How many people died in World War II? How many Soviet people died in World War II.

History experts assess the losses incurred during the Second World War differently. In this case, different methods of source data and calculation methods are used. Today in Russia the data provided by research group, who worked as part of a project carried out by specialists from the Military Memorial.

As of 2001, when research data were further clarified, it is generally accepted that during 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 captured or disappeared. The most impressive is the country's total human losses: taking into account the dead civilians, they amounted to 26 million 600 thousand people.

Losses fascist Germany turned out to be significantly lower and amounted to slightly 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. Germany's allies lost less than a million soldiers killed. The overwhelming number of deaths on both sides of the military confrontation was .

Losses of World War II: questions remain

Previously, Russia adopted completely different official data on its own losses. Almost until the end of the USSR, serious research on this issue was practically not conducted, since most of the data was closed. In the Soviet Union, after the end of the war, loss estimates were first established, called by I.V. Stalin, who determined this figure to be 7 million people. After N.S. came to power. Khrushchev, it turned out that the country had lost about 20 million people.

When a team of reformers led by M.S. came to rule the country. Gorbachev, it was decided to create a research center, at whose disposal documents from the archives and other reference materials. 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 research results of their Russian colleagues. The total human losses suffered by all countries that participated in World War II in one way or another are almost impossible to accurately calculate. Figures are quoted from 45 to 60 million people. Some historians believe that as new information is found and calculation methods are refined, the upper total losses of all warring countries could be up to 70 million people.

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 completely 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 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 from the total number of military personnel in the territory Soviet Union subtract about 2 million for the reason that they fought against the USSR (in the form of different groups such as OUN and 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 World War II among 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, led the most the most brutal war of all times and peoples, 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.

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

Number of deaths during the war

The first mention of the dead was in the March 1946 issue of the Pravda newspaper. At that time, the official figure was 7 million people. Today, when almost all the 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 included in 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. A monument on the banks of the Danube in memory of the Jews executed in these places in 1944-45.

At the same time, 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 fewest deaths were in Switzerland, Finland, Mongolia and Ireland.

During what period did the greatest losses occur?

The most difficult time for the Red Army were 1941–1942, it was then that losses amounted to 1/3 of those killed during the entire period of the war. The armed forces of Nazi Germany suffered their 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 during air attacks and evacuations. Other countries involved in hostilities experienced the most scary times and the colossal casualties in the final stages of World War II.

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The United States lost 418,000 people in World War II, and there are still 74,000 American military personnel missing in action during World War II. big losses for the United States, 19,000 people died in the Ardennes operation.

There are different figures, but about 400 thousand people. Battles with the largest number losses are considered the Battle of Okinawa, the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Battle of Monte Cassino, the Normandy operation, the Ardennes operation. As far as I remember, the Americans did not fight on their territory in this war (except for the attack on Pearl Harbor), their cities were not bombed, they did not come out of the war with such great losses

It’s worth mentioning right away that no matter what source you look for information about the number of deaths in World War II on the American side, it will be somewhat different. We can only say for sure that this figure exceeds the mark of 400 thousand people.

And if we talk about the bloodiest battle, then this is undoubtedly the Battle of the Bulge. Here the Americans lost about 100 people on the battlefield.

During World War II, the United States of America lost about 325 thousand military personnel. There were practically no casualties among the civilian population, since military operations took place far from American territory (with the exception of Pearl Harbor).

The United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941, the day Japanese planes bombed the American Prl Harbor base. It is about this day and the bombing of the base that much is told in books and reflected in cinema. One of the most interesting films That’s what Prl Harbor is called, starring Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, Jon Voight and other Hollywood stars. In this film, it seemed to me, the result of that landing of Japanese planes was very reliably demonstrated, when the screen showed a sea in which the water was not visible because of the floating corpses.

But in fact, there were an order of magnitude fewer dead Americans that day (2,403 people) than during Ardennes operation- 19 thousand dead.

The theater of operations of the US Army in World War II also includes Normandy operation, Battle of Okinawa, near Monte Carlo, near Midway Atoll, beyond Iwo Jima and other battles and operations in which, of course, people died.

Except 418,000 people died, are still listed in American archives 74,000 missing. By the way, the lists of everyone - both dead and missing - were published by the American National Archives.

The number of American deaths during the Second World War exceeds 400 thousand people. Despite the fact that these figures have been officially announced, you need to understand that they are quite approximate; it is impossible to accurately count losses, because civilians also died, and several tens of thousands went missing.

In general, it is known that total number The victims of the Second World War accounted for 3% of the total population living in the world in 1940.

The bloodiest battle for American soldiers was the Battle of the Bulge. In December 1944, Hitler set out to divide the Allied armies in northwestern Europe with the help of a surprise blitzkrieg. This operation became a nightmare for the American 106th Division, which was taken by surprise and almost completely destroyed. The total number of deaths reached 100 thousand. This battle is still considered the bloodiest in the history of the American armed forces.

