How many soldiers died in the Second World War. World War II statistics

How did official data on USSR losses change?

Recently, the State Duma announced new figures for human losses. Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War - almost 42 million people. An additional 15 million people were added to the previous official data. The head of the Museum-Memorial of the Great Patriotic War of the Kazan Kremlin, our columnist Mikhail Cherepanov, in the author's column of Realnoe Vremya talks about the declassified losses of the USSR and Tatarstan.

The irretrievable losses of the Soviet Union as a result of the factors of World War II are more than 19 million military personnel.

Despite many years of well-paid sabotage and all possible efforts of generals and politicians to hide the true cost of our Victory over fascism, on February 14, 2017 in State Duma At the parliamentary hearings “Patriotic education of Russian citizens: “Immortal Regiment””, the figures closest to the truth were finally declassified:

“According to declassified data from the USSR State Planning Committee, the losses of the Soviet Union in World War II amount to 41 million 979 thousand, and not 27 million, as previously thought. The total population decline of the USSR in 1941-1945 was more than 52 million 812 thousand people. Of these, irretrievable losses as a result of war factors - more than 19 million military personnel and about 23 million civilian population».

According to the report, this information has been confirmed a large number authentic documents, authoritative publications and evidence (details on the Immortal Regiment website and other resources).

The history of the issue is as follows

In March 1946, in an interview with the newspaper Pravda, I.V. Stalin announced: “As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union lost irrevocably in battles with the Germans, and also thanks to the German occupation and hijacking Soviet people about seven million people were sent to German penal servitude.”

In 1961 N.S. Khrushchev, in a letter to the Prime Minister of Sweden, wrote: “The German militarists launched a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed two tens of millions of lives of Soviet people.”

On May 8, 1990, at a meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in honor of the 45th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War The final number of casualties was announced: “Almost 27 million people.”

In 1993, a team of military historians led by Colonel General G.F. Krivosheeva published a statistical study “The classification of secrecy has been removed. Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts.” It indicates the amount of total losses - 26.6 million people, including combat losses published for the first time: 8,668,400 soldiers and officers.

In 2001, a reissue of the book was published under the editorship of G.F. Krivosheev “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century. Losses of the Armed Forces: A Statistical Study." One of its tables stated that the irretrievable losses of the Soviet Army and Navy alone during the Great Patriotic War were 11,285,057 people. (See page 252.) In 2010, in the next publication “The Great Patriotic War Without Classification. The Book of Loss”, again edited by G.F. Krivosheev clarified the data on the losses of the armies fighting in 1941-1945. Demographic losses reduced to 8,744,500 military personnel (p. 373):

A natural question arises: where were the mentioned “data from the USSR State Planning Committee” on the combat losses of our Army stored, if even the heads of the special commissions of the Ministry of Defense could not study them for more than 70 years? How true are they?

Everything is learned by comparison. It is worth remembering that it was in the book “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century” that we were finally allowed to find out in 2001 how many of our compatriots were mobilized into the ranks of the Red (Soviet) Army during the Second World War: 34,476,700 people (p. . 596.).

If we take the official figure of 8,744 thousand people on faith, then the share of our military losses will be 25 percent. That is, according to the commission of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, only every fourth soviet soldier and the officer did not return from the front.

I think a resident of any locality would disagree with this former USSR. In every village or aul there are slabs with the names of their fallen fellow countrymen. At best, they represent only half of those who went to the front 70 years ago.

Statistics of Tatarstan

Let's see what the statistics are in our Tatarstan, on whose territory there were no battles.

In the book of Professor Z.I. Gilmanov’s “Workers of Tatarstan on the Fronts of the Great Patriotic War,” published in Kazan in 1981, stated that the military registration and enlistment offices of the republic sent 560 thousand citizens to the front and 87 thousand of them did not return.

In 2001, Professor A.A. Ivanov in his doctoral dissertation “Combat losses of the peoples of Tatarstan during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.” announced that from 1939 to 1945, about 700 thousand citizens were drafted into the army from the territory of the Tatar Republic, and 350 thousand of them did not return.

As the head of the working group of the editors of the Book of Memory of the Republic of Tatarstan from 1990 to 2007, I can clarify: taking into account natives drafted from other regions of the country, the losses of our Tatarstan during the Second World War amounted to at least 390 thousand soldiers and officers.

