The calculation of the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War remains one of the unresolved by historians scientific tasks. 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 of the NKVD. The result of the work was the figure of 8,668,400 people lost by the power structures of the USSR during the war.

Since March 1989, on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a state commission has been working to study the number of human losses in 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.
• Died from various causes 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 killed in the defense of the Fatherland, told RIA Novosti that the figures for military losses - 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 information

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, lack of 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 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.

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 losses 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. According to Russian sources, 3,172,300 Wehrmacht soldiers were captured by Soviet troops, 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 the 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 Germans, and a large number of soldiers of other nationalities fought in the Wehrmacht: 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 estimate 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.

conclusions

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

Almost 27 million citizens of the USSR died during the war (the exact number is 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 hostilities in the state, there was an increased mortality from hunger and disease.

This also includes those who emigrated from the USSR during the war and did not return to their homeland after the victory. The vast majority of 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, the exact number of those who died during the war is unlikely to ever be named.

Loss.ru

Chapter 11

................................................. ........... CONCLUSIONS From the above, it should be concluded that the fire superiority of the Red Army over the German army. Moreover, this fire superiority cannot be explained by quantitative superiority in gun barrels. Moreover, as a result of poor transport equipment, the Red Army made little use of its mortar weapons at the battalion and regimental level. After all, an 82 mm mine weighs 3 kg, and 30 pieces are fired per minute. For 10 minutes of shooting, you need 900 kg of ammunition for a mortar. Of course, the transport was provided primarily by artillery, not mortars. It turned out that a maneuverable, light artillery weapon was tied to ammunition points, and could not work in the interests of the battalions. The problem was solved by mixing mortars into mortar regiments, where they could be supplied with ammunition centrally. But as a result, the battalion, regimental and even divisional level turned out to be weaker than the German one, because mortars made up half of the trunks in the division in the pre-war states. The anti-tank artillery of the Soviet rifle divisions was weaker than the German one. As a result, three-inch light artillery regiments rolled out for direct fire. There were not enough air defense systems. We had to divert heavy machine guns and anti-tank rifles from the first line for these purposes. Due to what was fire superiority achieved from the first days of the war? Fire superiority by the Red Army was achieved through skill and courage. This is confirmed not only by calculations of losses personnel, but also losses military equipment, property, transport.

Here is Halder's entry dated 11/18/41 says that out of 0.5 million vehicles that were in the German army on 06/22/41, 150 thousand were irretrievably lost and 275 thousand needed repair, and 300 thousand were needed for this repair. tons of spare parts. That is, about 1.1 tons of spare parts are needed to repair one car. What condition are these cars in? From them, only the frames remained! If we add to them those cars from which there are not even frames left, it turns out that all cars produced by German car factories in a year burn out in Russia in less than six months. So Hitler was worried about this circumstance, so Halder was forced to discuss these issues with General Bule.

But cars are not fighting in the first line of troops. What happened in the first line? Hell is hell! Now we need to compare all this with the losses of auto-tractor equipment in the Red Army. With the outbreak of war, the production of cars and tractors was sharply reduced in favor of tanks, and the production of artillery tractors ceased altogether. Nevertheless, by the autumn of 1942, the Soviet Union had lost only half of the pre-war fleet of artillery tractors, mainly in encirclement, and then, until the very victory, used the remaining half, with practically no losses in them. If the Germans in the first six months of the war lost almost all the vehicles that they had in the army at the beginning of the war, then the Soviet army lost 33% of the available and received vehicles over the same period. And for the whole of 1942, 14%. And by the end of the war, car losses were reduced to 3-5%.

But these losses repeat, according to the form of the loss graph, the irretrievable losses of the personnel of the Red Army, with the only difference that the average monthly loss of cars is 10-15 times less. But after all, the number of cars at the front was just as many times less. It can be assumed that the loss of vehicles from enemy fire in 1941 in the Red Army was no more than 5-10%, and 23-28% of losses were due to maneuvering actions of German troops, encirclement. That is, the loss of vehicles can also serve to characterize the loss of personnel. Because they also reflect the fire capabilities of the parties. That is, if fascist troops lose 90% of vehicles in 1941, then almost all of these losses are losses from fire Soviet troops, which is 15% loss per month. It can be seen that the Soviet army is at least 1.5-3 times more effective than the German army.

In an entry dated December 9, 1941, Halder writes about the irretrievable average daily loss of 1,100 horses. Considering that horses were not put in the battle line and that horses at the front are 10 times less than people, the figure of 9465 people of average daily irretrievable losses for December 1941 from table 6 receives additional confirmation.

