At the same time, as the study of the balance of power in the world arena and the revision of the role of all those who participated in the coalition against Hitler, more and more often a quite reasonable question arises: "How many people died in World War II?" Now all modern media and some historical documents continue to support old ones, but at the same time create new myths around this topic.
One of the most inveterate states that the Soviet Union won victory only thanks to colossal losses that exceeded the loss in manpower of the enemy. The last, most modern myths that are imposed on the whole world by the West include the opinion that without the help of the United States, victory would be impossible, supposedly all this is only because of their skill in waging war. However, thanks to statistical data, it is possible to conduct an analysis and still find out how many people died in World War II and who made the main contribution to the victory.
How many fought for the USSR?
Undoubtedly, the Soviet Union suffered huge losses, brave soldiers sometimes went to their deaths with understanding. Everyone knows that. In order to find out how many people died in the Second World War in the USSR, it is necessary to turn to dry statistical figures. According to the 1939 census, about 190 million people lived in the USSR. The annual increase was about 2%, which was 3 million. So, it is easy to calculate that by 1941 the population was 196 million people.
We continue to reason and support everything with facts and numbers. So, any industrially developed country, even with complete total mobilization, could not afford such a luxury as calling for more than 10% of the population to fight. Thus, the approximate number of Soviet troops should have been 19.5 million.Based on the fact that men born in the period from 1896 to 1923 and further to 1928 were first called up, it is worth adding another half a million for each year, from which it follows that the total number of all military personnel for the entire period of the war was 27 million.
How many of them died?
In order to find out how many people died in World War II, it is necessary to subtract about 2 million from the total number of military personnel on the territory of the Soviet Union, for the reason that they fought against the USSR (in the form of different groups, such as the OUN and ROA).
25 million remain, of which 10 were still in service at the end of the war. Thus, about 15 million soldiers left the army, but it should be borne in mind that not all of them were dead. For example, about 2.5 million were freed from captivity, and some more were simply discharged for injury. Thus, the official figures are constantly fluctuating, but it is still possible to deduce the average value: 8 or 9 million people died, and this is precisely the military.
What actually happened?
The problem is that not only the military were killed. Now let's consider the question of how many people died in the Second World War among the civilian population. The fact is that the official data say the following: out of 27 million people in total losses (the official version suggests to us), it is necessary to subtract 9 million soldiers, whom we calculated earlier using simple arithmetic calculations. Thus, the figure is 18 million of the civilian population. Now let's take a closer look at it.
In order to calculate how many people died in World War II in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, it is necessary to turn again to dry, but irrefutable statistics, which speak of the following. The Germans occupied the territory of the USSR, where after the evacuation, about 65 million people lived, which was one third.
Poland lost about one fifth of its population in this war, despite the fact that a front line passed through its territory many times, etc. During the war, Warsaw was practically destroyed to the ground, which gives about 20% of the dead population.
Belarus lost about a quarter of its population, and this despite the fact that the most fierce battles and partisan activities took place on the territory of the republic.
On the territory of Ukraine, losses amounted to about one-sixth of the total population, and this despite the fact that there were a huge number of punitive forces, partisans, resistance units and various fascist "rabble" roaming the forests.
Losses among the population in the occupied territory
What percentage of civilian casualties should be characteristic of the entire occupied part of the territory of the USSR? Most likely, no higher than about two-thirds of the total population of the occupied part of the Soviet Union).
Then you can take the number 11 as a basis, which turned out when two-thirds were subtracted from the total 65 million. Thus, we get the classic 20 million total losses. But even this figure is rough and inaccurate to the maximum. Therefore, it is clear that in the official report on how many people died in World War II, all among the military and civilians, the numbers are exaggerated.
How many people died in World War II in the USA
The United States of America also suffered losses in equipment and manpower. Of course, they were insignificant in comparison with the USSR, so after the end of the war they could be calculated quite accurately. Thus, the figure turned out to be 407.3 thousand deaths. As for the civilian population, it was almost not among the dead American citizens, since no military operations were conducted on the territory of this country. The losses amount to 5 thousand people, mainly passengers of passing ships and sailors of the merchant fleet, who came under attack from German submarines.
How many people died in World War II in Germany
As for the official figures regarding German losses, they look at least strange, since the number of missing persons is practically the same as the number of those killed, but in fact everyone understands that they are unlikely to be found and return home. If we add together all those not found and those killed, we get 4.5 million. Among the civilians - 2.5 million. Isn't that strange? After all, then the number of losses of the USSR turns out to be doubled. Against this background, there are some myths, guesses and misconceptions about how many people died in World War II in Russia.
Myths about German losses
The most important myth that stubbornly spread throughout the Soviet Union after the end of the war is the comparison of German and Soviet losses. Thus, the figure of German losses was taken into circulation, which remained at the level of 13.5 million.
In fact, the German historian general Bupkhart Müller-Hillebrand announced the following figures, which were based on a centralized record of Germany's losses. During the war, they amounted to 3.2 million people, 0.8 million died in captivity. In the East, about 0.5 million did not survive captivity, and 3 more died in battles, in the West - 300 thousand.
Of course, Germany, together with the USSR, fought the most brutal war of all times and peoples, which did not imply a drop of pity and compassion. Most of the civilians and prisoners on one side and the other were dying of hunger. This was due to the fact that neither the Germans nor the Russians could provide food for their prisoners, since hunger would then plague their own peoples even more.
Outcome of the war
Historians still cannot calculate exactly how many people died in World War II. Every now and then different numbers are voiced in the world: it all started with 50 million people, then 70, and now even more. But the same losses that, for example, Asia suffered from the consequences of the war and outbreaks of epidemics against this background, which took a huge number of lives, will probably never be possible to calculate. Therefore, even the above data, which were collected from various authoritative sources, are far from definitive. And it will probably never be possible to get an exact answer to this question.
