What are the chances that a Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern Front returns home at the end of the war (by the end of 1945) without significant physical disabilities?

by ssflanders
vonadler

By the end of ww2, the Berliners were making dark jokes that you could finally take the tram between the Eastern and Western Fronts - the eastern front stopped at the Elbe river as it was the limit of the Soviet occupation zone as agreed by the Allies and the Soviets.

It is hard to determine exactly how many German soldiers served on the Eastern Front - most units served there at some time, and units were withdrawn to be rebuilt or refitted. Soldiers wounded or ill would be sent back after recovering and become another casualty if wounded, captured or killed after this.

For example, it was common for the German army to rebuild a destroyed or surrendered unit by gathering troops that had been on leave, had recovered from wounds or illness, the few that managed to escape as well as a cadre of new conscripts (often, at least early war, from the same basic traning camps and drill schools as the original unit drew its men from) to re-form a division.

The Germans suffered about 4 300 000 dead on the Eastern Front. This includes Germans, non-Germans from Greater Germany who were conscripted despite this (common with Poles) and Volksdeutsche (people outside Greater Germany of German extraction). The number includes prisoners who died in captivity. About another 3 000 000 were taken prisoner, the last who were released 1955.

There were a mass exodus of Germans (and their allies) to the west during the last days of the war to surrender to the Western Allies instead of the the Soviets. When the war ended, the Soviets held about 2 163 000 German prisoners, while the Westen Allies held 6 672 000. This will of course scew the numbers quite a lot.

If you were there from 1941, chances are pretty low. Considering that the German original forces for Operation Barbarossa were about 3 300 000 men, they had lost 221% of their original force by the end of the war.