The military historian from Freiburg, R. Overmans, published the book "German Military Losses in World War II", which took him 12 years - a rather rare case in our fleeting time.

The personnel of the German military machine in World War II is 13.6 million infantrymen, 2.5 million military pilots, 1.2 million military sailors and 0.9 million employees of the SS troops.

But how many German soldiers fell in that war? To answer this question, R. Overmans turned to the surviving primary sources. Among them is a consolidated list of identification marks (tokens) of German military personnel (about 16.8 million names in total) and Kriegsmarine documentation (about 1.2 million names), on the one hand, and a summary file of losses of the Wehrmacht Information Service about military losses and prisoners of war (about 18.3 million cards in total), on the other.

Overmans claims that the irretrievable losses of the German army amounted to 5.3 million people. This is approximately one million more than the figure rooted in the mass consciousness. According to the scientist's calculations, almost every third German soldier did not return from the war. Most of all - 2743 thousand, or 51.6% - fell on the Eastern Front, and the most devastating losses in the entire war turned out not to be the death of the 6th Army near Stalingrad, but the breakthroughs of the Army Group Center in July 1944 and the Army Group "Southern Ukraine" in the Yass region in August 1944. Between 300 and 400 thousand people died during both operations. On the Western Front, irretrievable losses amounted to only 340 thousand people, or 6.4% of the total losses.

The most dangerous was the service in the SS: about 34% of the personnel of these specific troops died in the war or in captivity (that is, every third; and if on the Eastern Front, then every second). The infantry also got it, the mortality rate in which was 31%; with a large "lag" followed by the air (17%) and naval (12%) forces. At the same time, the proportion of infantry among the dead is 79%, the Luftwaffe is in second place - 8.1%, and the SS troops are in third - 5.9%.

Over the last 10 months of the war (from July 1944 to May 1945), almost the same number of soldiers died as in the previous 4 years (therefore, it can be assumed that in the event of a successful assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 and subsequent surrender, irrevocable the combat losses of the Germans could have been half that, not to mention the uncountable losses of the civilian population). Only in the last three spring months of the war, about 1 million people died, and if those called up in 1939 were given an average of 4 years of life, then those called up in 1943 - only a year, and those called up in 1945 - a month!

The most affected age is born in 1925: of those who would have turned 20 in 1945, every two out of five did not return from the war. As a result, the ratio of men and women in the key age group from 20 to 35 years in the structure of the post-war German population reached a dramatic ratio of 1: 2, which had the most serious and diverse economic and social consequences for the dilapidated country.

Pavel Polyan, "Obshchaya Gazeta", 2001

World War II refers to the fighting that took place in various theaters of operations between September 1, 1939 and September 2, 1945.

The beginning of World War II is considered to be the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, and its end is the signing of the unconditional surrender of Japan on board the American battleship Missouri on September 2, 1945.

2. The Second World War, which lasted six years and one day, has no analogues in world history in terms of scale. In one form or another, 61 states out of 73 that existed at that time on the planet took part in it. 80 percent of the world's population was involved in the war, and hostilities were fought on the territory of three continents and in the waters of four oceans.

3. Six states during World War II took part in it on the side of both the Nazi bloc and the anti-Hitler coalition - these are Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland and Iraq. The last of this list to join the fight against Nazism was Finland - September 19, 1944. Finland entered the war on the side of Germany on June 26, 1941, having attacked the USSR.

4. The participation of the Soviet Union in World War II is divided into two periods: the Great Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945) and the Soviet-Japanese War (August 9 - September 2, 1945).

In Soviet historiography, it was not customary to include in the Second World War such episodes as the Polish campaign of the Red Army in 1939, the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 and the conflict at Khalkhin Gol in 1939.

5. Of the "Big Three" of the anti-Hitler coalition (USSR, USA, Great Britain), the United States was the last to enter World War II, declaring war on Japan on December 8, 1941.

6. World War II remains the only armed conflict in which atomic weapons were used.

On August 6, 1945, a bomb called "Kid" was dropped by American aircraft on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and on August 9, a charge called "Fat Man" was dropped by the US Air Force on Nagasaki. The total death toll ranged from 90 to 166 thousand people in Hiroshima and from 60 to 80 thousand people in Nagasaki.

