World War II in facts and figures

Ernest Hemingway from the preface to A Farewell to Arms!

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Having left the city, still halfway to the headquarters of the front, we immediately heard and saw desperate firing all over the horizon with tracer bullets and shells. And they realized that the war was over. It couldn't mean anything else. I suddenly felt bad. I was ashamed in front of my comrades, but in the end I had to stop the Jeep and get out. I started having some spasms in my throat and esophagus, I began to vomit with saliva, bitterness, bile. I don't know why. Probably from a nervous discharge, which was expressed in such an absurd way. All these four years of the war in different circumstances, I tried very hard to be reserved person and it seems that he really was. And here, at the moment when I suddenly realized that the war was over, something happened - my nerves gave out. The comrades did not laugh or joke, they were silent.

Konstantin Simonov. " different days war. Writer's diary"

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Japanese surrender

The terms of Japan's surrender were put forward in the Potsdam Declaration, signed on July 26, 1945 by the governments of Great Britain, the United States and China. However, the Japanese government refused to accept them.

The situation changed after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the USSR's entry into the war against Japan (August 9, 1945).

But, even so, the members of the Supreme Military Council of Japan were not inclined to accept the terms of surrender. Some of them believed that the continuation of hostilities would lead to significant losses of Soviet and American troops, which would make it possible to conclude a truce on favorable terms for Japan.

On August 9, 1945, Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki and a number of members of the Japanese government asked the emperor to intervene in the situation in order to quickly accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. On the night of August 10, Emperor Hirohito, who shared the Japanese government's fear of the complete annihilation of the Japanese nation, ordered the Supreme Military Council to agree to unconditional surrender. On August 14, the emperor's speech was recorded, in which he announced the unconditional surrender of Japan and the end of the war.

On the night of August 15, a number of officers of the Ministry of the Army and employees of the Imperial Guard made an attempt to seize the imperial palace, place the emperor under house arrest and destroy the recording of his speech in order to prevent the surrender of Japan. The rebellion was put down.

At noon on August 15, Hirohito's speech was broadcast over the radio. This was the first appeal of the emperor of Japan to ordinary people.

Japan's surrender was signed on September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri. This put an end to the bloodiest war of the 20th century.

LOSSES OF THE PARTIES

Allies

the USSR

From June 22, 1941 to September 2, 1945, about 26.6 million people died. General material losses - $2 trillion 569 billion (about 30% of all national wealth); military spending - $ 192 billion in 1945 prices. 1,710 cities and towns, 70 thousand villages and villages, 32 thousand industrial enterprises.

China

From September 1, 1939 to September 2, 1945, from 3 million to 3.75 million military personnel and about 10 million civilians died in the war against Japan. In total, during the years of the war with Japan (from 1931 to 1945), China's losses amounted, according to official Chinese statistics, to more than 35 million military and civilians.

Poland

From September 1, 1939 to May 8, 1945, about 240 thousand military personnel and about 6 million civilians were killed. The territory of the country was occupied by Germany, resistance forces acted.

Yugoslavia

From April 6, 1941 to May 8, 1945, according to various sources, from 300 thousand to 446 thousand military personnel and from 581 thousand to 1.4 million civilians died. The country was occupied by Germany, resistance units were operating.

France

From September 3, 1939 to May 8, 1945, 201,568 servicemen and about 400,000 civilians were killed. The country was occupied by Germany, there was a resistance movement. Material losses - 21 billion US dollars in 1945 prices.

United Kingdom

From September 3, 1939 to September 2, 1945, 382,600 military personnel and 67,100 civilians died. Material losses - about 120 billion US dollars in 1945 prices.

USA

From December 7, 1941 to September 2, 1945, 407,316 servicemen and about 6,000 civilians were killed. The cost of military operations is about 341 billion US dollars in 1945 prices.

Greece

From October 28, 1940 to May 8, 1945, about 35 thousand military personnel and from 300 to 600 thousand civilians were killed.

Czechoslovakia

From September 1, 1939 to May 11, 1945, according to various estimates, from 35 thousand to 46 thousand military personnel and from 294 thousand to 320 thousand civilians died. The country was occupied by Germany. Volunteer units fought as part of the Allied armed forces.

India

From September 3, 1939 to September 2, 1945, about 87 thousand military personnel were killed. The civilian population did not suffer direct losses, but a number of researchers consider the death of 1.5 to 2.5 million Indians during the famine of 1943 (it was caused by an increase in food supplies to the British army) as a direct consequence of the war.

