Number of deaths in the Second World War 1941 1945. Losses in the Second World War

On the eve of Victory Day, I would like to raise several important, fundamental issues. I'll try in general outline characterize the pre-war potential of the USSR and Nazi Germany, and also provide data on human losses on both sides, including the latest. There is also the latest data on the number of dead Yakut residents.

The issue of losses in the Second World War has been discussed throughout the world for several years. There are various assessments, including sensational ones. Quantitative indicators are influenced not only various methods calculations, but also ideology, a subjective approach.

Western countries, led by the USA and England, tirelessly repeat the mantra that victory was “forged” in the sands North Africa, Normandy, on the sea routes of the North Atlantic and through the bombing of industrial targets in Germany and its allies.

The USSR’s war against Germany and its allies is presented to the Western public as “unknown.” Some residents Western countries, judging by polls, they seriously claim that the USSR and Germany were allies in that war.

The second favorite saying of some Westerners and home-grown “Western-leaning” liberal democrats is that the Victory over fascism was “filled with corpses Soviet soldiers“,” “one rifle for four,” “the command threw its soldiers at machine guns, the retreating detachments were shot,” “millions of prisoners,” without the help of the allied troops, the victory of the Red Army over the enemy would have been impossible.

Unfortunately, after N.S. Khrushchev came to power, some of Soviet military leaders In order to elevate their role in the battle against the “brown plague” of the 20th century, they described in their memoirs the implementation of orders from the Headquarters of Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin, as a result of which Soviet troops suffered unreasonably high losses.

And few people pay attention to the fact that during the period of active defensive, and even offensive battles, the main task was and is to achieve replenishment - additional troops from the reserve. And in order to satisfy the request, you need to provide such a drill note about big losses personnel of a specific military unit in order to receive reinforcements.

As always, the truth is in the middle!

At the same time, official data on the losses of Nazi armies on the Soviet side were often clearly underestimated or, conversely, overestimated, which led to a complete distortion of statistical data on the military losses of Nazi Germany and its direct allies.

Captured documents available in the USSR, in particular, 10-day reports from OKW (the highest military command of the Wehrmacht), were classified, and only in Lately military historians gained access to them.

For the first time, I.V. Stalin announced the losses of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War in 1946. He said that as a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irretrievably lost in battles with the Germans, as well as due to German occupation and hijacking Soviet people About seven million people were sent to German penal servitude.

Then N.S. Khrushchev, in 1961, having debunked Stalin’s personality cult, in a conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, mentioned that 20 million people died in the war.

And finally, a group of researchers led by G.F. Krivosheev estimates the total human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, determined by the demographic balance method, at 26.6 million people. This includes all those killed as a result of military and other actions of the enemy, those who died as a result of military and other actions of the enemy, those who died as a result of higher level mortality during the war in the occupied territory and in the rear, as well as persons who emigrated from the USSR during the war and did not return after its end.

Data on the losses of G. Krivosheev’s group are considered official. In 2001, the updated figures were as follows. USSR casualties:

- 6.3 million military personnel were killed or died from wounds,

- 555 thousand died from illnesses, as a result of accidents, incidents, were sentenced to death,

- 4.5 million– were captured and disappeared without a trace;

General demographic losses – 26.6 million Human.

German casualties:

- 4.046 million military personnel were killed, died of wounds, or went missing.

At the same time, the irretrievable losses of the armies of the USSR and Germany (including prisoners of war) are 11.5 million and 8.6 million (not counting 1.6 million prisoners of war after May 9, 1945), respectively.

However, new data is now emerging.

The beginning of the war is June 22, 1941. What was the balance of power between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union? What forces and capabilities did Hitler count on when preparing an attack on the USSR? How feasible was the “Barbarossa” plan prepared by the Wehrmacht General Staff?

It should be noted that in June 1941 the total population of Germany, including its direct allies, was 283 million people, and in the USSR - 160 million. Germany's direct allies at that time were: Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Croatia. In the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht personnel numbered 8.5 million people; four army groups with a total number of 7.4 million people were concentrated on the border with the USSR. Nazi Germany was armed with 5,636 tanks, more than 61,000 guns of various calibers, and over 10,000 aircraft (excluding the weapons of allied military formations).

General characteristics of the Red Army of the USSR for June 1941. The total number was 5.5 million military personnel. The number of divisions of the Red Army is 300, of which 170 divisions were concentrated on the western borders (3.9 million people), the rest were stationed on Far East(that's why Japan didn't attack), in Central Asia, Transcaucasia. It must be said that the Wehrmacht divisions were staffed according to wartime levels, and each had 14-16 thousand people. Soviet divisions were staffed according to peacetime levels and consisted of 7-8 thousand people.

The Red Army was armed with 11,000 tanks, of which 1,861 were T-34 tanks and 1,239 were KV tanks (the best in the world at that time). The rest of the tanks - BT-2, BT-5, BT-7, T-26, SU-5 with weak weapons, many vehicles were idle due to lack of spare parts. Most of the tanks had to be replaced with new vehicles. More than 60% of the tanks were in the troops of the western border districts.

Soviet artillery provided powerful firepower. On the eve of the war, the Red Army had 67,335 guns and mortars. Systems began to arrive volley fire"Katyusha". In terms of combat qualities, Soviet field artillery was superior to German, but was poorly equipped with mechanized traction. The needs for special artillery tractors were met by 20.5%.

In the western military districts of the Red Army Air Force there were 7,009 fighters, long-range aviation had 1,333 aircraft.

So, at the first stage of the war, high-quality and quantitative characteristics were on the enemy's side. The Nazis had a significant advantage in manpower, automatic weapons, and mortars. And thus, Hitler’s hopes to carry out a “blitzkrieg” against the USSR were calculated taking into account real conditions, arrangement of available armed forces and assets. In addition, Germany already had practical military experience gained as a result of military operations in other European countries. Surprise, aggressiveness, coordination of all forces and means, precise execution of orders from the Wehrmacht General Staff, the use of armored forces on a relatively small section of the front - this was a proven, fundamental tactic of action by military formations of Nazi Germany.