7. Despite the fact that 68 years have passed since the end of World War II, a peace treaty has not been concluded between Russia and Japan. This happened because of the territorial dispute over the four islands of the South Kuril ridge - Kunashir, Iturup, Hibomai and Shikotan. Thus, formally, the state of war between Russia, as the legal successor of the USSR, and Japan remains to this day.

During the Second World War, the participating countries mobilized a total of more than 110 million people into the army, of which about 25 million people died.

The total number of deaths in World War II, including civilians, was more than 65 million people. Accurate data on the number of deaths have not been finally established to this day.

Only in the Soviet Union were destroyed 1710 cities, more than 70 thousand villages, 32 thousand plants and factories.

The total financial losses of states in World War II are estimated, according to various sources, at between 1.5 and 4 trillion dollars. Material costs reached 60-70 percent of the national income of the warring states.

In the photo: the head of the USSR delegation at the conference in San Francisco, A.A. Gromyko signs the UN charter. June 26, 1945.

10. On the basis of the anti-Hitler coalition formed during the Second World War, the United Nations was created, the main task of which was to prevent world wars in the future. The name "United Nations" was first used in the Declaration of the United Nations, signed on January 1, 1942. The UN Charter was approved and signed at the San Francisco Conference on June 26, 1945 by representatives of 50 states.

Editorial note. For 70 years, first the top leadership of the USSR (having rewritten 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.

Editorial note . For 70 years, first the top leadership of the USSR (having rewritten 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 privatizing victory in it and keeping silent about its price and the role of other countries in the outcome. wars. Now in Russia, victory has been made into a ceremonial picture, victory is supported at all levels, and the cult of the St. George ribbon has reached such an ugly form that it has actually grown into an outright mockery of the memory of millions of fallen people. And while the whole world mourns for those who died fighting against Nazism, or became its victims, eReFiya arranges 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 the statistics of the dead military of the Russian Armed Forces in the Donbass, in the Russian-Ukrainian war, which he 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 Soviet and Russian authorities spat on the fate of how many millions of people, while PR in every possible way on their feat.

Estimates of the losses of Soviet citizens in World War II have a huge spread: from 19 to 36 million. The first detailed calculations were made by a Russian emigrant, demographer Timashev in 1948 - he got 19 million. B. Sokolov called the maximum figure - 46 million. The latest calculations show that only the military of the USSR lost 13.5 million people, the total losses were over 27 million.

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

In the West, this figure was perceived with skepticism. Already in the late 1940s, the first calculations of the demographic balance of the USSR for the war years, contradicting Soviet data, appeared. An illustrative example is the estimates of the Russian emigrant, demographer N. S. Timashev, published in the New York "New Journal" in 1948. Here is his technique.

The all-Union census of the population of the USSR in 1939 determined its number at 170.5 million. The increase in 1937-1940. reached, according to his assumption, almost 2% for each year. Consequently, the population of the USSR by the middle of 1941 should have reached 178.7 million. But in 1939-1940. Western Ukraine and Belarus, three Baltic states, the Karelian lands of Finland were annexed to the USSR, and Romania returned Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Therefore, excluding the Karelian population who fled 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 shortness of the time period between their entry into the USSR and the start of World War II, the author determined the population growth for these territories by mid-1941 at 300 thousand. Sequentially summing up the above figures, he received 200.7 million living in the USSR on the eve of June 22, 1941.

Next, Timashev divided the 200 million into three age groups, again relying on data from the All-Union Census of 1939: adults (over 18 years old) - 117.2 million, adolescents (from 8 to 18 years old) - 44.5 million, children (under 8 years) - 38.8 million. At the same time, he took into account two important circumstances. First: in 1939-1940. two very weak annual flows, born in 1931-1932, during the famine, which engulfed large areas of the USSR and negatively affected the size of the adolescent group, passed from childhood to the group of adolescents. Second, there were more people over 20 in the former Polish lands and the Baltic states 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 of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in December 1937, the population of the USSR reached 167 million, of which voters made up 56.36% of the total figure, and the population over 18 years old, 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 of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in the spring of 1946 amounted to 101.7 million. Adding to this figure 4 million prisoners of the Gulag calculated by him, he received 106 million of the adult population in the USSR at the beginning of 1946. Calculating the teenage group, he took as a basis 31.3 million primary and secondary school students in the 1947/48 academic year, compared with the data of 1939 (31.4 million schoolchildren within the borders of the USSR until September 17, 1939) and received a figure of 39 million 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 annual group the percentage due according to the normal mortality table for the USSR, he received at the beginning of 1946 36 million children. 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.