Canada

From September 10, 1939 to September 2, 1945, 42 thousand military personnel and about 1 thousand 600 sailors of the merchant fleet were killed. Material losses amounted to about 45 billion US dollars in 1945 prices.

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I saw women crying for the dead. They cried because we lied too much. You know how the survivors return from the war, how much space they occupy, how loudly they boast of their exploits, how terrible death is portrayed. Still would! They might not come back either.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery. "Citadel"

Hitler's coalition (Axis countries)

Germany

From September 1, 1939 to May 8, 1945, according to various sources, from 3.2 to 4.7 million military personnel were killed, the losses of the civilian population amounted to from 1.4 million to 3.6 million people. The cost of military operations is about 272 billion US dollars in 1945 prices.

Japan

From December 7, 1941 to September 2, 1945, 1.27 million servicemen were killed, 620 thousand non-combat losses, 140 thousand wounded, 85 thousand people went missing; losses of the civilian population - 380 thousand people. Military spending - US$56 billion in 1945 prices

Italy

From June 10, 1940 to May 8, 1945, according to various sources, from 150 thousand to 400 thousand military personnel were killed, 131 thousand went missing. Losses of the civilian population - from 60 thousand to 152 thousand people. Military spending - about 94 billion US dollars in 1945 prices.

Hungary

From June 27, 1941 to May 8, 1945, according to various sources, from 120 thousand to 200 thousand military personnel died. Losses of the civilian population - about 450 thousand people.

Romania

From June 22, 1941 to May 7, 1945, according to various sources, from 300 thousand to 520 thousand military personnel and from 200 thousand to 460 thousand civilians died. Romania was originally on the side of the Axis countries, on August 25, 1944 it declared war on Germany.

Finland

From June 26, 1941 to May 7, 1945, about 83 thousand military personnel and about 2 thousand civilians were killed. On March 4, 1945, the country declared war on Germany.

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Until now, it is not possible to reliably assess the material losses suffered by the countries on whose territory the war was fought.

For six years, many large cities were subjected to total destruction, including some capitals of states. The scale of destruction was such that after the end of the war, these cities were built almost anew. Many cultural values ​​were irretrievably lost.

RESULTS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (left to right) at the Yalta (Crimea) conference (TASS photo chronicle)

The allies in the anti-Hitler coalition began to discuss the post-war structure of the world even in the midst of hostilities.

August 14, 1941 aboard a warship in Atlantic Ocean near about. Newfoundland (Canada), US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the so-called. "Atlantic Charter"- a document declaring the goals of the two countries in the war against Nazi Germany and its allies, as well as their vision of the post-war world order.

On January 1, 1942, Roosevelt, Churchill, as well as Soviet Ambassador to the United States Maxim Litvinov and Chinese representative Sun Tzu-wen signed a document that later became known as "Declaration of the United Nations". The next day, the declaration was signed by representatives of 22 other states. Commitments were made to make every effort to achieve victory and not to conclude a separate peace. It is from this date that the United Nations has its chronicle, although the final agreement on the creation of this organization was reached only in 1945 in Yalta during a meeting of the leaders of the three countries of the anti-Hitler coalition - Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. It was agreed that the UN would be based on the principle of unanimity of the great powers - permanent members Security Council with veto power.

In total, three summit meetings took place during the war.

The first one took place in Tehran November 28 - December 1, 1943. The main issue was the opening of a second front in Western Europe. It was also decided to involve Turkey in the anti-Hitler coalition. Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan after the end of hostilities in Europe.

Calculation of 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 maybe someone gets the impression that it has been studied enough. Yes, indeed, there is a lot of literature, but there are still many questions and doubts. Too much here is unclear, controversial and clearly unreliable. Even the reliability of the current official data on the loss of life 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 loss figure 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 had lost 7 million people during the war years: “As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irretrievably lost in battles with the Germans, and also thanks to the German occupation and seven million people." The report “The Military Economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War” published in 1947 by the chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR Voznesensky did not indicate human losses.

In 1959, the first post-war census of the population of the USSR was carried out. In 1961, Khrushchev, in a letter to the Prime Minister of Sweden, reported 20 million dead: “How can we sit back and wait for a repeat of 1941, when the German militarists unleashed a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed two tens of millions of lives 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 led by Colonel-General G. F. Krivosheev conducted a statistical study of archival documents and other materials containing information about casualties in the army and navy, border and internal troops NKVD. The result of the work was the figure of 8668400 people lost power structures USSR during the war.

Since March 1989, on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU, she worked state commission on the study of 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 Administration 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 calculate 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 made public its demographic loss figure of 26.6 million people at a solemn meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 8, 1990.