This tactic performed exceptionally well in military operations in Europe; Wehrmacht casualties were small. For example, in France, 27,074 German soldiers were killed and 111,034 were wounded. At the same time, the German army captured 1.8 million French soldiers. The war ended in 40 days. The victory was absolute.

In Poland, the Wehrmacht lost 16,843 soldiers, Greece - 1,484, Norway - 1,317, and another 2,375 died en route. These “historic” victories of German weapons incredibly inspired Adolf Hitler, and they were given the order to develop the “Barbarossa” plan - a war against the USSR.

It should also be noted that the question of surrender was never raised by Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin; Headquarters quite soberly analyzed and calculated the current military situation. In any case, in the first months of the war there was no panic at the army headquarters; panickers were shot on the spot.

In mid-July 1941 it ended initial period war. Due to a number of subjective and objective factors, Soviet troops suffered serious losses in manpower and equipment. As a result of heavy fighting, using air supremacy, the German armed forces by this time reached the borders of the Western Dvina and the middle reaches of the Dnieper, advancing to a depth of 300 to 600 km and inflicting major defeats on the Red Army, especially on the formations of the Western Front. In other words, the Wehrmacht’s priority tasks were completed. But the “blitzkrieg” tactics still failed.

The Germans met fierce resistance from the retreating troops. The NKVD troops and border guards especially distinguished themselves. Here, for example, is the testimony of a former German sergeant major who participated in the attacks on the 9th outpost of the border city of Przemysl: “...The fire was terrible! We left a lot of corpses on the bridge, but we never took possession of it right away. Then the commander of my battalion gave the order to ford the river to the right and left in order to surround the bridge and capture it intact. But as soon as we rushed into the river, the Russian border guards began to pour fire on us here too. The losses were terrible... Seeing that the plan was failing, the battalion commander ordered fire from 80-mm mortars. Only under their cover did we begin to infiltrate the Soviet shore... We could not advance further as quickly as our command wanted. The Soviet border guards had firing points along the coastline. They sat in them and shot literally until the last cartridge... Nowhere, never have we seen such stamina, such military perseverance... They preferred death to the possibility of captivity or withdrawal...”

Heroic actions made it possible to gain time for the 99th to approach rifle division Colonel N.I. Dementyev. Active resistance to the enemy continued.

As a result of stubborn battles, according to US intelligence services, as of December 1941, Germany lost 1.3 million people killed in the war against the USSR, and by March 1943, Wehrmacht losses already amounted to 5.42 million people (information has been declassified by the American side in our time ).

Yakutia 1941. What was the contribution of the peoples of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to the fight against Nazi Germany? Our losses. Heroic fighters of the Olonkho Land.

As you know, the scientific work “History of Yakutia” has been prepared since 2013. Research Fellow at the Institute of Humanitarian Studies and Problems small peoples North SB RAS Marianna Gryaznukhina, author of this chapter scientific work, which talks about the human losses of the Yakut people during the Great Patriotic War, kindly provided the following data: the population of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1941, on the eve of the war, was 419 thousand Human. 62 thousand people were drafted and went to the front as volunteers.

However, this cannot be called the exact number of Yakuts who fought for their Motherland. Several hundred people at the beginning of the war were passing through conscript service in the army, a certain number studied at military schools. Therefore, the number of Yakuts who fought can be considered from 62 to 65 thousand people.

Now about the human losses. IN last years the figure is called 32 thousand Yakuts, but it also cannot be considered accurate. According to the demographic formula, they did not return to the regions from the war; about 30% of those who fought died. It should be taken into account that 32 thousand did not return to the territory of Yakutia, but some soldiers and officers remained to live in other regions of the country, some returned late, until the 1950s. Therefore, the number of residents of Yakutia who died at the front is approximately 25 thousand people. Of course, for the small population of the republic this is a huge loss.

In general, the contribution of the Yakut people to the fight against the “brown plague” is enormous and has not yet been fully studied. Many became combat commanders, demonstrated military training, dedication, and courage in battles, for which they were awarded high military awards. Residents of the Khangalassky district of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) remember the general with warmth Prituzov (Pripuzov) Andrey Ivanovich. Participant of the First World War, commander of the 61st Guards Slavic Red Banner Division. The division fought through Romania, part of Austria and ended its journey in Bulgaria. The military general found his eternal rest in his native Pokrovsk.

How can one not remember on the eve of Victory Day about the Yakut snipers - two of whom were included in the legendary top ten best snipers Second World War. This is a Yakut Fedor Matveevich Okhlopkov, on personal account of which 429 Nazis were killed. Before becoming a sniper, he destroyed several dozen fascists with a machine gun and machine gun. And Fyodor Matveevich received the Hero of the Soviet Union only in 1965. Legendary person!

The second one is Evenk Ivan Nikolaevich Kulbertinov- 489 killed Nazis. Trained sniper business young soldiers of the Red Army. Originally from the village of Tyanya, Olekminsky district.

It should be noted that until the end of 1942, the Wehrmacht command missed opportunities sniper war, for which he paid dearly. During the war, the Nazis began hastily learning the art of snipers using captured Soviet military training films and instructions for snipers. At the front they used the same Soviet captured Mosin and SVT rifles. Only by 1944 did the Wehrmacht military units include trained snipers.