Approximately the same results came and other Western researchers. 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 people.

In an article published in 1953, "Casual losses in World War II," the German researcher G. Arntz concluded that "20 million people is the closest figure to the truth of the total losses of the Soviet Union in World War II." The collection, which includes 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 let the figure of 20 million into the open press, thereby indirectly recognizing it as true and making it the property of at least specialists: historians, international affairs specialists, etc.

Only in 1961, Khrushchev, in a letter to the Swedish Prime Minister Erlander, admitted that the war against fascism "claimed two tens of millions of lives of Soviet people." Thus, in comparison with Stalin, Khrushchev increased the 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 and final volume of the fundamental “History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union” published at the same time, it was stated that out of the 20 million dead, almost half “are 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 for Military History of Russia at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor G. Kumanev, in a footnote, told the truth about the calculations that military historians carried out in the early 1960s when preparing the “History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union”: “Our losses in the war were then they were determined at 26 million. But the figure “over 20 million” turned out to be accepted by high authorities.

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

In 1990, M. Gorbachev published a new figure of losses, obtained as a result of research by demographic scientists, - "almost 27 million people."

In 1991, B. Sokolov's book “The Price of Victory. The Great Patriotic War: the unknown about the known. In it, direct military losses of the USSR were estimated at about 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 (brought new losses). He received the loss figure as follows. From the size of the Soviet population at the end of June 1941, which he determined at 209.3 million, he subtracted 166 million who, in his opinion, lived in the USSR on January 1, 1946, and received 43.3 million dead. Then, from the resulting number, he subtracted the irretrievable losses of the Armed Forces (26.4 million) and received the irretrievable losses of the civilian population - 16.9 million.

“It is possible to name the number of killed Red Army soldiers during the entire war close to reality, if we determine that month of 1942, when the losses of the Red Army by the dead were taken into account most fully and when it had almost no losses as 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 killed in battle and died from wounds, diseases, accidents and shot by the tribunals of Soviet military personnel.

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

In addition to B. Sokolov, similar calculations were made by L. Polyakov, A. Kvasha, V. Kozlov, and others. USSR, which is almost impossible to determine exactly. It was this difference that they considered the total loss of life.

In 1993, a statistical study “Secrecy removed: losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities 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 reports from the General Staff. However, the losses of entire fronts and armies in the first months, and the authors specifically stipulated this, were obtained by them 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 of the NKVD of the USSR), but were directly involved in the battles: the people's militia, partisan detachments, underground groups.

Finally, the number of prisoners of war and missing persons 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 re-conscripted into the ranks of the Red Army on 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 wish to return to the USSR, amounted to 1.7 million.

As a result, the statistical data of the handbook “The Classification Removed” were immediately perceived as requiring clarifications 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 reserve reservists drafted into the army, but not yet included in the lists of military units and who died along the way to the front.

V. Litovkin's study states that from 1946 to 1968, a special commission of the General Staff, headed by General S. Shtemenko, prepared a statistical reference book on the losses of 1941-1945. At the end of the work of the commission, 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) or in any other way is currently not necessary and undesirable, the collection is supposed to be stored in the General Staff as a special document, to which a strictly limited circle of persons will be allowed to familiarize themselves. And the prepared collection was under seven seals until the team led by General G. Krivosheev made public his information.

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

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

And yet, the handbook “Secrecy Removed” significantly expanded and supplemented the ideas not only of historians, but of the entire Russian society about the price of the 1945 Victory. It is enough to refer to the statistical calculation: from June to November 1941, the Armed Forces of the USSR daily lost 24 thousand people, of which 17 thousand were killed and up to 7 thousand were 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 materials of the General Staff with reports from military headquarters about losses and notices from the military registration and enlistment offices about the dead and missing, which were sent to relatives at the place of residence. And the figure of losses received by him increased to 9 million 168 thousand 400 people. These data were reproduced in the 2nd volume 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”, edited by academician Yu. Polyakov.