May 5, 2008 President Russian Federation signed an order "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 an 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, the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rosstat, Rosarkhiv. In December 2011, a commission representative 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 irretrievable losses during the fighting on the Soviet-German front from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945, they amounted to 8,860,400 Soviet military personnel. 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 diseases, non-combat losses - 6 885 100 people, including

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

On May 5, 2010, Major General A. Kirilin, head of the RF Ministry of Defense Directorate for perpetuating the memory of those who died defending the Fatherland, told RIA Novosti that the figures for military casualties - 8 668 400 , will be reported to the leadership of the country, so that they are announced on May 9, the day of the 65th anniversary of the Victory.

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

• missing, captured and unaccounted for combat losses - 4,559,000;
• 1,836,000 military personnel returned from captivity, did not return (died, emigrated) - 1,783,300, (that is, the total number of prisoners - 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 irretrievable losses(6,885,100 dead, according to declassified data from 1993, and 1,783,300 who did not return from captivity) amounted to 8,668,400 military personnel. But from them you need to subtract 939,700 re-conscripts who were considered missing. We get 7,728,700.

The mistake was pointed out, in particular, by Leonid Radzikhovsky. The correct calculation is as follows: the number 1,783,300 is the number of those who did not return from captivity and went missing (and not just those who did not return from captivity). Then official irretrievable losses (dead 6,885,100, according to declassified data of 1993, and those who did not return from captivity and went 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 servicemen and 500,000 conscripts 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-conscripted from those who were considered unknown, then 1,783,300 military personnel were missing and did not return from captivity. So the official irretrievable 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 hostilities (from bombing, shelling, etc.) - 7,420,379 people.
• died as a result of a humanitarian catastrophe (hunger, infectious diseases, absence medical care etc.) - 4,100,000 people.
• died in forced labor in Germany - 2,164,313 people. (another 451,100 people according to different reasons did not return and became emigrants).

According to S. Maksudov, about 7 million people died in the occupied territories and in besieged Leningrad (1 million of them in besieged Leningrad, 3 million were Jews, victims of the Holocaust), and about 7 million 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 the data of the 1939 and 1959 censuses, since there is reason to believe that in 1939 there was a very significant undercount of the male draft contingents.

In general, the Red Army during the Second World War lost 13 million 534 thousand 398 soldiers and commanders in the dead, missing, dead from wounds, diseases and in captivity.

Finally, we note one more new trend in the study of the demographic results of the Second World War. 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.

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 Byelorussian SSR lost up to 30% of its population. In the occupied territory of the BSSR, the Nazis killed 2.2 million people. (The data of recent studies on Belarus are as follows: the Nazis destroyed civilians - 1,409,225 people, destroyed prisoners in German death camps - 810,091 people, driven into German slavery - 377,776 people). It is also known that as a percentage dead soldiers/number of population, among the Soviet republics, Georgia suffered great damage. Almost 300,000 out of 700,000 Georgians called to the front did not return.

Losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops

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

The discrepancy is approximately 0.7 million people. This discrepancy is explained by differences in the estimate of the number of Germans killed 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 who died 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 - the statistics of burials of Wehrmacht soldiers. According to the appendix to the law of the Federal Republic of Germany "On the preservation of burial places", the total number of German soldiers who are in recorded burials in the territory of the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries is 3 million 226 thousand people. (on the territory of the USSR alone - 2,330,000 burials). This figure can be taken as the starting point for calculating the demographic losses of the Wehrmacht, but it also needs to be adjusted.

1. Firstly, this figure takes into account only the burial places of the Germans, and as part of the Wehrmacht fought big number soldiers of other nationalities: Austrians (of which 270 thousand people died), Sudeten Germans and Alsatians (230 thousand people died) and representatives of other nationalities and states (357 thousand people died). From total number dead soldiers of the Wehrmacht of non-German nationality, the Soviet-German front accounts for 75-80%, i.e. 0.6-0.7 million people.
2. Secondly, this figure refers to the beginning of the 90s of the last century. Since then, the search for German burials in Russia, CIS countries and countries of Eastern Europe continued. And the messages that appeared on this topic were not informative enough. For example, the Russian Association of War Memorials, established in 1992, reported that over the 10 years of its existence, it had transferred information about the burial places of 400,000 Wehrmacht soldiers to the German Union for the Care of War Graves. However, whether these were newly discovered burials or whether they have already been taken into account in the figure of 3 million 226 thousand is unclear. Unfortunately, no generalized statistics of the newly discovered graves of Wehrmacht soldiers could be found. Tentatively, it can be assumed that the number of newly discovered graves of Wehrmacht soldiers over the past 10 years is in the range of 0.2–0.4 million people.
3. Thirdly, many burial places of the dead soldiers of the Wehrmacht on Soviet soil disappeared or were deliberately destroyed. Approximately 0.4–0.6 million Wehrmacht soldiers could be buried in such disappeared and nameless graves.
4. Fourthly, these data do not include burials of German soldiers killed in battles with Soviet troops in Germany and Western European countries. According to R. Overmans, only in the last three spring months of the war, about 1 million people died. ( minimum score 700 thousand) In general, on German soil and in Western European countries, approximately 1.2–1.5 million Wehrmacht soldiers died in battles with the Red Army.
5. Finally, fifthly, the Wehrmacht soldiers who died of “natural” death (0.1–0.2 million people) were also among the buried.

