Hundreds and even thousands of people die every year in armed conflicts around the world. But these losses are in no way comparable to the victims suffered by the belligerent states during the Second World War. Until now, historians have not come to a consensus as to how many people died in this global confrontation, but in any case, we are talking about tens of millions of lives.
How many people have lost the warring countries
Experts in the field of history assess the losses suffered during the Second World War in different ways. In this case, different methods of obtaining initial data and methods of calculation are used. Today, in Russia, the data provided by the research group that worked in the framework of the project carried out by the specialists of the Military Memorial Center are recognized as official.
As of 2001, when the research data were once again clarified, it is generally accepted that during the war against Hitler's fascism, the Soviet Union lost 6, 9 million servicemen. Almost four and a half million Soviet soldiers and officers were captured or went missing. The most impressive are the total human losses of the country: taking into account the dead civilians, they amounted to 26 million 600 thousand people.
The losses of fascist Germany turned out to be significantly lower and amounted to a little more than 4 million servicemen. The total losses of the German side as a result of hostilities are estimated at 6, 6 million people; this includes the civilian population. The European countries allied to Germany lost less than a million soldiers killed. The overwhelming number of those killed on both sides of the military confrontation were men.
WWII losses: questions remain
Earlier, Russia adopted completely different official data on its own losses. Almost until the end of the existence of the USSR, serious research on this issue was practically not carried out, since most of the data was closed. In the Soviet Union, after the end of the war, the estimates of losses named by I. V. Stalin, who determined this figure equal to 7 million people. After N. S. Khrushchev, it turned out that the country had lost about 20 million people.
When a team of reformers headed by M. S. Gorbachev, it was decided to create a research group, at the disposal of which were provided documents from the archives and other reference materials. The data on losses in the Second World War, which are used today, were made public only in 1990.
Historians from other countries do not dispute the research results of their Russian colleagues. The total human losses suffered by all countries that participated in one way or another in the Second World War, it is almost impossible to calculate exactly. The figures are from 45 to 60 million people. Some historians believe that as new information is found and the calculation methods are refined, the upper bound for the total losses of all the warring countries may be increased to 70 million people.
