The number of Russians killed in World War II. How many Soviet people died in the Great Patriotic War

Estimates of the losses of Soviet citizens in the Great Patriotic War have a huge range: from 19 to 36 million. The first detailed calculations were made by the Russian emigrant, demographer Timashev in 1948 - he came up with 19 million. The maximum figure was called by B. Sokolov - 46 million. The latest calculations show that the USSR military alone lost 13.5 million people, but the total losses were over 27 million.

At the end of the war, long before any historical and demographic studies, Stalin named the figure: 5.3 million military losses. He also included missing persons (obviously, in most cases, prisoners). In March 1946, in an interview with a correspondent of the Pravda newspaper, the generalissimo estimated the human losses at 7 million. The increase was due to civilians who died in the occupied territory or were deported to Germany.

In the West, this figure was perceived with skepticism. Already at the end of the 1940s, the first calculations of the demographic balance of the USSR during the war years appeared, contradicting Soviet data. Case in point- calculations of the Russian emigrant, demographer N.S. Timashev, published in the New York “New Journal” in 1948. Here is his method:

The All-Union Population Census of the USSR in 1939 determined its population at 170.5 million. The increase in 1937-1940 reached, according to his assumption, almost 2% for each year. Consequently, the population of the USSR by mid-1941 should have reached 178.7 million. But in 1939-1940, Western Ukraine and Belarus, three Baltic states, the Karelian lands of Finland were annexed to the USSR, and Romania returned Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Therefore, excluding the Karelian population who went to Finland, the Poles who fled to the west, and the Germans who were repatriated to Germany, these territorial acquisitions gave a population increase of 20.5 million. Considering that the birth rate in the annexed territories was no more than 1% per year, that is, lower than in the USSR, and also taking into account the short time period between their entry into the USSR and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the author determined the population growth for these territories by mid-1941 at 300 thousand. By sequentially adding the above figures, he received 200 .7 million living in the USSR on the eve of June 22, 1941.

Timashev further divided 200 million into three age groups, again relying on data from the 1939 All-Union Census: adults (over 18 years old) -117.2 million, teenagers (from 8 to 18 years old) - 44.5 million, children ( under 8 years old) - 38.8 million. At the same time, he took into account two important circumstances. First: in 1939-1940 from childhood Two very weak annual streams, born in 1931-1932, moved into the group of teenagers during the famine, which covered large areas of the USSR and negatively affected the size of the teenage group. Second: in the former Polish lands and Baltic states there were more people over 20 years of age than in the USSR.

Timashev supplemented these three age groups with the number of Soviet prisoners. He did it in the following way. By the time of the elections of deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in December 1937, the population of the USSR reached 167 million, of which voters made up 56.36% of the total figure, and the population over 18 years of age, according to the All-Union Census of 1939, reached 58.3%. The resulting difference of 2%, or 3.3 million, in his opinion, was the population of the Gulag (including the number of those executed). This turned out to be close to the truth.

Next, Timashev moved on to post-war figures. The number of voters included in the voting lists for the elections of deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in the spring of 1946 was 101.7 million. Adding to this figure the 4 million Gulag prisoners he calculated, he received 106 million adult population in the USSR at the beginning of 1946. When calculating the teenage group, he took as a basis 31.3 million primary and high school in the 1947/48 school year, compared it with data from 1939 (31.4 million schoolchildren within the borders of the USSR before September 17, 1939) and received a figure of 39 million. When calculating the children's group, he proceeded from the fact that by the beginning of the war the birth rate in the USSR was approximately 38 per thousand, in the second quarter of 1942 it decreased by 37.5%, and in 1943-1945 by half.

Subtracting from each year group the percentage calculated according to the normal mortality table for the USSR, he received 36 million children at the beginning of 1946. Thus, according to his statistical calculations, in the USSR at the beginning of 1946 there were 106 million adults, 39 million adolescents and 36 million children, and a total of 181 million. Timashev’s conclusion is as follows: the population of the USSR in 1946 was 19 million less than in 1941.

Other Western researchers came to approximately the same results. In 1946, under the auspices of the League of Nations, F. Lorimer’s book “The Population of the USSR” was published. According to one of his hypotheses, during the war the population of the USSR decreased by 20 million.

In the article “Human Losses in the Second World War,” published in 1953, the German researcher G. Arntz came to the conclusion that “20 million people is the closest figure to the truth.” total losses Soviet Union in World War II." The collection including this article was translated and published in the USSR in 1957 under the title “Results of the Second World War.” Thus, four years after Stalin’s death, Soviet censorship released the figure of 20 million into the open press, thereby indirectly recognizing it as correct and making it available to at least specialists - historians, international affairs experts, etc.

Only in 1961, Khrushchev, in a letter to Swedish Prime Minister Erlander, admitted that the war against fascism “claimed two tens of millions of lives.” Soviet people" Thus, compared to Stalin, Khrushchev increased Soviet casualties by almost 3 times.

In 1965, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, Brezhnev spoke of “more than 20 million” human lives, lost Soviet people in war. In the 6th and final volume of the fundamental “History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union,” published at the same time, it was stated that of the 20 million dead, almost half “were military and civilians killed and tortured by the Nazis in occupied Soviet territory.” In fact, 20 years after the end of the war, the USSR Ministry of Defense recognized the death of 10 million Soviet military personnel.

Four decades later, the head of the Center military history Russian Institute Russian history RAS Professor G. Kumanev, in a line-by-line commentary, told the truth about the calculations that military historians carried out in the early 1960s when preparing the “History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union”: “Our losses in the war were then determined at 26 million. But the high authorities turned out to be The accepted figure is “over 20 million.”

As a result, “20 million” not only took root for decades in historical literature, but also became part of the national identity.

In 1990, M. Gorbachev announced a new figure for losses obtained as a result of research by demographers - “almost 27 million people.”

In 1991, B. Sokolov’s book “The Price of Victory” was published. The Great Patriotic War: the unknown about the known.” In it, direct military losses of the USSR were estimated at approximately 30 million, including 14.7 million military personnel, and “actual and potential losses” at 46 million, including 16 million unborn children.”

A little later, Sokolov clarified these figures (he added new losses). He obtained the loss figure as follows. From the size of the Soviet population at the end of June 1941, which he determined to be 209.3 million, he subtracted 166 million who, in his opinion, lived in the USSR on January 1, 1946 and received 43.3 million dead. Then, from the resulting number, I subtracted the irretrievable losses of the armed forces (26.4 million) and received the irretrievable losses of the civilian population - 16.9 million.

“We can name the number of Red Army soldiers killed during the entire war, which is close to reality, if we determine the month of 1942, when the Red Army’s losses in casualties were taken into account most fully and when it had almost no losses in prisoners. For a number of reasons, we chose November 1942 as such a month and extended the ratio of the number of dead and wounded obtained for it to the entire period of the war. As a result, we came to a figure of 22.4 million Soviet military personnel who were killed in battle and died from wounds, illnesses, accidents and executed by the verdict of tribunals.”

To the 22.4 million received in this way, he added 4 million soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who died in enemy captivity. And so it turned out that 26.4 million irretrievable losses suffered by the armed forces.

In addition to B. Sokolov, similar calculations were carried out by L. Polyakov, A. Kvasha, V. Kozlov and others. The methodological weakness of this kind of calculations is obvious: the researchers proceeded from the difference in the size of the Soviet population in 1941, which is known very approximately, and the size of the post-war population of the USSR, which is almost impossible to accurately determine. It was this difference that they considered the total human losses.

In 1993, a statistical study was published, “The classification of secrecy has been removed: losses Armed Forces USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts”, prepared by a team of authors headed by General G. Krivosheev. The main source of statistical data was previously secret archival documents, primarily reporting materials General Staff. However, the losses of entire fronts and armies in the first months, and the authors specifically stipulated this, were obtained by calculation. In addition, the reports of the General Staff did not include the losses of units that were not organizationally part of the Soviet armed forces (army, navy, border and internal troops NKVD of the USSR), but took direct part in the battles - people's militia, partisan detachments, groups of underground fighters.

Finally, the number of prisoners of war and missing in action is clearly underestimated: this category of losses, according to the reports of the General Staff, totals 4.5 million, of which 2.8 million remained alive (were repatriated after the end of the war or again drafted into the ranks of the Red Army in the territory liberated from the occupiers), and, accordingly, the total number of those who did not return from captivity, including those who did not want to return to the USSR, amounted to 1.7 million.

As a result, the statistical data in the “Classified as Classified” directory was immediately perceived as requiring clarification and additions. And in 1998, thanks to the publication of V. Litovkin “During the war years, our army lost 11 million 944 thousand 100 people,” these data were replenished by 500 thousand reservists, drafted into the army, but not yet included in the lists military units and those who died on the way to the front.

V. Litovkin’s study states that from 1946 to 1968, a special commission of the General Staff, headed by General S. Shtemenko, prepared a statistical reference book on losses in 1941-1945. At the end of the commission’s work, Shtemenko reported to the USSR Minister of Defense, Marshal A. Grechko: “Taking into account that the statistical collection contains information national importance, the publication of which in the press (including closed ones) or in any other way is currently not necessary and undesirable, the collection is supposed to be stored at the General Staff as a special document, which will be accessible to a strictly limited circle of people.” And the prepared collection was kept under seven seals until the team under the leadership of General G. Krivosheev made its information public.

V. Litovkin’s research sowed even greater doubts about the completeness of the information published in the collection “Classified as Classified”, because a logical question arose: were all the data contained in the “statistics collection of the Shtemenko Commission” declassified?

For example, according to the data given in the article, during the war years, military justice authorities convicted 994 thousand people, of which 422 thousand were sent to penal units, 436 thousand to places of detention. The remaining 136 thousand were apparently shot.

And yet, the reference book “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed” significantly expanded and complemented the ideas not only of historians, but of everyone Russian society about the cost of Victory in 1945. It is enough to refer to the statistical calculation: from June to November 1941, the Armed Forces of the USSR lost 24 thousand people every day, of which 17 thousand were killed and up to 7 thousand wounded, and from January 1944 to May 1945 -20 thousand people, of which 5.2 thousand killed and 14.8 thousand wounded.

In 2001, a significantly expanded statistical publication appeared - “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. Losses of the armed forces." The authors supplemented the General Staff materials with reports from military headquarters about losses and notifications from military registration and enlistment offices about the dead and missing, which were sent to relatives at their place of residence. And the figure of losses he received increased to 9 million 168 thousand 400 people. These data were reproduced in volume 2 of the collective work of employees of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Population of Russia in the 20th century. Historical essays”, published under the editorship of academician Yu. Polyakov.

In 2004, the second, corrected and expanded, edition of the book by the head of the Center for Military History of Russia at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor G. Kumanev, “Feat and Forgery: Pages of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945,” was published. It provides data on losses: about 27 million Soviet citizens. And in the footnote comments to them, the same addition mentioned above appeared, explaining that the calculations of military historians back in the early 1960s gave a figure of 26 million, but the “high authorities” preferred to accept something else as the “historical truth”: “over 20 million."

Meanwhile, historians and demographers continued to look for new approaches to determining the magnitude of the USSR's losses in the war.

The historian Ilyenkov, who served in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, followed an interesting path. He tried to calculate the irretrievable losses of the Red Army personnel based on the files of irretrievable losses of privates, sergeants and officers. These files began to be created when, on July 9, 1941, a department for recording personal losses was organized as part of the Main Directorate for the Formation and Recruitment of the Red Army (GUFKKA). The responsibilities of the department included personal accounting of losses and compiling an alphabetical card index of losses.

The records were kept in the following categories: 1) dead - according to reports from military units, 2) dead - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices, 3) missing in action - according to reports from military units, 4) missing - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices, 5) dead in German captivity, 6) those who died from diseases, 7) those who died from wounds - according to reports from military units, those who died from wounds - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices. At the same time, the following were taken into account: deserters; military personnel sentenced to forced labor camps; sentenced to to the highest degree punishment - execution; removed from the register of irretrievable losses as survivors; those on suspicion of having served with the Germans (the so-called “signals”) and those who were captured but survived. These military personnel were not included in the list of irretrievable losses.

After the war, the card files were deposited in the Archive of the USSR Ministry of Defense (now the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation). Since the early 1990s, the archive began counting registration cards by letters of the alphabet and loss categories. As of November 1, 2000, 20 letters of the alphabet were processed; for the remaining 6 letters that were not counted, a preliminary count was carried out, with fluctuations up or down by 30-40 thousand persons.

The calculated 20 letters for 8 categories of losses of privates and sergeants of the Red Army gave the following figures: 9 million 524 thousand 398 people. At the same time, 116 thousand 513 people were removed from the register of irretrievable losses, as they turned out to be alive according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices.

A preliminary calculation based on 6 uncounted letters gave 2 million 910 thousand people as irretrievable losses. The result of the calculations was as follows: 12 million 434 thousand 398 Red Army soldiers and sergeants were lost by the Red Army in 1941-1945 (Remember that this is without losses Navy, internal and border troops NKVD USSR.)

Using the same methodology, the alphabetical card index of irretrievable losses of officers of the Red Army was calculated, which is also stored in the TsAMO of the Russian Federation. They amounted to about 1 million 100 thousand people.

Thus, during the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army lost 13 million 534 thousand 398 soldiers and commanders killed, missing, died from wounds, diseases and in captivity.

These data are 4 million 865 thousand 998 people higher than the irretrievable losses of the USSR Armed Forces (payroll) according to the General Staff, which included the Red Army, sailors, border guards, and internal troops of the NKVD of the USSR.

Finally, let's note one more new trend in the study of the demographic results of the Great Patriotic 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.

(Quotes: S. Golotik and V. Minaev - “Demographic losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War: history of calculations”, “New Historical Bulletin”, No. 16, 2007)

In preparation for the 65th anniversary Great Victory The problem of military losses, which has never been removed from the agenda all these decades, is being discussed with new urgency in the media. And the Soviet component of losses always stands out. The most common ideology is this: the price of Victory in the Second World War “turned out to be too great” for our country. When making decisions to conduct major military operations, the leaders and generals of the USA and Great Britain, they say, took care of their people and, as a result, suffered minimal losses, while in our country they did not spare the blood of soldiers.

IN Soviet time it was believed that the USSR lost 20 million people - both military and civilian - in the Great Patriotic War. During the perestroika period, this figure increased to 46 million, while the justifications, to put it mildly, suffered from obvious ideologization. What are the true losses? For several years now he has been clarifying them Center for the History of Wars and Geopolitics of the Institute general history RAS.

“Historians have not yet come to a consensus on this issue,” he told our correspondent Head of the Center, Doctor of Historical Sciences Mikhail Myagkov. — Our Center, like most scientific institutions, adheres to the following estimates: Great Britain lost 370 thousand military personnel killed, the USA - 400 thousand. Our greatest losses are 11.3 million soldiers and officers who died at the front and were tortured in captivity, as well as more than 15 million civilians who died in the occupied territories. The losses of the Nazi coalition amount to 8.6 million military personnel. That is, 1.3 times less than ours. This ratio was a consequence of the most difficult initial period of the war for the Red Army, as well as the genocide that the Nazis carried out against Soviet prisoners of war. It is known that more than 60 percent of our captured soldiers and officers were killed in Nazi camps.

“SP”: — Some “advanced” historians pose the question this way: wouldn’t it have been wiser to fight like the British and Americans in order to win, like them, with “little bloodshed”?

— It’s incorrect to pose the question like that. When the Germans developed the Barbarossa plan, they set the task of reaching Astrakhan and Arkhangelsk - that is, conquering living space. Naturally, this meant the “liberation” of this gigantic territory from the majority of the Slavic population, the total extermination of Jews and Gypsies. This cynical, misanthropic task was solved quite consistently.

Accordingly, the Red Army fought for the basic survival of its people and simply could not use the principle of self-preservation.

“SP”: — There are also such “humane” proposals: shouldn’t Soviet Union How can France, for example, capitulate after 40 days in order to save human resources?

— Of course, the French blitz surrender saved lives, property, and financial savings. But, according to the plans of the fascists, what awaited the French, we note, was not extermination, but Germanization. And France, or rather its then leadership, essentially agreed to this.

The situation in Great Britain was also incomparable with ours. Take the so-called Battle of Britain in 1940. Churchill himself said that then “the few saved the many.” This means that the small number of pilots who fought over London and the English Channel made it impossible for the Fuhrer's troops to land on the British Isles. It is clear to anyone that the losses of aviation and naval forces are always significantly less than the number of those killed in land battles, which mainly took place on the territory of the USSR.

By the way, before the attack on our country, Hitler conquered almost the entire Western Europe in 141 days. At the same time, the ratio of losses of Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France, on the one hand, and Nazi Germany, on the other, was 1:17 in favor of the Nazis. But in the West they don’t talk about “the mediocrity” of their generals. And they like to lecture us more, although the ratio of military losses of the USSR and the Hitlerite coalition was 1: 1.3.

Member Association of Historians of the Second World War, academician Yuri Rubtsov believes that our losses would have been lower if the allies had opened a second front in a timely manner.

“In the spring of 1942,” he said, “during the visits of the Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov to London and Washington, the allies promised to land in continental Europe in a few months. But they did not do this either in 1942 or in 1943, when we suffered especially heavy losses. From May 1942 to June 1944, while the Allies delayed opening a second front, more than 5.5 million Soviet troops died in fierce battles. Here it is probably appropriate to talk about the price of a certain egoism of the allies. It is worth recalling that it was in 1942, after the collapse of the Blitzkrieg, that mass executions and deportations of the Soviet population began. That is, the Germans began to actually carry out a plan to destroy the life force of the USSR. If the second front had been opened, as agreed, in 1942, naturally, we could have avoided such terrible losses. Another nuance is also important. If for us the problem of the second front was a matter of life and death for many millions of Soviet people, then for the Allies it was a problem of strategy: when would it be more expedient to land? They landed in Europe, hoping to better determine the post-war map of the world. Moreover, it was already obvious that the Red Army could independently end the war and reach the English Channel coast, providing the USSR with the rights of a winner a leading role in the process of post-war development of Europe. What the allies could not allow.

Such a moment cannot be discounted. After the Allied landings, the largest and best part of the Nazi forces remained on the Eastern Front. And the Germans resisted our troops much more fiercely. In addition to political motives, fear played a huge role here. The Germans were afraid of retribution for the atrocities committed on the territory of the USSR. After all, it is well known that the Nazis surrendered entire cities to the Allies without firing a shot, and on both sides, losses in sluggish battles were almost “symbolic.” With us they put hundreds of their soldiers, clinging with all their strength to some village.

“The seemingly low losses of the allies also have purely “arithmetic” explanations,” continues Mikhail Myagkov. “They really fought on the German front for only 11 months—more than 4 times less than we did.” If we fight ours, the total losses of the British and Americans can, according to some experts, be predicted at a level of at least 3 million people. The Allies destroyed 176 enemy divisions. The Red Army is almost 4 times larger - 607 enemy divisions. If Great Britain and the USA had to defeat the same forces, then we can expect that their losses would have increased by about 4 times... That is, it is possible that the losses would have been even more serious than ours. This is about the ability to fight. Of course, the Allies took care of themselves, and such tactics brought results: losses decreased. If our people often continued to fight until the last bullet, even when surrounded, because they knew that there would be no mercy for them, then the Americans and the British acted “more rationally” in similar situations.

Let us remember the siege of Singapore by Japanese troops. A British garrison held the defense there. He was superbly armed. But after a few days, in order to avoid losses, he capitulated. Tens of thousands of British soldiers were taken into captivity. Ours also surrendered. But most often in conditions when it was impossible to continue the fight, and there was nothing with which to continue. And in 1944, at the final stage of the war, it was incredible to imagine a situation like in the Ardennes (where many allies were captured) on the Soviet-German front. Here we are talking not only about fighting spirit, but also about the values ​​that people directly defended.

I want to emphasize that if the USSR had fought Hitler as “prudently” as our allies, the war would probably have ended with the Germans reaching the Urals. Then Britain would inevitably fall, since it was then limited in resources. And the English Channel would not have saved it. Hitler, using the resource base of Europe and the USSR, would strangle the British economically. As for the USA, at least they would not have acquired those real advantages that they received thanks to the selfless feat of the peoples of the USSR: access to markets for raw materials, superpower status. Most likely, the United States would have to make an unpredictable compromise with Hitler. In any case, if the Red Army had fought based on “self-preservation” tactics, it would have brought the world to the brink of disaster.

Summarizing the opinions of military scientists, I would like to suggest that the current loss figures, or rather, the data on their ratio, require some correction. When calculating, the formal division of combatants into two camps is always taken into account: the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and the allies fascist Germany. Let me remind you that it is believed that the Nazis and their allies lost 8.6 million people. Fascist allies traditionally include Norway, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, and Japan. But large military contingents from France, Poland, Belgium, Albania, etc., which are classified as countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, fought against the USSR. Their losses are not taken into account. But, let’s say, France lost 600 thousand troops in the war. At the same time, 84 thousand were killed in combat while defending national territory. 20 thousand are in the Resistance. Where did about 500 thousand die? It will become clear if we remember that almost the entire French Air Force and Navy, as well as about 20 ground divisions, went over to Hitler’s side. The situation is similar with Poland, Belgium and other “fighters against fascism.” Part of their losses must be attributed to the side opposing the USSR. Then the ratio will become slightly different. So let the “black” myths about corpse dumping, which Soviet military leaders allegedly committed, remain on the conscience of overly ideological politicians.

Losses during the Second World War can be estimated differently, depending on the methods of obtaining source data and calculation methods. In our country, official data were recognized as those calculated by a research group working under the guidance of a consultant from the Military Memorial Center of the Russian Armed Forces. In 2001, the data was clarified, and this moment It is believed that during the Great Patriotic War, 8.6 million Soviet military personnel died and another 4.4 million were missing or captured. The total loss of population, not only military personnel, but civilians, amounted to 26.6 million people.

Germany's losses in this war were somewhat smaller - a little more than 4 million military personnel killed, including those who died in captivity. Germany's allied countries lost 806 thousand military personnel killed, and 662.2 thousand military personnel returned from captivity after the war.

Answering the question about how many military personnel died in the Second World War, we can say that according to official data, the irretrievable losses of the Soviet Union and Germany amounted to 11.5 million people on the one hand and 8.6 million people on the other, i.e. . the ratio of losses of the opposing sides was 1.3:1.

In past years, completely different numbers were considered official data on the losses of the Soviet Union. Thus, until the end of the 80s of the 20th century, studies of losses during the war years were virtually not conducted. This information was not publicly available at that time. Official losses were considered to be those named in 1946 by Joseph Stalin, which were equal to 7 million people. During the reign of Khrushchev, the figure was more than 20 million people.

And only in the late 1980s, a group of researchers was able, based on archival documents and other materials, to assess the losses of the Soviet Union in various types troops. The work also used the results of commissions of the Ministry of Defense conducted in 1966 and 1988, as well as a number of materials declassified in those years. For the first time, the figure obtained by this research group and now considered official was published in 1990 at the celebration of the 45th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

The losses of the Soviet Union significantly exceeded similar losses in the First World War or in Civil War. The vast majority of deaths, naturally, were among the male population. After the end of the war, the number of women from 20 to 30 years old exceeded the number of men of the same age by twice.

Foreign specialists in general case agree with the Russian assessment. However, some of them say that this figure may be only the lower limit of real losses in 1941-1945. The upper limit is 42.7 million people.

One of important issues, which causes controversy among many researchers - how many people died in the second world war. There will never be general identical data on the number of deaths on the German side and on the side of the Soviet Union (the main opponents). Approximately dead - 60 million people from all over the world.

This gives rise to many myths and unjustified rumors. Most of the dead were civilians killed during the shelling settlements, genocide, bombing, fighting.

War is the greatest tragedy for humanity. Discussions about the consequences of this event continue to this day, although more than 75 years have passed. After all, more than 70% of the population took part in the war.

Why are there differences between the death tolls? The whole point is in the differences between the calculations, which are carried out using different methods, and information is obtained from different sources, and after all, how much time has already passed...

History of the death toll

It is worth starting with the fact that the calculations of the amount dead people began only during the period of glasnost, that is, at the end of the 20th century. Until that time, no one had done this. One could only guess about the number of dead.

There were only the words of Stalin, who stated that 7 million people died in the Union during the war, and Khrushchev, who reported in a letter to the Minister of Sweden about losses of 20 million people.

For the first time, the total number of human losses was announced at a plenum dedicated to the 45th anniversary of victory in the war (May 8, 1990). This figure amounted to almost 27 million dead.

3 years later, in a book called “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed. Losses of the armed forces..." the results of the study were highlighted, during which 2 methods were used:

• accounting and statistical (analysis of documents of the Armed Forces);
• demographic balance (comparison of population at the beginning and after the end of hostilities)

Death of people in World War II according to Krivosheev:

One of the scientists who worked in a team researching the issue of the number of deaths in the war was G. Krivosheev. Based on the results of his research, the following data were published:

1. The people's losses of the USSR during the Second World War (together with the civilian population) amounted to 26.5 million dead.
2. German losses - 11.8 million.

This study also has critics, according to whom Krivosheev did not take into account the 200 thousand prisoners of war released by the German invaders after 1944 and some other facts.

There is no doubt that the war (which took place between the USSR and Germany and its companions) was one of the bloodiest and most horrific in history. The horror was not only in the number of participating countries, but in the cruelty, mercilessness, and ruthlessness of peoples towards each other.

The soldiers had absolutely no compassion for civilians. Therefore, the question of the number of people killed in the Second World War remains debatable even now.

At the same time, as the study of the balance of power on the world stage and the reconsideration of the role of all those who participated in the coalition against Hitler are proceeding, a quite reasonable question increasingly arises: “How many people died in World War II?” That's it now modern means mass media and some historical documents continue to support the old ones, but at the same time create new myths around this topic.

One of the most inveterate says that the Soviet Union won victory only thanks to colossal losses, which exceeded the loss of enemy manpower. The latest, most modern myths that are being imposed on the whole world by the West include the opinion that without the help of the United States, victory would have been impossible, supposedly all this is only because of their skill in warfare. 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?

Of course, he suffered huge losses; brave soldiers sometimes went to their death with understanding. Everyone knows this. 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, approximately 190 million people lived in the USSR. The annual increase was about 2%, which amounted to 3 million. Thus, it is easy to calculate that by 1941 the population was 196 million people.

We continue to reason and back everything up with facts and numbers. So, any industrial developed country, even with complete total mobilization, could not afford the luxury of calling on more than 10% of the population to fight. Thus, the approximate number Soviet troops should have been 19.5 million. Based on the fact that at first men born in the period from 1896 to 1923 and then until 1928 were conscripted, it is worth adding another one and a half 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 the ROA).

That leaves 25 million, of which 10 were still in service at the end of the war. Thus, approximately 15 million soldiers left the army, but it is worth considering that not all of them were dead. For example, about 2.5 million were released from captivity, and some were simply discharged due to injury. Thus, official figures fluctuate constantly, but it is still possible to derive an average: 8 or 9 million people died, and these were military personnel.

What really happened?

The problem is that it was not only the military who 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 official data indicate the following: from the 27 million total losses (the official version offers us), it is necessary to subtract 9 million military personnel, whom we calculated earlier using simple arithmetic calculations. Thus, the resulting figure is 18 million civilians. Now let's look at it in more detail.

In order to calculate how many people died in World War II in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, it is necessary to again turn to dry but irrefutable statistics that indicate the following. The Germans occupied the territory of the USSR, which after the evacuation was home to about 65 million people, which was one third.

Poland lost about one-fifth of its population in this war, despite the fact that the front line passed through its territory many times, etc. During the war, Warsaw was practically destroyed to the ground, which gives approximately 20% of the dead population.

Belarus lost approximately a quarter of its population, and this despite the fact that the most severe fighting and partisan activity took place on the territory of the republic.

On the territory of Ukraine, losses amounted to approximately one-sixth of the entire 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 typical for the entire occupied part of the USSR territory? Most likely, no higher than approximately two-thirds of the total population of the occupied part of the Soviet Union).

Then we can take as a basis the figure 11, which was obtained when two-thirds were subtracted from the total 65 million. Thus we get the classic 20 million total losses. But even this figure is crude and inaccurate to the maximum. Therefore, it is clear that the official report on how many people died in World War II, both military and civilian, exaggerates the numbers.

How many people died in World War II in the USA?

The United States of America also suffered losses in both equipment and manpower. Of course, they were insignificant compared to the USSR, so after the end of the war they could be calculated quite accurately. Thus, the resulting figure was 407.3 thousand dead. As for the civilian population, there were almost none of them among the dead American citizens, since no military operations took place on the territory of this country. Losses totaled 5 thousand people, mostly passengers of passing ships and merchant marine sailors 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 people is almost the same as the dead, but in fact everyone understands that it is unlikely that they will be found and return home. If we add together all those who were not found and killed, we get 4.5 million. Among civilians - 2.5 million. Isn't this strange? After all, then the number of USSR losses turns out to be doubled. Against this background, some myths, guesses and misconceptions appear regarding how many people died in World War II in Russia.

Myths about German losses

The most important myth that persistently spread throughout the Soviet Union after the end of the war is the comparison of German and Soviet losses. Thus, the figure for German losses, which remained at 13.5 million, was also taken into circulation.

In fact, the German historian General Bupkhart Müller-Hillebrand announced the following figures, which were based on a centralized accounting of German losses. During the war, they amounted to 3.2 million people, 0.8 million died in captivity. In the East, approximately 0.5 million did not survive captivity, and another 3 died in battle, in the West - 300 thousand.

Of course, Germany, together with the USSR, fought the most brutal war of all times, which did not imply a single drop of pity and compassion. The majority of civilians and prisoners on one side and the other died 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 starve their own people even more.

The result of the war

Historians still cannot count exactly how many people died in World War II. Every now and then different figures are announced in the world: it all started with 50 million people, then 70, and now even more. But the same losses that Asia suffered, for example, from the consequences of the war and outbreaks of epidemics against this background, which claimed a huge number of lives, will probably never be possible to calculate. Therefore, even the above data, which was collected from various authoritative sources, is far from final. And it will most likely never be possible to obtain an exact answer to this question.