German losses in tanks can be estimated based on their availability at the beginning and end of the period of interest. As of June 1941, the Germans had about 5,000 of their own and Czechoslovak vehicles. In addition, in Halder's entry of December 23, 1940, the figure is 4930 captured vehicles, mostly French. There are about 10,000 cars in total. At the end of 1941, the German tank forces were equipped with tanks by 20-30%, that is, about 3000 vehicles remained in stock, of which about 500-600 captured French, which were then transferred from the front to protect the rear areas. Halder also writes about this. Even without taking into account the tanks produced by the German industry in six months, without taking into account Soviet captured tanks used by the Germans, Soviet troops irretrievably destroyed about 7,000 German vehicles, not counting armored cars and armored personnel carriers, in the first 6 months of the war. In four years, this will amount to 56,000 vehicles destroyed by the Red Army. If we add here 3,800 tanks produced by the German industry in 1941 and 1,300 captured Soviet tanks captured by the Germans at storage bases, we get more than 12,000 destroyed German vehicles in the first six months of the war. During the war years, Germany produced about 50,000 vehicles, and the Germans had 10,000 vehicles before the war, as we calculated. The allies of the USSR could destroy 4-5 thousand tanks or so. Soviet troops lost about 100,000 tanks and self-propelled guns during the war, but it must be understood that the operational life of Soviet tanks was significantly less. Here there is a different approach to life, to technology, to war. Different ways to use tanks. Different tank ideology. The Soviet principles of tank building are well described in the trilogy by Mikhail Svirin under the general title "The History of the Soviet Tank 1919-1955", Moscow, "Yauza", "Eksmo", ("The armor is strong, 1919-1937", "Stalin's armor shield, 1937-1943 "," Stalin's Steel Fist, 1943-1955"). Soviet wartime tanks were calculated for one operation, had a resource of 100-200 km at the beginning of the war, up to 500 km by the end of the war, which reflected views on the operational use of tanks and the military economy. After the war, the resource of tanks had to be increased by a number of measures to 10-15 years of service, based on the needs of the peacetime economy and new concept accumulation of armaments. Thus, tanks were initially conceived not to be spared. This is a weapon, why spare it, they need to fight. That is, the losses in the tanks of the USSR are 1.5-2 times higher, and the losses of people are 1.5-2 times lower.

In this case, it should be borne in mind that the Germans could restore up to 70% of the wrecked tanks within a week, according to Guderian. This means that if out of a hundred German tanks that entered the battle at the beginning of the month, 20 vehicles remained by the end of the month, then with irretrievable losses of 80 vehicles, the number of hits may exceed 250. And such a figure will appear in the reports of the Soviet troops. However, the Soviet General Staff, more or less accurately, corrected the reports of the troops, taking into account this circumstance. Therefore, in the operational report for December 16, 1941, announced by the Soviet Information Bureau, it is said that the Germans lost 15,000 tanks, 19,000 guns, about 13,000 aircraft and 6,000,000 people killed, wounded and captured in the first five months of the war. These figures are quite consistent with my calculations and quite accurately reflect the real losses of the German troops. If they are overpriced, then not very much, given the then situation. In any case, the Soviet General Staff assessed the situation much more realistically than the German General Staff even in 1941. In the future, the estimates became even more accurate.

The losses of aircraft by the German side are considered in the book by Kornyukhin G.V. "Air War over the USSR. 1941", LLC "Publishing House" Veche ", 2008. There is a table of calculations of the losses of German aircraft without taking into account training machines.

Table 18:

* The number of aircraft surrendered after the surrender
** According to the reference book " Soviet aviation in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. in numbers"
*** An attempt to calculate the "squeeze" from the documents of the quartermaster general of the Luftwaffe, carried out by R. Larintsev and A. Zabolotsky.
**** For 1945, the Quartermaster General's papers could not be found, apparently he was tired of preparing propaganda opuses. It is unlikely that the Quartermaster General quit his job and went on vacation, rather, he quit the secondary work that the Ministry of Propaganda entrusted to him.

Table 18 shows that modern ideas about German losses in aviation are completely untrue. It can also be seen that the Soviet data differ significantly from the theoretically calculated values ​​only in 1945 and 1941. In 1945, the discrepancies are due to the fact that half of the German aviation refused to fly, and was abandoned by the Germans at the airfields. In 1941, the discrepancy was formed from the poorly organized by the Soviet side accounting for downed German aircraft in the first two or three months of the war. And in the post-war history, the estimated figures from the time of the war, voiced by the Soviet Information Bureau, were ashamed to enter. Thus, 62936 German aircraft destroyed by the Soviet side are clearly visible. The combat losses of the Soviet Air Force amounted to 43,100 combat vehicles during the war. However, non-combat losses of combat vehicles of the Soviet Air Force are practically the same as combat ones. Here again the difference in the quality of technology and the attitude towards it is visible. This difference was fully recognized by the Soviet leadership; the USSR could compete with united Europe in the volume of military production only if it had a completely different view of the quality, nature and use of these products. Soviet vehicles, especially fighters, wore out very quickly in wartime conditions. Nevertheless, plywood-linen aircraft with engine life for several flights successfully resisted all-duralumin aviation with German-quality engines.