An approximate procedure for calculating the total human losses of Germany

1. The population in 1939 was 70.2 million people.
2. Population in 1946 - 65.93 million people.
3. Natural mortality 2.8 million people.
4. Natural increase (birth rate) 3.5 million people.
5. Emigration inflow of 7.25 million people.
6. Total losses ((70.2 - 65.93 - 2.8) + 3.5 + 7.25 = 12.22) 12.15 million people.

findings

Recall that disputes about the number of deaths are ongoing to this day.

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

• military personnel killed and died from wounds;
• who died from diseases;
• executed by firing squad (according to the results of 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 from starvation 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 the dead were men (about 20 million). Modern researchers argue 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% survived. By 1945, there were twice as many women as men in the USSR (data for people aged 20 to 29).

In addition to the actual deaths, a sharp drop in the birth rate can also be attributed to human losses. So, according to official estimates, if the birth rate in the state remained at least at the same level, the population of the Union by the end of 1945 should have been 35-36 million people more than it was in reality. Despite numerous studies and calculations, exact amount those who died during the war are unlikely to ever be named.

How the official data on the losses of the USSR changed

Recently, the State Duma announced new figures for the human losses of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War - almost 42 million people. An additional 15 million people were added to the previous official figures. The head of the Museum-Memorial of the Great Patriotic War of the Kazan Kremlin, our columnist Mikhail Cherepanov, in the author's column of Realnoe Vremya talks about the declassified losses of the USSR and Tatarstan.

The irretrievable losses of the Soviet Union as a result of the factors of the Second World War are more than 19 million military personnel.

Despite many years of well-paid sabotage and all sorts of efforts by generals and politicians to hide the true price of our Victory over fascism, February 14, 2017 at State Duma at the parliamentary hearings "Patriotic education of citizens of Russia:" Immortal Regiment "the figures closest to the truth were finally declassified:

“According to the declassified data of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the losses of the Soviet Union in World War II amount to 41 million 979 thousand, and not 27 million, as previously thought. The total decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 was more than 52 million 812 thousand people. Of these, irretrievable losses as a result of the action of war factors are more than 19 million military personnel and about 23 million civilians.

According to the report, this information is confirmed large quantity authentic documents, authoritative publications and testimonies (details - on the Immortal Regiment website and other resources).

The history of the matter is

In March 1946, in an interview with the Pravda newspaper, I.V. Stalin announced: "As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irretrievably lost about seven million people in battles with the Germans, as well as due to the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet people to German penal servitude."

In 1961, N.S. Khrushchev, in a letter to the Prime Minister of Sweden, wrote: "The German militarists unleashed a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed two tens of millions of lives of Soviet people."

On May 8, 1990, at a meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in honor of the 45th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the final number of casualties was announced: "Almost 27 million people."

In 1993, a team of military historians led by Colonel General G.F. Krivosheeva published a statistical study “Secrecy has been removed. Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts. It indicates the amount of total losses - 26.6 million people, including combat losses published for the first time: 8,668,400 soldiers and officers.

In 2001, a reprint of the book was published under the editorship of G.F. Krivosheev “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. Losses of the Armed Forces: A Statistical Study". One of her tables stated that the irretrievable losses of the Soviet Army and Navy alone during the Great Patriotic War were 11,285,057 people. (See page 252.) In 2010, in the next edition of the Great Patriotic War without a secrecy stamp. The Book of Losses, again edited by G.F. Krivosheev, the data on the losses of the armies fighting in 1941-1945 were specified. Demographic losses reduced to 8,744,500 troops (p. 373):

A natural question arises: where was the mentioned “data of the State Planning Committee of the USSR” on the combat losses of our Army stored, if even the heads of the special commissions of the Ministry of Defense could not study them for more than 70 years? How true are they?

