Western Front (World War II)

Western Front
Part of the European theatre of World War II
Clockwise from top left: Rotterdam after the Blitz, German Heinkel He 111 planes during the Battle of Britain, Allied paratroopers during Operation Market Garden, American troops running through Wernberg, Germany, Siege of Bastogne, American troops landing at Omaha Beach during Operation Overlord
Date 3 September 1939 – 8 May 1945 (1939-09-03 – 1945-05-08)[nb 1] (5 years, 8 months and 5 days) Location Northern and Western Europe Result 1939–1940: Axis victory Occupation of most of Western and Northern Europe by Axis troops End of the French Third Republic and creation of the Vichy regime Strategic stalemate following the Battle of Britain Continuation with the Defense of the Reich and the Battle of the Atlantic Beginning of the North Africa and East Africa campaigns 1944–1945: Allied victory Fall of Nazi Germany (concurrently with the Eastern Front) Fall of the Vichy Regime Liberation of occupied countries in Western and Northern Europe Beginning of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War Territorial changes Partition of Germany (1945)
Belligerents
Allies 1939-1940  France  United Kingdom  Poland  Netherlands  Belgium  Luxembourg  Norway  Denmark (9 April 1940)  Canada Czechoslovakia	Axis 1939-1940  Germany  Italy
1944-1945  United States  United Kingdom  •  Newfoundland[1][2][3]  France  Canada  Poland  Belgium  Luxembourg  Netherlands  Norway Czechoslovakia  Italy	1944-1945  Germany  Italian Social Republic
Commanders and leaders
1939–1940 Maurice Gamelin  Maxime Weygand  John Vereker, Lord Gort William Boyle, Lord Cork Władysław Sikorski Henri Winkelman  Leopold III  Émile Speller  Otto Ruge  William Prior  1944–1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt # Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower Winston Churchill Bernard Montgomery Arthur Tedder Omar Bradley Jacob L. Devers George S. Patton Courtney Hodges William Simpson Alexander Patch Miles Dempsey Trafford Leigh-Mallory † Bertram Ramsay † Charles de Gaulle Jean de Tassigny Kenneth Stuart Harry Crerar Kazimierz Sosnkowski Stanisław Maczek	1939–1940 Walter von Brauchitsch Gerd von Rundstedt Erich von Manstein Heinz Guderian Fedor von Bock Wilhelm von Leeb Erich Raeder Nikolaus von Falkenhorst Prince Umberto 1944–1945 Adolf Hitler † Heinrich Himmler † Hermann Göring † Gerd von Rundstedt Karl Dönitz Günther von Kluge † Walter Model † Albert Kesselring Erwin Rommel † Johannes Blaskowitz † Hermann Balck Paul Hausser Benito Mussolini  Rodolfo Graziani
Strength
1939–1940 7,650,000 troops (total)[4] 1944–1945 ~5,412,219 troops (total that served) 4,500,000 troops (total as of Victory in Europe Day)[5]	1939–1940 5,400,000 troops (total)[4] 1944–1945 ~8,000,000 troops (total that served)[6] ~1,900,000 troops (peak)[7]
Casualties and losses
1940 2,121,560[nb 2]–2,260,000[nb 3] casualties, including 73,000 killed and 15,000 missing 1944–1945 164,590–195,576 killed/missing 537,590 wounded 78,680 captured[10][nb 4] (~70% of Allied troops and casualties were Americans)[10] 10,561 tanks destroyed[13][14][15] 909 tank destroyers destroyed[16][14] Total: ~3,000,000 casualties	1940 160,780[nb 5]–163,650 casualties,[nb 6] including 49,000 killed or missing 1944–1945 263,000–655,000 killed[nb 7][nb 8] 400,000+ wounded[21] 4,209,840 captured[nb 9] Total: 5,000,000–5,400,000+ casualties
Civilian casualties: 1,650,000 dead[nb 10]

The Western Front of World War II was a theatre in which Germany invaded most of Western Europe in 1940, and where the western allies liberated most of Western Europe between 1944 and 1945. (The Italian Front is a separate but related front).