And these are irreparable losses for the republic, on whose territory not a single enemy bomb or shell fell!

Are the losses of other regions of the former USSR even less than the national average?

Time will show. And our task is to pull out of obscurity and enter, if possible, the names of all fellow countrymen into the database of losses of the Republic of Tatarstan, presented in the Victory Park of Kazan.

And this should be done not only by individual enthusiasts on their own initiative, but also by professional search engines on behalf of the state itself.

It is physically impossible to do this only in excavations at battle sites in all Memory Watches. This requires massive and permanent job in archives published on the websites of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and other thematic Internet resources.

But that's a completely different story...

Mikhail Cherepanov, illustrations provided by the author

Reference

Mikhail Valerievich Cherepanov- Head of the Museum-Memorial of the Great Patriotic War of the Kazan Kremlin; Chairman of the Association "Club" military glory"; Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military Historical Sciences, laureate of the State Prize of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Born in 1960.
Graduated from Kazan state university them. V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin, majoring in Journalism.
Since 2007 he has been working at the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan.
One of the creators of the 28-volume book “Memory” of the Republic of Tatarstan about those killed during the Second World War, 19 volumes of the Book of Memory of Victims political repression Republic of Tatarstan, etc.
Creator eBook in memory of the Republic of Tatarstan (list of natives and residents of Tatarstan who died during the Second World War).
Author of thematic lectures from the series “Tatarstan during the war years”, thematic excursions “The feat of fellow countrymen on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War”.
Co-author of the concept of the virtual museum “Tatarstan - to the Fatherland”.
Participant of 60 search expeditions to bury the remains of soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War (since 1980), member of the board of the Union of Search Teams of Russia.
Author of more than 100 scientific and educational articles, books, participant in All-Russian, regional, international conferences. Columnist of Realnoe Vremya.

What were the losses of the USSR population during World War II? Stalin said that they were 7 million, Khrushchev - 20. However, is there any reason to believe that they were significantly larger?
By the beginning of the war, the population of the USSR was 197,500,000 people. The “natural” population growth from 1941 to 1945 was 13,000,000 people... and the “natural” decline was 15,000,000 people, since the war was going on.
By 1946, the population of the USSR should have been 195,500,000 people. However, at this time it was only 168,500,000 people. Consequently, population losses during the war amounted to 27,000,000 people. An interesting fact: the population of the republics and territories annexed in 1939 is 22,000,000 people. However, in 1946 it was 13 million. The fact is that 9 million people emigrated. 2 million Germans (or those who called themselves Germans) moved to Germany, 2 million Poles (or those who knew a few words from the Polish dialect) moved to Poland, 5 million residents of the western regions of the USSR moved to Western countries.
So, direct losses from the war: 27 million - 9 million = 18 million people. 8 million people out of 18 million are civilians: 1 million Poles who died at the hands of Bandera, 1 million who died during the siege of Leningrad, 2 million civilians classified by the Nazis as persons capable of taking up arms (age from 15 to 65 years) and held in concentration camps along with Soviet prisoners of war, 4 million Soviet citizens, classified by the fascists as communists, partisans, etc. Every tenth Soviet person died.

Losses of the Red Army - 10 million people.

What were the population losses in Germany during World War II?By the beginning of the war, the population of Germany proper was 74,000,000 people. The population of the Third Reich is 93 million people.By the fall of 1945, the population of Germany (Vaterland, not the entire Third Reich) was 52,000,000 people. More than 5 million Germans immigrated to the country from among the Volksdeutsche. So, German losses: 74 million - 52 million + 5 million = 27 million people.

Consequently, the loss of the population of Germany during the war was 27,000,000 people. About 9 million people emigrated from Germany.
Direct military losses of Germany - 18 million people. 8 million of them are civilians who died as a result of air raids by US and British aircraft, as a result of artillery shelling. Germany lost about a third of its population! By October 1946, more than 13 million more Volksdeutsche from Alsace and Lorraine arrived in Western Germany (about 2.2 million people Volksdeutsche) , Saara ( 0.8 million people ), Silesia (10 million people), Sudetenland ( 3.64 million people), Poznan (1 million people), Baltic states (2 million people), Danzig and Memel (0.54 million people) and other places. The population of Germany became 66 million people. Persecution began against the German population outside the occupation zones. The Germans were thrown out of their homes and were often slaughtered in the streets. The non-German population did not spare either children or old people. It was because of this that a mass exodus of Germans and those who collaborated with them began. The Kashubians with Schlenzaks considered themselves to be Germans. They also went to the western occupation zones.