Hitler not for nothing believed that the Soviet industry would not be able to make up for the loss of weapons, and could not, if it had strived for a symmetrical response to the German challenge. Having 3-4 times fewer workers, the Soviet Union could produce 3-4 times less labor costs.

At the same time, one should not draw a conclusion about the mass death Soviet pilots or tankers from the imperfection of technology. Such a conclusion will not find confirmation either in memoirs, or in reports, or in statistical studies. Because he is unfaithful. It's just that in the USSR there was a technical culture different from European, a different technogenic civilization. The book cites the losses of Soviet military equipment, including decommissioned equipment that has used up its resource, which is irreparable due to a lack of spare parts and a weak repair base. It should be remembered that in terms of the development of production, the USSR had a base of only two, albeit heroic, five-year plans. Therefore, the response to European technical equipment was not symmetrical. Soviet technology was designed for a shorter, but more intensive period of operation. Rather, it was not even calculated, but it turned out like this by itself. Lendliz cars did not last long in Soviet conditions either. To produce repair forces means to tear people away from production, from war, and to produce spare parts means to occupy those capacities that can produce finished machines. Of course, all this is necessary, the question is the balance of opportunities and needs. Considering the fact that in battle all this work can burn out in a minute, and all produced spare parts and repair shops will remain out of work. Therefore, when, for example, Shirokorad in the book "Three Wars of Great Finland" complains about the unsuitability of Budenovka or about the differences in the quality of the uniforms of the fighters and commanders of the Red Army, the question arises, did he think well? In order to pursue European quality, one must have a European industry, such was Germany, and not the USSR. Budyonovka or bogatyrka is a mobilization version of a headdress, they were invented at the end of the First World War, just because production was weak. As soon as the opportunity arose, they were replaced with normal hats. Who is to blame that such an opportunity appeared only in 1940? Honorary saint and honorary pope of our kingdom, Tsar Nicholas the bloody and his satraps. Democrats from the Kerensky gang. As well as the now sung white bandits. At the same time, the Germans wore winter caps. When Shirokorad in the book "The March on Vienna" complains that the gun turrets on armored boats were installed from tanks, and were not specially designed, he does not take into account that tank turrets were mass-produced at tank factories, and specially designed turrets should have been produced in a medium series at factories shipbuilding. Does a specialist in the history of technology not see the difference? Rather, he is looking for cheap sensations where there are none. And so it is with everything. The planes were made furniture factories, and cartridges on tobacco. Armored cars were produced at the crushing equipment plant in Vyksa, and PPS wherever there was a cold stamping press. famous in Soviet time an anecdote about a combine with a vertical take-off is more likely to come to Stalin's time than to later times.

The labor heroism of the Soviet people played a decisive role, but one should not forget about the merits of the Soviet government, personally Stalin, who correctly set priorities in the scientific, technical, industrial and military spheres. Now it is fashionable to complain that there were few walkie-talkies and a lot of tanks, but would it be better if there were fewer tanks and more walkie-talkies? The radios don't fire. Although they are needed, but where to get the funds for everything? Where necessary, there were walkie-talkies.

In this regard, I would like to draw attention to key moment the history of the war, on the preparation of the pre-war industry for mobilization in wartime. Special samples and modifications of all weapons were developed for release in wartime. Special technologies were developed for implementation in non-core industries, specialists were trained to implement these technologies. Since 1937, the army began to receive modern, domestic weapons, to replace the alterations and modifications of pre-revolutionary and licensed samples. Artillery and automatic rifles were the first to be introduced. Then priority was given to tanks and combat aircraft. Their production began to unfold only in 1940. New machine guns and automatic cannons were introduced during the course of the war. It was not possible to develop the automotive and radio industries to the required extent before the war. But they set up a lot of steam locomotives and wagons, and this is much more important. The capacity of specialized factories was sorely lacking, and the mobilization of non-core enterprises, prepared even before the war, gives the right to assert that Stalin deserved the title of generalissimo even before the war, even if he had done nothing more to win. And he did a lot more!