Our colleague, lawyer, Honored Lawyer of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), has passed the worthy path of a front-line soldier. Yuri Nikolaevich Zharnikov. He began his military career as an artilleryman, in 1943 he retrained as a T-34 driver, his tank was hit twice, and the hero himself received severe concussions. He has dozens of battle victories, hundreds of killed enemies, a large number of broken and burned enemy heavy equipment, including German tanks. As Yuri Nikolaevich recalled, the calculation of enemy losses was carried out by the commander of the tank unit, and his concern was the constant maintenance of the mechanical part of the combat vehicle. For military exploits, Yu.N. Zharnikov was awarded many orders and medals, of which he was proud. Today Yuri Nikolaevich is not among us, but we, the lawyers of Yakutia, keep his memory in our hearts.

Results of the Great Patriotic War. Losses of the German armed forces. The ratio of the losses of Nazi Germany and its direct allies with the losses of the Red Army

Let us turn to the latest publications of a prominent Russian military historian Igor Ludvigovich Garibyan, who did a tremendous amount of statistical work, studying not only Soviet sources, but also captured archival documents of the Wehrmacht General Staff.

According to the Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht High Command - OKW, Wilhelm Keitel, Germany lost 9 million soldiers killed on the Eastern Front, 27 million were seriously wounded (without the possibility of returning to duty), went missing, were captured, all of this is united by the concept of “irretrievable losses.” "

Historian Gharibyan calculated German losses based on 10-day OKW reports, and the following data was obtained:

Germans and Austrians killed during hostilities - 7,541,401 people (data as of April 20, 1945);

Missing – 4,591,511 people.

The total irretrievable losses are 17,801,340 people, including disabled people, prisoners, and those who died from diseases.

These figures concern only two countries – Germany and Austria. The losses of Romania, Hungary, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia and other countries that fought against the USSR are not taken into account here.

Thus, Hungary, with its population of nine million, lost only 809,000 soldiers and officers killed in the war against the Red Army, mostly young people aged 20 to 29 years. 80,000 died in battle civilian population. Meanwhile, in the same Hungary in 1944, on the eve of the collapse of the fascist regime, 500,000 Hungarian Jews and Gypsies were exterminated, according to Western media mass media they prefer to remain “bashfully” silent.

To sum up, we must admit that the USSR had to fight virtually one-on-one (in 1941-1943) with all of Europe, except England. All factories in France, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Italy worked for the war. The Wehrmacht was provided not only with military materials, but also with the human resources of Germany's direct allies.

As a result, the Soviet people, showing the will to Victory and mass heroism both on the battlefield and in the rear, defeated the enemy and defended the Fatherland from the “brown plague” of the 20th century.

The article is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather - Stroev Gavril Egorovich, a resident of the village of Batamai, Ordzhonikidze district of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the chairman of the Zarya collective farm, who died heroically in the Great Patriotic War in 1943, and all the Yakut residents who did not return from the war.

Yuri PRIPUZOV,

President of the Yakut Republican

Bar Association "Petersburg"

Honored Lawyer of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

I think it is difficult to find a person on earth who has not heard of World War II. Also in school years we had to study a large number of textbooks, which spoke in detail about this sad period in the history of our country. But, no matter how detailed the Second was described World War in our textbooks, one question always remained and remains controversial: how many people died in World War II.

How many people died in Russia

After I once again read and listened to a lot of information about World War II, I realized that No one has been able to count the exact number of dead.

It's no secret that Russia suffered huge losses in WWII. WITH ready dead people There were not only military personnel, but also the civilian population of the country. The war years were terrible and black. There was death, hunger and poverty everywhere. Over time, very young boys (15-17 years old) began to be taken to the front; we all understand that at that age they were just children. Nevertheless, The Russian people fought with particular courage for their freedom and independence.

According to the latest official data, the number Russian people who died during World War II is equal to 26 million 562 thousand people.

How many people died in Germany during WWII

Everyone knows that the German army also fought very hard for its victory. It was to the front about 9 million mobilized Human, About half of them died, respectively, 4.5 million. As for losses among the civilian population of Germany during the Second World War, the figures are equal to 3 million. In total, it turns out that during the Second World War lost about 12 million people. Doesn't it seem strange to you that this figure is much lower than in Russia?

How many people died in World War II

As you already understood, every country during World War II suffered really serious losses, both among the military and civilian population. Do not forget that in addition to Russia and Germany, many other countries took part in the war (Ukraine, Belarus, and so on), and each of them lost one or another number of people. I tried for a very long time to find the exact number of people killed in World War II, but I never succeeded, since this the number is so huge that it is unlikely that anyone will be able to recognize her. I can only say that according to the latest data, The number of deaths during the Second World War exceeds 100 million people.

I think that World War II will forever remain in our memory. The main thing is that we never forget about those who gave us our bright future, and the bitter price our ancestors paid for victory.

World War II was the most destructive war in the history of mankind. Its consequences are still debated to this day. 80% of the world's population took part in it.

Many questions arise about how many people died in World War II, as different sources of information give different estimates of human casualties between 1939 and 1945. The differences may be explained by where the source information was obtained and the method of calculation used.

Total death toll

It is worth noting that many historians and professors have studied this issue. The number of deaths on the Soviet side was counted by staff General Staff Armed Forces Russian Federation. According to new archival data, the information of which is provided for 2001, the Great Patriotic War claimed the lives of a total of 27 million people. Of these, more than seven million are military personnel who were killed or died from their injuries.

Conversations about how many people died from 1939 to 1945. as a result of military operations, continue to this day, since it is almost impossible to count losses. Various researchers and historians give their data: from 40 to 60 million people. After the war, the real data was hidden. During Stalin's reign it was said that the USSR's losses amounted to 8 million people. During Brezhnev's time, this figure increased to 20 million, and during the perestroika period - to 36 million.

The free encyclopedia Wikipedia provides the following data: more than 25.5 million military personnel and about 47 million civilians (including all participating countries), i.e. in total, the number of losses exceeds 70 million people.

Read about other events in our history in the section.

Calculating the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War remains one of the scientific problems unsolved by historians. Official statistics - 26.6 million dead, including 8.7 million military personnel - underestimate the losses among those who were at the front. Contrary to popular belief, the bulk of the dead were military personnel (up to 13.6 million), and not the civilian population of the Soviet Union.

