Total casualties in the Second World War. The myth of being overwhelmed with corpses (losses in the Great Patriotic War)
Before we go into explanations, statistics, etc., let’s immediately clarify what we mean. This article examines the losses suffered by the Red Army, the Wehrmacht and the troops of the satellite countries of the Third Reich, as well as the civilian population of the USSR and Germany, only in the period from 06/22/1941 until the end of hostilities in Europe (unfortunately, in the case of Germany this is practically unenforceable). The Soviet-Finnish war and the “liberation” campaign of the Red Army were deliberately excluded. The issue of losses of the USSR and Germany has been repeatedly raised in the press, there are endless debates on the Internet and on television, but researchers on this issue cannot come to a common denominator, because, as a rule, all arguments ultimately come down to emotional and politicized statements. This once again proves how painful this issue is in our country. The purpose of the article is not to “clarify” the final truth in this matter, but to attempt to summarize the various data contained in disparate sources. We will leave the right to draw conclusions to the reader.
With all the variety of literature and online resources about the Great Patriotic War, ideas about it largely suffer from a certain superficiality. The main reason for this is the ideological nature of this or that research or work, and it does not matter what kind of ideology it is - communist or anti-communist. The interpretation of such a grandiose event in the light of any ideology is obviously false.
It is especially bitter to read recently that the war of 1941–45. was just a clash between two totalitarian regimes, where one, they say, was completely consistent with the other. We will try to look at this war from the most justified point of view - geopolitical.
Germany in the 1930s, for all its Nazi “peculiarities,” directly and unswervingly continued that powerful desire for primacy in Europe, which for centuries determined the path of the German nation. Even the purely liberal German sociologist Max Weber wrote during World War I: “...we, 70 million Germans...are obliged to be an empire. We must do this, even if we are afraid of failure.” The roots of this aspiration of the Germans go back centuries; as a rule, the Nazis’ appeal to medieval and even pagan Germany is interpreted as a purely ideological event, as the construction of a myth mobilizing the nation.
From my point of view, everything is more complicated: it was the German tribes that created the empire of Charlemagne, and later on its foundation the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation was formed. And it was the “empire of the German nation” that created what is called “European civilization” and began the aggressive policy of the Europeans with the sacramental “Drang nach osten” - “onslaught to the east”, because half of the “original” German lands, up until the 8th–10th centuries, belonged to Slavic tribes. Therefore, giving the plan of war against the “barbaric” USSR the name “Plan Barbarossa” is not a coincidence. This ideology of German “primacy” as the fundamental force of “European” civilization was the original cause of two world wars. Moreover, at the beginning of World War II, Germany was able to truly (albeit briefly) realize its aspiration.
Invading the borders of one or another European country, German troops met resistance that was amazing in its weakness and indecisiveness. Short-term battles between the armies of European countries and those who invaded their borders German troops, with the exception of Poland, represented more compliance with a certain “custom” of war than actual resistance.
Extremely much has been written about the exaggerated European “Resistance Movement,” which supposedly caused enormous damage to Germany and testified that Europe flatly rejected its unification under German leadership. But, with the exception of Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland and Greece, the scale of the Resistance is the same ideological myth. Undoubtedly, the regime established by Germany in the occupied countries did not suit large sections of the population. In Germany itself there was also resistance to the regime, but in neither case was it resistance of the country and the nation as a whole. For example, in the Resistance movement in France, 20 thousand people died in 5 years; Over the same 5 years, about 50 thousand Frenchmen died who fought on the side of the Germans, that is, 2.5 times more!
In Soviet times, the exaggeration of the Resistance was introduced into the minds as a useful ideological myth, saying that our fight with Germany was supported by all of Europe. In fact, as already mentioned, only 4 countries offered serious resistance to the invaders, which is explained by their “patriarchal” nature: they were alien not so much to the “German” order imposed by the Reich, but to the pan-European one, because these countries, in their way of life and consciousness, were largely not belonged to European civilization (although geographically included in Europe).
Thus, by 1941, almost all of continental Europe, one way or another, but without any major shocks, became part of the new empire with Germany at its head. Of the existing two dozen European countries, almost half - Spain, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Croatia - together with Germany entered the war against the USSR, sending their armed forces to the Eastern Front (Denmark and Spain without a formal announcement war). The rest of the European countries did not take part in military operations against the USSR, but one way or another “worked” for Germany, or, rather, for the newly formed European Empire. Misconceptions about events in Europe have caused us to completely forget about many real events that time. For example, Anglo-American troops under the command of Eisenhower in November 1942 North Africa At first they fought not with the Germans, but with an army of two hundred thousand French, despite the quick “victory” (Jean Darlan, due to the clear superiority of the Allied forces, ordered the surrender of the French troops), 584 Americans, 597 British and 1600 French died in the fighting. Of course, these are miniscule losses on the scale of the entire Second World War, but they show that the situation was somewhat more complicated than is usually thought.
In battles on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured half a million prisoners, who were citizens of countries that did not seem to be at war with the USSR! It can be argued that these are “victims” of German violence, which drove them into Russian spaces. But the Germans were no more stupid than you and me and would hardly have allowed an unreliable contingent to the front. And while the next great and multinational army was winning victories in Russia, Europe was, by and large, on its side. Franz Halder, in his diary on June 30, 1941, wrote down Hitler's words: "European unity as a result of a joint war against Russia." And Hitler assessed the situation quite correctly. In fact, the geopolitical goals of the war against the USSR were carried out not only by the Germans, but by 300 million Europeans, united on various grounds - from forced submission to desired cooperation - but, one way or another, acting together. Only thanks to their reliance on continental Europe were the Germans able to mobilize 25% of the total population into the army (for reference: the USSR mobilized 17% of its citizens). In a word, the strength and technical equipment of the army that invaded the USSR was provided by tens of millions of skilled workers throughout Europe.
Why did I need such a long introduction? The answer is simple. Finally, we must realize that the USSR fought not only with the German Third Reich, but with almost all of Europe. Unfortunately, the eternal “Russophobia” of Europe was superimposed by the fear of the “terrible beast” - Bolshevism. Many volunteers from European countries who fought in Russia fought precisely against a communist ideology that was alien to them. No less of them were conscious haters of the “inferior” Slavs, infected with the plague of racial superiority. The modern German historian R. Rurup writes:
“Many documents of the Third Reich captured the image of the enemy - the Russian, deeply rooted in German history and society. Such views were characteristic even of those officers and soldiers who were not convinced or enthusiastic Nazis. They (these soldiers and officers) also shared ideas about “ the eternal struggle" of the Germans... about the defense of European culture from the "Asian hordes", about the cultural vocation and right of domination of the Germans in the East. The image of the enemy. similar type was widespread in Germany, it belonged to “spiritual values.”
And this geopolitical consciousness was not unique to the Germans as such. After June 22, 1941, volunteer legions appeared by leaps and bounds, later turning into the SS divisions “Nordland” (Scandinavian), “Langemarck” (Belgian-Flemish), “Charlemagne” (French). Guess where they defended " European civilization"? That's right, quite far from Western Europe, in Belarus, Ukraine, Russia. German professor K. Pfeffer wrote in 1953: “Most volunteers from Western European countries went to the Eastern Front because they saw it as GENERAL task for the entire West...” It was with the forces of almost all of Europe that the USSR, and not just Germany, was destined to collide, and this clash was not of “two totalitarianisms,” but of “civilized and progressive” Europe with the “barbaric state of subhumans” that had been frightening for so long Europeans from the east.
1. USSR losses
According to official data from the 1939 population census, 170 million people lived in the USSR - significantly more than in any other single country in Europe. The entire population of Europe (without the USSR) was 400 million people. By the beginning of World War II, the population of the Soviet Union differed from the population of future enemies and allies high level mortality and low life expectancy. However, the high birth rate ensured significant population growth (2% in 1938–39). Also different from Europe was the youth of the USSR population: the proportion of children under 15 years old was 35%. It was this feature that made it possible to restore the pre-war population relatively quickly (within 10 years). The share of the urban population was only 32% (for comparison: in Great Britain - more than 80%, in France - 50%, in Germany - 70%, in the USA - 60%, and only in Japan it had the same value as in THE USSR).
In 1939, the population of the USSR increased noticeably after the entry into the country of new regions (Western Ukraine and Belarus, the Baltic States, Bukovina and Bessarabia), whose population ranged from 20 to 22.5 million people. The total population of the USSR, according to a certificate from the Central Statistical Office as of January 1, 1941, was determined to be 198,588 thousand people (including the RSFSR - 111,745 thousand people). According to modern estimates, it was still smaller, and on June 1, 1941 it was 196.7 million people.
Population of some countries for 1938–40
USSR - 170.6 (196.7) million people;
Germany - 77.4 million people;
France - 40.1 million people;
Great Britain - 51.1 million people;
Italy - 42.4 million people;
Finland - 3.8 million people;
USA - 132.1 million people;
Japan - 71.9 million people.
By 1940, the population of the Reich had increased to 90 million people, and taking into account the satellites and conquered countries - 297 million people. By December 1941, the USSR had lost 7% of the country's territory, where 74.5 million people lived before the start of the Second World War. This once again emphasizes that despite Hitler’s assurances, the USSR did not have an advantage in human resources over the Third Reich.
During the entire Great Patriotic War in our country, 34.5 million people put on military uniforms. This amounted to about 70% of the total number of men aged 15–49 years in 1941. The number of women in the Red Army was approximately 500 thousand. The percentage of conscripts was higher only in Germany, but as we said earlier, the Germans covered the labor shortage at the expense of European workers and prisoners of war. In the USSR, such a deficit was covered by increased working hours and the widespread use of labor by women, children and the elderly.
About direct irretrievable losses of the Red Army for a long time they didn’t say it in the USSR. In a private conversation, Marshal Konev in 1962 named the figure 10 million people, a famous defector - Colonel Kalinov, who fled to the West in 1949 - 13.6 million people. The figure of 10 million people was published in the French version of the book “Wars and Population” by B. Ts. Urlanis, a famous Soviet demographer. The authors of the famous monograph “The Classification of Secrecy has been Removed” (edited by G. Krivosheev) in 1993 and in 2001 published a figure of 8.7 million people, on this moment it is indicated in most reference books. But the authors themselves state that it does not include: 500 thousand persons liable for military service, called up for mobilization and captured by the enemy, but not included in the lists of units and formations. Also, the almost completely dead militias of Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv and other large cities are not taken into account. Currently the most full lists irretrievable losses of Soviet soldiers amount to 13.7 million people, but approximately 12-15% of records are repeated. According to the article “Dead Souls of the Great Patriotic War” (“NG”, 06.22.99), the historical and archival search center “Fate” of the “War Memorials” association established that due to double and even triple counting, the number of dead soldiers of the 43rd and 2nd of the Shock Armies in the battles studied by the center was overestimated by 10-12%. Since these figures refer to a period when the accounting of losses in the Red Army was not careful enough, it can be assumed that in the war as a whole, due to double counting, the number of Red Army soldiers killed was overestimated by approximately 5–7%, i.e. by 0.2– 0.4 million people
On the issue of prisoners. American researcher A. Dallin, based on archival German data, estimates their number at 5.7 million people. Of these, 3.8 million died in captivity, that is, 63%. Domestic historians estimate the number of captured Red Army soldiers at 4.6 million people, of which 2.9 million died. Unlike German sources, this does not include civilians (for example, railway workers), as well as seriously wounded people who remained on the battlefield occupied by the enemy, and subsequently died from wounds or were shot (about 470-500 thousand). The situation of prisoners of war was especially desperate in the first year of the war, when more than half of their total number (2.8 million people) was captured, and their labor had not yet been used in interests of the Reich. Camps under open air, hunger and cold, illness and lack of medicine, cruel treatment, mass executions of the sick and unable to work, and simply all those unwanted, primarily commissars and Jews. Unable to cope with the flow of prisoners and guided by political and propaganda motives, the occupiers in 1941 sent home over 300 thousand prisoners of war, mainly natives of western Ukraine and Belarus. This practice was subsequently discontinued.
Also, do not forget that approximately 1 million prisoners of war were transferred from captivity to the auxiliary units of the Wehrmacht. In many cases, this was the only chance for prisoners to survive. Yet again most of These people, according to German data, tried to desert from Wehrmacht units and formations at the first opportunity. The local auxiliary forces of the German army included:
1) volunteer helpers (hivi)
2) order service (odi)
3) front auxiliary units (noise)
4) police and defense teams (gema).
At the beginning of 1943, the Wehrmacht operated: up to 400 thousand Khivi, from 60 to 70 thousand Odi, and 80 thousand in the eastern battalions.
Some of the prisoners of war and the population of the occupied territories made a conscious choice in favor of cooperation with the Germans. Thus, in the SS division “Galicia” there were 82,000 volunteers for 13,000 “places”. More than 100 thousand Latvians, 36 thousand Lithuanians and 10 thousand Estonians served in the German army, mainly in the SS troops.
In addition, several million people from the occupied territories were taken to forced labor in the Reich. The ChGK (Emergency State Commission) immediately after the war estimated their number at 4.259 million people. More recent studies give a figure of 5.45 million people, of whom 850-1000 thousand died.
Estimates of direct physical extermination of the civilian population, according to the ChGK data from 1946.
RSFSR - 706 thousand people.
Ukrainian SSR - 3256.2 thousand people.
BSSR - 1547 thousand people.
Lit. SSR - 437.5 thousand people.
Lat. SSR - 313.8 thousand people.
Est. SSR - 61.3 thousand people.
Mold. USSR - 61 thousand people.
Karelo-Fin. SSR - 8 thousand people. (10)
Such high figures for Lithuania and Latvia are explained by the fact that there were death camps and concentration camps for prisoners of war there. The population losses in the front line during the fighting were also enormous. However, it is virtually impossible to determine them. The minimum acceptable value is the number of deaths in besieged Leningrad, i.e. 800 thousand people. In 1942, the infant mortality rate in Leningrad reached 74.8%, that is, out of 100 newborns, about 75 babies died!
Another important question. How many former Soviet citizens chose not to return to the USSR after the end of the Great Patriotic War? According to Soviet archival data, the number of the “second emigration” was 620 thousand people. 170,000 are Germans, Bessarabians and Bukovinians, 150,000 are Ukrainians, 109,000 are Latvians, 230,000 are Estonians and Lithuanians, and only 32,000 are Russians. Today this estimate seems clearly underestimated. According to modern data, emigration from the USSR amounted to 1.3 million people. Which gives us a difference of almost 700 thousand, previously attributed to irretrievable population losses.
So, what are the losses of the Red Army, the civilian population of the USSR and the general demographic losses in the Great Patriotic War. For twenty years, the main estimate was the far-fetched figure of 20 million people by N. Khrushchev. In 1990, as a result of the work of a special commission of the General Staff and the State Statistics Committee of the USSR, a more reasonable estimate of 26.6 million people appeared. At the moment it is official. Noteworthy is the fact that back in 1948, the American sociologist Timashev gave an assessment of the USSR's losses in the war, which practically coincided with the assessment of the General Staff commission. Maksudov’s assessment made in 1977 also coincides with the data of the Krivosheev Commission. According to the commission of G.F. Krivosheev.
So let's summarize:
Post-war estimate of Red Army losses: 7 million people.
Timashev: Red Army - 12.2 million people, civilian population 14.2 million people, direct human losses 26.4 million people, total demographic 37.3 million.
Arntz and Khrushchev: direct human: 20 million people.
Biraben and Solzhenitsyn: Red Army 20 million people, civilian population 22.6 million people, direct human 42.6 million, general demographic 62.9 million people.
Maksudov: Red Army - 11.8 million people, civilian population 12.7 million people, direct casualties 24.5 million people. It is impossible not to make a reservation that S. Maksudov (A.P. Babenyshev, Harvard University USA) determined the purely combat losses of the spacecraft at 8.8 million people
Rybakovsky: direct human 30 million people.
Andreev, Darsky, Kharkov (General Staff, Krivosheev Commission): direct combat losses of the Red Army 8.7 million (11,994 including prisoners of war) people. Civilian population (including prisoners of war) 17.9 million people. Direct human losses: 26.6 million people.
B. Sokolov: losses of the Red Army - 26 million people
M. Harrison: total losses of the USSR - 23.9 - 25.8 million people.
What do we have in the “dry” residue? We will be guided by simple logic.
The estimate of the losses of the Red Army given in 1947 (7 million) does not inspire confidence, since not all calculations, even with the imperfections of the Soviet system, were completed.
Khrushchev's assessment is also not confirmed. On the other hand, “Solzhenitsyn’s” 20 million casualties in the army alone, or even 44 million, are just as unfounded (without denying some of A. Solzhenitsyn’s talent as a writer, all the facts and figures in his works are not confirmed by a single document and it’s difficult to understand where he comes from took - impossible).
Boris Sokolov is trying to explain to us that the losses of the USSR armed forces alone amounted to 26 million people. He is guided by the indirect method of calculations. The losses of the officers of the Red Army are known quite accurately; according to Sokolov, this is 784 thousand people (1941–44). Mr. Sokolov, referring to the average statistical losses of Wehrmacht officers on the Eastern Front of 62,500 people (1941–44), and data from Müller-Hillebrandt , displays the ratio of losses of the officer corps to the rank and file of the Wehrmacht as 1:25, that is, 4%. And, without hesitation, he extrapolates this technique to the Red Army, receiving his 26 million irretrievable losses. However, upon closer examination, this approach turns out to be initially false. Firstly, 4% of officer losses is not an upper limit, for example, in the Polish campaign, the Wehrmacht lost 12% of officers to the total losses of the Armed Forces. Secondly, it would be useful for Mr. Sokolov to know that when staffing level of a German infantry regiment of 3049 people, there were 75 officers in it, that is, 2.5%. And in the Soviet infantry regiment, with a strength of 1582 people, there are 159 officers, i.e. 10%. Thirdly, appealing to the Wehrmacht, Sokolov forgets that the more combat experience in the troops, the fewer losses among officers. Losses in the Polish campaign German officers−12%, in the French - 7%, and on the Eastern Front already 4%.
The same can be applied to the Red Army: if at the end of the war the losses of officers (not according to Sokolov, but according to statistics) were 8-9%, then at the beginning of the Second World War they could have been 24%. It turns out, like a schizophrenic, everything is logical and correct, only the initial premise is incorrect. Why did we dwell on Sokolov’s theory in such detail? Yes, because Mr. Sokolov very often presents his figures in the media.
Taking into account the above, discarding the obviously underestimated and overestimated estimates of losses, we get: Krivosheev Commission - 8.7 million people (with prisoners of war 11.994 million, 2001 data), Maksudov - losses are even slightly lower than the official ones - 11.8 million people. (1977−93), Timashev - 12.2 million people. (1948). This can also include the opinion of M. Harrison, with the level of total losses indicated by him, the losses of the army should fit into this period. These data were obtained using different calculation methods, since Timashev and Maksudov, respectively, did not have access to the archives of the USSR and Russian Defense Ministry. It seems that the losses of the USSR Armed Forces in the Second World War lie very close to such a “heaped” group of results. Let's not forget that these figures include 2.6–3.2 million destroyed Soviet prisoners of war.
In conclusion, we should probably agree with Maksudov’s opinion that the emigration outflow, which amounted to 1.3 million people, which was not taken into account in the General Staff study, should be excluded from the number of losses. The losses of the USSR in the Second World War should be reduced by this amount. In percentage terms, the structure of USSR losses looks like this:
41% - aircraft losses (including prisoners of war)
35% - aircraft losses (without prisoners of war, i.e. direct combat)
39% - losses of the population of the occupied territories and the front line (45% with prisoners of war)
8% - rear population
6% - GULAG
6% - emigration outflow.
2. Losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops
To date, there are no sufficiently reliable figures for the losses of the German army obtained by direct statistical calculation. This is explained by the absence, for various reasons, of reliable initial statistical materials on German losses.
The picture is more or less clear regarding the number of Wehrmacht prisoners of war on the Soviet-German front. According to Russian sources, Soviet troops 3,172,300 Wehrmacht soldiers were captured, of which 2,388,443 Germans were in NKVD camps. According to the calculations of German historians, there were about 3.1 million German military personnel alone in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps. The discrepancy, as you can see, is approximately 0.7 million people. This discrepancy is explained by differences in estimates of the number of Germans who died in captivity: according to Russian archival documents, 356,700 Germans died in Soviet captivity, and according to German researchers, approximately 1.1 million people. It seems that the Russian figure of Germans killed in captivity is more reliable, and the missing 0.7 million Germans who went missing and did not return from captivity actually died not in captivity, but on the battlefield.
The vast majority of publications devoted to calculations of combat demographic losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops are based on data from the central bureau (department) for recording losses of armed forces personnel, part of the German General Staff of the Supreme High Command. Moreover, while denying the reliability of Soviet statistics, German data are regarded as absolutely reliable. But upon closer examination, it turned out that the opinion about the high reliability of the information from this department was greatly exaggerated. Thus, the German historian R. Overmans, in the article “Human casualties of the Second World War in Germany,” came to the conclusion that “... the channels of information in the Wehrmacht do not reveal the degree of reliability that some authors attribute to them.” As an example, he reports that “... an official report from the casualty department at Wehrmacht headquarters dating back to 1944 documented that the losses that were incurred during the Polish, French and Norwegian campaigns, and the identification of which did not present any technical difficulties, were almost twice as high as originally reported." According to Müller-Hillebrand data, which many researchers believe, the demographic losses of the Wehrmacht amounted to 3.2 million people. Another 0.8 million died in captivity. However, according to a certificate from the OKH organizational department dated May 1, 1945, the ground forces alone, including the SS troops (without the Air Force and Navy), lost 4 million 617.0 thousand during the period from September 1, 1939 to May 1, 1945. people This is the latest report of German Armed Forces losses. In addition, since mid-April 1945, there was no centralized accounting of losses. And since the beginning of 1945, the data is incomplete. The fact remains that in one of the last radio broadcasts with his participation, Hitler announced the figure of 12.5 million total losses of the German Armed Forces, of which 6.7 million are irrevocable, which is approximately twice the data of Müller-Hillebrand. This happened in March 1945. I don’t think that in two months the soldiers of the Red Army did not kill a single German.
In general, the information from the Wehrmacht loss department cannot serve as the initial data for calculating the losses of the German Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War.
There is another statistics on losses - statistics on the burials of Wehrmacht soldiers. According to the annex to the German law “On the Preservation of Burial Sites”, the total number of German soldiers located in recorded burial sites on the territory of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries is 3 million 226 thousand people. (on the territory of the USSR alone - 2,330,000 burials). This figure can be taken as a starting point for calculating the demographic losses of the Wehrmacht, however, it also needs to be adjusted.
Firstly, this figure takes into account only the burials of Germans, and a large number of soldiers of other nationalities fought in the Wehrmacht: Austrians (of which 270 thousand people died), Sudeten Germans and Alsatians (230 thousand people died) and representatives of other nationalities and states (357 thousand people died). From total number Of the dead Wehrmacht soldiers of non-German nationality, the Soviet-German front accounts for 75-80%, i.e. 0.6–0.7 million people.
Secondly, this figure dates back to the early 90s of the last century. Since then, the search for German burials in Russia, the CIS countries and of Eastern Europe continued. And the messages that appeared on this topic were not informative enough. For example, the Russian Association of War Memorials, created in 1992, reported that over the 10 years of its existence it transferred information about the burials of 400 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers to the German Association for the Care of Military Graves. However, whether these were newly discovered burials or whether they had already been taken into account in the figure of 3 million 226 thousand is unclear. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find generalized statistics of newly discovered burials of Wehrmacht soldiers. Tentatively, we can assume that the number of graves of Wehrmacht soldiers newly discovered over the past 10 years is in the range of 0.2–0.4 million people.
Thirdly, many graves of dead Wehrmacht soldiers on Soviet soil have disappeared or were deliberately destroyed. Approximately 0.4–0.6 million Wehrmacht soldiers could have been buried in such disappeared and unmarked graves.
Fourthly, these data do not include the burials of German soldiers killed in battles with Soviet troops on the territory of Germany and Western European countries. According to R. Overmans, in the last three spring months of the war alone, about 1 million people died. (minimum estimate 700 thousand) In general, approximately 1.2–1.5 million Wehrmacht soldiers died on German soil and in Western European countries in battles with the Red Army.
Finally, fifthly, the number of those buried also included Wehrmacht soldiers who died a “natural” death (0.1–0.2 million people)
Articles by Major General V. Gurkin are devoted to assessing Wehrmacht losses using the balance of the German armed forces during the war years. His calculated figures are given in the second column of the table. 4. Here two figures are noteworthy, characterizing the number of those mobilized into the Wehrmacht during the war, and the number of prisoners of war of Wehrmacht soldiers. The number of those mobilized during the war (17.9 million people) is taken from the book by B. Müller-Hillebrand “German Land Army 1933–1945,” Vol. At the same time, V.P. Bohar believes that more were drafted into the Wehrmacht - 19 million people.
The number of Wehrmacht prisoners of war was determined by V. Gurkin by summing up the prisoners of war taken by the Red Army (3.178 million people) and the Allied forces (4.209 million people) before May 9, 1945. In my opinion, this number is overestimated: it also included prisoners of war who were not Wehrmacht soldiers. The book “German Prisoners of War of the Second World War” by Paul Karel and Ponter Boeddeker reports: “...In June 1945, the Allied Command became aware that there were 7,614,794 prisoners of war and unarmed military personnel in the “camps, of which 4,209,000 by the time capitulation were already in captivity." Among the indicated 4.2 million German prisoners of war, in addition to the Wehrmacht soldiers, there were many other people. For example, in the French camp of Vitril-Francois, among the prisoners, "the youngest was 15 years old, the oldest was almost 70." The authors write about captured Volksturm soldiers, about the organization by the Americans of special “children’s” camps, where captured twelve-thirteen-year-old boys from the “Hitler Youth” and “Werewolf” were collected. Even the disabled are placed in camps in the article “My path to Ryazan captivity” (“. Map" No. 1, 1992) Heinrich Schippmann noted:
“It should be taken into account that at first, although predominantly, but not exclusively, not only Wehrmacht soldiers or SS troops were taken prisoner, but also Air Force service personnel, members of the Volkssturm or paramilitary unions (the Todt organization, the Service labor of the Reich”, etc.) Among them were not only men, but also women - and not only Germans, but also the so-called “Volksdeutsche” and “aliens” - Croats, Serbs, Cossacks, Northern and Western Europeans, "fought in any way on the side of the German Wehrmacht or were assigned to it. In addition, during the occupation of Germany in 1945, anyone who wore a uniform was arrested, even if it was a question of the head of the railway station."
Overall, among the 4.2 million prisoners of war taken by the Allies before May 9, 1945, approximately 20–25% were not Wehrmacht soldiers. This means that the Allies had 3.1–3.3 million Wehrmacht soldiers in captivity.
The total number of Wehrmacht soldiers captured before the surrender was 6.3–6.5 million people.
In general, the demographic combat losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops on the Soviet-German front amount to 5.2–6.3 million people, of which 0.36 million died in captivity, and irretrievable losses (including prisoners) 8.2 –9.1 million people It should also be noted that domestic historiography before recent years did not mention some data on the number of Wehrmacht prisoners of war at the end of hostilities in Europe, apparently for ideological reasons, because it is much more pleasant to believe that Europe “fought” fascism than to realize that a certain and very large number of Europeans deliberately fought in the Wehrmacht. So, according to a note from General Antonov, on May 25, 1945. The Red Army captured 5 million 20 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers alone, of which 600 thousand people (Austrians, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Poles, etc.) were released until August after filtration measures, and these prisoners of war were sent to camps The NKVD was not sent. Thus, the irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht in battles with the Red Army could be even higher (about 0.6 - 0.8 million people).
There is another way to “calculate” the losses of Germany and the Third Reich in the war against the USSR. Quite correct, by the way. Let’s try to “substitute” the figures relating to Germany into the methodology for calculating the total demographic losses of the USSR. Moreover, we will use ONLY official data from the German side. So, the population of Germany in 1939, according to Müller-Hillebrandt (p. 700 of his work, so beloved by supporters of the “filling up with corpses” theory), was 80.6 million people. At the same time, you and I, the reader, must take into account that this includes 6.76 million Austrians, and the population of the Sudetenland - another 3.64 million people. That is, the population of Germany proper within the borders of 1933 in 1939 was (80.6 - 6.76 - 3.64) 70.2 million people. We figured out these simple mathematical operations. Further: natural mortality in the USSR was 1.5% per year, but in Western European countries the mortality rate was much lower and amounted to 0.6 - 0.8% per year, Germany was no exception. However, the birth rate in the USSR was approximately the same proportion as it was in Europe, due to which the USSR had consistently high population growth throughout the pre-war years, starting from 1934.
We know about the results of the post-war population census in the USSR, but few people know that a similar population census was conducted by the Allied occupation authorities on October 29, 1946 in Germany. The census gave the following results:
Soviet occupation zone (without East Berlin): men - 7.419 million, women - 9.914 million, total: 17.333 million people.
All western zones of occupation (without western Berlin): men - 20.614 million, women - 24.804 million, total: 45.418 million people.
Berlin (all sectors of occupation), men - 1.29 million, women - 1.89 million, total: 3.18 million people.
The total population of Germany is 65,931,000 people. A purely arithmetic operation of 70.2 million - 66 million seems to give a loss of only 4.2 million. However, everything is not so simple.
At the time of the population census in the USSR, the number of children born since the beginning of 1941 was about 11 million; the birth rate in the USSR during the war years fell sharply and amounted to only 1.37% per year of the pre-war population. The birth rate in Germany even in peacetime did not exceed 2% per year of the population. Suppose it fell only 2 times, and not 3, as in the USSR. That is natural increase The population during the war years and the first post-war year was about 5% of the pre-war number, and the figures amounted to 3.5–3.8 million children. This figure must be added to the final figure for the population decline in Germany. Now the arithmetic is different: the total population decline is 4.2 million + 3.5 million = 7.7 million people. But this is not the final figure; To complete the calculations, we need to subtract from the population decline figure the figure of natural mortality during the war years and 1946, which is 2.8 million people (let’s take the figure 0.8% to make it “higher”). Now the total population loss in Germany caused by the war is 4.9 million people. Which, in general, is very “similar” to the figure for irretrievable losses of the Reich ground forces given by Müller-Hillebrandt. So did the USSR, which lost 26.6 million of its citizens in the war, really “fill up with corpses” of its enemy? Patience, dear reader, let’s bring our calculations to their logical conclusion.
The fact is that the population of Germany proper in 1946 grew by at least another 6.5 million people, and presumably even by 8 million! By the time of the 1946 census (according to German data, by the way, published back in 1996 by the “Union of Expellees”, and in total about 15 million Germans were “forcibly displaced”) only from the Sudetenland, Poznan and Upper Silesia were evicted to German territory 6.5 million Germans. About 1 - 1.5 million Germans fled from Alsace and Lorraine (unfortunately, there are no more accurate data). That is, these 6.5 - 8 million must be added to the losses of Germany itself. And these are “slightly” different numbers: 4.9 million + 7.25 million (arithmetic average of the number of Germans “expelled” to their homeland) = 12.15 million. Actually, this is 17.3% (!) of the German population in 1939. Well, that's not all!
Let me emphasize once again: the Third Reich is NOT JUST Germany! By the time of the attack on the USSR, the Third Reich “officially” included: Germany (70.2 million people), Austria (6.76 million people), the Sudetenland (3.64 million people), captured from Poland “Baltic corridor”, Poznan and Upper Silesia (9.36 million people), Luxembourg, Lorraine and Alsace (2.2 million people), and even Upper Corinthia cut off from Yugoslavia, a total of 92.16 million people.
These are all territories that were officially included in the Reich, and whose inhabitants were subject to conscription into the Wehrmacht. We will not take into account the “Imperial Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” and the “Government General of Poland” here (although ethnic Germans were drafted into the Wehrmacht from these territories). And ALL of these territories remained under Nazi control until the beginning of 1945. Now we get the “final calculation” if we take into account that Austria’s losses are known to us and amount to 300,000 people, that is, 4.43% of the country’s population (which in %, of course, is much less than that of Germany). It would not be much of a stretch to assume that the population of the remaining regions of the Reich suffered the same percentage losses as a result of the war, which would give us another 673,000 people. As a result, the total human losses of the Third Reich are 12.15 million + 0.3 million + 0.6 million people. = 13.05 million people. This “number” is already more like the truth. Taking into account the fact that these losses include 0.5 - 0.75 million dead civilians (and not 3.5 million), we obtain the losses of the Third Reich Armed Forces equal to 12.3 million people irrevocably. If we consider that even the Germans admit the losses of their Armed Forces in the East at 75-80% of all losses on all fronts, then the Reich Armed Forces lost about 9.2 million (75% of 12.3 million) in battles with the Red Army. person irrevocably. Of course, not all of them were killed, but having data on those released (2.35 million), as well as prisoners of war who died in captivity (0.38 million), we can say quite accurately that those actually killed and those who died from wounds and in captivity, and also missing, but not captured (read “killed”, which is 0.7 million!), the Armed Forces of the Third Reich lost approximately 5.6-6 million people during the campaign to the East. According to these calculations, the irretrievable losses of the USSR Armed Forces and the Third Reich (without allies) are correlated as 1.3:1, and the combat losses of the Red Army (data from the team led by Krivosheev) and the Reich Armed Forces as 1.6:1.
The procedure for calculating the total human losses in Germany
The population in 1939 was 70.2 million people.
The population in 1946 was 65.93 million people.
Natural mortality 2.8 million people.
Natural increase (birth rate) 3.5 million people.
Emigration influx of 7.25 million people.
Total losses ((70.2 - 65.93 - 2.8) + 3.5 + 7.25 = 12.22) 12.15 million people.
Every tenth German died! Every twelfth person was captured!!!
Conclusion
In this article, the author does not pretend to seek out the “golden ratio” and “ultimate truth”. The data presented in it are available in the scientific literature and on the Internet. It's just that they are all scattered and scattered around various sources. The author expresses his personal opinion: you cannot trust German and Soviet sources during the war, because your losses are underestimated by at least 2–3 times, while the enemy’s losses are exaggerated by the same 2–3 times. It is even more strange that German sources, unlike Soviet ones, are considered to be completely “reliable”, although, as a simple analysis shows, this is not the case.
The irretrievable losses of the USSR Armed Forces in the Second World War amount to 11.5 - 12.0 million irrevocably, with actual combat demographic losses of 8.7–9.3 million people. The losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops on the Eastern Front amount to 8.0 - 8.9 million irrevocably, of which purely combat demographic 5.2-6.1 million people (including those who died in captivity) people. Plus, to the losses of the German Armed Forces proper on the Eastern Front, it is necessary to add the losses of the satellite countries, and this is no less than 850 thousand (including those who died in captivity) people killed and more than 600 thousand captured. Total 12.0 (largest number) million versus 9.05 (smallest number) million people.
A logical question: where is the “filling with corpses” that Western and now domestic “open” and “democratic” sources talk about so much? The percentage of dead Soviet prisoners of war, even according to the most gentle estimates, is no less than 55%, and of German prisoners, according to the largest, no more than 23%. Maybe the whole difference in losses is explained simply by the inhumane conditions in which the prisoners were kept?
The author is aware that these articles differ from the latest officially announced version of losses: losses of the USSR Armed Forces - 6.8 million military personnel killed, and 4.4 million captured and missing, German losses - 4.046 million military personnel killed, died from wounds, missing in action (including 442.1 thousand killed in captivity), losses of satellite countries - 806 thousand killed and 662 thousand captured. Irreversible losses of the armies of the USSR and Germany (including prisoners of war) - 11.5 million and 8.6 million people. The total losses of Germany are 11.2 million people. (for example on Wikipedia)
The issue with the civilian population is more terrible against the 14.4 (smallest number) million victims of the Second World War in the USSR - 3.2 million people (largest number) of victims on the German side. So who fought and with whom? It is also necessary to mention that without denying the Holocaust of the Jews, German society still does not perceive the “Slavic” Holocaust; if everything is known about the suffering of the Jewish people in the West (thousands of works), then they prefer to “modestly” remain silent about the crimes against the Slavic peoples. The non-participation of our researchers, for example, in the all-German “dispute of historians” only aggravates this situation.
I would like to end the article with a phrase from an unknown British officer. When he saw a column of Soviet prisoners of war being driven past the “international” camp, he said: “I forgive the Russians in advance for everything they will do to Germany.”
The article was written in 2007. Since then, the author has not changed his opinion. That is, there was no “stupid” inundation of corpses on the part of the Red Army, however, there was no special numerical superiority. This is also proven by the recent emergence of a large layer of Russian “oral history,” that is, memoirs of ordinary participants in the Second World War. For example, Elektron Priklonsky, the author of “The Diary of a Self-propelled Gun,” mentions that throughout the war he saw two “death fields”: when our troops attacked in the Baltic states and came under flanking fire from machine guns, and when the Germans broke through from the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky pocket. This is an isolated example, but nevertheless, it is valuable because it is a wartime diary, and therefore quite objective.
Estimation of the loss ratio based on the results of a comparative analysis of losses in wars of the last two centuries
The application of the method of comparative analysis, the foundations of which were laid by Jomini, to assess the ratio of losses requires statistical data on wars of different eras. Unfortunately, more or less complete statistics are available only for wars of the last two centuries. Data on irretrievable combat losses in the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, summarized based on the results of the work of domestic and foreign historians, are given in Table. The last three columns of the table demonstrate the obvious dependence of the results of the war on the magnitude of relative losses (losses expressed as a percentage of the total army strength) - the relative losses of the winner in a war are always less than those of the vanquished, and this dependence has a stable, repeating character (it is valid for all types of wars), that is, it has all the signs of law.
This law - let's call it the law of relative losses - can be formulated as follows: in any war, victory goes to the army that has fewer relative losses.
Note that the absolute numbers of irretrievable losses for the victorious side can be either less (Patriotic War of 1812, Russian-Turkish, Franco-Prussian wars) or greater than for the defeated side (Crimean, World War I, Soviet-Finnish) , but the relative losses of the winner are always less than those of the loser.
The difference between the relative losses of the winner and the loser characterizes the degree of convincingness of the victory. Wars with close relative losses of the parties end in peace treaties with the defeated side retaining the existing political system and armies (for example, Russo-Japanese War). In wars that end, like the Great Patriotic War, with the complete surrender of the enemy (Napoleonic Wars, Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871), the relative losses of the winner are significantly less than the relative losses of the vanquished (by no less than 30%). In other words, the greater the losses, the larger the army must be in order to win a landslide victory. If the army's losses are 2 times greater than those of the enemy, then to win the war its strength must be at least 2.6 times greater than the size of the opposing army.
Now let’s return to the Great Patriotic War and see what human resources the USSR and fascist Germany throughout the war. Available data on the numbers of warring parties on the Soviet-German front are given in Table. 6.
From the table 6 it follows that the number of Soviet participants in the war was only 1.4–1.5 times larger than the total number of opposing troops and 1.6–1.8 times larger than the regular German army. In accordance with the law of relative losses, with such an excess in the number of participants in the war, the losses of the Red Army, which destroyed the fascist military machine, in principle could not exceed the losses of the armies of the fascist bloc by more than 10-15%, and the losses of the regular German troops- more than 25-30%. This means that the upper limit of the ratio of irretrievable combat losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht is the ratio of 1.3:1.
The figures for the ratio of irretrievable combat losses given in table. 6, do not exceed the upper limit of the loss ratio obtained above. This, however, does not mean that they are final and cannot be changed. As new documents, statistical materials, and research results appear, the figures for the losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht (Tables 1-5) may be clarified, change in one direction or another, their ratio may also change, but it cannot be higher than the value of 1.3 :1.
Sources:
1. Central Statistical Office of the USSR “Number, composition and movement of the population of the USSR” M 1965
2. “Population of Russia in the 20th century” M. 2001
3. Arntz “Human losses in the Second World War” M. 1957
4. Frumkin G. Population Changes in Europe since 1939 N.Y. 1951
5. Dallin A. German rule in Russia 1941–1945 N.Y.- London 1957
6. “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century” M. 2001
7. Polyan P. Victims of two dictatorships M. 1996.
8. Thorwald J. The Illusion. Soviet soldiers in Hitler,s Army N. Y. 1975
9. Collection of messages of the Extraordinary State Commission M. 1946
10. Zemskov. Birth of the second emigration 1944–1952 SI 1991 No. 4
11. Timasheff N. S. The postwar population of the Soviet Union 1948
13 Timasheff N. S. The postwar population of the Soviet Union 1948
14. Arntz. Human losses in the Second World War M. 1957; "International Affairs" 1961 No. 12
15. Biraben J. N. Population 1976.
16. Maksudov S. Population losses of the USSR Benson (Vt) 1989; “On the front-line losses of the SA during the Second World War” “Free Thought” 1993. No. 10
17. Population of the USSR over 70 years. Edited by Rybakovsky L. L. M 1988
18. Andreev, Darsky, Kharkov. "Population of the Soviet Union 1922–1991." M 1993
19. Sokolov B. “Novaya Gazeta” No. 22, 2005, “The Price of Victory -” M. 1991.
20. “Germany’s War against the Soviet Union 1941-1945” edited by Reinhard Rürup 1991. Berlin
21. Müller-Hillebrand. “German Land Army 1933-1945” M. 1998
22. “Germany’s War against the Soviet Union 1941-1945” edited by Reinhard Rürup 1991. Berlin
23. Gurkin V.V. About human losses on the Soviet-German front 1941–45. NiNI No. 3 1992
24. M. B. Denisenko. WWII in the demographic dimension "Eksmo" 2005
25. S. Maksudov. Population losses of the USSR during the Second World War. "Population and Society" 1995
26. Yu. Mukhin. If it weren't for the generals. "Yauza" 2006
27. V. Kozhinov. The Great Russian War. A series of lectures on the 1000th anniversary of the Russian wars. "Yauza" 2005
28. Materials from the newspaper “Duel”
29. E. Beevor “The Fall of Berlin” M. 2003
(as of 1939)
soldier
(all reasons)
soldiers
(all reasons)
Financial losses
| A country | Financial losses ($ billion) |
|---|---|
| USSR | 610 |
| USA | 137 |
| Great Britain | 150 |
| Germany | 300 |
| Italy | 100 |
| Japan | 150 |
| Other countries | 350 |
| Total | 2 600 |
Memory of the victims
To date (May 2016), it has been established that during the Great Patriotic War, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union lost about 8.9 million people, reports with reference to Alexander Kirilin, assistant deputy minister of defense, member of the council of the military historical society. “8 million 866 thousand 400 people is a figure that was obtained through many years of research into archives,” the major general said on air at RSN. “This number includes combat losses, those killed in captivity and those missing in action,” he emphasized. At the same time, he noted that “about 1.8 million people returned to their homeland from captivity.”
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Notes
Literature
- Harper's Encyclopedia military history. St. Petersburg: Polygon, 2000.
- Military History Magazine, 1990 No. 3 p.14
Links
- , Moscow, Olma-Press, 2001, ISBN 5224015154
- Arntz G. Human losses in World War II. In the book: Results of the Second World War. M.: Foreign Literature Publishing House, 1957. Pp. 593-604
- ru.fallen.io/ww2/
- www2stats.com/cas_ger_tot.html Human Losses in War World II, German Statistics and Documents
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An excerpt characterizing Losses in World War II
The eldest, Vera, was good, she was not stupid, she studied well, she was well brought up, her voice was pleasant, what she said was fair and appropriate; but, strangely, everyone, both the guest and the countess, looked back at her, as if they were surprised why she said this, and felt awkward.“They always play tricks with older children, they want to do something unusual,” said the guest.
- To be honest, ma chere! The Countess was playing tricks with Vera,” said the Count. - Well, oh well! Still, she turned out nice,” he added, winking approvingly at Vera.
The guests got up and left, promising to come for dinner.
- What a manner! They were already sitting, sitting! - said the countess, ushering the guests out.
When Natasha left the living room and ran, she only reached the flower shop. She stopped in this room, listening to the conversation in the living room and waiting for Boris to come out. She was already beginning to get impatient and, stamping her foot, was about to cry because he was not walking now, when she heard the quiet, not fast, decent steps of a young man.
Natasha quickly rushed between the flower pots and hid.
Boris stopped in the middle of the room, looked around, brushed specks from his uniform sleeve with his hand and walked up to the mirror, examining his Beautiful face. Natasha, having become quiet, looked out from her ambush, waiting for what he would do. He stood in front of the mirror for a while, smiled and went to the exit door. Natasha wanted to call out to him, but then changed her mind. “Let him search,” she told herself. Boris had just left when a flushed Sonya emerged from another door, whispering something angrily through her tears. Natasha restrained herself from her first move to run out to her and remained in her ambush, as if under an invisible cap, looking out for what was happening in the world. She experienced a special new pleasure. Sonya whispered something and looked back at the living room door. Nikolai came out of the door.
- Sonya! What happened to you? Is this possible? - Nikolai said, running up to her.
- Nothing, nothing, leave me! – Sonya began to sob.
- No, I know what.
- Well, you know, that’s great, and go to her.
- Sooo! One word! Is it possible to torture me and yourself like this because of a fantasy? - Nikolai said, taking her hand.
Sonya did not pull his hands away and stopped crying.
Natasha, without moving or breathing, looked out from her ambush with shining heads. "What will happen now"? she thought.
- Sonya! I don't need the whole world! “You alone are everything to me,” Nikolai said. - I'll prove it to you.
“I don’t like it when you talk like that.”
- Well, I won’t, I’m sorry, Sonya! “He pulled her towards him and kissed her.
“Oh, how good!” thought Natasha, and when Sonya and Nikolai left the room, she followed them and called Boris to her.
“Boris, come here,” she said with a significant and cunning look. – I need to tell you one thing. Here, here,” she said and led him into the flower shop to the place between the tubs where she was hidden. Boris, smiling, followed her.
– What is this one thing? - he asked.
She was embarrassed, looked around her and, seeing her doll abandoned on the tub, took it in her hands.
“Kiss the doll,” she said.
Boris looked into her lively face with an attentive, affectionate gaze and did not answer.
- You do not want? Well, come here,” she said and went deeper into the flowers and threw the doll. - Closer, closer! - she whispered. She caught the officer's cuffs with her hands, and solemnity and fear were visible in her reddened face.
- Do you want to kiss me? – she whispered barely audibly, looking at him from under her brows, smiling and almost crying with excitement.
Boris blushed.
- How funny you are! - he said, bending over to her, blushing even more, but doing nothing and waiting.
She suddenly jumped up on the tub so that she stood taller than him, hugged him with both arms so that her thin bare arms bent above his neck and, moving her hair back with a movement of her head, kissed him right on the lips.
She slipped between the pots to the other side of the flowers and, lowering her head, stopped.
“Natasha,” he said, “you know that I love you, but...
-Are you in love with me? – Natasha interrupted him.
- Yes, I’m in love, but please, let’s not do what we’re doing now... Four more years... Then I’ll ask for your hand.
Natasha thought.
“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen...” she said, counting with her thin fingers. - Fine! So it's over?
And a smile of joy and peace lit up her lively face.
- It's over! - said Boris.
- Forever? - said the girl. - Until death?
And, taking his arm, with a happy face, she quietly walked next to him into the sofa.
The countess was so tired of the visits that she did not order to receive anyone else, and the doorman was only ordered to invite everyone who would still come with congratulations to eat. The Countess wanted to talk privately with her childhood friend, Princess Anna Mikhailovna, whom she had not seen well since her arrival from St. Petersburg. Anna Mikhailovna, with her tear-stained and pleasant face, moved closer to the countess’s chair.
“I’ll be completely frank with you,” said Anna Mikhailovna. – There are very few of us left, old friends! This is why I value your friendship so much.
Anna Mikhailovna looked at Vera and stopped. The Countess shook hands with her friend.
“Vera,” said the countess, addressing her eldest daughter, obviously unloved. - How come you have no idea about anything? Don't you feel like you're out of place here? Go to your sisters, or...
Beautiful Vera smiled contemptuously, apparently not feeling the slightest insult.
“If you had told me long ago, mamma, I would have left immediately,” she said, and went to her room.
But, passing by the sofa, she noticed that there were two couples sitting symmetrically at two windows. She stopped and smiled contemptuously. Sonya sat close to Nikolai, who was copying out poems for her that he had written for the first time. Boris and Natasha were sitting at another window and fell silent when Vera entered. Sonya and Natasha looked at Vera with guilty and happy faces.
It was fun and touching to look at these girls in love, but the sight of them, obviously, did not arouse a pleasant feeling in Vera.
“How many times have I asked you,” she said, “not to take my things, you have your own room.”
She took the inkwell from Nikolai.
“Now, now,” he said, wetting his pen.
“You know how to do everything at the wrong time,” said Vera. “Then they ran into the living room, so everyone felt ashamed of you.”
Despite the fact that, or precisely because, what she said was completely fair, no one answered her, and all four only looked at each other. She lingered in the room with the inkwell in her hand.
- And what secrets could there be at your age between Natasha and Boris and between you - they’re all just nonsense!
- Well, what do you care, Vera? – Natasha said intercedingly in a quiet voice.
She, apparently, was even more kind and affectionate to everyone than always that day.
“Very stupid,” said Vera, “I’m ashamed of you.” What are the secrets?...
- Everyone has their own secrets. We won’t touch you and Berg,” Natasha said, getting excited.
“I think you won’t touch me,” said Vera, “because there can never be anything bad in my actions.” But I’ll tell mommy how you treat Boris.
“Natalya Ilyinishna treats me very well,” said Boris. “I can't complain,” he said.
- Leave it, Boris, you are such a diplomat (the word diplomat was in great use among children in the special meaning that they attached to this word); It’s even boring,” Natasha said in an offended, trembling voice. - Why is she pestering me? You will never understand this,” she said, turning to Vera, “because you have never loved anyone; you have no heart, you are only madame de Genlis [Madame Genlis] (this nickname, considered very offensive, was given to Vera by Nikolai), and your first pleasure is to cause trouble for others. “You flirt with Berg as much as you want,” she said quickly.
- Yes, I certainly won’t start chasing a young man in front of guests...
“Well, she achieved her goal,” Nikolai intervened, “she said unpleasant things to everyone, upset everyone.” Let's go to the nursery.
All four, like a frightened flock of birds, got up and left the room.
“They told me some troubles, but I didn’t mean anything to anyone,” said Vera.
- Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis! - Laughing voices said from behind the door.
Beautiful Vera, who had such an irritating, unpleasant effect on everyone, smiled and, apparently unaffected by what was said to her, went to the mirror and straightened her scarf and hairstyle. Looking at her beautiful face, she apparently became even colder and calmer.
The conversation continued in the living room.
- Ah! chere,” said the countess, “and in my life tout n”est pas rose. Don’t I see that du train, que nous allons, [not everything is roses. - given our way of life,] our condition will not last long for us! And all this is a club, and its kindness. We live in the village, do we relax? Theaters, hunting and God knows what. Well, how did you arrange all this? I’m often surprised at you, Annette. You, at your age, ride in a carriage alone, to Moscow, to St. Petersburg, to all the ministers, to all the nobility, you know how to get along with everyone, I’m surprised, how did this work out? I don’t know how to do any of this.
The statistics of World War II are horrific, but they will never be accurate.
The loss of life in World War II was the largest in history. The total number of deaths - military and civilian - according to various sources, ranges from 20,000,000 (Encyclopedia Americana) to more than 55,000,000 (German statistics). More than 16,000,000 people were killed by military personnel alone. Hitler destroyed about 6,000,000 Jews from all European countries in his famous concentration camps or simply disappeared. Millions of other citizens died in air raids, in great clashes between armies, from hunger, malnutrition or deprivation, or in the enormous flow of people that moved back and forth across Europe and Asia during the exodus of refugees and displaced persons.
Russia lost more people than any of the other warring countries, and millions died in China. Germany and Japan, on the Axis side, paid a heavy price for attempted conquest and short-lived glory.
Below are the losses for different countries based on statistical data taken mainly from official sources. Some of them are exaggerated for political reasons. However, it seems certain that World War II caused a total of about 40 million deaths.
Source: Belgian Embassy, Washington.
BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
a – including those who died from wounds or injuries
b – including military internees
c – now Pakistan and the Republic of India
d – including 20,147 missing but who were probably prisoners of war
______________________________________________________________________
Source – British Information Service.
BULGARIA
Between 10,000 and 20,000 died
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Military…………………..160,000
Civilians…………………215,000
Sources: World Almanac and German Statistical Office. Among the military dead there are likely many who served with the German or Russian armed forces. Civilian deaths also include those who were killed during the Nazi occupation or in war-related incidents.
Total death toll (military and Resistance) 1,400 to 6,300.
Source: Danish Embassy; German sources; World Almanac; a smaller number are soldiers in uniform. Larger number– merchant sailors and civilian resistance fighters.
FINLAND
Winter War between Finland and Russia, 1939/40
Total death toll 25,000, of which 23,157 killed in action
45,000 wounded, of which 10,000 became disabled
(Note: The number of Russian dead according to Finnish data: 200,000 killed in action. According to the Russians, 217,000 people were killed or wounded.)
Killed in action 60,605
4,534 missing
158,000 injured, of which 47,500 became disabled
Total (including Finnish war, Second world war, as well as civilians and sailors)
86,000 died
Disabled people 57,000 (A)
A. Including 7,000 who have since died from their wounds.
Source: Consulate General of Finland, New York.
A. Of this total, 250,000 people died in concentration camps or prisons outside France.
b. Only includes those receiving a government disability pension.
With. Of this number, 127,000 were wounded in France; the rest were repatriated from Germany, wounded or sick.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Sources: Cahiers Francais d'Information, January 15, 1949, from a statistical report prepared by Direction de la Generale et le Secretariat de la Commission Consultatives des Dommages et des Reparations, 1949.
GERMANY (including AUSTRIA)
Killed in action (a)
Injured………………………………………………………4 429 875
Prisoners also went missing……………………………..1 902 704
_______________________________________________________________
Total 8,333,978
A. Includes approximately 191,000 people who died from disease, accidents, suicide, death row, etc.
The estimated death toll in the last three months of the war, as well as the number of missing persons who did not return to Germany and who are believed to have died in Russian prisoner camps, brings the total number of German military deaths to 4,000,000.
Army………………………..1 622 561
Navy………………………….48 904
Air Force………………………… 138,596
Civilian casualties (deaths only)
As a result of air attacks or battles on land…………………….500,000 (b)
During mass migration or flight………………………..2,000,000 (b)
b. These are estimates and do not include Jews or other nationalities exterminated in Nazi concentration camps.
German Jews
Killed in concentration camps during the war About………………………180,000 (c)
Killed before the war About……………………………………………200,000 (c)
With. German data. According to other estimates, this number is higher.
The figures given do not include Jews from other countries.
Sources: German Embassy, Washington, and official documents Loses of the German Wehrmacht, Bonn.
Losses of the armed forces of World War II, 1940-1944
Communist guerrilla warfare, 1944-1949
Source: Information Service, Royal Greek Embassy, Washington, D.C.
TOTAL LOSSES OF THE GREEK POPULATION IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Greco-Italian War………………………………………….15,700
Greco – german war………………………………………….. 8 000
Executed by the Germans and Italians…………………………………30,000
Killed by Bulgarians………………………………………….40,000
Enemy shelling ……………………………………………..3 000
Shelling by allied forces……………………………………..4 000
Merchant sailors died……………………………3,500
Partisans………………………………………………………50 000
Died of hunger (during hunger strike)………………………200,000
Total……………………………………………………….415 300
Exported
to Bulgaria………………………………………………………..50 000
to Germany………………………………………………………..30 000
to Italy………………………………………………………..10 000
Jews to Poland……………………………………………………60,000
Source: Data taken from the book The Sacrifice of Greece in the Second World War, written by a group of experts edited by K.A. Doхiades, published by Ministry of Reconstruction, Athenes, 1946.
Total military and civilian deaths……………….420,000
Source: Hungarian Embassy and The Geography of Hungary, Morton Pecsi and Bela Sarfalvi. Budapest: Corvina Press, 1964. More than 100,000 of the dead were probably military (the World Almanac lists 140,000 “killed in action”).
Deaths…………………………………………………….309 453
military…………………………………………………….162 650
civilian………………………………………………………..146 803
Missing…………………………………….135 070
military……………………………………………………..131 833
civilian…………………………………………………………………….3 237
Wounded and injured……………………………106 054
Source: Italian Embassy, Washington.
Dead and missing in World War II
Data on Italian losses from 1940 to 1945 are given in table. us. 263.
The Italian Statistical Institute recently completed a paper providing complete data on Italian casualties in World War II. It contains casualties among the military and among the civilian population.
The statistics relate to the period between 10 June 1940 and 31 December 1945 and were compiled with the assistance of the Ministry of Defence. Total Italian casualties during the war were 444,523, including 309,453 dead (263,210 men and 46,243 women) and 135,070 missing (134,265 men and 805 women).
a. Includes civilian or Army and Navy employees.
b. Includes 170,000 Japanese who died in Manchuria and China, 165,000 in the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa), and 24,010 who did not return to their homes after the war. The rest are killed by nuclear bombing, artillery fire, and aerial bombardment of Japan.
With. According to rough estimates. Of this number, approximately 20,500 are believed to have died from their wounds after the war.
The homes of approximately 8,750,000 people were destroyed or damaged during the war.
It should be noted that this table has a very small ratio of wounded to killed, and there is also no category of prisoners of war. Japanese soldiers were instilled with the idea that dying for God - the emperor in battle - was glorious and would immediately lead the deceased to heavenly paradise. The samurai code of bushido provided for fighting to the death. Even the wounded Japanese, while conscious, tried to kill those who wanted to help them, and the drowning resisted their rescuers. It was considered a shame to be captured, and to the fear of shame was added the fear of torture. After the war there were a number of prisoners, but no attempts were made to find them. They were simply erased from the life of Japan.
Source: Press Attache of the Japanese Embassy in Washington, from the Defense Department, from data prepared by the Japan Demobilization Agency and the Economic Stabilization Administration.
NETHERLANDS
Total number of deaths……………………………………250,000
Military……………………………………………………………5 200
Merchant seafarers……………………………………..1 200
Jewish citizens……………………………………………………….104,000
Hostages………………………………………………………2 700
Citizens who died in
German camps……………………………………………..20,000
in Dutch camps………………………………………………600
Those killed in battle………………………………………………………………. 21,000
killed in German labor camps………………………..10,000
those who died in the “hungry winter”……………………………………15,000
died as a result of hardships……………………………..50,000
Missing persons……………………………………………..6 500
Prisoners
political…………………………………………………….35,000
prisoners of war……………………………………………………. 9,000
Those killed during the war in the Netherlands
East India
killed in action………………………………………..8,500
citizens killed and dead
in concentration camps………………………………………………….10,500
Source: Netherlands Information Service.
NORWAY
The average number of losses per 10,000 inhabitants was 12.8 for men and 1.2 for women.
Sources: Press attaché at the Norwegian Embassy in Washington, from official military records, reports from doctors and other Norwegian and German officials, and the register of political prisoners compiled by the Department of Social Affairs.
REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Military casualties
Killed……………………………………..1 319 958
Injured……………………………………………………….1 761 335
Missing……………………………130 126
_____________________________________________________
Total………………………………………………………3,211,419
Civilian casualties are unknown. There is only data from General Ho Ingchin, the Minister of War of that time: 10,000,000. According to sources from other countries: 6,000,000.