On the anniversary of the start of the war, the Soviet Information Bureau published operational reports summarizing the results of hostilities since the start of the war on an accrual basis. It is interesting to summarize these data in a table that will give an idea of ​​the views of the Soviet command, of course, adjusted for some, forced, propaganda element in relation to their own casualties. But the nature of Soviet propaganda of that period is interesting in itself, because now it can be compared with the published data of the work.

Table 19:

Table 19 shows that the Soviet government concealed from the Soviet people only one figure - the loss of the missing in the encirclement. During the entire war, the losses of the USSR as missing and captured amounted to about 4 million people, of which less than 2 million people returned from captivity after the war. These figures were hidden in order to reduce the fears of the unstable part of the population before the German advance, to reduce the fear of encirclement among the unstable part of the military. And after the war, the Soviet government considered itself guilty before the people, for being unable to foresee and avoid such a development of events. Therefore, after the war, these figures were not advertised, although they were no longer hidden. After all, Konev quite openly declared after the war about more than 10,000,000 irretrievable losses of Soviet troops. He said it once, and there was nothing more to repeat, to reopen wounds.

The rest of the numbers are generally correct. During the entire war, the USSR lost 61,500 field artillery barrels, 96,500 tanks and self-propelled guns, but no more than 65,000 of them for combat reasons, 88,300 combat aircraft, but only 43,100 of them for combat reasons. About 6.7 million Soviet soldiers died in battle (including non-combat losses, but excluding those who died in captivity) during the entire war.

The losses of the enemy are also indicated correctly. Enemy personnel losses have been greatly underestimated since 1942, and in 1941 they are correctly indicated at 6,000,000 total losses. Only the losses of German tanks are perhaps slightly overestimated, by about 1.5 times. This is naturally related to the difficulty of accounting for the number of repaired and reused machines. In addition, in the reports of the troops, along with damaged tanks and self-propelled guns, other armored vehicles could also be indicated. The Germans had a lot of different combat vehicles on both half-track and wheeled chassis, which can be called self-propelled guns. Then the losses of the Germans in armored vehicles are also indicated correctly. A slight overestimation of the number of downed German aircraft is not significant. The loss of guns and mortars of all calibers and purposes for the Red Army amounted to 317,500 pieces during the war, and for Germany and its allies, the loss of 289,200 pieces is indicated in the work. But in the 12th volume of the "History of the Second World War", in table 11, it is said that Germany alone produced and lost 319900 pieces of guns, and the same Germany produced mortars and lost 78800 pieces. In total, the loss of guns and mortars in Germany alone will amount to 398,700 barrels, and it is not known whether rocket systems are included here, most likely they are not. In addition, this figure definitely does not include guns and mortars produced before 1939.

Since the summer of 1942, there has been a tendency in the Soviet General Staff to underestimate the number of Germans killed. Soviet military leaders began to assess the situation more carefully, fearing to underestimate the enemy at the final stage of the war. In any case, one can speak of special, propaganda loss figures published by the Sovinformburo only in relation to the number of captured and missing Soviet servicemen. Otherwise, the same figures were published that the Soviet General Staff used in their calculations.

The course and outcome of the war cannot be understood if we exclude from consideration the European fascist atrocities in relation to the peaceful Soviet population and prisoners of war. These atrocities constituted the purpose and meaning of the war for the German side and all of Germany's allies. fighting were only a tool to ensure the unimpeded implementation of these atrocities. The only goal of Europe united by the Nazis in World War II was to conquer the entire European part of the USSR, and to destroy most of the population in the most brutal way, in order to intimidate the rest and enslave them. These crimes are described in Alexander Dyukov's book "For what the Soviet people fought", Moscow, "Yauza", "Eksmo", 2007. 12-15 million Soviet civilians, including prisoners of war, became victims of these atrocities throughout the war, but we must remember that only during the first war winter, the Nazis planned to kill more than 30 million peaceful Soviet citizens in the occupied territories of the USSR. So we can talk about salvation the Soviet army and the partisans Soviet government and Stalin, more than 15 million lives of Soviet people planned for destruction in the first year of the occupation, and about 20 million planned for destruction in the future, not counting those saved from fascist slavery, which was often worse than death. Despite numerous sources, this point is extremely poorly covered by historical science. Historians simply avoid this topic, limiting themselves to rare and common phrases, and yet these crimes exceed in the number of victims all other crimes in history combined.

In a note dated November 24, 1941, Halder writes about the report of Colonel-General Fromm. The general military-economic situation is represented as a falling curve. Fromm believes that a truce is necessary. My conclusions confirm Fromm's conclusions.