There is a lot of literature on this problem, and perhaps some people get the impression that it has been sufficiently researched. Yes, indeed, there is a lot of literature, but many questions and doubts remain. There is too much here that is unclear, controversial and clearly unreliable. Even the reliability of the current official data on the human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War (about 27 million people) raises serious doubts.

History of calculation and official state recognition of losses

The official figure for the demographic losses of the Soviet Union has changed several times. In February 1946, the figure of losses of 7 million people was published in the Bolshevik magazine. In March 1946, Stalin, in an interview with the Pravda newspaper, stated that the USSR lost 7 million people during the war: “As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irretrievably lost in battles with the Germans, as well as thanks to the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet people to German hard labor about seven million people." The report “The Military Economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War” published in 1947 by the Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee Voznesensky did not indicate human losses.

In 1959, the first post-war census of the USSR population was carried out. In 1961, Khrushchev, in a letter to the Prime Minister of Sweden, reported 20 million dead: “Can we sit back and wait for a repeat of 1941, when the German militarists launched a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed the lives of two tens of millions of Soviet people?” In 1965, Brezhnev, on the 20th anniversary of the Victory, announced more than 20 million dead.

In 1988–1993 a team of military historians under the leadership of Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev conducted a statistical study of archival documents and other materials containing information about human losses in the army and navy, border and internal troops of the NKVD. The result of the work was the figure of 8,668,400 casualties of the USSR security forces during the war.

Since March 1989, on behalf of the CPSU Central Committee, a state commission has been working to study the number of human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. The commission included representatives of the State Statistics Committee, the Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Defense, the Main Archival Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Committee of War Veterans, the Union of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The commission did not count losses, but estimated the difference between the estimated population of the USSR at the end of the war and the estimated population that would have lived in the USSR if there had been no war. The commission first announced its figure of demographic losses of 26.6 million people at the ceremonial meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 8, 1990.

On May 5, 2008, the President of the Russian Federation signed a decree “On the publication of the fundamental multi-volume work “The Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.” On October 23, 2009, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation signed the order “On the Interdepartmental Commission for Calculating Losses during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.” The commission included representatives of the Ministry of Defense, FSB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rosstat, and Rosarkhiv. In December 2011, a representative of the commission announced the country’s overall demographic losses during the war period 26.6 million people, of which losses of active armed forces 8668400 people.

Military personnel

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense irrecoverable losses during the fighting on the Soviet-German front from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945, there were 8,860,400 Soviet troops. The source was data declassified in 1993 and data obtained during the search work of the Memory Watch and in historical archives.

According to declassified data from 1993: killed, died from wounds and illnesses, non-combat losses - 6 885 100 people, including

Killed - 5,226,800 people.
Died from wounds - 1,102,800 people.
Died from various reasons and accidents, shot - 555,500 people.

On May 5, 2010, the head of the Department of the Russian Ministry of Defense for perpetuating the memory of those killed in defense of the Fatherland, Major General A. Kirilin, told RIA Novosti that the figures for military losses are 8 668 400 , will be reported to the country's leadership so that they are announced on May 9, the 65th anniversary of the Victory.

According to G.F. Krivosheev, during the Great Patriotic War, a total of 3,396,400 military personnel went missing and were captured (about another 1,162,600 were attributed to unaccounted combat losses in the first months of the war, when combat units did not provide any information about these losses reports), that is, in total

missing, captured and unaccounted for combat losses - 4,559,000;
1,836,000 military personnel returned from captivity, 1,783,300 did not return (died, emigrated) (that is, the total number of prisoners was 3,619,300, which is more than together with the missing);
previously considered missing and were called up again from the liberated territories - 939,700.

So the official irrecoverable losses(6,885,100 dead, according to declassified 1993 data, and 1,783,300 who did not return from captivity) amounted to 8,668,400 military personnel. But from them we must subtract 939,700 re-callers who were considered missing. We get 7,728,700.

The error was pointed out, in particular, by Leonid Radzikhovsky. The correct calculation is as follows: the figure 1,783,300 is the number of those who did not return from captivity and those who went missing (and not just those who did not return from captivity). Then official irrecoverable losses (killed 6,885,100, according to declassified data in 1993, and those who did not return from captivity and missing 1,783,300) amounted to 8 668 400 military personnel.

According to M.V. Filimoshin, during the Great Patriotic War, 4,559,000 Soviet military personnel and 500 thousand persons liable for military service, called up for mobilization, but not included in the lists of troops, were captured and went missing. From this figure, the calculation gives the same result: if 1,836,000 returned from captivity and 939,700 were re-called from those listed as unknown, then 1,783,300 military personnel were missing and did not return from captivity. So the official irrecoverable losses (6,885,100 died, according to declassified data from 1993, and 1,783,300 went missing and did not return from captivity) are 8 668 400 military personnel.

Additional data

Civilian population

A group of researchers led by G. F. Krivosheev estimated the losses of the civilian population of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War at approximately 13.7 million people.

The final number is 13,684,692 people. consists of the following components:

were exterminated in the occupied territory and died as a result of military operations (from bombing, shelling, etc.) - 7,420,379 people.
died as a result of a humanitarian catastrophe (hunger, infectious diseases, lack of medical care etc.) – 4,100,000 people.
died in forced labor in Germany - 2,164,313 people. (another 451,100 people, for various reasons, did not return and became emigrants).

According to S. Maksudov, about 7 million people died in the occupied territories and in besieged Leningrad (of which, 1 million in besieged Leningrad, 3 million were Jews, victims of the Holocaust), and about 7 million more people died as a result of increased mortality in non-occupied territories.

The total losses of the USSR (together with the civilian population) amounted to 40–41 million people. These estimates are confirmed by comparing data from the 1939 and 1959 censuses, since there is reason to believe that in 1939 there was a very significant undercount of male conscripts.