Everything is relative. It is worth remembering that it was in the book “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century” that we were finally allowed to find out in 2001 how many of our compatriots were mobilized into the ranks of the Red (Soviet) Army during the years of World War II: 34,476,700 people (p. 596.).

If we take on faith the official figure of 8,744 thousand people, then the share of our military losses will be 25 percent. That is, according to the commission of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, only every fourth soviet soldier and the officer did not return from the front.

I think that a resident of any locality will not agree with this. former USSR. In every village or aul there are plates with the names of the dead fellow countrymen. At best, only half of those who went to the front 70 years ago wear them.

Statistics of Tatarstan

Let's see what the statistics are in our Tatarstan, on the territory of which there were no battles.

In the book of Professor Z.I. Gilmanov “Workers of Tataria on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War”, published in Kazan in 1981, it was stated that the military enlistment offices of the republic sent 560 thousand citizens to the front and 87 thousand of them did not return.

In 2001, Professor A.A. Ivanov in his doctoral thesis "Combat losses of the peoples of Tatarstan during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." announced that from 1939 to 1945 about 700 thousand citizens were drafted into the army from the territory of the Tatar Republic, and 350 thousand of them did not return.

As a leader working group edition of the Book of Memory of the Republic of Tatarstan from 1990 to 2007, I can clarify: taking into account the natives called up from other regions of the country, the losses of our Tatarstan during the Second World War amounted to at least 390 thousand soldiers and officers.

And these are the irretrievable losses of the republic, on whose territory not a single bomb or shell of the enemy fell!

Are the losses of other regions of the former USSR even less than the national average?

Time will tell. And our task is to wrest from obscurity and enter into the database of the losses of the Republic of Tatarstan, presented in the Victory Park of Kazan, if possible, the names of all fellow countrymen.

And this should be done not only by single enthusiasts on their own initiative, but also by professional search engines on behalf of the state itself.

It is physically impossible to do this only in excavations at the battlefields in all Memory Watches. This requires massive permanent job in archives published on the websites of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and other thematic Internet resources.

But that's a completely different story...

Mikhail Cherepanov, illustrations provided by the author

Reference

Mikhail Valerievich Cherepanov- Head of the Museum-Memorial of the Great Patriotic War of the Kazan Kremlin; Chairman of the Association "Club of Military Glory"; Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military Historical Sciences, Laureate of the State Prize of the Republic of Tatarstan.

• Born in 1960.
• Graduated from Kazan State University them. IN AND. Ulyanov-Lenin with a degree in Journalism.
• Since 2007 he has been working in National Museum RT.
• One of the creators of the 28-volume book "Memory" of the Republic of Tatarstan about those who died during the Second World War, 19 volumes of the Book of Memory of the Victims political repression Republic of Tatarstan and others.
• Creator eBook in memory of the Republic of Tatarstan (a list of natives and residents of Tatarstan who died during the Second World War).
• Author of thematic lectures from the cycle "Tatarstan during the war years", thematic excursions "Feat of countrymen on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War".
• Co-author of the concept of the virtual museum "Tatarstan - Fatherland".
• Member of 60 search expeditions to bury the remains of soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War (since 1980), board member of the Union of Search Teams of Russia.
• Author of more than 100 scientific and educational articles, books, participant of all-Russian, regional and international conferences. Columnist of Realnoe Vremya.

Our planet has known many bloody battles and battles. Our whole history consisted of various internecine conflicts. But only the human and material losses in World War II made mankind think about the importance of everyone's life. Only after it did people begin to understand how easy it is to unleash a massacre and how difficult it is to stop it. This war showed all the peoples of the Earth how important peace is for everyone.

The Importance of Studying the History of the 20th Century

The younger generation sometimes does not understand how the history differs over the years that have passed since their end, it has been rewritten many times, so the youth is no longer so interested in those distant events. Often these people do not even really know who took part in those events and what losses humanity suffered in the Second World War. But the history of your country should not be forgotten. If you watch American films about World War II today, you might think that it was only thanks to the US Army that victory over Nazi Germany. That is why it is so necessary to convey to our younger generation the role of the Soviet Union in these sad events. In fact, it was the people of the USSR who suffered the greatest losses in World War II.

Background of the bloodiest war

This armed conflict between the two world military-political coalitions, which became the biggest massacre in the history of mankind, began on September 1, 1939 (in contrast to the Great Patriotic War, which lasted from June 22, 1941 to May 8, 1945 G.). It ended only on September 2, 1945. Thus, this war lasted 6 long years. There are several reasons for this conflict. These include: a deep global crisis in the economy, the aggressive policy of some states, Negative consequences the then Versailles-Washington system.

