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World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Over 60 million people were killed, which was over 2.5% of the world population. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.
World War II fatality statistics vary, with estimates of total dead ranging from 50 million to over 70 million. The sources cited in this article document an estimated death toll in World War II of 62 to 78 million, making it the deadliest war in world history in absolute terms of total dead but not in terms of deaths relative to the world population.
When scholarly sources differ on the number of deaths in a country, a range of war losses is given, in order to inform readers that the death toll is disputed. Civilians killed totaled from 40 to 52 million, including 13 to 20 million from war-related disease and famine. Total military dead: from 22 to 25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war.
Recent historical scholarship has shed new insight into the topic of Second World War casualties. Research in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union has caused a revision of estimates of Soviet war dead. Estimated USSR losses within postwar borders now stand at 26.6 million. In August 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated Poland's dead at between 5.6 and 5.8 million.
The German Army historian Dr. Rüdiger Overmans published a study in 2000 that estimated German military dead and missing at 5.3 million. War dead totals in this article for the British Commonwealth are based on the research of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Casualties listed here include about 4 to 12 million war-related famine deaths in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, India that are often omitted from other compilations of World War II casualties.
Some nations in World War II suffered disproportionally more casualties than others. This is especially true regarding civilian casualties. The following chart gives data on the number of dead for each country, along with population information to show the relative impact of losses. Military figures include battle deaths (KIA) and personnel missing in action (MIA), as well as fatalities due to accidents, disease and deaths of prisoners of war in captivity. Civilian casualties include deaths caused by strategic bombing, Holocaust victims, Japanese war crimes, population transfers in the Soviet Union, other War Crimes and deaths due to war related famine and disease. Compiling or estimating the numbers of deaths caused during wars and other violent conflicts is a controversial subject. Historians often put forward many different estimates of the numbers killed during World War II. The distinction between military and civilian casualties caused directly by warfare and collateral damage is not always clear cut. For nations that suffered huge losses such as the Soviet Union, China, Poland, Germany and Yugoslavia, our sources can give us only the total estimated population loss caused by the war and a rough estimate of the breakdown of deaths caused by military activity, crimes against humanity and war related famine. The footnotes give a detailed breakdown of the casualties and their sources, including data on the number of wounded where reliable sources are available.
The estimated breakdown for each Soviet Republic of total war dead is as follows
|Soviet Republic||Population 1940||Military Dead||Civilian Dead||Total||Deaths as % 1940 Pop.|
|Tajikistan (See Note Below)||1,530,000||50,000-90,000||70,000||120,000||7.8%|
Included in the above figures of total war dead are the victims of the Holocaust
The Holocaust is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, Martin Gilbert estimates 5.7 million (78%) of the 7.3 million Jews in German occupied Europe were Holocaust victims. Other estimates for Holocaust deaths range between 4.9 to 6.0 million Jews.
Statistical breakdown of Jewish Dead:
The following figures are from The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust.
|Country||Pre War Jewish population||Low Estimate||High Estimate|
|Czech Republic(Bohemia & Moravia)||92,000||77,000||78,300|
|Soviet Union(Borders 1939)||2,825,000||700,000||1,100,000|
Non Jewish Dead
Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the other victims persecuted and killed by the Nazis. Using this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims is between 11 million and 17 million people.
Roma losses by country
Included in the figures of total war dead are the Roma victims of the Nazi persecution, some scholars include the Roma deaths with the Holocaust.
The following figures are from The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust.
|Country||Pre War Roma population||Low Estimate||High Estimate|
|Czech Republic(Bohemia & Moravia)||13,000||5,000||6,500|
|Soviet Union(Borders 1939)||200,000||30,000||35,000|
Included with total war dead are victims of Japanese war crimes.