It is difficult to give an absolutely exact figure for American losses in World War 2. different sources give several various numbers, but most agree that in that war the Americans lost 408-418 thousand people, of which 3 thousand were civilians. However, alternative sources give a simply crazy figure of 1 million people, which seems to me too much of an exaggeration; perhaps the wounded were also taken into account here. The bloodiest battle for the Americans was the liberation of Manila, the capital of the Philippines; 37 thousand Americans died during this operation. The famous Ardennes operation at the end of 1944 - beginning of 1945 is in second place - then 19 thousand Americans died and another 23 thousand were missing or captured. During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 2,395 Americans died in one day - this can be considered the largest mass death ever.

Editor's note. For 70 years first senior management USSR (rewriting history), and later the government Russian Federation supported a monstrous and cynical lie about the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century - World War II

Editor's note . For 70 years, first the top leadership of the USSR (by rewriting history), and later the government of the Russian Federation, supported a monstrous and cynical lie about the greatest tragedy of the 20th century - World War II, mainly by privatizing victory in it and keeping silent about its cost and the role of other countries in the outcome war. Now in Russia they have made a ceremonial picture of victory, they support victory at all levels, and the cult of the St. George’s ribbon has reached such an ugly form that it has actually developed into outright mockery of the memory of millions of fallen people. And while the whole world mourns for those who died fighting Nazism or became its victims, eReFiya is organizing a blasphemous Sabbath. And over these 70 years, the exact number of losses of Soviet citizens in that war has not been finally clarified. The Kremlin is not interested in this, just as it is not interested in publishing statistics on the deaths of Russian military personnel in the Donbass, in the Russian-Ukrainian war, which it also unleashed. Only a few who did not succumb to the influence of Russian propaganda are trying to find out the exact number of losses in WWII.

In the article that we bring to your attention, the most important thing is that the fate of how many millions of people was not cared for by the Soviet and Russian authorities, while promoting their feat in every possible way.

Estimates of the losses of Soviet citizens in World War II 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. An illustrative example is the calculations of the Russian emigrant, demographer N. S. Timashev, published in the New York “New Journal” in 1948. Here is his technique.

The All-Union Population Census of the USSR in 1939 determined its population at 170.5 million. Growth 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. were annexed to the USSR Western Ukraine and Belarus, the three Baltic states, the Karelian lands of Finland, and Romania returned Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Therefore, minus the Karelian population who went to Finland, the Poles who fled to the West, and the Germans 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% in 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 World War II, the author determined the population growth for these territories by mid-1941 at 300 thousand. Consistently adding up the above figures, he received 200.7 million who lived in the USSR on the eve of June 22, 1941.

Next, Timashev divided 200 million into three age groups, again based on data from the 1939 All-Union Census: adults (over 18 years old) - 117.2 million, adolescents (from 8 to 18 years old) - 44.5 million, children (under 8 years old) - 38.8 million. In this 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 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 1947/48 academic year, compared with data from 1939 (31.4 million schoolchildren within the borders of the USSR before September 17, 1939) and arrived at 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 1000, in the second quarter of 1942 it decreased by 37.5%, and in 1943-1945. - 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 of the total losses of the Soviet Union in the Second World War.” 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, at least, to 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 by the Soviet people in the war. In the 6th, 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 the 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 troops.

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 carried out by military historians 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 highest authorities turned out to be accepted the figure is “over 20 million.”

As a result, “20 million” not only stuck 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.” It estimated direct military losses of the USSR 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. Out of numbers 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 I subtracted the irrecoverable losses from the resulting number Armed Forces(26.4 million) and received irretrievable losses of civilians - 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 losses of the Red Army in killed 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 killed in battle and died from wounds, illnesses, accidents and executed by 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. This is how it turned out to be 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 between the size of the Soviet population in 1941, which is known very approximately, and the size of the post-war population USSR, which is almost impossible to accurately determine. It was this difference that they considered the total human losses.

In 1993, a statistical study “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed: Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in Wars, Combat Actions and Military Conflicts” was published, 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: militia, partisan detachments, groups of underground workers.

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 liberated from the occupiers of the territory), 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.

The study by V. Litovkin 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 Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal A. Grechko: “Taking into account that the statistical collection contains information of 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 intended to be kept at the General Staff as a special document, to which a strictly limited circle of persons will be allowed to become familiar.” 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 whom 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 “Declassified” significantly expanded and supplemented the ideas not only of historians, but of everyone Russian society about the price of the Victory of 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 were killed and 14.8 thousand were 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 the staff 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 it as “ historical truth"other: "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 illnesses, 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 capital 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 categories of losses. As of November 1, 2000, 20 letters of the alphabet were processed; a preliminary calculation was carried out on the remaining 6 uncounted letters, which had 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 those who 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, this is lossless Navy, internal and border troops of the NKVD of the USSR.)

Using the same method, 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 Second World 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 Armed Forces of the USSR (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 studying the demographic results of the Second World War. Before the collapse of the USSR, there was no need to estimate human losses for individual republics or nationalities. And only at the end of the twentieth century L. Rybakovsky tried to calculate the approximate amount of human losses of the RSFSR within its then borders. According to his estimates, it amounted to approximately 13 million people - slightly less than half of the total losses of the USSR.

(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.)