Participants in the international conflict

AT this conflict 62 countries were involved to some extent. And this despite the fact that at that time there were only 73 sovereign states on Earth. Fierce battles took place on three continents. Naval battles conducted in four oceans (Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Arctic). The number of opposing countries changed several times throughout the war. Some states participated in active hostilities, while others simply helped their coalition allies by any means (equipment, equipment, food).

Anti-Hitler coalition

Initially, there were 3 states in this coalition: Poland, France, Great Britain. This is due to the fact that it was after the attack on these countries that Germany began to carry out active fighting within these countries. In 1941, such countries as the USSR, the USA, and China were drawn into the war. Further, Australia, Norway, Canada, Nepal, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Belgium, New Zealand, Denmark, Luxembourg, Albania, the Union of South Africa, San Marino, Turkey joined the coalition. To varying degrees, countries such as Guatemala, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, Paraguay, Cuba, Ecuador, Venezuela, Uruguay, Nicaragua became allies in the coalition. , Haiti, El Salvador, Bolivia. They were joined by Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Liberia, Mongolia. During the war years, even those states that had ceased to be allies of Germany joined the anti-Hitler coalition. These are Iran (since 1941), Iraq and Italy (since 1943), Bulgaria and Romania (since 1944), Finland and Hungary (since 1945).

On the side of the Nazi bloc were such states as Germany, Japan, Slovakia, Croatia, Iraq and Iran (until 1941), Finland, Bulgaria, Romania (until 1944), Italy (until 1943), Hungary (until 1945), Thailand (Siam), Manchukuo. In some occupied territories, this coalition created puppet states that had virtually no influence on the world battlefield. These include: Italian social republic, Vichy France, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Philippines, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. On the side of the Nazi bloc, various collaborationist troops, created from among the inhabitants of the opposing countries, often fought. The largest of them were RONA, ROA, SS divisions created from foreigners (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Estonian, Norwegian-Danish, 2 Belgian, Dutch, Latvian, Bosnian, Albanian and French each). Volunteer armies of such neutral countries as Spain, Portugal and Sweden fought on the side of this bloc.

Consequences of the war

Despite the fact that for long years World War II changed the alignment on the world stage several times, the result of it was the complete victory of the anti-Hitler coalition. This was followed by the creation of the largest international United Nations Organization (abbreviated - UN). The result of victory in this war was the condemnation of fascist ideology and the prohibition of Nazism during the Nuremberg trials. After the end of this world conflict, the role of France and Great Britain in world politics significantly decreased, and the USA and the USSR became real superpowers, dividing new spheres of influence among themselves. Two camps of countries with diametrically opposed socio-political systems (capitalist and socialist) were created. After the Second World War, a period of decolonization of empires began throughout the planet.

theater of war

Germany, Second World War for which it was an attempt to become the only superpower, fought in five directions at once:

• Western European: Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France.
• Mediterranean: Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Italy, Cyprus, Malta, Libya, Egypt, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq.
• East European: USSR, Poland, Norway, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria, Yugoslavia, Barents, Baltic and Black Seas.
• African: Ethiopia, Somalia, Madagascar, Kenya, Sudan, Equatorial Africa.
• Pacific (in commonwealth with Japan): China, Korea, South Sakhalin, Far East, Mongolia, Kuril Islands, Aleutian Islands, Hong Kong, Indochina, Burma, Malaya, Sarawak, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, Brunei, New Guinea, Sabah, Papua, Guam, Solomon Islands, Hawaii, Philippines, Midway, Marianas and numerous other pacific islands.

Beginning and end of the war

They began to be calculated from the moment the German troops invaded Poland. Hitler had been preparing the ground for an attack on this state for a long time. On August 31, 1939, the German press reported on the capture by the Polish military of a radio station in Gleiwitz (although this was a provocation by saboteurs), and already at 4 am on September 1, 1939, the Schleswig-Holstein warship began shelling the fortifications in Westerplatte (Poland). Together with the troops of Slovakia, Germany began to occupy foreign territories. France and Great Britain demanded that Hitler withdraw troops from Poland, but he refused. Already on September 3, 1939, France, Australia, England, New Zealand declared war on Germany. Then they were joined by Canada, Newfoundland, the Union of South Africa, Nepal. So the bloody World War II began to quickly gain momentum. USSR, although it urgently introduced a universal military duty, until 22. 06. 1941 did not declare war on Germany.

In the spring of 1940, Hitler's troops began the occupation of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Then she went to France. In June 1940, Italy began to fight on Hitler's side. In the spring of 1941, she quickly captured Greece and Yugoslavia. On June 22, 1941, she attacked the USSR. On the side of Germany in these hostilities were Romania, Finland, Hungary, Italy. Up to 70% of all active Nazi divisions fought on all Soviet-German fronts. The defeat of the enemy in the battle for Moscow thwarted Hitler's notorious Blitzkrieg plan ( lightning war). Thanks to this, already in 1941, the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition began. On December 7, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States also entered this war. The army of this country for a long time fought with its enemies only in pacific ocean. Great Britain and the USA promised to open the so-called second front in the summer of 1942. But, despite the fiercest battles on the territory of the Soviet Union, the partners in the anti-Hitler coalition were in no hurry to engage in hostilities in Western Europe. This is due to the fact that the United States and Britain were waiting for the complete weakening of the USSR. Only when it became obvious that it was rapidly beginning to liberate not only its own territory, but also the countries of Eastern Europe, the Allies hurried to open the Second Front. This happened on June 6, 1944 (2 years after the promised date). From that moment on, the Anglo-American coalition sought to be the first to liberate Europe from German troops. Despite all the efforts of the allies, the Soviet Army was the first to occupy the Reichstag, on which it erected its own But even unconditional surrender Germany did not stop World War II. For some time there were hostilities in Czechoslovakia. Also in the Pacific, hostilities almost did not stop. Only after the atomic bombing of the cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945), carried out by the Americans, did the Japanese emperor understand the futility of further resistance. As a result of this attack, about 300 thousand civilians died. This bloody international conflict ended only on September 2, 1945. It was on this day that Japan signed the act of surrender.

Victims of the global conflict

The first large-scale losses in World War II were suffered by the Polish people. The army of this country could not resist a stronger enemy in the face of the German troops. This war had an unprecedented impact on all of humanity. About 80% of all people living on Earth at that time (more than 1.7 billion people) were drawn into the war. Military operations took place on the territory of more than 40 states. For 6 years of this world conflict, about 110 million people were mobilized into the armed forces of all armies. According to the latest data, human losses are about 50 million people. At the same time, only 27 million people were killed on the fronts. The rest of the victims were civilians. Most of the human lives lost were such countries as the USSR (27 million), Germany (13 million), Poland (6 million), Japan (2.5 million), China (5 million). The casualties of other warring countries were: Yugoslavia (1.7 million), Italy (0.5 million), Romania (0.5 million), Great Britain (0.4 million), Greece (0.4 million). ), Hungary (0.43 million), France (0.6 million), USA (0.3 million), New Zealand, Australia (40 thousand), Belgium (88 thousand), Africa (10 thousand .), Canada (40 thousand). In fascist concentration camps more than 11 million people were killed.

Losses from international conflict

It is simply amazing what losses the Second World War brought to mankind. History testifies to 4 trillion dollars that went to military spending. In the warring states, material costs amounted to about 70% of the national income. For several years, the industry of many countries was completely reoriented to the production of military equipment. Thus, the USA, USSR, Great Britain and Germany during the war years produced more than 600 thousand combat and transport aircraft. The weapons of World War II have become even more effective and deadly in 6 years. The most ingenious minds of the warring countries were busy only with its improvement. Many new weapons were forced to come up with the Second World War. The tanks of Germany and the Soviet Union were constantly modernized throughout the war. At the same time, more and more advanced machines were created to destroy the enemy. Their number numbered in the thousands. So, only armored vehicles, tanks, self-propelled guns were produced more than 280 thousand. More than 1 million various artillery pieces left the conveyors of military factories; about 5 million machine guns; 53 million submachine guns, carbines and rifles. Colossal destruction and destruction of several thousand cities and other settlements brought with it the Second World War. The history of mankind without it could go according to a completely different scenario. Because of it, all countries were thrown back in their development many years ago. Colossal funds and forces of millions of people were spent on eliminating the consequences of this international military conflict.

USSR losses

A very high price had to be paid for the fact that the Second World War ended faster. The losses of the USSR amounted to about 27 million people. (according to the last count of 1990). Unfortunately, it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to obtain accurate data, but this figure is most consistent with the truth. There are several various estimates loss of the USSR. So, according to the latest method, about 6.3 million are considered killed or died from their wounds; 0.5 million who died from diseases, were sentenced to death, died in accidents; 4.5 million missing and captured. The total demographic losses of the Soviet Union amount to more than 26.6 million people. In addition to the huge number of deaths in this conflict, the USSR suffered huge material losses. According to estimates, they amounted to more than 2600 billion rubles. During World War II, hundreds of cities were partially or completely destroyed. More than 70 thousand villages were wiped off the face of the earth. 32 thousand large industrial enterprises were completely destroyed. The agriculture of the European part of the USSR was almost completely destroyed. It took several years of incredible efforts and huge expenses to restore the country to the pre-war level.