In general, 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.

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.

Nationalitydead military personnel	Number of losses (thousand people)	% to total irrecoverable losses
Russians	5 756.0	66.402
Ukrainians	1 377.4	15.890
Belarusians	252.9	2.917
Tatars	187.7	2.165
Jews	142.5	1.644
Kazakhs	125.5	1.448
Uzbeks	117.9	1.360
Armenians	83.7	0.966
Georgians	79.5	0.917
Mordva	63.3	0.730
Chuvash	63.3	0.730
Yakuts	37.9	0.437
Azerbaijanis	58.4	0.673
Moldovans	53.9	0.621
Bashkirs	31.7	0.366
Kyrgyz	26.6	0.307
Udmurts	23.2	0.268
Tajiks	22.9	0.264
Turkmens	21.3	0.246
Estonians	21.2	0.245
Mari	20.9	0.241
Buryats	13.0	0.150
Komi	11.6	0.134
Latvians	11.6	0.134
Lithuanians	11.6	0.134
Peoples of Dagestan	11.1	0.128
Ossetians	10.7	0.123
Poles	10.1	0.117
Karelians	9.5	0.110
Kalmyks	4.0	0.046
Kabardians and Balkars	3.4	0.039
Greeks	2.4	0.028
Chechens and Ingush	2.3	0.026
Finns	1.6	0.018
Bulgarians	1.1	0.013
Czechs and Slovaks	0.4	0.005
Chinese	0.4	0.005
Assyrians	0,2	0,002
Yugoslavs	0.1	0.001

The greatest losses on the battlefields of the Second World War were suffered by Russians and Ukrainians. Many Jews were killed. But the most tragic was the fate of the Belarusian people. In the first months of the war, the entire territory of Belarus was occupied by the Germans. During the war, the Belarusian SSR lost up to 30% of its population. In the occupied territory of the BSSR, the Nazis killed 2.2 million people. (The latest research data on Belarus is as follows: the Nazis destroyed civilians - 1,409,225 people, killed prisoners in German death camps - 810,091 people, drove into German slavery - 377,776 people). It is also known that in percentage terms - the amount dead soldiers/number of population, among the Soviet republics Georgia suffered great damage. Of the 700 thousand residents of Georgia called up to the front, almost 300 thousand did not return.

Losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops

To date, there are no sufficiently reliable loss figures. German army, obtained by direct statistical calculation. This is explained by the absence, for various reasons, of reliable initial statistical materials on German losses. The picture is more or less clear regarding the number of Wehrmacht prisoners of war on the Soviet-German front. According to Russian sources, Soviet troops 3,172,300 Wehrmacht soldiers were captured, of which 2,388,443 Germans were in NKVD camps. According to German historians, there were about 3.1 million German military personnel in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps.

The discrepancy is approximately 0.7 million people. This discrepancy is explained by differences in estimates of the number of Germans who died in captivity: according to Russian archival documents, 356,700 Germans died in Soviet captivity, and according to German researchers, approximately 1.1 million people. It seems that the Russian figure of Germans killed in captivity is more reliable, and the missing 0.7 million Germans who went missing and did not return from captivity actually died not in captivity, but on the battlefield.

There is another statistics of losses - statistics of burials of Wehrmacht soldiers. According to the annex to the German law “On the Preservation of Burial Sites,” the total number of German soldiers located in recorded burial sites on the territory of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries is 3 million 226 thousand people. (in the territory of the USSR alone - 2,330,000 burials). This figure can be taken as a starting point for calculating the demographic losses of the Wehrmacht, however, it also needs to be adjusted.

Firstly, this figure takes into account only the burials of Germans, and those who fought in the Wehrmacht big number soldiers of other nationalities: Austrians (270 thousand of them died), Sudeten Germans and Alsatians (230 thousand people died) and representatives of other nationalities and states (357 thousand people died). From total number Of the dead Wehrmacht soldiers of non-German nationality, the Soviet-German front accounts for 75-80%, i.e. 0.6–0.7 million people.
Secondly, this figure dates back to the early 90s of the last century. Since then, the search for German burials in Russia, the CIS countries and of Eastern Europe continued. And the messages that appeared on this topic were not informative enough. For example, the Russian Association of War Memorials, created in 1992, reported that over the 10 years of its existence it transferred information about the burials of 400 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers to the German Association for the Care of Military Graves. However, whether these were newly discovered burials or whether they had already been taken into account in the figure of 3 million 226 thousand is unclear. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find generalized statistics of newly discovered burials of Wehrmacht soldiers. Tentatively, we can assume that the number of graves of Wehrmacht soldiers newly discovered over the past 10 years is in the range of 0.2–0.4 million people.
Thirdly, many graves of dead Wehrmacht soldiers on Soviet soil have disappeared or were deliberately destroyed. Approximately 0.4–0.6 million Wehrmacht soldiers could have been buried in such disappeared and unmarked graves.
Fourthly, these data do not include the burials of German soldiers killed in battles with Soviet troops on the territory of Germany and Western European countries. According to R. Overmans, only in the last three spring months About 1 million people died during the war. (minimum estimate 700 thousand) In general, approximately 1.2–1.5 million Wehrmacht soldiers died on German soil and in Western European countries in battles with the Red Army.
Finally, fifthly, the number of those buried also included Wehrmacht soldiers who died a “natural” death (0.1–0.2 million people)

An approximate procedure for calculating the total human losses in Germany

The population in 1939 was 70.2 million people.
The population in 1946 was 65.93 million people.
Natural mortality 2.8 million people.
Natural increase (birth rate) 3.5 million people.
Emigration influx of 7.25 million people.
Total losses ((70.2 – 65.93 – 2.8) + 3.5 + 7.25 = 12.22) 12.15 million people.

conclusions

Let us remember that disputes about the number of deaths continue to this day.

