army's casualties are ridicolously high.  How could the Wehramcht suffer a 30% casualty ratio in Kiev, but a 17% casualty ratio in the Battle of Moscow?  I have not found any sources that state Soviet casualties as 300,000 captured.
Citation from the article: "Nearly the entire Soviet Southwestern Front of the Red Army was encircled with the Germans claiming 650,000 captured, as this was the initial paper strengh of the encircled divisions, as revealed to them from captured records. In reality, however, these had by then dwindled to 452,000 of whom 150,541 later escaped , nonetheless the Soviet losses were astonishing." So the Wehrmacht thought they had captured 650,000 POW, because they had found "records" of the Soviets that said so, but in fact they had only 300,000 POW? Excuse me, but that is too ridiculous a claim. Please provides sources. Please provide sources for the German losses. They are grossly inflated compared to all numbers I have seen so far. 141.13.8.14 14:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Casualties

message: Why does it seem to me that many of the battles conserning Axis victories on the Eastern Front are being discredited. --Kurt Leyman 15:59, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do nazis deserve admiration?Rex 17:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How exactly are they being discredited? Bogdan 18:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Let me rephrase that then; "Do nazis deserve credit for what they did?" As for "All Germans being nazis", I never said that. But just for the record, I do hold the idea that the overall majority of the Germans were nazis, and for that statement I have history on my side.Rex 18:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, you don't.  Less than one-third of the German public joined the Party, and even if half - or more than half - had some faith in Hitler's wild unfounded crazed speeches early on, that soon disappeared for the vast majority when allied bombs started dropping on Germany.  I will agree that every German soldier who fought for Nazi Germany's side were de facto Nazi's, because they were doing their will.
"Do nazis deserve credit for what they did?" Again, that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. If you can't do this without trying to mix nazis with this then I suggest that you stay out, for I have no desire to discuss such here. "I do hold the idea that the overall majority of the Germans were nazis, and for that statement I have history on my side." And I have read and posses several books which say quite the opposite. Your "history on my side" is limited, and not world-historical community wide. --Kurt Leyman 18:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: The day world-history claims that only a minorty of the Germans were nazis has yet to come, and if you believe it's already here, you live in a fantasy. You claimed that nazis/germans were being discredited, so I ask you very simply "what do they deserve credit for?". You refuse to answer. Rex 18:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree the minority of the Germans were Nazis. However, the supreme commanders were, the war was a Nazi war of conquest, hecne all battles and axis victories were Nazi, rather than German victories. Arnoutf 20:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Read before you comment. User: Kurt Leyman claimes the nazis/germans or whatever he likes to call them are being discredited. This has nothing to do with "decisive" battles. It's a mere fact wether a battle was or wasn't decisive, and has nothing to do with credit.Rex 13:03, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

text: No were did you specify or indicate this whatsoever. You whined about nazi victories being discredited. You didn't even take the effort to mention in what way and now it's suddenly about decisive battles. Please. Rex 14:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I read the comments. User:Counterstrike69 has changed a lot of battles' results from Decisive victory to Strategic Victory because he thinks they can't be decisive if Axis lost the war.  Atleast in one case he was perhaps correct (Dieppe Raid), but obviously wrong about Winter war battles. What are you bragging here about Nazism? We should be discussing about the significancy of this battle, not Nazism (and your bitterness for humiliating Netherlands?) PS. that Counterstrike69 had put very suspicious material on his user page:  If you actually read the article, you'd know the victory is closer to tactical than strategic victory for Germany, if decisive is not accepted.--Pudeo (Talk) 18:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Decisive is differen't from strategic or tactical. A decisive battle decides the outcome of a war. Usually these battles take place at the end of a war. Examples are Normandy, in which the Nazi grip on France effectively collapsed and Kursk, the turning point in the East Front war, and El Alamein which was a turning point in Africa. This battle decided nothing in the long term, the Allies were reinforced and later pushed on to kick the crap out of the Germans/nazis all the way to berlin and beyond. Not very decisive.Rex 18:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Press history on the page and scroll down to April 24 and see what Kurt does, it is clear that he is a fan boy who wants to paint a positive picture of the murdering scum Twicemotor 16:11, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  German and Axis victories are being discredited? 