Losses of the USSR in the Second World War, information about the declassified data of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, population decline during the Second World War.

Attention! The author of this article does not pretend to recognize the conclusions of this material as the ultimate truth. This material is an analysis of certain events, based on certain sources, considered through the prism of the author's vision. The author may not be as close to the truth as he sees!

Reasons for considering the issue?

Recently in " Novaya Gazeta The material “Victory presents the bill” was published, which claims that almost 42 million people died in the Second World War from the USSR. The author of the material, a certain Pavel Gutionov, referring to the statement of the State Duma deputy Nikolai Zemtsov, who announced this figure of irretrievable losses, at the parliamentary hearings “Patriotic education of Russian citizens: “The Immortal Regiment”, referring in turn to “declassified data of the State Planning Committee of the USSR”. The article also states that these data include the figure of the decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 - more than 52 million 812 thousand people.

« Stalin, based on inaccessible normal person considerations, personally determined the losses of the USSR at 7 million people - a little less than the losses of Germany. Khrushchev - 20 million. Under Gorbachev, a book was published, prepared by the Ministry of Defense under the editorship of General Krivosheev, “Secrecy has been lifted”, in which the authors named and in every possible way justified this very figure - 27 million. Now it turns out: it was a lie, and she.

This statement was replicated by some media, mostly opposition (, etc.), focusing on the number of losses, absolutely not questioning it. And right there in these media the question is raised: “did the USSR win the Second World War at all?”.

What did Zemtsov say?

So, on the official website of the All-Russian Public Civil-Patriotic Movement “Immortal Regiment of Russia”, indeed, in the article covering these hearings, there is the following information:

“- The general decline in the population of the USSR 1941-45. - more than 52 million 812 thousand people. Of these, irretrievable losses as a result of the action of war factors are more than 19 million military personnel and about 23 million civilians. The total natural mortality of military personnel and the civilian population during this period could have amounted to more than 10 million 833 thousand people (including 5 million 760 thousand dead children under the age of four). The irretrievable losses of the population of the USSR as a result of the action of war factors amounted to almost 42 million people, the presentation report says.

However, an inquisitive person immediately raises the question, where are these declassified data of the State Planning Committee of the USSR? Searching the net, for a long time I did not find anything (if you find it - the reader, be sure to let me know in the comments). After some time, an explanation of Nikolai Zemtsov himself appeared, in which he stated that the study was carried out by alternative historians and it is too early to issue the figures announced at the hearings as official, and the information found in the State Planning Committee is transferred to the State Memory Institute, where, together with experts and the Ministry of Defense, it will be determined how this information is correct or incorrect. Nikolai Zemtsov stressed that the state should be involved in this assessment.

Let's go through the official data.

In the given hearings, all the figures cause a complete discrepancy with the official ones. For example, that the total decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 is a figure of the order of 52 million people. What is there about this in official sources? According to the census in 1939, the population of the USSR was 170 million people. In 1957, at the next census, the population was 209 million people. That is, if you believe the data of the State Planning Commission, then in 8 years the population of the USSR should have almost doubled. Suspicious isn't it?

In 1941 and 1945, the census was not carried out, however, if we turn to the research of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1993 on the population of the USSR for 1922-1991, then in 1941 there were 196 million people in the USSR, and in 1945 - 170 million people. As seen number is almost twice as low..

It is important to understand that the decline in the population is made up not only of military losses, but, for example, because of the very phenomenon of war, when, obviously, the birth rate in the country is falling.

According to official data, such as the report of the deputy head of the Federal Archival Agency V.P. Tarasov, it follows that “the total irretrievable losses of the armed forces of the USSR (i.e. killed, dead and did not return from captivity) are 8 million 668 thousand 400 people”, which does not correspond to the figure of 19 million mentioned at the hearings.
And the main human losses Soviet Union- civilians, the number of losses of which is almost a rough estimate 17 - 18 million Human. That is, a total of about 26-27 million Human.

Opinion on the statistics of losses in World War II of some experts:

• V.N. Zemskov. Problems of establishing the scale of human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War
• Anatoly Wasserman.