In 2004, the second, corrected and supplemented, 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 1941-1945", was published. It provides data on losses: about 27 million Soviet citizens. And in the footnotes 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 take something else for "historical truth": "over 20 million".

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

The historian Ilyenkov, who served in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, followed an interesting path. He tried to calculate the irretrievable losses of the personnel of the Red Army on the basis of card indexes of the irretrievable losses of privates, sergeants and officers. These file cabinets began to be created when, on July 9, 1941, the department for recording personal losses was organized as part of the Main Directorate for the Formation and Manning of the Red Army (GUFKKA). The duties of the department included personal accounting of losses and the compilation of an alphabetical file of losses.

Accounting was carried out according to the following categories: 1) dead - according to reports from military units, 2) dead - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices, 3) missing - according to reports from military units, 4) missing - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices, 5) those who died in German captivity , 6) those who died from diseases, 7) those who died from wounds - according to reports from military units, those who died from wounds - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices. At the same time, the following were taken into account: deserters; military personnel sentenced to imprisonment in forced labor camps; sentenced to the highest measure of punishment - execution; removed from the register of irretrievable losses as survivors; those who are suspected of having served with the Germans (the so-called "signals"), and those who were captured, but survived. These soldiers were not included in the list of irretrievable losses.

After the war, the file cabinets 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 archives have begun counting index cards alphabetically and by loss category. As of November 1, 2000, 20 letters of the alphabet were processed, according to the remaining uncounted 6 letters, a preliminary calculation was carried out, which fluctuates up or down by 30-40 thousand personalities.

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

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

The alphabetical card file of irretrievable losses of officers of the Red Army, which is also stored in the TsAMO of the Russian Federation, was calculated using the same methodology. 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 in the dead, missing, dead from wounds, diseases and in captivity.

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

Finally, we note another new trend in the study of the demographic results of World War II. Before the collapse of the USSR, there was no need to assess the human losses for individual republics or nationalities. And only at the end of the twentieth century, L. Rybakovsky tried to calculate the approximate value of the 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 - "The demographic losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War: the history of calculations", "New Historical Bulletin", No. 16, 2007.)

The newspaper "Tomorrow" clarifies the results of the Second World War, for us - the Patriotic War. As usual, this happens in polemics with historical falsifications.

Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences G. A. Kumanev and a special commission of the USSR Ministry of Defense and the Department of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, using previously closed statistical data in 1990, established that human casualties in the Armed Forces of the USSR, as well as the border and internal troops of the country during the Great Patriotic War wars amounted to 8,668,400 people, which is only 18,900 more than the number of losses of the armed forces of Germany and its allies who fought against the USSR. That is, the losses in the war of German military personnel with the allies and the USSR were almost the same. The well-known historian Yu. V. Emelyanov considers the indicated number of losses to be correct.

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, Doctor of Historical Sciences B. G. Solovyov and Candidate of Sciences V. V. Sukhodeev (2001) write: “During the years of the Great Patriotic War (including the campaign in the Far East against Japan in 1945), total irretrievable demographic losses ( killed, missing, taken prisoner and never returned from it, died from wounds, diseases and as a result of accidents) of the Soviet Armed Forces, together with the border and internal troops, amounted to 8 million 668 thousand 400 people ... Our irretrievable losses over the years of the war look like as follows: 1941 (for half a year of the war) - 27.8%; 1942 - 28.2%; 1943 - 20.5%; 1944 - 15.6%; 1945 - 7.5 percent of the total losses. Consequently, according to the above historians, our losses for the first year and a half of the war amounted to 57.6 percent, and for the remaining 2.5 years - 42.4 percent.

They also support the results of serious research work carried out by a group of military and civilian experts, including employees of the General Staff, published in 1993 in a work entitled: “Secrecy removed. Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts ”and in the publications of General of the Army M.A. Gareev.

I draw the reader's attention to the fact that these data are not the personal opinion of boys and uncles in love with the West, but a scientific study conducted by a group of scientists with in-depth analysis and a rigorous calculation of the irretrievable losses of the Soviet army during the Great Patriotic War.