Almost 27 million USSR citizens died during the war ( exact number– 26.6 million). This amount included:

killed and died from wounds of military personnel;
those who died from disease;
executed by firing squad (based on various denunciations);
missing and captured;
representatives of the civilian population, both in the occupied territories of the USSR and in other regions of the country, in which, due to the ongoing hostilities in the state, there was an increased mortality rate from hunger and disease.

This also includes those who emigrated from the USSR during the war and did not return to their homeland after the victory. The vast majority of those killed were men (about 20 million). Modern researchers claim that by the end of the war, of the men born in 1923. (i.e. those who were 18 years old in 1941 and could be drafted into the army) about 3% remained alive. By 1945, there were twice as many women in the USSR as men (data for people aged 20 to 29 years).

In addition to the actual deaths, human losses include a sharp drop in the birth rate. Thus, according to official estimates, if the birth rate in the state had remained at least at the same level, the population of the Union by the end of 1945 should have been 35–36 million more people than it was in reality. Despite numerous studies and calculations, the exact number of those killed during the war is unlikely to ever be known.

Surprisingly, 70 years after our Victory, one of the most important questions has not been settled - how many of our fellow citizens died during the Great Patriotic War. Official figures have changed several times. And always in one direction – in the direction of increasing losses. Stalin called 9 million dead (which is close to the truth, if we take into account military losses); under Brezhnev, the figure of 20 million lives given for the freedom of the Motherland was introduced. At the end of Perestroika, figures appeared that historians and politicians use today - 27 million USSR citizens died during the Great Patriotic War. Voices are already being heard that “more than 33 million people actually died.”

So who and why is constantly increasing our losses, why is the myth of “being showered with corpses” maintained? And why did the Immortal Regiment appear, as the first step towards new version about the “inhumane leadership of the USSR” during the Second World War, “saving itself at the expense of ”.

On the eve of Victory Day, I received two letters that are an excellent illustration of the question of the true losses of our people in the war against fascism.

From these two letters from readers we got material about the war and our losses.

Letter one.

“Dear Nikolai Viktorovich!

I agree with you that history is like rules traffic(). Failure to follow the rules leads to a dead end or worse... In history, not only facts are important, but also numbers (not just dates).

Since “perestroika and glasnost” a lot of figures have appeared, but not achievements, but losses. And one of these figures is 27 million who died in the Great Patriotic War (WWII).

At the same time, this is not enough for some “politicians” and they begin to voice larger numbers.

Remember what a shock (as they say nowadays) the number of many millions of “victims of repression” causes in people. For some, it is obligatory and with clarification - “Stalinist”. And the real figure for normal researchers is from 650 thousand to 680 thousand people. By the way, in Grover Furr’s book “Shadows of the 20th Congress, or anti-Stalinist meanness” (M. Eksmo, Algorithm, 2010) the following figures are given for those executed in 1937 - 353,074 people, 1938 - 328,618 people, a total of 681,692 people. But this number includes not only political, but also criminals.

The study of WWII losses itself indicates a figure of 26.6 million people. It is indicated that 1.3 million are emigrants. That is, they left the country. This means that there are still 25.3 million dead.

It is very difficult to directly establish the losses of the USSR. The number of casualties of the Red Army alone was established in a study conducted by the Min. Defense in 1988-1993 under the leadership of Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev.

Estimates of the direct physical extermination of the civilian population, according to the ChGK data from 1946, amounted to 6,390,800 people on the territory of the USSR. This number also includes prisoners of war. What about the number of deaths from hunger, bombing, and artillery shelling? I have not seen such studies.

The assessment of USSR losses is carried out according to a completely logical formula:

Losses of the USSR = Population of the USSR on June 22, 1941 - Population of the USSR on the date of the end of the war + Number of children who died due to increased mortality (from among those born during the war) - Population would have died in Peaceful time, based on 1940 mortality rates.

We substitute the numbers into the above formula and get:

196.7 million - 159.5 million + 1.3 million - 1 1.9 million = 26.6 million people

There is almost no discrepancy between the researchers in two figures - these are:

Number of children who died due to increased mortality (among those born during the war). The figure cited is 1.3 million people.

The population would have died in peacetime, based on the 1940 mortality rate = 11.9 million people.

But there are questions about the other two numbers. The population of the USSR at the end of the war (those born before June 22, 1941) was determined to be 159.5 million people based on data for December 1945. It is worth remembering the following facts: in 1944, Tuva became part of the USSR. Moreover, since 1943, Tuvan volunteers took part in battles on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. In 1939 and 1940, the lands of Western Belarus, Ukraine, and the Carpathian region became part of the USSR. The population of these regions was included in the population of the USSR. But in 1945 Poland and

Czechoslovakia, and also defined new borders for them (and for Hungary and Romania). And many Poles, Slovaks, Romanians, Hungarians ( former citizens USSR) decided to return to their states. This raises the question: how were these people counted in the post-war census? Researchers are silent about this.

Now the population of the USSR as of June 22, 1941. How did this figure come about?

To the population of the USSR as of January 1939, we added the population of the annexed territories and the population growth over 2.5 years, i.e.

170.6 million + 20.8 million + 4.9 million and another + 0.4 million due to the “infant mortality reduction coefficient” and received 196.7 million people by June 22, 1941.

Wherein:

The population of the USSR according to the 1926 census is 147 million people

The population of the USSR according to the 1937 census is 162 million people.

The population of the USSR according to the 1939 census is 170.6 million people.

The 1926 census took place in December, the 1937 and 1939 censuses took place in early January, that is, all three censuses were carried out within the same boundaries. Population growth from 1926 to 1937 amounted to 15 million people over 10 years, or 1.5 million per year. And suddenly, over the 2 years of 1937 and 1938, it was calculated that the population growth was 8.6 million. And this was at the time of urbanization and the “demographic echo” of the First World War and the Civil War. By the way, the average annual population growth of the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s was approximately 2.3-2.5 million people per year.