message: Ensured that the article is within project scope, tagged for task forces, and assessed for class. --Rosiestep (talk) 02:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008]] 

message: The article needs some references. I thought about adding the Krivosheev study for soviet casualties, as reliable souce.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter5_10_1.html&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com#5_10_23
The only problem is that it is for the large preiod 07/07-26/09 and seems to include operations like Uman in it, which are separate articles.
Glantz "Barbarossa 1941" would be a good book to reference as it is a recent study, unlike Erickson's book. I will try include some of the references and appropriate additions over the next month. D2306 (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Referencing

message: I entirely agree with the opinion expressed in this section.
However it is an opinion, and does not seem to be apropriate for an encyclopedia article without substantial references, at least as currently presented.
63.240.143.147 (talk) 23:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved it into a new section. But this has become a problem in multiple articles. It seems like every battle in the East now has an essay of David Glantz opinions attached to it. This is especially bad if Glantz is the only opinion presented. 108.60.192.150 (talk) 05:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree.  These summary statements are of questionable value if they only reflect one opinion. If the article is to have a summation for what the battle meant to the conflict overall than an effort to find a broader base of opinion and consensus would be helpful. Gunbirddriver (talk) 23:23, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  After The Battle 

message: This has already been discussed, I see, and the word "decisive" removed from the result. But it's there again, so I've removed it (again). To be clear, the word "decisive" means something was decided (a campaign, a war, a course of history). What, exactly, did this battle decide? It was a major German victory to be sure, but it "decided" nothing; Barbarossa still failed, and the Germans were still, in the end, defeated. Xyl 54 (talk) 15:07, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: And it keeps getting re-added.  I agree it should not be labeled "decisive".  (Is there a term for an "anti-Pyrrhic victory", that is, a victory with such low casualties and ease that it gives you the overconfidence to lose the war?)  Just plain "victory" is best.  I added a comment to this effect after "German victory" in hopes to deflect some of this in the future.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 15:50, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

text: Beyond the fact that the Kiev affair lead to the late Moscow offensive and ultimately to the German defeat. Uspzor (talk) 15:53, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Decisive, again 

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thread_title: File:DefenceOfKievMedal.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: The article for the Eastern Front section attributes blame to Stalin for the loss at Kiev, yet this article makes no mention of it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.71.183.88 (talk) 01:20, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: As effective Commander-in-Chief of the military, Stalin takes overall responsibility for all battles, including this one.  But we can't just blame Stalin for this loss, per Wikipedia guidelines at WP:UNDUE.  If Eastern Front (WWII) does so, that needs to be fixed there.  Please highlight the misleading statement at that talk page (I couldn't find the statement).  Thanks.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 15:13, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stalin's Fault? 

message: I just watched a documentary which told me that 650,000 alone in the Battle of Kiev were taken POW. I guess some of these were wounded, but there were more soldiers involved maybe?! Ff the docu was right with its 650,000 POW... I could imagine that they tried to come from the East to help Kiev and that the number of soldiers on the Soviet side increased by this way, maybe also a few tanks, trucks, rocket launchers on trucks etc... Greetings Kilon22 (talk) 16:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: That was the figure the German military reported after the battle. The actual number reported was 665,000 prisoners, and it was for both the Battles of Uman and Kiev. This number quickly became a propaganda tool for the Nazis, but it had a very military origin, and therefore credible in its own way. There is a known discrepancy between number of prisoners taken by the Germans and number of missing Soviet troops (reported as such by the Soviets); for 1941, the former is much higher than the latter. Part of the reason is that in those chaotic days of 1941, the Soviets raised dozens of divisions literally in the heat of battles, and many of these were destroyed just as quickly as they were raised. Recordkeeping suffered in the process. Another reason, but less popular (and probably a lesser factor), was that the Germans captured more than just soldiers. EyeTruth (talk) 05:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox