Real losses in World War II. How many Soviet people died in World War II

16.10.2019

The losses incurred during the Second World War are estimated differently by specialists in the field of history. In this case, different methods of initial data and methods of calculation are used. Today in Russia, the official data is recognized, which leads research group, who worked as part of a project carried out by specialists from the Military Memorial.

As of 2001, when the research data were once again clarified, it is generally accepted that during the years of the war against Nazi fascism, the Soviet Union lost 6.9 million military personnel. Almost four and a half million Soviet soldiers and officers were taken prisoner or went missing. The country's total human losses are most impressive: taking into account the dead civilians they amounted to 26 million 600 thousand people.

The losses of fascist Germany turned out to be significantly lower and amounted to a little more than 4 million military personnel. The total losses of the German side as a result of the actions are estimated at 6.6 million people; this includes the civilian population. Allied Germany lost less than a million soldiers killed. The overwhelming number of deaths on both sides of the military confrontation amounted to.

Losses of the Second World War: questions remain

Earlier, completely different official data on their own losses were adopted in Russia. Almost until the end of the existence of the USSR, there were practically no serious studies on this issue, since most of the data were closed. In the Soviet Union, after the end of the war, estimates of losses, named by I.V. Stalin, who determined this figure to be 7 million people. After coming to power N.S. Khrushchev, it turned out that the country had lost about 20 million people.

When a team of reformers led by M.S. Gorbachev, it was decided to create a research, at the disposal of which documents from the archives and other reference materials were provided. Those data on losses in the Second World War that are used were made public only in 1990.

Historians of other countries do not dispute the results of the research of their Russian colleagues. The total human losses suffered by all countries that participated in the Second World War in one way or another are practically impossible to calculate exactly. Numbers from 45 to 60 million people are called. Some historians believe that as new information is found and calculation methods are refined, the top total losses of all warring countries may be up to 70 million people.

Our planet has known many bloody battles and battles. Our whole history consisted of various internecine conflicts. But only the human and material losses in World War II made mankind think about the importance of everyone's life. Only after it did people begin to understand how easy it is to unleash a massacre and how difficult it is to stop it. This war showed all the peoples of the Earth how important peace is for everyone.

The Importance of Studying the History of the 20th Century

The younger generation sometimes does not understand how the history differs over the years that have passed since their end, it has been rewritten many times, so the youth is no longer so interested in those distant events. Often these people do not even really know who took part in those events and what losses humanity suffered in the Second World War. But the history of your country should not be forgotten. If you watch American films about World War II today, you might think that it was only thanks to the US Army that victory over Nazi Germany became possible. That is why it is so necessary to convey to our younger generation the role Soviet Union in these sad events. In fact, it was the people of the USSR who suffered the greatest losses in World War II.

Background of the bloodiest war

This armed conflict between the two world military-political coalitions, which became the biggest massacre in the history of mankind, began on September 1, 1939 (in contrast to the Great Patriotic War, which lasted from June 22, 1941 to May 8, 1945 G.). It ended only on September 2, 1945. Thus, this war lasted 6 long years. There are several reasons for this conflict. These include: a deep global crisis in the economy, the aggressive policy of some states, the negative consequences of the Versailles-Washington system in force at that time.

Participants in the international conflict

62 countries were involved in this conflict to one degree or another. And this despite the fact that at that time there were only 73 sovereign states on Earth. Fierce battles took place on three continents. Naval battles were fought in four oceans (Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Arctic). The number of opposing countries changed several times throughout the war. Some states participated in active hostilities, while others simply helped their coalition allies in any way (with equipment, equipment, food).

Anti-Hitler coalition

Initially, there were 3 states in this coalition: Poland, France, Great Britain. This is due to the fact that it was after the attack on these countries that Germany began to conduct active hostilities on the territory of these countries. In 1941, such countries as the USSR, the USA, and China were drawn into the war. Further, Australia, Norway, Canada, Nepal, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Belgium, New Zealand, Denmark, Luxembourg, Albania, the Union of South Africa, San Marino, Turkey joined the coalition. To one degree or another, such countries as Guatemala, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, Paraguay, Cuba, Ecuador, Venezuela, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Haiti, El Salvador, Bolivia. They joined and Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Liberia, Mongolia. During the war years, even those states that had ceased to be allies of Germany joined the anti-Hitler coalition. These are Iran (since 1941), Iraq and Italy (since 1943), Bulgaria and Romania (since 1944), Finland and Hungary (since 1945).

On the side of the Nazi bloc were such states as Germany, Japan, Slovakia, Croatia, Iraq and Iran (until 1941), Finland, Bulgaria, Romania (until 1944), Italy (until 1943), Hungary (until 1945), Thailand (Siam), Manchukuo. In some occupied territories, this coalition created puppet states that had virtually no influence on the world battlefield. These include: Italian Social Republic, Vichy France, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Philippines, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. On the side of the Nazi bloc, various collaborationist troops, created from among the inhabitants of the opposing countries, often fought. The largest of them were RONA, ROA, SS divisions created from foreigners (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Estonian, Norwegian-Danish, 2 Belgian, Dutch, Latvian, Bosnian, Albanian and French each). Volunteer armies of such neutral countries as Spain, Portugal and Sweden fought on the side of this bloc.

Consequences of the war

Despite the fact that for long years World War II changed the alignment on the world stage several times, the result of it was the complete victory of the anti-Hitler coalition. This was followed by the creation of the largest international organization United Nations (abbreviated as UN). The result of victory in this war was the condemnation of fascist ideology and the prohibition of Nazism during the Nuremberg trials. After the end of this world conflict, the role of France and Great Britain in world politics significantly decreased, and the USA and the USSR became real superpowers, dividing new spheres of influence among themselves. Two camps of countries with diametrically opposed socio-political systems (capitalist and socialist) were created. After the Second World War, a period of decolonization of empires began throughout the planet.

theater of war

Germany, for which the Second World War was an attempt to become the only superpower, fought in five directions at once:

Western European: Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France.
Mediterranean: Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Italy, Cyprus, Malta, Libya, Egypt, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq.
East European: USSR, Poland, Norway, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria, Yugoslavia, Barents, Baltic and Black Seas.
African: Ethiopia, Somalia, Madagascar, Kenya, Sudan, Equatorial Africa.
Pacific (in commonwealth with Japan): China, Korea, South Sakhalin, Far East, Mongolia, Kurile Islands, Aleutian Islands, Hong Kong, Indochina, Burma, Malaya, Sarawak, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, Brunei, New Guinea, Sabah, Papua, Guam, Solomon Islands, Hawaii, Philippines, Midway, Marianas and numerous other Pacific Islands.

Beginning and end of the war

They began to be calculated from the moment the German troops invaded Poland. Hitler had been preparing the ground for an attack on this state for a long time. On August 31, 1939, the German press reported on the capture by the Polish military of a radio station in Gleiwitz (although this was a provocation by saboteurs), and already at 4 am on September 1, 1939, the Schleswig-Holstein warship began shelling the fortifications in Westerplatte (Poland). Together with the troops of Slovakia, Germany began to occupy foreign territories. France and Great Britain demanded that Hitler withdraw troops from Poland, but he refused. Already on September 3, 1939, France, Australia, England, New Zealand declared war on Germany. Then they were joined by Canada, Newfoundland, the Union of South Africa, Nepal. So the bloody World War II began to quickly gain momentum. USSR, although it urgently introduced a universal military duty, until 22. 06. 1941 did not declare war on Germany.

In the spring of 1940, Hitler's troops began the occupation of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Then she went to France. In June 1940, Italy began to fight on Hitler's side. In the spring of 1941, she quickly captured Greece and Yugoslavia. On June 22, 1941, she attacked the USSR. On the side of Germany in these hostilities were Romania, Finland, Hungary, Italy. Up to 70% of all active Nazi divisions fought on all Soviet-German fronts. The defeat of the enemy in the battle for Moscow thwarted Hitler's notorious plan - "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war). Thanks to this, already in 1941, the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition began. On December 7, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States also entered this war. The army of this country for a long time fought with its enemies only in the Pacific Ocean. Great Britain and the USA promised to open the so-called second front in the summer of 1942. But, despite the fiercest battles on the territory of the Soviet Union, the partners in the anti-Hitler coalition were in no hurry to engage in hostilities in Western Europe. This is due to the fact that the United States and England were waiting for the complete weakening of the USSR. Only when it became obvious that it was rapidly beginning to liberate not only its own territory, but also the countries of Eastern Europe, the Allies hurried to open a Second Front. This happened on June 6, 1944 (2 years after the promised date). From that moment on, the Anglo-American coalition sought to be the first to liberate Europe from German troops. Despite all the efforts of the allies, Soviet army the first to occupy the Reichstag, on which she hoisted her own. But even the unconditional surrender of Germany did not stop the Second World War. For some time there were hostilities in Czechoslovakia. Also in the Pacific, hostilities almost did not stop. Just after the bombing atomic bombs cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945), carried out by the Americans, the Japanese emperor understood the futility of further resistance. As a result of this attack, about 300 thousand civilians died. This bloody international conflict ended only on September 2, 1945. It was on this day that Japan signed the act of surrender.

Victims of the global conflict

The first large-scale losses in World War II were suffered by the Polish people. The army of this country could not resist a stronger enemy in the face of the German troops. This war had an unprecedented impact on all of humanity. About 80% of all people living on Earth at that time (more than 1.7 billion people) were drawn into the war. Military operations took place on the territory of more than 40 states. For 6 years of this world conflict, about 110 million people were mobilized into the armed forces of all armies. According to the latest data, human losses are about 50 million people. At the same time, only 27 million people were killed on the fronts. The rest of the victims were civilians. Most human lives lost countries such as the USSR (27 million), Germany (13 million), Poland (6 million), Japan (2.5 million), China (5 million). The casualties of other warring countries were: Yugoslavia (1.7 million), Italy (0.5 million), Romania (0.5 million), Great Britain (0.4 million), Greece (0.4 million). ), Hungary (0.43 million), France (0.6 million), USA (0.3 million), New Zealand, Australia (40 thousand), Belgium (88 thousand), Africa (10 thousand .), Canada (40 thousand). More than 11 million people were killed in fascist concentration camps.

Losses from international conflict

It is simply amazing what losses the Second World War brought to mankind. History testifies to 4 trillion dollars that went to military spending. The warring states material costs accounted for about 70% of the national income. For several years, the industry of many countries was completely reoriented to the production of military equipment. Thus, the USA, USSR, Great Britain and Germany during the war years produced more than 600 thousand combat and transport aircraft. The weapons of World War II have become even more effective and deadly in 6 years. The most ingenious minds of the warring countries were busy only with its improvement. Many new weapons were forced to come up with the Second World War. The tanks of Germany and the Soviet Union were constantly modernized throughout the war. At the same time, more and more advanced machines were created to destroy the enemy. Their number numbered in the thousands. So, only armored vehicles, tanks, self-propelled guns more than 280 thousand were produced. More than 1 million different artillery pieces; about 5 million machine guns; 53 million submachine guns, carbines and rifles. Colossal destruction and destruction of several thousand cities and other settlements brought with it the Second World War. The history of mankind without it could go according to a completely different scenario. Because of it, all countries were thrown back in their development many years ago. Colossal funds and forces of millions of people were spent on eliminating the consequences of this international military conflict.

USSR losses

A very high price had to be paid for the fact that the Second World War ended faster. The losses of the USSR amounted to about 27 million people. (according to the last count of 1990). Unfortunately, it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to obtain accurate data, but this figure is most consistent with the truth. There are several different estimates of the losses of the USSR. So, according to the latest method, about 6.3 million are considered killed or died from their wounds; 0.5 million who died from diseases, were sentenced to death, died in accidents; 4.5 million missing and captured. The total demographic losses of the Soviet Union amount to more than 26.6 million people. In addition to the huge number of deaths in this conflict, the USSR suffered huge material losses. According to estimates, they amounted to more than 2600 billion rubles. During World War II, hundreds of cities were partially or completely destroyed. More than 70 thousand villages were wiped off the face of the earth. 32,000 large industrial enterprises. The agriculture of the European part of the USSR was almost completely destroyed. It took several years of incredible efforts and huge expenses to restore the country to the pre-war level.

Recently, parliamentary hearings “Patriotic Education of Russian Citizens: “The Immortal Regiment”” were held in the Duma. They were attended by deputies, senators, representatives of legislative and higher executive bodies state power subjects Russian Federation, Ministries of Education and Science, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Culture, members public associations, organizations of foreign compatriots ... True, there were no those who came up with the action itself - journalists from Tomsk TV-2, no one even remembered them. And, in general, there was really no need to remember. The "Immortal Regiment", which, by definition, did not provide for any staffing, no commanders and political officers, has already completely transformed into a sovereign "box" of parade crew, and its main task today is to learn to step in step and keep alignment in the ranks.

“What is a people, a nation? First of all, it is respect for victories,” Vyacheslav Nikonov, chairman of the parliamentary committee, admonished the participants when opening the hearings. “Today, when a new war is going on, which someone calls “hybrid”, our Victory becomes one of the main targets for attacks on historical memory. There are waves of falsification of history that should make us believe that it was not us, but someone else who won, and still make us apologize ... "For some reason, the Nikonovs are seriously sure that it was they, long before their own birth, who won the Great A victory for which, moreover, someone is trying to make them apologize. But they weren't attacked! And the aching note of the nationwide misfortune that has not passed, the phantom pain for the third generation of the descendants of the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War is drowned out by a cheerful, thoughtless cry: “We can repeat it!”

Really, can we?

It was at these hearings that a terrible figure was named in between times, which for some reason was not noticed by anyone, which did not make us stop in horror on the run in order to understand WHAT we were told after all. Why this was done now, I do not know.

At the hearings, the co-chairman of the Immortal Regiment of Russia movement, State Duma deputy Nikolai Zemtsov, presented a report “The Documentary Basis of the People’s Project “Establishing the Fates of the Missing Defenders of the Fatherland”, within which studies of population decline were carried out that changed the idea of the scale of losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.

“The total decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 was more than 52 million 812 thousand people,” Zemtsov said, citing declassified data from the USSR State Planning Committee. - Of these, irretrievable losses as a result of the action of war factors - more than 19 million military personnel and about 23 million civilians. The total natural mortality of military personnel and the civilian population during this period could have amounted to more than 10 million 833 thousand people (including 5 million 760 thousand - deceased children under the age of four). The irretrievable losses of the population of the USSR as a result of the action of war factors amounted to almost 42 million people.

Can we… do it again?!

Back in the 60s of the last century, the then young poet Vadim Kovda wrote a short poem in four lines: “ If only in my front door / there are three elderly disabled people / then how many of them were injured? / And killed?

Now these elderly people with disabilities due to natural causes are less and less visible. But Kovda imagined the scale of losses quite correctly, it was enough just to multiply the number of front doors.

Stalin, based on inaccessible normal person considerations, personally determined the losses of the USSR at 7 million people - a little less than the losses of Germany. Khrushchev - 20 million. Under Gorbachev, a book was published, prepared by the Ministry of Defense under the editorship of General Krivosheev, "The Classification Mark Removed", in which the authors named and in every possible way justified this very figure - 27 million. Now it turns out that she was wrong.

Boris SOKOLOV— was born in 1957 in Moscow. Graduated from the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. Doctor of Philology, Candidate of Historical Sciences. Author of more than 40 books, including Bulgakov: Encyclopedia (translated in Poland), Gogol: Encyclopedia, World War II: facts and versions, biographies of Stalin, Zhukov, Tukhachevsky, Beria, Inessa Armand and Nadezhda Krupskaya, Sergei Yesenin and others. Translations of books were also published in Latvia and Lithuania. He teaches at the Russian State Social University. Lives in Moscow.

The question of how much mankind lost in the course of the largest war in history in general, and how much exactly the countries that suffered the greatest absolute losses, remains relevant today, 60 years after the end of World War II. This difficult task has not yet been solved. Moreover, it is now clear that for all participating countries in total it cannot be solved with an accuracy exceeding plus or minus 10 million. So the figure that I will give as a result of my calculations will inevitably be conditional, but it is practically impossible to improve its accuracy either now or in the future.

I'll start with the country whose losses cannot be estimated even approximately. This is China. He waged war with Japan from 1937 until the Japanese surrender. And it is, in principle, impossible to estimate how many soldiers and civilians died at that time from hunger and epidemics. The first population census in China took place only in 1950, and mass mortality from famine and epidemics was typical for China in the pre-war years, especially since in the 1920s and 1930s. the country was engulfed in civil war. There are no demographic statistics, nor any reliable statistics on the losses of Chinese government troops and Mao Zedong's communist guerrillas in the fight against the Japanese. At the same time, the losses of Japanese troops in China in 1937-1942. were relatively small and amounted to 641 thousand people killed. In 1942, the activity of hostilities in China decreased, and Japanese losses fell by half compared to 1941. If in 1943-1945. the level of losses of Japan in China remained at the level of 1942, then the Japanese had to lose about 150 thousand more soldiers, and the total losses of the Japanese army in China in 1937-1945. could amount to about 800 thousand dead. Chinese troops, according to official figures from the government of Chiang Kai-shek, lost 1,310,000 killed and 115,000 missing. Even assuming that all the missing people died and that the Japanese also suffered losses in the fight against the communist guerrillas, albeit significantly less, it is unlikely that the Chinese lost only 1.6 times more soldiers dead than their much better armed and trained enemy. Therefore, the statement of the Chinese authorities, referring to September 1945, that 1.8 million Chinese soldiers died in the war with Japan, and about 1.8 million more were wounded or missing, seems closer to reality. Taking into account the losses of the communist guerrillas and the dead among the missing, the total irretrievable losses of the Chinese armed forces certainly exceeded 2 million people 1 * . Urlanis, in particular, estimates the number of dead Chinese soldiers at 2.5 million people 2 , but this figure may also be underestimated. As for the data on the losses of the Chinese civilian population, they are purely conditional. So, V. Erlikhman estimates them at 7.2 million people, and to 2.5 million dead military personnel he adds another 300 thousand dead in captivity, obviously, so that the total figure of losses reaches 10 million, although there is no reliable data on total number Chinese prisoners, or about how many of them died 3 . There are also lower ratings. V. Petrovich estimates China's total losses at 5 million people 4 . Obviously, here the losses of the civilian population are simply taken in the amount of the losses of the army. It is clear that in the case of China, the loss of civilians could not be less than the loss of the army, although the number of civilians killed by the Japanese army, Chinese sources are probably exaggerating. For example, regarding the massacre perpetrated by the Japanese troops during the capture of Nanjing in December 1937, the Chinese speak of hundreds of thousands of dead (they give figures of 220,000 and 300,000), while the Japanese speak of only a few thousand. Here, the truth is rather closer to the smaller numbers, since the side affected by the massacre usually likes to give impressive round numbers, although no real statistics were hot on the trail, and demographic estimates were not possible in the then Chinese conditions. But in general, Chinese losses, mainly due to the civilian population, may not even be millions, but tens of millions, but it is not possible to establish their true value due to the lack of appropriate data and methods. Conventionally, for general calculations, I take the figure of 5 million Chinese losses, realizing that they can be much higher and exceed the losses of Germany.

Very conflicting data exist about the losses of Japan. The official figures of 470,000 army and navy casualties appear to be grossly underestimated. More credible is the post-war estimate of Japan's Economic Stabilization Council at 1,555,000 dead. True, it is not entirely clear whether this includes losses in the war with China. According to the American estimate, the Japanese suffered losses of 1,219,000 dead and wounded, including 126,000 in China in the period 1942-1945, as well as 41,000 prisoners. These data correlate with Japanese data proper, according to which 53,000 Japanese died in China in 1942. If we add 588 thousand people (killed in China in 1937-1941) to the American data, then the total number of deaths will reach 1 million 807 thousand people 5 . If we add to this at least 55,000 Japanese who died in Soviet captivity, as well as an unknown number of deaths in captivity of the Western Allies, as well as the number of deaths from disease, Japanese military losses will certainly exceed 2 million B. Urlanis estimates the losses of the Japanese armed forces at 2 million people, including losses in China 6 , and V. Erlikhman - in 1940 thousand, including 120 thousand who died in captivity, and in the war with China in 1937-1941. - 588 thousand people. The figure of 2 million dead seems to me closer to reality. He estimates the losses of the civilian population of Japan at 690 thousand people. Approximately 70,000 more Japanese died in 1945 during deportation from a number of Asian countries or became victims of reprisals by the local population 7 . They can also be included in Japan's losses in the war. Then them overall size can be estimated at 2 million people, of which 760 thousand are civilian casualties. It is possible that in reality, due to the excess mortality in the war, the number of civilian casualties was higher.

The United States, Britain and France, the victorious powers, suffered relatively small losses, which after the war it was possible to calculate quite accurately. US Army losses amounted to 407.3 thousand dead 8 . There were almost no civilian casualties in the United States, since American territory there were no hostilities. They are estimated at 5,000 people - they are sailors of the merchant fleet and civilian passengers of ships sunk by German submarines 9 . The losses of the British army and navy, including representatives of the dominions and colonies who served in it, amounted to 429.5 thousand dead, of which 286.2 thousand were in England, 23.4 in Australia, 11.6 thousand in New Zealand, 39.3 thousand - to Canada, 8.7 thousand - to the Union of South Africa, 36.3 thousand - to India, 22 thousand - to Burma, 2 thousand - to Egypt 10 . Losses of the civilian population of Great Britain amounted to about 94 thousand people - victims of bombing and attacks submarines. Significant losses were suffered by the population of a number of British colonies in Asia, where the war exacerbated their usual mass starvation. In India, according to some estimates, from the famine of 1943-1945. up to 1.5 million people died, in Ceylon - 70 thousand, in Dutch Indonesia - about 2 million, in Vietnam - also up to 2 million, while in Laos and Cambodia together no more than 50 thousand people died 11 . In Burma, more than 1 million people became victims of famine and Japanese repressions, in Malaysia, including Singapore, 600,000, and in the Philippines, up to 1 million, of which only 42,000 were military and partisans. The only Japanese ally in Asia, Siam (Thailand), lost 2,000 dead soldiers, about 3,000 anti-Japanese partisans; and up to 120,000 Thais died building a strategic railroad in Burma 13 . In the Japanese colony of Korea, 10,000 people died in the ranks of the Japanese army, and another 70,000 civilians became victims of starvation and repression 14 . All these figures, as well as the figures for China, are conditional, an exact calculation is impossible here. Thus, in Asian countries, except for Japan and China, during the Second World War, about 8.5 million people died, mainly from starvation. With the addition of the losses of China and Japan, the total losses of Asian countries will increase to 21 million people, which, by the way, exceeds the total losses of all European countries, excluding the USSR, as well as the United States and British dominions. But in the losses of Asia, 75% of all losses fall on the civilian population, which has become primarily a victim of mass starvation traditional for this part of the world.

Let's see what were the losses of all European countries, except for the USSR. France lost 233,000 troops, including 47,000 who died in captivity. In addition, about 20 thousand members of the partisan movement died, whose losses are more logically attributed to the losses of military personnel. The losses of the civilian population amounted to about 442 thousand people, of which up to 30 thousand accounted for collaborators executed by court order or killed without trial 15 .

Belgian losses amounted to about 10 thousand military personnel, including 1.8 thousand in the ranks of the German army, 2.6 thousand partisans and about 65 thousand civilians 16 including 3,700 on the side of the Germans, 21,500 partisans and underground workers, and 182,000 civilians 17 . In the ranks german army 2,200 Luxembourgers died, while the loss of civilians in Luxembourg amounted to about 2,000 people 18 . Malta also lost about 2,000 civilians from the German-Italian bombardments. 19 Norway lost 2.8 thousand soldiers, including 700 people in the ranks of the German army. In addition, about 5,000 members of the Norwegian resistance movement and about 2,000 civilians were killed 20 . In Denmark, the losses amounted to 300-plus SS soldiers and 15,000 civilians 21 . The Spanish "Blue Division", which fought on the Eastern Front as the 250th division of the Wehrmacht, lost, according to some estimates, about 15 thousand people 22 . In Czechoslovakia, 4,570 people died fighting in the ranks of the Red Army, and 3,220 died in the troops of the Western Allies. In addition, approximately 5 thousand Czechs died in the Wehrmacht, and 7 thousand Slovaks died in the ranks of the allied Germany of the Slovak army. Another 4,000 Czechs and Slovaks died in Soviet captivity. The casualties among Czech and Slovak partisans and participants in the uprising in Prague reached 10 thousand people, and the loss of the civilian population - 385 thousand people 23 .

Significantly greater losses were suffered by the Balkan countries of the Anti-Hitler coalition and Poland. This was determined by two factors - the fact that in Poland, along with the occupied Soviet territories and allied Germany, Hungary and Romania, the “final solution of the Jewish question” took place, and a strong partisan movement (in Poland and in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula). The loss of Poland amounted to about 6 million people, including 2 million 920 thousand Jews killed during the Holocaust. Of this number, the losses of the Polish army in 1939 accounted for 66.3 thousand people. On the Eastern Front, on the side of the Red Army, 24.7 thousand Poles died, and on the side of the Western Allies - 3.8 thousand. In addition, approximately 120 thousand Poles died in German captivity, and 130 thousand in Soviet captivity. The number of victims of the partisan movement in Poland is estimated at 60 thousand people. The remaining 5.6 million dead are civilians. It is possible that these losses are overestimated due to the double counting of the victims of the Jews of Eastern Poland, which in 1939 was occupied by the Soviet Union. It is possible that these victims are included both in the losses of Poland and in the losses of the USSR. It is also likely that the number of civilians is overestimated - in particular, the figure of 120 thousand Warsaw civilians who died during the Warsaw Uprising, as well as the number of 40 thousand soldiers of the Home Army who fell in these battles, is doubtful 24 . More realistic is the figure of 40,000 dead Varsovians 25 . In general, casualties among the civilian population, as a rule, were declared in the first post-war years without any careful statistical calculations, and, quite possibly, the data on them contained propaganda exaggeration, so it is possible that due to the civilian population, the traditional figure of Poland's losses of 6 million people is exaggerated by 1–2 million.

The losses of Yugoslavia in the Second World War during the time of Tito were officially estimated at 1 million 706 thousand dead and died of starvation and disease. Now researchers are inclined to a much lower figure of 1 million 27 thousand people, including 20 thousand soldiers who died during the German invasion in April 1941, 16 thousand Croatian soldiers who died in battles against the Red Army on the Eastern Front and in battles with Tito's partisans and Mihailović's Chetniks; 22 thousand Yugoslav soldiers died in German captivity, 1.5 thousand Croatian soldiers died in Soviet captivity. Tito's partisans, according to German estimates, killed about 220 thousand (Tito himself spoke of 300 thousand dead). Losses among the civilian population are estimated at 770 thousand people, of which only 20 thousand people became victims of hostilities in 1941, and another 70 thousand died of starvation and disease. The number of those executed and died in camps and prisons is estimated at 650,000 people. In fact, this number also includes the victims of Croatian, Chetnik, Bosnian and Albanian collaborationist formations who fought against Tito's partisans. The number of victims of the terror unleashed by Tito's partisans in 1944-1945, mainly in May-June 1945, is estimated at 335 thousand people, which increases the total number of victims of the war in Yugoslavia to 1 million 362 thousand people 26 .

In Greece, the army during the fighting against Italy and Germany lost 20 thousand dead, and another 10 thousand died in captivity. The losses of the partisans amounted to 30 thousand, another 6 thousand died during civil war 1944–1945 between the communists and the royalists, who were supported by the British troops. The loss of civilians in Greece today is estimated at 375,000 people, of which 210,000 died of starvation and disease 27 . Finally, Albania lost about 20 thousand partisans in the fight against the Italian and German troops, and another 35 thousand civilians became victims of punishers and hunger. In addition, during the civil war of 1944-1945. about 1,000 people died and several thousand more were executed 28 .

Germany's European allies also suffered heavy losses. Italy lost 304,000 soldiers killed and died from wounds and captured. Of the 74,000 who died in captivity, 28,000 died in Soviet camps, 40,000 in German camps, and 6,000 in Anglo-American ones. The losses of the Italian partisans are estimated at 71 thousand people. Also, about 105 thousand civilians became victims of the war, and approximately 50 thousand collaborators were destroyed by the victors in 1944–1945. 29

The losses of the Hungarian army in the war amounted to 195 thousand dead and died in captivity, the loss of the civilian population - up to 330 thousand people, including 170 thousand Jews 30 . The losses of the Romanian armed forces reached 550 thousand people, including 170 thousand who died in battles against German troops, 55 thousand died in Soviet captivity, and 15 thousand in German captivity. Losses of the civilian population reached 580 thousand people, of which 450 thousand were Jews 31 . The Finnish army lost 67.4 thousand people, of which 403 people died in Soviet captivity, and about 1 thousand died in battles with the Germans in 1944–1945. The losses of the civilian population of Finland are estimated at 1 to 3.5 thousand people, mainly from the bombing of Soviet aircraft 32 .

Much more were the losses of Germany itself. The irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht up to November 1944 are quite fully taken into account according to personal (personal) records. In the period from September 1, 1939 to December 31, 1944, the ground forces lost 1 million 750.3 thousand people killed on the battlefield, as well as those who died from wounds, illnesses, accidents and other reasons, and missing - 1 million 609.7 thousand people. The fleet during the same period lost 60 thousand people dead and 100.3 thousand people missing, and the air force - 155 thousand dead and 148.5 thousand missing. Losses for the period from January 1 to April 30, 1945 were estimated by the central accounting authorities for ground forces 250,000 dead and 1 million missing, and for the Navy - 5,000 dead and 5,000 missing, and for the Air Force - 10,000 dead and 7,000 missing. According to the nature of the calculations, all those missing in the ground forces in the period from January 1 to April 30, 1945 can be classified as prisoners. Also, most of the missing during this period in the Navy and Air Force can be considered prisoners. Taking into account the data on the number of prisoners on different fronts, the number of deaths in the German ground forces from the beginning of the war until the end of 1944, I estimate at 2 million 496 thousand people. The total number of deaths in the German armed forces, including the Luftwaffe and the Navy, can be estimated at 4 million people, of which about 0.8 million died in captivity, including 0.45–0.5 million in the USSR and 0.3 -0.35 million - in the West (about 11 million prisoners in total, including 8 million in the West) 34 . Of this number, according to my estimate, about 2.6 million German servicemen died in the East, of which about 100,000 were killed by the Luftwaffe and the Navy. Thus, it should be emphasized that the irretrievable losses of the Red Army exceed the irretrievable losses of the German armed forces by about 10.3 times. If we take into account the losses of the German allies on the Eastern Front, then the ratio will decrease to 8: 1.

There are also higher estimates of Wehrmacht losses, but they seem to me too high. The German military historian R. Overmanns estimates the losses of the German armed forces in World War II at 5.3 million dead, including those who died in captivity 36 . This is about 1.3 million more than according to previously existing estimates made, in particular, by B. Müller-Gillebrand, the general who was in charge of accounting during the war personnel. However, Overmanns' data are highly questionable. First, according to his calculations, it turns out that in the last 10 months of the war, almost as many German soldiers died as in the previous four and a half years. Only in the last three months of the war, according to a German researcher, about a million German soldiers died, taking into account those who died in captivity. However, it is known that in the last year of the war, the main losses of the Wehrmacht were captured, and not killed or wounded, and the size of the German army was steadily declining, so that there was simply no room for millions of dead. And the number of those who died in captivity, especially in the West, where the vast majority were released within two years, could not be so great. Most likely, Overmanns was summed up by the method of counting. He used the Wehrmacht military card index, which was kept in West Germany until the unification of the two German states in 1990. Since almost all German servicemen were captured after the surrender, only those servicemen who turned to the archive after the war (or their relatives who confirmed their return from captivity) were recorded as survivors. And far from always, archive employees could establish with certainty the death of a soldier in captivity, especially in relation to citizens of the GDR and Austria: a significant part of these people did not have a real opportunity to apply to the West German military archive, which means that the fact of their return from captivity could not be reflected in the file cabinet . Most of the foreigners who served in the German army and the SS and successfully survived captivity were apparently deprived of such an opportunity. Probably, due to these categories of those who returned from captivity, more than a million imaginary dead were formed.

An even greater difficulty is the determination of the losses of the civilian German population. For example, the death toll from the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 ranges from 25,000 to 250,000, 37 because the city hosted a significant but undetermined number of refugees from West Germany whose number was impossible to count. According to official figures, 410,000 civilians and another 23,000 police and civilian employees 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 bombings. 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 employees of the Wehrmacht and policemen - up to 658 thousand people 38 . The losses of the German civilian population from ground combat operations are estimated at 400 thousand people, the loss of the civilian population of Austria - at 17 thousand people. 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; and another 250,000 excess deaths from starvation and disease 39 . It is more difficult to determine how many Germans died, 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 from Romania and Hungary and 300 thousand from Yugoslavia. The death toll among them is estimated at 350 thousand people. In addition, up to 20,000 war criminals and Nazi functionaries were executed in the German occupation zones, mainly in the Soviet zone, after the war, and another 70,000 internees died in camps 40 . In Austria, 1,100 people were executed by the Allies and died in internment camps 41 . There are other estimates of the victims of the German civilian population: about 2 million victims, including 600-700 thousand women aged 20 to 55 years 42, 300 thousand victims of Nazi terror, including 170 thousand Jews 43 . The most reliable estimate of the dead among the expelled Germans is 473 thousand people - this is the number of people whose death is confirmed by eyewitnesses 44 . It must be emphasized that in the post-war years the borders changed and there were significant population movements, so it is not possible in practice to check the losses of Germany by comparing the pre-war and post-war population.

The total losses of Germany and Austria in World War II can be estimated at 6.3 million people, if we take higher estimates. It is possible that this figure may turn out to be 1-1.5 million more if we accept a higher estimate of the losses of the German army at 4.77 million people (including the Austrians who served in the Wehrmacht) 45 , as well as higher losses of the civilian population during ground fighting and casualties among the exiles. The losses of all European countries, except the USSR, in World War II can be estimated at 18.1 million dead, including here also the losses of the United States and the British dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa. It turns out that the losses of all European countries and countries close to them in culture and civilization on other continents, but with the exception of the losses of the Soviet Union, almost do not differ from the losses of Asian countries. Only in Asia, only 25% of the casualties were accounted for by the losses of the armed forces, and in Europe, more than 7 million dead military personnel accounted for 39% of all casualties.

But the Soviet Union suffered the biggest losses in the war. Since they are an order of magnitude higher than the losses of any other participating country, and also due to extremely poor accounting, determining the true losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War is a particularly difficult task. It must be solved by several alternative methods of calculation, because the losses documented and accounted for during the war are much less than half of their true number.

According to official data, released only in 1993, Soviet military losses in 1941-1945. amounted to 8,668,400 military personnel (including border and internal troops) who died on the battlefield or died from wounds, illnesses, accidents and in captivity, as well as those executed by tribunals and remaining in the West after being released from captivity. Of this number, in the war against Japan, only 12,031 people died and went missing (together with those who died from wounds and accidents, as well as due to illness).

However, the fact that the data of the book "Secrecy Removed" many times underestimate the true size of Soviet military losses is proved by the following example, taken from itself. On July 5, 1943, by the beginning of the Battle of Kursk, the troops of the Central Front numbered 738 thousand people, and during the defensive phase of the battle from July 5 to July 11, they suffered losses (sanitary and irretrievable) of 33,897 people. During the week of defensive battles, the composition of the Central Front practically did not change: one separate tank brigade was added and two rifle brigades were lost, which in the end could reduce the number of front troops by no more than 5-7 thousand people 47 . According to all the laws of mathematics, by July 12, the beginning of the offensive, the troops of the front should have included 704 thousand people, however, the authors of the book “Secrecy Removed” testify that on July 12, the Central Front numbered only 645,300 people. It turns out that at least 55 thousand Red Army soldiers in a week became unspotted deserters in the treeless Kursk steppes. Characteristically, this case is the only one in which the information in the book "The Classification Removed" is verifiable, and the error turns out to be so large that it completely undermines the credibility of the official loss figure.

In the Red Army, accounting for losses was done very badly. After the Finnish war, privates and sergeants were deprived of their identity cards - Red Army books. True, the order of the People's Commissar of Defense on the introduction of the "Regulations on the personal accounting of losses and burial of personnel of the Red Army in wartime" appeared on March 15, 1941. This order introduced medallions for military personnel with basic information about the owner. But, for example, this order was brought to the troops of the Southern Front only in December 1941. Even at the beginning of 1942, many servicemen at the front did not have medallions, and by order of the People's Commissar of Defense of November 17, 1942, medallions were canceled altogether, which is even more confused the accounting of losses, although such a cancellation was dictated solely by the desire not to oppress the military with thoughts about possible death(many generally refused to take the medallions). Red Army books were introduced on October 7, 1941, but even at the beginning of 1942, the Red Army soldiers were not fully provided with them. The order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of April 12, 1942, stated: “The accounting of personnel, especially the accounting of losses, is completely unsatisfactory in the army ... The headquarters of the formations do not send in a timely manner to the center the personal lists of the dead. As a result of untimely and incomplete submission by military units of lists of losses (as in the document. - B.S.) there was a large discrepancy between the data of numerical and personal accounting of losses. At present, no more than one third of the actual number of those killed is on a personal record. The personal records of the missing and captured are even more far from the truth.” And in the future, the situation, taking into account the personnel and losses, did not undergo significant changes. The order of the People's Commissar of Defense of March 7, 1945, two months before the end of the war with Germany, stated that "the military councils of the fronts, armies and military districts do not pay due attention" to this issue 48 .

Therefore, other methods of calculation are needed. As a basis for the calculation, I take the data published by D. Volkogonov on the irretrievable losses of the Red Army by months of 1942. 49 In addition, there is a monthly breakdown of the losses of the Red Army wounded (hit in battle) for the period from July 1941 to April 1945, expressed as a percentage from the average monthly level for the war 50 . I note that, contrary to popular belief, the monthly dynamics of casualties by the wounded indicates that in the last year or two of the war, the losses of the Red Army did not decrease at all. Wounded losses peaked in July and August 1943, amounting to 143% and 172% of the monthly average. The next largest maximum falls on July and August 1944, reaching 132% and 140%, respectively. Losses in March and April 1945 were only slightly less, amounting to 122% and 118%. This figure was higher only in August 1942, in October 1943, and in January and September 1944 (130% each), and also in September 1943 (137%).

One can try to estimate the total number of dead, assuming the number of those killed in battle is approximately directly proportional to the number of wounded. It remains to be determined when the record of irretrievable losses was most complete and when almost all irretrievable losses fell on the dead, and not on the prisoners. For a number of reasons, November was chosen as such a month, when the Red Army suffered almost no losses in prisoners, and the front line was stable until the 19th. Then, for 413 thousand killed and dead, there will be an indicator of 83% of those killed in battles, i.e., for 1% of the average monthly number of those killed in battles, there are approximately 5.0 thousand killed and died from wounds and diseases. If we take January, February, March or April as the baseline, then there the ratio, after excluding the approximate number of prisoners, will be even greater - from 5.1 to 5.5 thousand dead per 1% of the average monthly number of those killed in battles. Then the total number of those who died in battles, as well as those who died from wounds, can be estimated by multiplying 5 thousand people by 4656 (the sum, as a percentage of the monthly average, losses by the wounded during the war, taking into account the losses of June 41st and May 45th) to 23 .28 million people. From this it is necessary to subtract 940,000 who returned to their encirclement from among the missing 51 . 22.34 million people will remain. I assume that in the data cited by D. Volkogonov, non-combat losses are not classified as irretrievable, i.e. soldiers who died from diseases, accidents, suicides, were shot by tribunals and died for other reasons (except those who died in captivity). According to the latest estimate of the authors of the book The Classification Removed, the non-combat losses of the Red Army amounted to 555,500 men 52 . Then the total irretrievable losses of the Soviet armed forces (without those who died in captivity) can be estimated at 22.9 million people. If non-combat losses are included in Volkogonov's figures, then the irretrievable losses of the Red Army can be estimated at 22.34 million dead.

To obtain a final figure for military casualties, it is also necessary to estimate the number of Soviet prisoners of war who died in captivity. According to the final German documents, 5 million 754 thousand prisoners of war were taken on the Eastern Front, including 3 million 355 thousand in 1941, while the authors of the document presented to the Western allies in May 45, stipulated that for 1944 - 1945 the account of prisoners is incomplete. At the same time, the number of those who died in captivity was estimated at 3.3 million people 53 . However, I am inclined to join the higher estimate of the total number of Soviet prisoners of war in 1941 at 3.9 million people contained in German documents from early 1942. 54 Undoubtedly, this number also included approximately 200 thousand prisoners from the occupied in 1941. Taking this into account, as well as the prisoners taken by the allies of Germany (for example, Finland captured 68 thousand prisoners, of which 19,276 died - about 30%) 55, I estimate the total number of Soviet prisoners of war at 6.3 million human. 1 million 836 thousand people returned to their homeland from German (as well as Finnish and Romanian) captivity, and approximately 250 thousand more, according to the USSR Foreign Ministry in 1956, remained in the West after the war 56 . The total number of those who died in captivity, adding here 19.7 thousand Red Army soldiers who died in Finnish captivity (out of 64.2 thousand of all captured) 57, I estimate at about 4 million people, taking into account those encirclement who managed to hide their captivity. This is 63.5% of the total number of prisoners. Then the total losses of the Soviet armed forces can be estimated at 26.3 - 26.9 million people.

I estimate the total losses - both the military and the civilian population of the USSR - at 43.3 million people, based on the estimate of the Central Statistical Bureau made in the early 50s, the population of the USSR at the end of 1945 at 167 million people, and from the estimate CSO, made in June 41st, the population of the USSR at the beginning of 1941 was 198.7 million people. Taking into account the recalculation that has been done for two regions, this last number should be increased by 4.6%. Consequently, the size of the Soviet population at the beginning of the war can be considered 209.3 million people 58 . Then the loss of the civilian population can be estimated at 16.4–16.9 million people.

It is possible to verify the figure we obtained above of 26.9 million dead Red Army soldiers by two alternative methods of calculation. The first one is as follows. By May 1994, the computer data bank of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonnaya Gora contained personal data on 19 million servicemen who died or went missing during the war and have not yet been found. Not all the dead were included here, as evidenced by the failures of dozens of citizens who turned to the museum with inquiries about the fate of their missing relatives and friends. It is practically impossible to establish by name all the dead half a century after the end of the war. Of the approximately 5,000 dead Soviet servicemen whose remains were found in 1994-1995. and whose identity could be established, about 30% were not listed in the archives of the Ministry of Defense and therefore did not get into the computer data bank 59 . Assuming that the 19 million people who got into this bank account for approximately 70% of all dead and missing, their total number should reach 27.1 million people. From here it is necessary to subtract about 2 million surviving prisoners and about 900 thousand who returned to their encirclement. Then the total number of dead soldiers and officers can be calculated at 24.2 million. However, this calculation was made on the basis of those 5 thousand dead who could be identified from the documents they had preserved. Consequently, these military personnel are more likely to be on the lists of the Ministry of Defense than the average killed, so, most likely, 19 million actually cover not 70%, but a smaller percentage of all the dead. Because of this circumstance, we consider the figure of 26.9 million dead in the ranks of the Soviet armed forces, obtained as a result of our previous calculations, to be closer to the truth.

It should also be borne in mind that there is no chance of any accurate calculation of the total number of persons who served in the Red Army during the war years, since in 1941-1944. a significant number of people were mobilized directly into the units and there was no centralized record of such conscripts, as well as hundreds of thousands and even millions of militias who died even before being enlisted in regular units. For example, the Southern Front alone, and in September 1943 alone, called up 115,000 people directly to the units, most of whom had not previously served in the Red Army. It is clear that for the entire period of the war the total number of those called up directly to the unit is estimated at many millions.

There is another option for calculating Soviet military losses - according to the ratio of losses of officers of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht. After all, officers were considered more accurate, and in the USSR, accounting for their irretrievable losses took many years after the war and ended only in 1963. lead. The Red Army during the same period (without the Navy and Air Force and with the exception of the political, administrative and legal composition of the ground forces, represented in Germany not by officers, but by officials) lost about 784 thousand officers only who died and did not return from captivity. This gives a ratio of about 12:161. In the German army in the East, the share of irretrievable losses of officers by the end of 1944 amounted to about 2.7%, 62 that is, it practically coincided with the share of officers in the irretrievable losses of the Soviet ground forces. For example, for the period of December 17–19, 1941, in the 323rd Rifle Division, the loss of commanding staff among the dead and missing amounted to 3.36% 63 . For the 5th Guards Army in the period of July 9-17, 1943, the ratio of losses of privates and officers was 15.88: 1, and with the exception of political and other "bureaucratic" compositions - 18.38: 1 64 . For the 5th Guards Tank Army, the corresponding ratios in the period from July 12 to 18, 1943 will be 9.64: 1 and 11.22: 1 65 . For the 48th Rifle Corps of the 69th Army in the period from July 1 to July 16, 1943, these ratios will be 17.17: 1 and 19.88: 1 66 . It should be borne in mind that the main losses in manpower during the war were incurred precisely by combined arms, and not tank armies(in the latter, the proportion of officers was much higher). Therefore, the overall ratio of irretrievable losses of officers and ordinary Red Army soldiers as a whole will be much closer to what I have established for combined arms armies than for tank armies. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the used Soviet reports contain an underestimation of irretrievable losses, and to a greater extent at the expense of privates, and not officers. Moreover, this underestimation was very significant. Thus, according to reports, the 183rd Rifle Division of the 48th Rifle Corps lost 398 killed and 908 wounded during the specified period (the missing were not taken into account), and for those killed, the ratio of soldiers and officers was 25.5: 1. However, the number of personnel the composition of the division, even without taking into account possible replenishment, decreased from the beginning of the fighting until July 15 from 7981 people to 2652, i.e. real losses amounted not to 1300, but to 5329 soldiers and officers 67 . Obviously, the difference of 4029 people was formed mainly due to the unaccounted for missing persons, among whom, for sure, soldiers sharply prevailed over officers.

For comparison, you can take other divisions of the 48th corps, for which there is data on the missing. In the 93rd Guards Rifle Division, the ratio of soldiers and officers among those killed was 18.08: 1, and among the missing - 12.74: 1, in the 81st Guards, respectively - 12.96: 1 and 16.81 : 1, in the 89th Guards - 7.15: 1 and 32.37: 1, in the 375th Rifle - 67.33: 1 and 31: 1. In the latter case, such large numbers obviously turned out due to the small value irretrievable losses - 3 officers and 233 privates, which increases the risk of statistical error. I also note that in the 375th division there was a huge underestimation of losses. During the fighting, its numbers decreased from 8647 to 3526 people, which gives real losses not in 236, but in 5121 people. In cases where the percentage of officers among the missing is greater than among those killed, this should indicate that there was a huge undercount of the missing soldiers, since the fate of officers is usually determined more precisely. Therefore, in the case of divisions where there were more officers among the missing than among those killed, we will take the same ratio for the missing as was established for the dead, and exclude the 375th division from the calculation. By the way, I note that in the above report of the 323rd Infantry Division for December 1941, obviously, the missing persons were counted quite completely. For the 183rd Infantry Division, we will conditionally determine the number of missing people at 4,000. In this case, calculations for the 48th corps without one division will give the ratio of soldiers and officers in irretrievable losses equal to 21.02: 1. With the exception of the political staff, the legal and administrative ratio will be equal to 24.16. Interestingly, this is almost equal to the ratio that is obtained for the German association - the III motorized (tank) corps of General Eberhard Mackensen, but over a longer period of time. This corps operated on the Eastern Front from June 22, 1941 to November 13, 1942, and during this time lost 14,404 people dead and missing, including 564 officers, which gives a ratio of 24.54 soldiers and non-commissioned officers -officers- per officer 68 . I note that in the German motorized corps the share tank units and there were significantly fewer units than in the Soviet tank army, therefore, in terms of the ratio of losses of soldiers and officers, it was closer to army corps than the Soviet tank armies were to combined arms armies. By the way, the ratio of soldiers and officers in the German corps is lower than in the Eastern Army as a whole. The difference probably arose due to the fact that the proportion of tank units was still higher in the corps, where the proportion of officers was higher than in the infantry, and also that the wounded and sick who died in hospitals were not taken into account in the corps reports, among which the proportion of officers was lower than among those killed and missing. In addition, in the corps reports, there was probably some underestimation of irretrievable losses, and primarily at the expense of the soldiers.

If we accept the final ratio between soldiers and officers in irretrievable losses, established by me for the 48th Rifle Corps in the period Battle of Kursk, close to the average ratio between soldiers and officers in the irretrievable losses of the ground forces of the Red Army throughout the war and extend it to the losses of the officer corps up to late November 1944 (that is, for 784 thousand officers who died and did not return from captivity), then the total losses of the ground forces of the Red Army who died in the period from June 41st to November 44th can be estimated at 18,941 thousand . human. If we add losses ground forces over the last six months of the war - probably at least 2 million, and add to this the loss of the fleet and aviation - at least 200 thousand people, then we get about 21 million dead, which is within the accuracy of our estimates made by other methods. Taking into account the fact that in our assessment we were dealing with deliberately underestimated reports of losses, and underestimated mainly due to the soldiers, then the true value of the losses, in all likelihood, should be greater than that obtained from the assessment made by the method of comparing officer losses.

Therefore, closest to the truth in this moment I accept the figure of 26.3-26.9 million dead soldiers and officers of the Red Army. At the same time, it is necessary to be aware that the accuracy of this figure is not high, within plus or minus five million, therefore tenths of a million in figures are quite arbitrary and reflect only methods of calculation. However, there is simply no chance to get a figure of greater accuracy, as well as to ever bury all the dead Red Army soldiers. At the same time, the losses of the Red Army as a whole are calculated more accurately than the losses of the civilian population and, accordingly, than the total irretrievable losses of the Soviet population. So if in the future the total losses of the USSR as a result of certain assessments are reduced, then this will happen mainly due to civilian losses.

The total number of those mobilized, if my estimate is correct, also significantly exceeds the official figures for the total number of those called up for military service citizens of the USSR - 34 million 476.7 thousand people (including the peacetime army), of which 3 million 614.6 thousand people were transferred to work in national economy and military formations of other departments. At the same time, by July 1, 1945, 11 million 390.6 thousand people remained in the Armed Forces of the USSR, and, in addition, 1,046 thousand were treated in hospitals 69 . If we proceed from the death toll of 26.9 million people, then, taking into account the disabled and those demobilized for work in industry, the net conscription to the Red Army can be estimated at 42.9 million people. In Germany, including the peacetime army, the total draft was 17.9 million. Of these, approximately 2 million were called back, primarily to work in industry, so that the net conscription was about 15.9 million, or 19.7% of the Reich's total population of 80.6 million in 1939. In the USSR, the share of net conscription could reach 20.5% of the population in the middle of 1941, estimated at 209.3 million people. Official data on the number of those mobilized into the Red Army were significantly underestimated due to those called up directly to the units.

In general, the total value of Soviet losses turns out to be greater than the total losses of all other states participating in the war. The latter in total lost about 38.95 million people, and together with Soviet losses the losses of all countries in World War II reach 82.4 million people, of which the USSR accounts for 52.6%. Interestingly, the losses of the Soviet civilian population are only slightly, 1.06 higher than the losses of the civilian population of Asia, but 1.5 higher than the losses of the civilian population of all European countries combined. As for the irretrievable losses of the Red Army, they significantly exceed the total losses of both the European (7.2 million) and Asian (5.3 million) armies, surpassing them combined by 2.13 times.

Almost all of these figures clearly demonstrate that Russia remained an Asian country, both in the sense that during the war the authorities did not have the opportunity, and special desire take care of the survival of the civilian population, and in the fact that a victory could only be won by incurring losses, an order of magnitude passing losses of the enemy. It is curious that in the Sino-Japanese war, in which the Chinese mainly adhered to the tactics of a small, guerrilla war, the ratio of losses was in favor of Japan by no more than 2.5 times. Probably, if the Red Army in the war with Germany would have adhered to a predominantly defensive mode of action and paid more attention to guerrilla warfare, the ratio of losses would have been much more favorable for the Soviet side.

Notes

1 See: Urlanis B. Wars and population of Europe \\ M.: Sotsekgiz, 1960, p. 236-239.

2 Urlanis B. Population. Research, journalism \\ M.: Statistics, 1976, p. 203.

3 Erlichman W. Population loss in the 20th century. Handbook \\ M .: Russian panorama, 2004, p. 70.

4 Petrovich V. Domestic history XX — beginning of XXI in. A course of lectures for distance learning based on the textbook of the group of authors under the guidance of Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.O. Chubaryan \\ http://his.1september.ru/articlef.php?ID=200500109

5 Urlanis B. Wars and the population of Europe, c. 237-239.

6 Urlanis B. Population, c. 203.

7 Erlichman W. Population loss.., c. 81.

8 The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1997\\ Mahwah (NJ): World Almanac Books, 1996, p. 184.

9 Erlikhman V. Population loss.., c. 107-108.

10 Urlanis B. Wars and the population of Europe, c. 229; Erlikhman V. Population loss.., c. 133, 75.

11 Erlikhman V. Population loss.., c. 62, 80, 63, 59, 68, 72.

12 Ibid., p. 74, 79.

13 Ibid., p. 77-78.

14 Ibid., p. 71.

15 Ibid., p. 53.

16 Ibid., p. 38.

17 Ibid., p. 48.

18 Ibid., p. 47.

19 Ibid., p. 48.

20 Ibid., p. 48-49.

21 Ibid., p. 44.

22 Ibid., p. 46.

23 Ibid., p. 54.

24 Ibid., p. 49.

25 Durachinsky E. Warsaw Uprising // Another war 1939 - 1945 \\ M .: RGGU, 1996.

26 Erlichman W. Population loss, c. 55-56.

27 Ibid., p. 43-44.

28 Ibid., p. 37-38.

29 Ibid., p. 46-47.

30 Ibid., p. 41. The 40,000 supposedly killed in unarmed "labor battalions" are excluded from the military losses, because this figure seems to be significantly overestimated.

31 Ibid., p. 51.

32 Ibid., p. 52.

33 Müller-Hillebrand B. Land Army of Germany 1933-1945. Per. with him. T. 3. \\ M., 1976, p. 338.

34 There is also a lower estimate of the number of German prisoners who died in captivity with the Western Allies - 150 thousand people. Cm.: Erlichman W. Population loss.., c. 42-43.

35 Score on: Müller-Hillebrand B. Decree. op. T. 3. S. 323-344. For details see: Sokolov B. The Cost of War: Human Losses for the USSR and Germany, 1939 - 1945; Sokolov B. Secrets of World War II \\ M.: Veche, 2001, p. 247-250.

36 See: Overmann R. Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. // Beiträge zur Militärgeschichte. Bd.46. Schrifenreihe des Militärischen Forschungsamtes. - Wien - München. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1999; and a review of this book: Polyan P. Killer blitzkrieg // general newspaper, 2001, June 22; and the publication of a fragment of this book in Russian: Overmans. Human casualties of World War II in Germany // World War II. Discussions. Main trends. Research results \\ M.: All world, 1996. New studies of German historians.

37 Results of World War II\\ M.: Izdatinlit, 1957, p. 228.

38 Baker K. Military diaries of the Luftwaffe \\ M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2004, p. 538.

39 Erlichman W. Population loss.., cs. 36-27, 42-43.

40 Ibid., p. 42-43.

41 Ibid., p. 37.

42 Urlanis B. Wars and the population of Europe, c. 205.

43 Results of World War II\\ M.: Izdatinlit, 1957, p. 598.

44 Overmans R. Human sacrifices.., c. 692.

45 Urlanis B. Population, c. 203.

46 The seal of secrecy has been removed: Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, combat operations and military conflicts. Ed. G. Krivosheeva \\ M .: Military Publishing, 1993. S. 129, 132. In the second edition of this book, the numbers remained the same (Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. M .: Olma-Press, 2001. S. 236).

47 Confidentiality removed, c. 188-189.

48 Questions of History, 1990. No. 6, p. 185-187; "Military History Journal", 1990. No. 6, p. 185-187; Military Historical Journal, 1990, No. 4, p. 4-5; "Military History Journal", 1992. No. 9, p. 28-31.

49 Volkogonov D. We won despite the inhuman system // Izvestia. 1993, May 8, p. 5.

50 Smirnov E. War and military medicine. 2nd ed. \\ M.: Medicine, 1979, p. 188.

51 The seal of secrecy has been removed, c. 129.

52 Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century, c. 237.

53 Dallin A. German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 \\ L.-N. Y., 1957, p. 427.

54 Questions of History, 1989. No. 3, p. 37; Nuremberg Trials: in 7 vols. T. 3 \\ M., 1960, p. 29-30.

55 Oz A. Through the forests and camps of Suomi (in Finnish captivity) \\ "New Journal", New York, 1952, No. 30.

56 Gareev M. About old and new myths \\ Military History Journal, 1991, No. 4, p. 47.

57 See: Pietola E. Prisoners of war in Finland 1941 - 1944 \\ "Sever", Petrozavodsk, 1990, No. 12.

58 Kozhurin V. On the population of the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War \\ Military Historical Journal, 1991, No. 2, p. 23-26. For more details on the methodology for calculating the losses of both the army and the civilian population, see: Sokolov B. The Cost of War: Human Losses for the USSR and Germany, 1939 - 1945 \\ The Journal of Slavic Military Studies (JSMS), vol. 9, No. 1, March 1996; Sokolov B. Secrets of World War II \\ M.: Veche, 2001, p. 219-272.

59 Reported by S. D. Mityagin.

60 RGASPI, f. 83, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 75-77.

61 Counting by: Müller-Hillebrand Burkhart. Ground Army of Germany. 1933 - 1945. T. 3. \\ M .: Military Publishing House, 1976, p. 354-409; Shabaev A. Losses of officers of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War \\ Military Historical Archive. Issue. 3. M., 1998, p. 173-189; Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century\\ M.: Olma-Press, 2001, p. 430-436.

62 Müller-Hillebrand B. Decree. op. T. 3, p. 342-343.

63 The Hidden Truth of War: 1941/ Ed. Pavel N. Knyshevsky \\ M .: Russian book, 1992, p. 222.

64 TsAMO RF, f 5 gv A, op. 4855, d 20, fol. 4 (Quoted in: Lopukhovsky L. Prokhorovka - without a secrecy stamp // Military Historical Archive, 2004, No. 2, p. 73).

65 Ibid., p. 72. (TsAMO RF, f. 5 guards T.A., op. 4952, d. 7, l. 3).

66 TsAMO RF, f. 69 A, op. 10753, d. 442, l.24.

67 Zamulin V., Lopukhovsky L. Prokhorov battle. Myths and Reality // Military Historical Archive, 2003, No. 3, p. 101.

68 Calculated from: Mackensen E. From the Bug to the Caucasus (III Panzer Corps in the campaign against Soviet Russia in 1941 - 1942) \\ M .: AST, 2004.

69 Confidentiality removed, cs. 139, 141.

To date, it is not known exactly how many people died in World War II. Less than 10 years ago, statistics claimed that 50 million people died, data for 2016 says that the number of victims exceeded 70 million. Perhaps, after some time, this figure will be refuted by new calculations.

The number of deaths during the war

The first mention of the dead was in the March issue of the Pravda newspaper for 1946. At that time, the figure of 7 million people was officially announced. To date, when almost all archives have been studied, it can be argued that the losses of the Red Army and the civilian population of the Soviet Union totaled 27 million people. Other countries that are part of the anti-Hitler coalition also suffered significant losses, or rather:

France - 600,000 people;
China - 200,000 people;
India - 150,000 people;
United States of America - 419,000 people;
Luxembourg - 2,000 people;
Denmark - 3,200 people.

Budapest, Hungary. Monument on the banks of the Danube in memory of the Jews shot in these places in 1944-45.

At the same time, the losses on the German side were noticeably smaller and amounted to 5.4 million soldiers and 1.4 million civilians. The countries that fought on the side of Germany suffered the following human losses:

Norway - 9,500 people;
Italy - 455,000 people;
Spain - 4,500 people;
Japan - 2,700,000 people;
Bulgaria - 25,000 people.

The least dead in Switzerland, Finland, Mongolia and Ireland.

During which period did the greatest losses occur?

The most difficult time for the Red Army was 1941-1942, it was then that the losses amounted to 1/3 of the dead during the entire period of the war. The armed forces of Nazi Germany suffered the greatest losses in the period from 1944 to 1946. In addition, 3,259 German civilians were killed at this time. Another 200,000 German soldiers did not return from captivity.
The United States lost the most people in 1945 in air attacks and evacuations. Other countries participating in hostilities experienced the most terrible times and colossal losses in the final stages of the Second World War.