In statistical reference books of the 50s, the population of the USSR in 1941 was generally indicated as 191.7 million people. Even a democrat and officially called a traitor, Rezun-Suvorov, in his books about the Second World War, writes that “The population of the Soviet Union at the beginning of 1941 was 191 million people” (Viktor Suvorov. About half a billion. Chapter from a new book. http://militera. lib.ru/research/pravda_vs-3/01.html).

(The question why, when calculating the population of the USSR, they decided to increase the population figure by 5 million remains unanswered).

By indicating in the calculation a figure that is closer to the real value, i.e. 191.7 million people at the beginning of the Second World War we get:

The population of the USSR as of June 22, 1941 was 191.7

The population of the USSR as of December 31, 1945 was 170.5

Incl. born before June 22, 1941 - 159.5

Total population decline among those living on June 22, 1941 (191.7 million - 159.5 million = 32.2 million people) - 32.2

Number of children who died due to increased mortality (of those born during the war) - 1.3

The population would have died in peacetime, based on the mortality rate of 1940 - 11.9

Total human losses of the USSR as a result of the war: 32.2 million + 1.3 million - 1 1.9 million = 21.6 million people.

Firstly, we must take into account that non-military mortality in 1941-1945

It is incorrect to calculate based on mortality in 1940. During the war years 1941-1945.

non-military mortality should have been much HIGHER than in the peaceful year of 1940.

Secondly, this “general population decline” also includes the so-called. “second emigration” (up to 1.5 million people) and the loss of collaborationist formations that fought on the side of the Germans (Estonian and Latvian SS men, “ostbattalions”, policemen, etc.) - they also consisted, as it were, of citizens of the USSR! This is up to 400,000 people.

And if these numbers are subtracted from 21.6 million, you get about 19.8 million.

That is, in round numbers - the same “Brezhnev” 20 million.

Therefore, until researchers have been able to provide reasonable calculations, I propose not to use the figures that appeared during Gorbachev’s time. The purpose of these calculations was certainly not to establish the truth. I wrote to you about this because I heard several times in your speeches about the USSR’s losses of 27 million people.

Sincerely, Matvienko Gennady Ivanovich

P.S. According to estimates, the losses (minimal) of the Germans alone in the 2nd World War are at least 12 million people (while the maximum estimate of losses of the German civilian population does not exceed 3 million). And they completely forgot the Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, Finns.

At Stalingrad in September 1942, Paulus’s army was 270 thousand people, and 2 Romanian and 1 Hungarian armies were about 340 thousand people.”

Thank you very much to Gennady Ivanovich for his letter. But the letter from another reader sent a little earlier is simply an illustration of what is written above.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Berkaliev Askar Abdrakhmanovich. I live in Kazakhstan in Almaty, a pensioner, but I continue to be interested in social and political life in the territory of the former USSR. I try to follow the television battles that our television broadcasts. I am impressed by your interpretation of the History of the Great Patriotic War and the fact that you examine the most controversial moments of this war. I would not bother you and take up your time if I had not accidentally stumbled upon facts that shook the established (for me personally) information about the losses of our country in the last war.

Until the 70s of the last century, it was believed that our country’s losses in the Great Patriotic War amounted to 20 million dead. Then the figure of 27 million appeared out of nowhere and there is a strong trend towards an increase in the number of our losses.

Some sections of society (especially the intelligentsia) have the view that Soviet army showered the Germans with the corpses of its soldiers and won not by skill, but by numbers. I think that such an opinion contributes to belittling the merits of our people in winning that war. As well as regularly expressed points of view that without supplies under Lend-Lease we would not have won, that without the second front we would not have won, etc.

I'll tell you a little about what facts I found.

In the fall of 2013, I made a trip to Ukraine. My older brother Nariman Berkaliev died there at the end of 1943. We for a long time they did not know the exact place of death and burial. The death notice indicated that he died in the Kirovograd region on December 20, 1943, without indicating the exact burial place. In 1991, the “Book of Memory” was published in our regional newspaper. The names of our fellow countrymen who died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War were listed there, and the specified places of their burial were indicated.

Due to various circumstances, none of the remaining family members were able to travel to Ukraine. The parents were no longer alive, the older brothers were aged and their health did not allow them to travel to Ukraine. I was the youngest of the brothers and, putting aside other matters, I still went to the Kirovograd region and found the village of Sukhodolskoye in the Dolinsky district (during the war it was called Batyzman). Found a mass grave. The brother's name and surname were on the list engraved on granite stones. The mass grave is kept in good condition, thanks to the village residents. I laid flowers and handfuls of earth brought from my homeland.

Having the goal of visiting the grave of my older brother, I wanted to look at the land for the liberation of which my father fought. My father was drafted into the army in the summer of 1942 and ended up in the Stalingrad area. He was awarded the rank of sergeant (he had experience Civil War). He served in the 706th Infantry Regiment of the 204th Division, which was part of the 64th Army. On January 18, 1943, during the liquidation of an encircled German group, he was wounded. He was in a hospital in Buzuluk and in the summer of 1943 he returned to active army. He ended up in the 983rd regiment of the 253rd division, which was part of the 40th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front. He took part in the battles for the liberation of the Poltava region, walked through Gogol’s places, was in Dikanka, and almost drowned in the Psel River there. In November 1943, part of them crossed the Dnieper in the area of the Bukrin bridgehead, simulating that the main attack would come from here. In fact, the main attack was made from the Lyutezh bridgehead. For two days, their regiment, which moved to the right bank, held out under fire from the Germans, who were entrenched on the high bank of the Dnieper. On the third day, my father was wounded by a German mine explosion and evacuated to the rear. They wanted to amputate his legs, but he did not allow it, endured six months of treatment in a rear hospital and returned home in the summer of 1944. My father died in 1973 at the age of 70.