The other day, parliamentary hearings “Patriotic education of Russian citizens: “Immortal Regiment” were held in the Duma. They were attended by deputies, senators, representatives of legislative and senior 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. "Immortal Regiment", which by definition did not provide for any staffing table, no commanders or political officers, has already completely transformed into the sovereign “box” of the parade squad, and its main task today is to learn to march in step and maintain alignment in the ranks.

“What is a people, a nation? “This is, first of all, respect for victories,” the chairman of the parliamentary committee, Vyacheslav Nikonov, admonished the participants when opening the hearings. - Today, when it goes new war, which someone calls “hybrid,” our Victory becomes one of the main targets for attacks on historical memory. There are waves of falsification of history, which should make us believe that it was not us, but someone else who won, and also force us to apologize...” For some reason, the Nikonovs are seriously confident that it was them, long before own birth, won a Great Victory, for which, moreover, someone is trying to force them to apologize. But those weren’t the ones attacked! And the aching note of the unpast national misfortune, the phantom pain of the third generation of 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 the terrible figure, for some reason not noticed by anyone, not forcing us to stop in horror while running in order to understand WHAT we were told after all. Why this was done right now, I don’t know.

At the hearings, the co-chairman of the “Immortal Regiment of Russia” movement, State Duma deputy Nikolai Zemtsov, presented a report “Documentary basis of the People’s Project “Establishing the fates of missing defenders of the Fatherland,” within the framework of which studies of population decline were conducted, which changed the understanding 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 war factors are more than 19 million military personnel and about 23 million civilians. The total natural mortality of military personnel and civilians during this period could have amounted to more than 10 million 833 thousand people (including 5 million 760 thousand deaths of children under the age of four). Irreversible losses of the population of the USSR as a result of war factors amounted to almost 42 million people.

Can we... repeat?!

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

Nowadays, due to natural reasons, these elderly disabled people are visible less and less. But Kovda understood the scale of losses absolutely correctly; it was enough to simply multiply the number of front doors.

Stalin, based on inaccessible to a normal person considerations, he personally determined the losses of the USSR at 7 million people - slightly less than the losses of Germany. Khrushchev - 20 million. Under Gorbachev, a book was published, prepared by the Ministry of Defense and edited by General Krivosheev, “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed,” in which the authors named and in every possible way justified this very figure - 27 million. Now it turns out that she was also untrue.

Our planet has known many bloody battles and battles. Our entire history consisted of various internecine conflicts. But only the human and material losses in the Second World War made humanity think about the importance of everyone’s life. Only after it did people begin to understand how easy it is to start a bloodbath 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 twentieth century

The younger generation sometimes does not understand the differences. History has been rewritten many times in the years since they ended, so young people are no longer so interested in those distant events. Often these people don’t even really know who took part in those events and what losses humanity suffered in World War II. But we must not forget the history of our country. If you watch American films about World War II today, you might think that only thanks to the US Army did victory over Nazi Germany become possible. That is why it is so necessary to convey to our younger generation the role of the Soviet Union in these sad events. In fact, it was the people of the USSR who suffered the greatest losses in World War II.

Prerequisites for the bloodiest war

This armed conflict between two world military-political coalitions, which became the biggest massacre in human history, 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 many years. There are several reasons for this conflict. These include: a deep global economic crisis, the aggressive policies of some states, negative consequences the Versailles-Washington system in force at that time.

Participants in an 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. Fierce battles took place on three continents. Naval battles were conducted in four oceans (Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Arctic). The number of warring countries changed several times throughout the war. Some states participated in active military operations, while others simply helped their coalition allies in any way (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 carry out active fighting on the territory of these countries. In 1941, countries such as the USSR, USA, and China were drawn into the war. Further, Australia, Norway, Canada, Nepal, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Belgium, New Zealand, Denmark, Luxembourg, Albania, Union of South Africa, San Marino, Türkiye. To one degree or another, countries such as Guatemala, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Dominican Republic, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, Paraguay, Cuba, Ecuador, Venezuela, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Haiti, El Salvador, Bolivia. They were joined by Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Liberia, Mongolia. During the war years to anti-Hitler coalition Those states that were no longer allies of Germany also joined. 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. Various collaborationist troops created from among the inhabitants of the opposing countries often fought on the side of the Nazi bloc. 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). Fought on the side of this bloc volunteer armies such neutral countries as Spain, Portugal and Sweden.

Consequences of the war

Despite the fact that for many years The Second World War changed the situation on the world stage several times, and its result was the complete victory of the anti-Hitler coalition. Following this, 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 decreased significantly, 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 World War II, a period of decolonization of empires began throughout the planet.

Theater of Operations

Germany, Second world war for which it was an attempt to become the only superpower, conducted military operations 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.
Eastern European: USSR, Poland, Norway, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria, Yugoslavia, Barents, Baltic and Black Sea.
African: Ethiopia, Somalia, Madagascar, Kenya, Sudan, Equatorial Africa.
Pacific (in commonwealth with Japan): China, Korea, South Sakhalin, Far East, Mongolia, Kuril 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 other numerous Pacific Islands.

The beginning and end of the war

They began to be calculated from the moment of the invasion of German troops into the territory of Poland. Hitler for a long time prepared the ground for an attack on this state. On August 31, 1939, the German press reported the seizure of a radio station in Gleiwitz by the Polish military (although this was a provocation of saboteurs), and already at 4 o’clock in the morning on September 1, 1939, the warship Schleswig-Holstein 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, and New Zealand declared war on Germany. Then they were joined by Canada, Newfoundland, the Union of South Africa, and Nepal. This is how the bloody Second World War began to quickly gain momentum. The USSR, although it urgently introduced universal military duty, until June 22, 1941, he never declared war on Germany.

In the spring of 1940, Hitler's troops began the occupation of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Next I headed to France. In June 1940, Italy began to fight on Hitler's side. In the spring of 1941, it quickly captured Greece and Yugoslavia. On June 22, 1941, she attacked the USSR. On the side of Germany in these military actions were Romania, Finland, Hungary, and 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 an anti-Hitler coalition began. On December 7, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States also entered this war. For a long time, the army of this country fought its enemies only in Pacific Ocean. The so-called second front, Great Britain and the United States, promised to open in the summer of 1942. But, despite the fierce fighting 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 USA and England were waiting for the complete weakening of the USSR. It was only when it became obvious that at a fast pace began to liberate not only its territory, but also countries Eastern Europe, the Allies hastened 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 was the first to occupy the Reichstag, on which she erected her But even unconditional surrender Germany did not stop World War II. Military operations continued in Czechoslovakia for some time. Also in the Pacific, hostilities almost never ceased. Only after the bombing atomic bombs cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945), carried out by the Americans, the Japanese Emperor realized the pointlessness of further resistance. As a result of this attack, about 300 thousand people died. peaceful people. 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 world conflict

The Polish people suffered the first large-scale losses in World War II. The army of this country was unable to withstand a stronger enemy in the form of 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 actions took place on the territory of more than 40 states. Over the 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 amount to about 50 million people. At the same time, only 27 million people were killed on the fronts. The remaining 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 human losses 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 humanity. History shows the $4 trillion that went into military spending. For the warring states, material costs amounted to about 70% of national income. For several years, the industry of many countries was completely reoriented to the production military equipment. Thus, the USA, USSR, Great Britain and Germany produced more than 600 thousand combat and transport aircraft during the war years. The weapons of World War II became even more effective and deadly in 6 years. The most brilliant minds of the warring countries were busy only with its improvement. The Second World War forced us to come up with a lot of new weapons. Tanks from 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 was in the thousands. So, only armored vehicles, tanks, self-propelled guns more than 280 thousand were produced. More than 1 million different artillery pieces rolled off the assembly lines of military factories; about 5 million machine guns; 53 million machine 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 have followed a completely different scenario. Because of it, all countries were set back in their development many years ago. Colossal resources and efforts of millions of people were spent eliminating the consequences of this international military conflict.