1. ↑ "Royal Artillery". www.heritage.nf.ca.
2. ↑ Nicholson, G.W.L. (1969). More Fighting Newfoundlanders: A History of Newfoundland's Fighting Forces in the Second World War. St. John's: Government of Newfoundland.
3. ↑ "Newsletter Volume 3 Issue 1" (PDF). rnfldrmuseum.ca. 2019.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Frieser, Karl-Heinz (2013)The Blitzkrieg Legend. Naval Institute Press
5. ↑ MacDonald, C (2005), The Last Offensive: The European Theater of Operations. University Press of the Pacific, p.478
6. ↑ The World War II Databook, by John Ellis, 1993 p. 256. Total German soldiers who surrendered in the West, including 3,404,950 who surrendered after the end of the war, is given as 7,614,790. To this must be added the 263,000–655,000 who died, giving a rough total of 8 million German soldiers having served on the Western Front in 1944–1945.
7. ↑ Horst Boog; Gerhard Krebs; Detlef Vogel (2006). Germany and the Second World War: Volume VII: The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943-1944/5. Clarendon Press. p. 522. ISBN 978-0-19-822889-9. Quoting Alfred Jodl's "Strategic situation in spring 1944" presentation. The total given for German forces in the west in May 1944, prior to a slight upgrade of forces in the west in preparation for Operation Overlord, was 1,873,000 personnel.
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Ellis 1993, p. 255 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFEllis1993 (help)
9. ↑ Hooton 2007, p. 90 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHooton2007 (help)
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1} MacDonald, C (2005), The Last Offensive: The European Theater of Operations. Page 478. "Allied casualties from D-day to V–E totaled 766,294. American losses were 586,628, including 135,576 dead. The British, Canadians, French, and other allies in the west lost slightly over 60,000 dead".
11. ↑ ^{11.0 11.1} Ellis 1993, p. 256 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFEllis1993 (help)
12. ↑ US Army Battle Casualties and Non-battle Deaths in World War 2: Final Report. Combined Arms Research Library, Department of the Army. 25 June 1953.
13. ↑ Zaloga 2015, p. 239, 6,084 U.S. Army tanks destroyed, including 4,399 M4 Sherman tanks, 178 M4 (105) and 1,507 M5A1 Stuart tanks.. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (help)
14. ↑ ^{14.0 14.1} Zaloga 2015, p. 276. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (help)
15. ↑ Zaloga 2015, p. 277, 4,477 British Commonwealth tanks destroyed, including 2,712 M4 Sherman tanks, 656 Churchill tanks, 609 Cromwell tanks, 433 M3 Stuart tanks, 39 Cruiser Mk VIII Challenger tanks, 26 Comet tanks, 2 M24 Chaffee tanks.. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (help)
16. ↑ Zaloga 2015, p. 239, 909 U.S. Army tank destroyers destroyed, including 540 M10 tank destroyers, 217 M18 Hellcat tank destroyers and 152 M36 tank destroyers.. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (help)
17. ↑ ^{17.0 17.1} Frieser 1995, p. 400 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFFrieser1995 (help)
18. ↑ L'Histoire, No. 352, April 2010 France 1940: Autopsie d'une défaite, p. 59.
19. ↑ Shepperd 1990, p. 88 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFShepperd1990 (help)
20. ↑ Hooton 2010, p. 73 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHooton2010 (help)
21. ↑ Percy Schramm Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht: 1940 – 1945: 8 Bde. 1961 (ISBN 9783881990738) Pages 1508–1511. Only includes those wounded who were not captured after, and only records wounded up to 31 January 1945. Likely to be drastically underestimated considering the corresponding figures for the Eastern Front on the same document.
22. ↑ Niewyk, Donald L. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-231-11200-9, p. 421.
23. ↑ Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960 Bonn 1961 p. 78
24. ↑ Bundesarchiv Euthanasie" im Nationalsozialismus, bundesarchiv.de; accessed 5 March 2016.(German)
25. ↑ Frumkin, Gregory (1951). Population Changes in Europe Since 1939. London: Allen & Unwin. pp. 58–59. OCLC 924672733.
26. ↑ "Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Netherlands" (PDF). Retrieved 4 March 2016.
27. ↑ Frumkin 1951, pp. 44–45
28. ↑ Commonwealth War Graves Commission Annual Report 2013–2014, page 44.
29. ↑ Frumkin 1951, p. 144
30. ↑ "Hvor mange dræbte danskere?". Danish Ministry of Education. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
31. ↑ Frumkin 1951, p. 59