After a trip to Ukraine, I began to study in more detail the combat path of my closest relatives. From close relatives, my father, older brother, and six older cousins took part in that war.

I’m retired now, I have enough time, and after a trip to Ukraine I decided to compose something like memoirs for the younger generation. Certainly, great place The memoirs are dedicated to how the older generation showed itself in the war. Of the eight close relatives who went to war, only four returned alive.

In the course of compiling my notes, which later grew into memoirs, I had to rummage through my home archives. It turned out that a lot of information can be found on the Internet. There are special sites “Feat of the People” and OBD “Memorial”. You, of course, know about this, but for me it was a big find. It turns out that if you have information about the number of a military unit, you can trace its combat path. You can find information about awards and even awards submissions. I remember my father talking about his last fight- crossing the Dnieper in early November 1943. On the third day after the crossing, already on the right bank, my father was wounded and was taken to the rear. Before being sent to the hospital, the commander told my father that he would nominate him for the Order of Glory, 2nd class (my father already had the Order of Glory, 3rd class). But he never received the promised order. On the Internet I found an award sheet (nomination for an award). My father was nominated not for the order, but only for the medal “For Courage,” but he didn’t receive that either. The award sheet indicated the circumstances and location of the battle. It was near the village of Khodorovka on the famous Bukrinsky bridgehead.

I started digging more thoroughly on the Internet. I entered the Memorial OBD website and found out that my father was considered killed on January 18, 1943 during the liquidation of an encircled German group (that is, during the first wound).

After discovering an obvious discrepancy between the information received and reality, I checked whether the Memorial OBD contained information about my other relatives who died at the front.

Two older cousins died back in 1941. There is no information about them. They were ordinary soldiers. In addition, I do not know exactly the years of birth and surnames (for Kazakhs, the surname is often taken from the name of the father, grandfather or distant ancestor).
Another older cousin of Kairov, Salim, was a career military man who fought on the Kalinin Front. His name is listed on the Memorial OBD list of irretrievable losses three times. All three information contain the same last name and first name. Even the numbers of the military unit and division are the same. The difference is that somewhere he was recorded as a lieutenant, and somewhere as a senior lieutenant. In one case he was considered killed on January 9, 1943, and in another information on January 8, 1943. Somewhere he was considered to have been born in the Ashgabat region, and somewhere in the West Kazakhstan region. Although they were clearly talking about the same person (too many coincidences in details). But at the same time, each information from the Memorial OBD has a separate folder and file.

My actually deceased elder brother Nariman also appears on the lists of the dead in the Memorial OBD three times. In one case, he is considered a fighter of the 68th brigade and is buried in the village. Batyzman, Dolinsky district. In other information, he is identified as a fighter who only has field mail 32172, without indicating the place of death. In the third case, he is recorded as a fighter of the 68th brigade. But the burial place is named the village of Batyzman, Novgorodkovsky district.

There was another participant in the war in our family - the father of my wife, Seydalin Mukash, born in 1910. When searching for data about him, the Memorial OBD indicated that senior sergeant 1120 rifle regiment Mukash Seydalin died in hospital from his wounds in December 1942. In fact, he was wounded on December 6, 1942. After being wounded, he was given a commission and from 1943 worked as a teacher in the city of Chu, Dzhambul region. Died in 1985 at the age of 75.

I got a bunch of contradictory information.

My father returned from the war wounded but alive. According to information from Memorial OBD, he is considered dead.
My wife's father returned from the war wounded but alive. There is information about him that he died in the hospital.
My brother Nariman really died, but according to information from the Memorial OBD, he is on three lists, that is, he is listed as three different dead people.
Another brother (cousin) was also really killed, but according to information from the Memorial OBD, he was killed three times and there are three separate records about this.

It turns out that for four people there are eight reports of death, although only two actually died.

It seems to me that errors in the information could have arisen at the first stage, i.e. when filling out reports of irrecoverable losses. I saw the original military field records on the Internet. These are certainly genuine documents, written on yellowed paper which confirms the authenticity of the originals. But we must take into account that the recordings were made in conditions of hostilities, and by people who did not always themselves witness what happened, they often wrote from the words of other people. I cannot explain the appearance of information about the death of people who were in fact only wounded by other reasons. Ordinary human factor.

The appearance of errors associated with repeated inclusion in lists of irretrievable losses, I think, occurred at the digitization stage. Probably the information was not filtered enough to repeat the information. The computer is not able to detect the identity of the information if, for example, if there is the same last name and first name, the burial place does not match. For the computer, this is a different person. Here we can talk not about the human factor, but about its absence or insufficiency. A person would definitely guess that the information contains information about the same person. Too many matching details.

To objectively assess my doubts, it is necessary to conduct a study of a large sample of hundreds and thousands of people. I can’t do this, and besides, I’m not an expert in digging through archives and the Internet. Here we need professional historians who know how to understand archives and have access to large amounts of archival documents. I ask you to clarify whether my doubts are justified. If the facts that I encountered are widespread, then it is necessary to find out, at least to a first approximation, the percentage of errors. The usual human factor could greatly exaggerate our losses in the war. To my letter I attach information about my relatives who died in the war (and are considered dead). Maybe this will help you get a more objective picture.

I congratulate you on the approaching 70th anniversary of Victory, I wish you creative success in that the right job which you are conducting."

Thank you very much, dear Gennady Ivanovich and Askar Abdrakhmanovich, for your important and extremely interesting letters. Health and happiness to you!

So what is it, the true price of our Victory? When will speculation about the feat of our people come to an end and “new research” and “independent researchers” will stop exaggerating the number of victims that our multinational people brought to the altar of Victory?

And as a postscript, material about the Immortal Regiment as an inappropriate and harmful reform of the established order of celebrating Victory Day:

Let the Immortal Regiment become an attribute