USSR losses

A very high price had to be paid for the Second World War to end quickly. USSR losses amounted to about 27 million people. (last count 1990). Unfortunately, it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to obtain accurate data, but this figure is the closest to the truth. There are several different estimates of USSR losses. Thus, according to the latest method, about 6.3 million are considered killed or died from their wounds; 0.5 million died from diseases, 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 enormous material losses. According to estimates, they amounted to more than 2,600 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 thousand large industrial enterprises were completely destroyed. It was almost completely destroyed agriculture European part of the USSR. Restoring the country to pre-war levels took several years of incredible effort and enormous expense.

ALL PHOTOS

Despite the significant period that has passed since the end of World War II, there are countries that still have not been able to calculate their demographic losses. And, oddly enough, Germany is one of them. Until now, all researchers have relied on propaganda statistics from Goebbels’ department. Moreover, the number of known German graves in the territory of the former USSR alone is twice as high as official data, writes New Region.

Such an incredible situation arose for several reasons, the main one of which was Germany’s loss in the war and the division of the country into two parts independent from each other. A huge number of archives were divided between Germany and the GDR, and researchers for a long time were not able to combine searches. In addition, in addition to the Germans, representatives of other countries served in the ranks of the Wehrmacht, which at that time were annexed to the Third Reich and are not taken into account by modern authors.

“Neither ours nor the Germans spared people in the war,” said the center’s leading researcher military history Institute Russian history RAS Tatyana Bushueva. - For example, 1941 is a very difficult year to count the Soviet fallen, because it was a real disaster. It is possible to approximately count those who died. For the Germans the situation is even worse, because the same disaster turned out to be for them last period war - from 1944 to 1945."

Information about losses in Germany came from three sources at once. The troops operating on the Eastern Front did not always belong exclusively to ground forces. Air Force and Navy divisions fought alongside them, and their personnel were inspected by other departments. Then, through the general headquarters, the data was compiled and voiced by official propaganda.

“It’s no secret that they were often underestimated by the authorities,” said Andrei Sakharov, director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Goebbels’ propaganda operated on them, and the trouble is that even now, after the war, historians have to turn to these numbers, because many archives were simply destroyed."

The Nazis considered a little more than 2.5 million of their compatriots dead. Although the number of known graves in the territory of the former USSR alone is more than 3.2 million. And in recent years Thanks to the activities of search groups, their number has grown significantly and, according to indirect estimates, is approaching 4 million.

Additionally, the official death toll does not include Germans killed in 1945. Namely, over the last four months of the war, the bloodiest for ground forces There are battles in Germany, and information about losses in them is calculated only indirectly. Thus, in the works of historian Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand, a former major general of the Wehrmacht, in January-May 1945, 1.5 million people were lost as missing or captured on the Eastern Front.

According to the Soviet General Staff, set out in the works of the commission of the Ministry of Defense and Russian Academy Sciences under the leadership of Grigory Krivosheev, during the period from January 1 to May 9, 1945, 1.94 million people were captured. After May 9, another 1.284 million military personnel capitulated on the Eastern Front. The number of Germans killed during this period is described only hypothetically.

“Based on these data, military historians concluded that the number of German deaths on the Eastern Front exceeds 4 million,” continues Tatyana Bushueva.

However, for example, Army General Doctor of Historical Sciences Makhmut Gareev gives the figure 7 million. The calculation is quite simple, but in an efficient way. During the war years, 21.2 million people passed through the ranks of the German armed forces. If we take the known number of deaths on the Eastern Front (more than 4 million), add to them those who fell on other fronts (1.4 million), transferred to industry (2 million), dismissed due to injury, illness, convicts, deserters, etc. (2.5 million) and captured (about 3 million), as well as those remaining in the Wehrmacht at the time of surrender (4.8 million), we get the figure of 18 million Germans who participated in the war. Another 3 million people remain unaccounted for, and most likely these people died in battles with the Red Army in the territories of the USSR, Poland and other states. Thus, the more or less plausible demographic losses of the German army amount to more than 7 million people and about 8 million together with the allies. But these are only indirect figures.

“For comparison, the Red Army suffered 6.1 million killed and died in hospitals, plus 2.5 million prisoners were persecuted by the Nazis in concentration camps. A total of 8.6 million military personnel,” said Vladimir Nevezhin, a leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The remaining losses of the USSR, amounting to 18 million people, fell on the civilian population of the occupied territories, who suffered as a result of the mass fascist genocide. That is, in total we lost about 27 million people in the war.