The total war dead in the USSR includes victims of Soviet repression. The number of deaths in the Gulag labor camps increased as a result of wartime overcrowding and food shortages. The Stalin regime deported the entire populations of ethnic minorities considered to be potentially disloyal. Since 1990 Russian scholars have been given access to the Soviet-era archives and have published data on the numbers of persons executed and those who died in Gulag labor camps and prisons. The Russian scholar Viktor Zemskov puts the death toll from 1941-1945 at about 1 million based on data from the Soviet archives. The Soviet-era archive figures on the Gulag labor camps has been the subject of a vigorous academic debate outside Russia since their publication in 1991. J. Arch Getty and Stephen G. Wheatcroft maintain that Soviet-era figures more accurately detail the victims of the Gulag labor camp system in the Stalin era. Robert Conquest and Steven Rosefielde have disputed the accuracy of the data from the Soviet archives, maintaining that the demographic data and testimonials by survivors of the Gulag labor camps indicate a higher death toll. Rosefielde believes that the release of the Soviet Archive figures is disinformation generated by the modern KGB. Rosefielde maintains that the data from the Soviet archives is incomplete; for example, he pointed out that the figures do not include the 22,000 victims of the Katyn massacre. Rosefielde's demographic analysis puts the number of excess deaths due to Soviet repression at 2,183,000 in 1939-1940 and 5,458,000 from 1941-1945. Michael Haynes and Rumy Husun accept the figures from the Soviet archives as being an accurate tally of Stalin's victims, they maintain that the demographic data depicts an underdeveloped Soviet economy and the losses in World War Two rather than indicating a higher death toll in the Gulag labor camps.
In August 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated 150,000 Polish citizens were killed due to Soviet repression. Since the collapse of the USSR, Polish scholars have been able to do research in the Soviet archives on Polish losses during the Soviet occupation. Andrzej Paczkowski puts the number of Polish deaths at 90,000–100,000 of the 1.0 million persons deported and 30,000 executed by the Soviets. In 2005 Tadeusz Piotrowski estimated the death toll in Soviet hands at 350,000.
The Estonian State Commission on Examination of Policies of Repression put civilian deaths due to the Soviet occupation in 1940–1941 at 33,900 including (7,800 deaths) of arrested people, (6,000) deportee deaths, (5,000) evacuee deaths, (1,100) people gone missing and (14,000) conscripted for forced labor. After the reoccupation by the U.S.S.R., 5,000 Estonians died in Soviet prisons during 1944–45.
The following is a summary of the data from the Soviet archives:
Reported deaths for the years 1939-1945: 1,187,783, including Judicial Executions: 46,350; Deaths in Gulag labor camps: 718,804 Deaths in labor colonies and prisons: 422,629.
Deported to Special Settlements:(figures are for deportations to Special Settlements only, not including those executed, sent to Gulag labor camps or conscripted into the Soviet Army. Nor do the figures include additional deportations after the war).
Deported from annexed territories 1940-41- 380,000 to 390,000 persons including Poland 309-312,000; Lithuania 17,500; Latvia 17,000; Estonia 6,000; Moldova 22,842. In August 1941, 243,106 Poles living in the Special Settlements were amnestied and released by the Soviets.
Deported during the War 1941-1945- About 2.3 million persons of Soviet ethnic minorities including: Soviet Germans 1,209,000; Finns 9,000; Karachays 69,000; Kalmyks 92,000;Chechens and Ingush 479,000; Balkars 37,000; Crimean Tatars 191,014; Meskhetian Turks 91,000; Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians from Crimea 42,000; Ukranian OUN members 100,000; Poles 30,000.
A total of 2,230,500  persons were living in the settlements in October 1945 and 309,100 deaths were reported in Special Settlements for the years 1941-1948
Russian sources list Axis prisoner of war deaths of 580,589 in Soviet captivity based on data in the Soviet archives(Germany 381,067; Hungary 54,755; Romania 54,612; Italy 27,683; Finland 403 and Japan 62,069) However some western scholars estimate the total at between 1.7 and 2.3 million.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Annual Report 2009-2010 is the source of the military dead for the British Empire The war dead totals listed in the report are based on the research by the CWGC to identify and commemorate Commonwealth war dead. The statistics tabulated The Commonwealth War Graves Commission are representative of the number of names commemorated for all servicemen/women of the Armed Forces of the Commonwealth and former U.K. Dependencies, whose death was attributable to their war service. Some auxiliary and civilian organizations are also accorded war grave status if death occurred under certain specified conditions. For the purposes of C.W.G.C. the dates of inclusion for Commonwealth War Dead are 03/09/1939 to 31/12/1947.
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