Sources: Chinese information service statistics, Operations Directorate, National Military Council.
Note: These casualties include those suffered by the Japanese during the attempted conquest of China before the outbreak of World War II.
Total death toll 300 to 378,000
Total number of deaths (military and civilian)…………..20,000,000 (a)
Dead military personnel
killed in battle or missing in action………………………….8,500,000
died from wounds…………………………………………………………….2,500,000
died in the camps……………………………………………2,600,000
Total……………………………………………………….13,600,000 (b)
Civilian deaths approx.………………………………… 7,000,000 (b)
a. According to Russian calculations.
b. According to German estimates. The German historian Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, however, testifying at a military tribunal in Germany, said that about 4,000,000 Russian prisoners of war died in German camps.
Sources: Novosti press agency through the press service of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, the German Embassy.
Russian casualty statistics are very inaccurate. Communist armies did not keep accurate records of burials.
Killed in battles……………………………………………………from 320,000 to 644,000 (a)
Died not in battle (b)
killed or died in concentration and other camps……………….4,863,000,
of whom about 3,200,000 were Polish Jews
died not in the camps from wounds, hunger, etc.…………………………………521,000
Total number from…………………………………….5,800,000 to more than 6,000,000 (c)
a. Obviously includes both military and civilian personnel killed in combat, under shelling, bombing, etc. The larger number represents official Polish data, the smaller number represents data from the World Almanac. According to German data, 100,000 Poles in uniform died in the fighting.
b. Just calculations. Obviously include civilian and military personnel.
c. The current Polish government uses a larger figure - 6,028,000 Polish citizens.
Calculating the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War remains one of the scientific problems unsolved by historians. Official statistics - 26.6 million dead, including 8.7 million military personnel - underestimate the losses among those who were at the front. Contrary to popular belief, the bulk of the dead were military personnel (up to 13.6 million), and not the civilian population of the Soviet Union.
There is a lot of literature on this problem, and perhaps some people get the impression that it has been sufficiently researched. Yes, indeed, there is a lot of literature, but many questions and doubts remain. There is too much here that is unclear, controversial and clearly unreliable. Even the reliability of the current official data on the human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War (about 27 million people) raises serious doubts.
History of calculation and official state recognition of losses
The official figure for the demographic losses of the Soviet Union has changed several times. In February 1946, the figure of losses of 7 million people was published in the Bolshevik magazine. In March 1946, Stalin, in an interview with the Pravda newspaper, stated that the USSR lost 7 million people during the war: “As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irretrievably lost in battles with the Germans, as well as thanks to the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet people to German hard labor about seven million people." The report “The Military Economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War” published in 1947 by the Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee Voznesensky did not indicate human losses.
In 1959, the first post-war census of the USSR population was carried out. In 1961, Khrushchev, in a letter to the Prime Minister of Sweden, reported 20 million dead: “Can we sit back and wait for a repeat of 1941, when the German militarists launched a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed the lives of two tens of millions of Soviet people?” In 1965, Brezhnev, on the 20th anniversary of the Victory, announced more than 20 million dead.
In 1988–1993 a team of military historians under the leadership of Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev conducted a statistical study of archival documents and other materials containing information about human losses in the army and navy, border and internal troops of the NKVD. The result of the work was the figure of 8,668,400 casualties of the USSR security forces during the war.
Since March 1989, on behalf of the CPSU Central Committee, a state commission has been working to study the number of human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. The commission included representatives of the State Statistics Committee, the Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Defense, the Main Archival Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Committee of War Veterans, the Union of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The commission did not count losses, but estimated the difference between the estimated population of the USSR at the end of the war and the estimated population that would have lived in the USSR if there had been no war. The commission first announced its figure of demographic losses of 26.6 million people at the ceremonial meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 8, 1990.
On May 5, 2008, the President of the Russian Federation signed a decree “On the publication of the fundamental multi-volume work “The Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.” On October 23, 2009, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation signed the order “On the Interdepartmental Commission for Calculating Losses during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.” The commission included representatives of the Ministry of Defense, FSB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rosstat, and Rosarkhiv. In December 2011, a representative of the commission announced the country’s overall demographic losses during the war period 26.6 million people, of which losses of active armed forces 8668400 people.
Military personnel
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense irrecoverable losses during the fighting on the Soviet-German front from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945, there were 8,860,400 Soviet troops. The source was data declassified in 1993 and data obtained during search work Memory Watch and in historical archives.
According to declassified data from 1993: killed, died from wounds and illnesses, non-combat losses - 6 885 100 people, including
- Killed - 5,226,800 people.
- Died from wounds - 1,102,800 people.
- Died from various causes and accidents, were shot - 555,500 people.
On May 5, 2010, the head of the Department of the Russian Ministry of Defense for perpetuating the memory of those killed in defense of the Fatherland, Major General A. Kirilin, told RIA Novosti that the figures for military losses are 8 668 400 , will be reported to the country's leadership so that they are announced on May 9, the 65th anniversary of the Victory.
According to G.F. Krivosheev, during the Great Patriotic War, a total of 3,396,400 military personnel went missing and were captured (about another 1,162,600 were attributed to unaccounted combat losses in the first months of the war, when combat units did not provide any information about these losses reports), that is, in total
- missing, captured and unaccounted for combat losses - 4,559,000;
- 1,836,000 military personnel returned from captivity, 1,783,300 did not return (died, emigrated) (that is, the total number of prisoners was 3,619,300, which is more than together with the missing);
- previously considered missing and were called up again from the liberated territories - 939,700.
So the official irrecoverable losses(6,885,100 dead, according to declassified 1993 data, and 1,783,300 who did not return from captivity) amounted to 8,668,400 military personnel. But from them we must subtract 939,700 re-callers who were considered missing. We get 7,728,700.
The error was pointed out, in particular, by Leonid Radzikhovsky. The correct calculation is as follows: the figure 1,783,300 is the number of those who did not return from captivity and those who went missing (and not just those who did not return from captivity). Then official irrecoverable losses (killed 6,885,100, according to declassified data in 1993, and those who did not return from captivity and missing 1,783,300) amounted to 8 668 400 military personnel.
According to M.V. Filimoshin, during the Great Patriotic War, 4,559,000 Soviet military personnel and 500 thousand persons liable for military service, called up for mobilization, but not included in the lists of troops, were captured and went missing. From this figure, the calculation gives the same result: if 1,836,000 returned from captivity and 939,700 were re-called from those listed as unknown, then 1,783,300 military personnel were missing and did not return from captivity. So the official irrecoverable losses (6,885,100 died, according to declassified data from 1993, and 1,783,300 went missing and did not return from captivity) are 8 668 400 military personnel.
Additional data
Civilian population
A group of researchers led by G. F. Krivosheev estimated the losses of the civilian population of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War at approximately 13.7 million people.
The final number is 13,684,692 people. consists of the following components:
- were exterminated in the occupied territory and died as a result of military operations (from bombing, shelling, etc.) - 7,420,379 people.
- died as a result of a humanitarian catastrophe (famine, infectious diseases, absence medical care etc.) – 4,100,000 people.
- died in forced labor in Germany - 2,164,313 people. (another 451,100 people, for various reasons, did not return and became emigrants).
According to S. Maksudov, about 7 million people died in the occupied territories and in besieged Leningrad (of which, 1 million in besieged Leningrad, 3 million were Jews, victims of the Holocaust), and about 7 million more people died as a result of increased mortality in non-occupied territories.
The total losses of the USSR (together with the civilian population) amounted to 40–41 million people. These estimates are confirmed by comparing data from the 1939 and 1959 censuses, since there is reason to believe that in 1939 there was a very significant undercount of male conscripts.
In general, during the Second World War, the Red Army lost 13 million 534 thousand 398 soldiers and commanders killed, missing, died from wounds, diseases and in captivity.
Finally, we note another new trend in the study of the demographic results of the Second World War. Before the collapse of the USSR, there was no need to estimate human losses for individual republics or nationalities. And only at the end of the twentieth century L. Rybakovsky tried to calculate the approximate amount of human losses of the RSFSR within its then borders. According to his estimates, it amounted to approximately 13 million people - slightly less than half of the total losses of the USSR.
| Nationalitydead military personnel | Number of losses (thousand people) | % to total irrecoverable losses |
| Russians | 5 756.0 | 66.402 |
| Ukrainians | 1 377.4 | 15.890 |
| Belarusians | 252.9 | 2.917 |
| Tatars | 187.7 | 2.165 |
| Jews | 142.5 | 1.644 |
| Kazakhs | 125.5 | 1.448 |
| Uzbeks | 117.9 | 1.360 |
| Armenians | 83.7 | 0.966 |
| Georgians | 79.5 | 0.917 |
| Mordva | 63.3 | 0.730 |
| Chuvash | 63.3 | 0.730 |
| Yakuts | 37.9 | 0.437 |
| Azerbaijanis | 58.4 | 0.673 |
| Moldovans | 53.9 | 0.621 |
| Bashkirs | 31.7 | 0.366 |
| Kyrgyz | 26.6 | 0.307 |
| Udmurts | 23.2 | 0.268 |
| Tajiks | 22.9 | 0.264 |
| Turkmens | 21.3 | 0.246 |
| Estonians | 21.2 | 0.245 |
| Mari | 20.9 | 0.241 |
| Buryats | 13.0 | 0.150 |
| Komi | 11.6 | 0.134 |
| Latvians | 11.6 | 0.134 |
| Lithuanians | 11.6 | 0.134 |
| Peoples of Dagestan | 11.1 | 0.128 |
| Ossetians | 10.7 | 0.123 |
| Poles | 10.1 | 0.117 |
| Karelians | 9.5 | 0.110 |
| Kalmyks | 4.0 | 0.046 |
| Kabardians and Balkars | 3.4 | 0.039 |
| Greeks | 2.4 | 0.028 |
| Chechens and Ingush | 2.3 | 0.026 |
| Finns | 1.6 | 0.018 |
| Bulgarians | 1.1 | 0.013 |
| Czechs and Slovaks | 0.4 | 0.005 |
| Chinese | 0.4 | 0.005 |
| Assyrians | 0,2 | 0,002 |
| Yugoslavs | 0.1 | 0.001 |
The greatest losses on the battlefields of the Second World War were suffered by Russians and Ukrainians. Many Jews were killed. But the most tragic was the fate of the Belarusian people. In the first months of the war, the entire territory of Belarus was occupied by the Germans. During the war, the Belarusian SSR lost up to 30% of its population. In the occupied territory of the BSSR, the Nazis killed 2.2 million people. (Data latest research for Belarus are as follows: the Nazis killed civilians - 1,409,225 people, killed prisoners in German death camps - 810,091 people, drove into German slavery - 377,776 people). It is also known that in percentage terms - the number of dead soldiers / the number of population, among the Soviet republics Georgia suffered great damage. Of the 700 thousand residents of Georgia called up to the front, almost 300 thousand did not return.
Losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops
To date, there are no sufficiently reliable figures for the losses of the German army obtained by direct statistical calculation. This is explained by the absence, for various reasons, of reliable initial statistical materials on German losses. The picture is more or less clear regarding the number of Wehrmacht prisoners of war on the Soviet-German front. According to Russian sources, Soviet troops captured 3,172,300 Wehrmacht soldiers, of which 2,388,443 were Germans in NKVD camps. According to German historians, there were about 3.1 million German military personnel in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps.
The discrepancy is approximately 0.7 million people. This discrepancy is explained by differences in estimates of the number of Germans who died in captivity: according to Russian archival documents, 356,700 Germans died in Soviet captivity, and according to German researchers, approximately 1.1 million people. It seems that the Russian figure of Germans killed in captivity is more reliable, and the missing 0.7 million Germans who went missing and did not return from captivity actually died not in captivity, but on the battlefield.
There is another statistics of losses - statistics of burials of Wehrmacht soldiers. According to the annex to the German law “On the Preservation of Burial Sites”, the total number of German soldiers located in recorded burial sites on the territory of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries is 3 million 226 thousand people. (on the territory of the USSR alone - 2,330,000 burials). This figure can be taken as a starting point for calculating the demographic losses of the Wehrmacht, however, it also needs to be adjusted.
- Firstly, this figure takes into account only the burials of Germans, and a large number of soldiers of other nationalities fought in the Wehrmacht: Austrians (of which 270 thousand people died), Sudeten Germans and Alsatians (230 thousand people died) and representatives of other nationalities and states (357 thousand people died). Of the total number of dead Wehrmacht soldiers of non-German nationality, the Soviet-German front accounts for 75-80%, i.e. 0.6–0.7 million people.
- Secondly, this figure dates back to the early 90s of the last century. Since then, the search for German burials in Russia, the CIS countries and Eastern European countries has continued. And the messages that appeared on this topic were not informative enough. For example, the Russian Association of War Memorials, created in 1992, reported that over the 10 years of its existence it transferred information about the burials of 400 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers to the German Association for the Care of Military Graves. However, whether these were newly discovered burials or whether they had already been taken into account in the figure of 3 million 226 thousand is unclear. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find generalized statistics of newly discovered burials of Wehrmacht soldiers. Tentatively, we can assume that the number of graves of Wehrmacht soldiers newly discovered over the past 10 years is in the range of 0.2–0.4 million people.
- Thirdly, many graves of dead Wehrmacht soldiers on Soviet soil have disappeared or were deliberately destroyed. Approximately 0.4–0.6 million Wehrmacht soldiers could have been buried in such disappeared and unmarked graves.
- Fourthly, these data do not include the burials of German soldiers killed in battles with Soviet troops on the territory of Germany and Western European countries. According to R. Overmans, in the last three spring months of the war alone, about 1 million people died. (minimum estimate 700 thousand) In general, approximately 1.2–1.5 million Wehrmacht soldiers died on German soil and in Western European countries in battles with the Red Army.
- Finally, fifthly, the number of those buried also included Wehrmacht soldiers who died a “natural” death (0.1–0.2 million people)
An approximate procedure for calculating the total human losses in Germany
- The population in 1939 was 70.2 million people.
- The population in 1946 was 65.93 million people.
- Natural mortality 2.8 million people.
- Natural increase (birth rate) 3.5 million people.
- Emigration influx of 7.25 million people.
- Total losses ((70.2 – 65.93 – 2.8) + 3.5 + 7.25 = 12.22) 12.15 million people.
conclusions
Let us remember that disputes about the number of deaths continue to this day.
During the war, almost 27 million USSR citizens died (the exact number is 26.6 million). This amount included:
- killed and died from wounds of military personnel;
- those who died from disease;
- executed by firing squad (based on various denunciations);
- missing and captured;
- representatives of the civilian population, both in the occupied territories of the USSR and in other regions of the country, in which, due to the ongoing hostilities in the state, there was an increased mortality rate from hunger and disease.
This also includes those who emigrated from the USSR during the war and did not return to their homeland after the victory. The vast majority of those killed were men (about 20 million). Modern researchers claim that by the end of the war, of the men born in 1923. (i.e. those who were 18 years old in 1941 and could be drafted into the army) about 3% remained alive. By 1945, there were twice as many women in the USSR as men (data for people aged 20 to 29 years).
In addition to the actual deaths, human losses include a sharp drop in the birth rate. Thus, according to official estimates, if the birth rate in the state had remained at least at the same level, the population of the Union by the end of 1945 should have been 35–36 million more people than it was in reality. Despite numerous studies and calculations, exact amount those killed during the war are unlikely to ever be named.
USSR and Russia at the slaughter. Human losses in the wars of the 20th century Sokolov Boris Vadimovich
Civilian losses and total German population losses in World War II
The greatest difficulty is determining the losses of the German civilian population. For example, the death toll from the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 ranges from 25,000 to 250,000 because the city hosted a significant but unspecified number of West German refugees whose numbers could not be counted. Now the most likely number of deaths in Dresden in February 1945 is considered to be 25 thousand people. According to official data, 410 thousand civilians and another 23 thousand police and civilian members of the armed forces became victims of air raids within the borders of the Reich in 1937. In addition, 160 thousand foreigners, prisoners of war and displaced persons from the occupied territories died from the bombing. Within the borders of 1942 (but without the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), the number of victims of air raids increases to 635 thousand people, and taking into account the victims of civilian Wehrmacht employees and police officers - up to 658 thousand people. The losses of the German civilian population from ground combat are estimated at 400 thousand people, the losses of the civilian population of Austria - at 17 thousand people (the latter estimate seems to be underestimated by 2-3 times). The victims of Nazi terror in Germany were 450 thousand people, including up to 160 thousand Jews, and in Austria - 100 thousand people, including 60 thousand Jews. It is more difficult to determine how many Germans became victims of hostilities on German territory, as well as how many Germans died who were deported from the Sudetenland, Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, and also from the Balkan countries in 1945-1946. In total, more than 9 million Germans were evicted, including 250 thousand each from Romania and Hungary and 300 thousand from Yugoslavia. In addition, in the zones of occupation of Germany and Austria, mainly in the Soviet Union, up to 20 thousand war criminals and Nazi functionaries were executed after the war, and another 70 thousand internees died in camps. There are other estimates of the casualties of the civilian population of Germany (without Austria and other annexed territories): about 2 million people, including 600-700 thousand women aged 20 to 55 years, 300 thousand victims of Nazi terror, including 170 thousand Jews. The most reliable estimate of the deaths among the expelled Germans seems to be 473 thousand people - this is the number of people whose deaths were confirmed by eyewitnesses. It is not possible to determine the exact number of victims of ground combat on German territory, as well as the possible number of deaths from hunger and disease (excess mortality during the war).
It is also impossible to estimate today the total irretrievable losses of Germany, as well as the losses of civilians. The estimates that sometimes appear of 2-2.5 million civilians killed during the Second World War are arbitrary, not supported by any reliable statistics or demographic balances. The latter are practically impossible to build due to significant changes in borders and population migrations after the war.
If we assume that the number of civilian casualties of combat operations on German territory was approximately equal to the number of victims of aerial bombing, i.e., about 0.66 million people, then the total losses of the civilian population of Germany within the borders of 1940 can be estimated at approximately 2.4 million people, excluding victims of excess natural mortality. Together with the armed forces, this would give a total loss of 6.3 million people, if we take the estimate of the losses of the armed forces made by B. Müller-Hillebrand. Overmans puts the number of dead German soldiers called up from Austria at 261 thousand people. Since we consider his assessment of the irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht to be overestimated by approximately 1.325 times, then in the same proportion we must reduce his assessment of the losses of the Austrians in the Wehrmacht - to 197 thousand people. The number of victims of aerial bombing in Austria was small, since this country was never the main target of Allied air operations. The population of Austria was no more than one-twelfth of the population of the Reich within the borders of 1942, and taking into account the lower intensity of bombing of Austrian territory, the losses of Austrians from the bombings can be estimated at approximately one-twentieth of the total number of victims, i.e. 33 thousand people. We estimate the number of victims of military operations on Austrian territory to be no less than 50 thousand people. Thus, the total losses of Austria can be estimated, together with the victims of Nazi terror, at 380 thousand people.
It must be emphasized that the figure for total German losses of 6.3 million people cannot be compared with the total losses of the USSR of 40.1-40.9 million people, since the figure for German losses was obtained without taking into account excess non-violent deaths of the civilian population. Only the losses of the armed forces can be compared. Their ratio turns out to be 6.73:1 in favor of Germany.
From the book Results of the Second World War. Conclusions of the vanquished author German Military SpecialistsHuman losses in the Second World War During the two world wars, humanity suffered enormous damage, exceeding all conventional concepts used in financial and economic statistics. Against the backdrop of those figures that reflect material losses of this or that people,
From the book Equipment and Weapons 2001 02 authorCOMPARATIVE TABLE OF POPULATION (IN THOUSANDS) OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES PARTICIPATED IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR (EXCEPT GERMANY AND THE SOVIET UNION)