“In the war with the fascist bloc, we suffered huge losses. They are received with great sorrow by the people. They hit the fate of millions of families with a heavy blow. But these were sacrifices made in the name of saving the Motherland, the life of future generations. And the dirty speculation that has unfolded in recent years around the losses, the deliberate, malevolent inflating of their scale is deeply immoral. They continue even after the publication of previously closed materials. Under the false mask of philanthropy, well-thought-out calculations are hidden by any means to desecrate the Soviet past, a great feat accomplished by the people, ”wrote the above-mentioned scientists.

Our losses were justified. Even some Americans understood this at the time. “So, in a greeting received from the United States in June 1943, it was emphasized: “Many young Americans survived thanks to the sacrifices that were made by the defenders of Stalingrad. Every Red Army soldier who defends his Soviet land, by killing a Nazi, thereby saves the life of American soldiers. We will keep this in mind when calculating our debt to the Soviet ally.

For the irretrievable losses of Soviet military personnel in the amount of 8 million. 668 thousand 400 people are indicated by the scientist O. A. Platonov. The specified number of losses included irretrievable losses of the Red Army, Navy, border troops, internal troops and state security agencies.

Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences G. A. Kumanev in his book “Feat and Forgery” wrote that the Eastern Front accounted for 73% of the casualties of the Nazi troops during World War II. Germany and its allies on the Soviet-German front lost 75% of their aircraft, 74% of their artillery, and 75% of their tanks and assault guns.

And this despite the fact that on the Eastern Front they did not surrender in hundreds of thousands, as on the Western, but fought fiercely, fearing in captivity retribution for the crimes committed on Soviet soil.

The wonderful researcher Yu. Mukhin also writes about our losses of 8.6 million people, including those who died from accidents, diseases and those who died in German captivity. This number of 8 million 668 thousand 400 people of irretrievable losses of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 is recognized by the majority of Russian scientists, historians and researchers. But, in my opinion, the indicated losses of Soviet military personnel are significantly overestimated.

German losses by the majority of Russian scientists, historians and researchers are indicated in the amount of 8 million 649 thousand 500 people.

G. A. Kumanev draws attention to the huge number of Soviet losses of military personnel in German prisoner of war camps and writes the following: “While out of 4 million 126 thousand captured military personnel of the Nazi troops, 580 thousand 548 people died, and the rest returned home , out of 4 million 559 thousand Soviet military personnel taken prisoner, only 1 million 836 thousand people returned to their homeland. From 2.5 to 3.5 million died in Nazi camps.” The number of German prisoners who died may be surprising, but one must take into account that people always die, and among the captured Germans there were many frostbitten and emaciated, as, for example, near Stalingrad, as well as the wounded.

V. V. Sukhodeev writes that 1 million 894 thousand people returned from German captivity. 65 people, and 2 million 665 thousand 935 Soviet soldiers and officers died in German concentration camps. Due to the destruction of Soviet prisoners of war by the Germans, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War had irretrievable losses approximately equal to the losses of the armed forces of Germany and its allies who fought against the USSR.

Directly in battles with the German armed forces and the armies of their allies, the Soviet Armed Forces lost 2 million 655 thousand 935 less Soviet soldiers and officers in the period from 06/22/1941 to 05/09/1945. This is explained by the fact that 2 million 665 thousand 935 Soviet prisoners of war died in German captivity.

If the Soviet side in Soviet captivity had killed 2 million 094 thousand 287 (in addition to the dead 580 thousand 548) prisoners of war of the fascist bloc, then the losses of Germany and its allies would have exceeded the losses of the Soviet army by 2 million 094 thousand 287 people.

Only the criminal murder of our prisoners of war by the Germans led to almost equal irretrievable losses of servicemen of the German and Soviet armies during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

So which army fought better? Of course, the Soviet Red Army. With an approximate equality of prisoners, she destroyed more than 2 million more enemy soldiers and officers in battle. And this despite the fact that our troops stormed the largest cities in Europe and took the very capital of Germany - the city of Berlin.

Our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought brilliantly and showed the highest degree of nobility, sparing the German prisoners of war. They had the full moral right not to take them prisoner for the crimes committed, shooting them on the spot. But the Russian soldier never showed cruelty towards the defeated enemy.

The main trick of liberal revisionists when describing losses is to write down any number and let the Russians prove it wrong, and in the meantime they will come up with a new fake. And how can you prove it? After all, the true exposers of the liberal revisionists are not allowed on television.

By the way, they tirelessly shout that all the people who returned prisoners and were driven to work in Germany were tried in the USSR and sent to forced labor camps. This is also another lie. Yu. V. Emelyanov, based on the data of the historian V. Zemskov, writes that by March 1, 1946, 2,427,906 Soviet people who returned from Germany were sent to their place of residence, 801,152 - to serve in the army, and 608,095 - to the workers' battalions of the People's Commissariat defense. Of the total number of those who returned, 272,867 people (6.5%) were placed at the disposal of the NKVD. These, as a rule, were those who committed criminal offenses, including those who took part in the battles against the Soviet troops, such as, for example, the “Vlasovites”.

After 1945, 148,000 "Vlasovites" entered the special settlements. On the occasion of the victory, they were released from criminal liability for treason, limiting themselves to exile. In 1951-1952, 93.5 thousand people were released from their number.

Most of the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians who served in the German army as privates and junior commanders were sent home before the end of 1945.

V. V. Sukhodeev writes that up to 70% of former prisoners of war were returned to the active army, only 6% of former prisoners of war who collaborated with the Nazis were arrested and sent to penal battalions. But, apparently, many of them were forgiven.

But the United States, with its 5th column inside Russia, presented the most humane and fair Soviet government in the world as the most cruel and unjust government, and the most kind, modest, courageous and freedom-loving Russian people in the world were presented as a people of slaves. Yes, they imagined that the Russians themselves believed in it.

It is high time for us to throw off the veil from our eyes and see Soviet Russia in all the splendor of her great victories and achievements.

In 1945, the most "bloody" war of the 20th century ended, causing terrible destruction and claiming millions of lives. From our article you can find out what losses the countries participating in the Second World War suffered.

Total losses

62 countries were involved in the most global military conflict of the 20th century, 40 of which were directly involved in hostilities. Their losses in World War II are primarily calculated among the military and civilian population, which amounted to about 70 million people.

Financial losses (the price of lost property) of all parties to the conflict were significant: about $2,600 billion. The countries spent 60% of their income on providing the army and conducting military operations. The total spending reached $4 trillion.

World War II led to huge destruction (about 10 thousand large cities and towns). In the USSR alone, more than 1,700 cities, 70,000 villages, and 32,000 enterprises suffered from bombing. The opponents destroyed about 96,000 Soviet tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, 37,000 armored vehicles.

Historical facts show that it was the USSR that of all the participants in the anti-Hitler coalition suffered the most serious losses. Special measures were taken to clarify the death toll. In 1959 a population census was carried out (the first since the war). Then the figure of 20 million victims sounded. To date, other specified data (26.6 million) are known, announced by the state commission in 2011. They coincided with the figures announced in 1990. Most of the dead were civilians.

Rice. 1. The ruined city of the Second World War.

human sacrifice

Unfortunately, the exact number of victims is still unknown. Objective reasons (lack of official documentation) complicate the count, so many continue to be listed as missing.

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Before talking about the dead, let's indicate the number of people called up for service by states whose participation in the war was key, and who suffered during the hostilities:

• Germany : 17,893,200 soldiers, of which: 5,435,000 wounded, 4,100,000 were captured;
• Japan : 9 058 811: 3 600 000: 1 644 614;
• Italy : 3,100,000: 350 thousand: 620 thousand;
• USSR : 34,476,700: 15,685,593: about 5 million;
• Great Britain : 5,896,000: 280 thousand: 192 thousand;
• USA : 16 112 566: 671 846: 130 201;
• China : 17,250,521: 7 million: 750 thousand;
• France : 6 million: 280 thousand: 2,673,000

Rice. 2. Wounded soldiers from World War II.

For convenience, here is a table of countries' losses in World War II. The number of deaths in it is indicated, taking into account all causes of death, approximately (average figures between the minimum and maximum):

Country	Dead military	Dead civilians
Germany	About 5 million	About 3 million
Great Britain
Australia
Yugoslavia
Finland
Netherlands
Bulgaria