It also indicates that the loss of personnel at the front is 180,000 people. If this is a loss of combat strength, then it is easily covered by recalling vacationers from vacation. Not to mention the conscription of the contingent born in 1922. Where is the falling curve here? Why, then, in the entry dated November 30, it says that 50-60 people remained in the companies? To make ends meet, Halder claims that 340,000 men make up half of the combat strength of the infantry. But this is ridiculous, the combat strength of the infantry is less than a tenth of the army. In fact, it should be read that the loss of troops at the front is 1.8 million people on 11/24/41 in combat strength and 3.4 million in the total number of troops " Eastern Front"on 11/30/41, and the regular strength of the troops of the" Eastern Front "is 6.8 million people. That's probably how it will be right.

Perhaps someone will not believe my calculations of German losses, especially in 1941, when modern ideas The Red Army was completely defeated and supposedly the German army did not suffer any losses in some cunning way. That's bullshit. You can't forge victory out of defeats and losses. From the very beginning, the German army suffered defeat, but the Reich leadership hoped that the USSR was having an even worse situation. Hitler spoke directly about this in the same diary of Halder.

The situation of the border battle was best conveyed by Dmitry Egorov in the book "June 41st. Defeat of the Western Front.", Moscow, "Yauza", "Eksmo", 2008.

Of course, the summer of 1941 was terribly difficult for the Soviet troops. Endless battles with no visible positive results. Endless environments where the choice was often between death and captivity. And many chose captivity. Maybe even the majority. But it must be borne in mind that mass surrenders began after one or two weeks of intense struggle in the environment, when the fighters ran out of ammunition even for small arms. The commanders, desperate to win, gave up command of the troops, sometimes even on a front-line scale, fled from their fighters and in small groups either tried to surrender or go to their east. The fighters fled from their units, dressed in civilian clothes or, left without leadership, huddled in crowds of thousands, hoping to surrender to the German detachments clearing the area. And yet the Germans were beaten. There were people who chose a more reliable position for themselves, stocked up on weapons and accepted their last battle, knowing in advance how it would end. Or they organized disorderly crowds of encircled people into combat detachments, attacked German cordons and broke through to their own. Sometimes it worked. There were commanders who kept control of their troops in the most difficult situations. There were divisions, corps and entire armies that attacked the enemy, inflicted defeats on the enemy, staunchly defended themselves, evaded German attacks and beat themselves. Yes, they beat me so much that it was 1.5-2 times more painful. Each blow was answered with a double blow.

This was the reason for the defeat of the fascist hordes. The irretrievable demographic losses of the German army amounted to about 15 million people. The irretrievable demographic losses of other Axis armies amounted to 4 million people. And in total, up to 19 million enemies of different nationalities and states had to be killed to win.

To date, it is not known exactly how many people died in World War II. Less than 10 years ago, statistics claimed that 50 million people died, data for 2016 says that the number of victims exceeded the mark of 70 million. Perhaps, after some time, this figure will be refuted by new calculations.

The number of deaths during the war

The first mention of the dead was in the March issue of the Pravda newspaper for 1946. At that time, the figure of 7 million people was officially announced. To date, when almost all archives have been studied, it can be argued that the losses of the Red Army and the civilian population of the Soviet Union totaled 27 million people. Other countries included in the anti-Hitler coalition, also suffered significant losses, or rather:

• France - 600,000 people;
• China - 200,000 people;
• India - 150,000 people;
• United States of America - 419,000 people;
• Luxembourg - 2,000 people;
• Denmark - 3,200 people.

Budapest, Hungary. Monument on the banks of the Danube in memory of the Jews shot in these places in 1944-45.

At the same time, the losses on the German side were noticeably smaller and amounted to 5.4 million soldiers and 1.4 million civilians. The countries that fought on the side of Germany suffered the following human losses:

• Norway - 9,500 people;
• Italy - 455,000 people;
• Spain - 4,500 people;
• Japan - 2,700,000 people;
• Bulgaria - 25,000 people.

The least dead in Switzerland, Finland, Mongolia and Ireland.

During which period did the greatest losses occur?

The most difficult time for the Red Army was 1941-1942, it was then that the losses amounted to 1/3 of the dead during the entire period of the war. The armed forces of Nazi Germany suffered the greatest losses in the period from 1944 to 1946. In addition, 3,259 civilians in Germany were killed at this time. Another 200,000 German soldiers did not return from captivity.
The United States lost the most people in 1945 in air attacks and evacuations. Other countries participating in hostilities experienced the most terrible times and colossal losses in the final stages of the Second World War.

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The Second World War, which involved four-fifths of the world's population, became the bloodiest in the history of mankind. Through the fault of the imperialists, mass extermination of people took place for six years in various regions of the globe.

More than 110 million people were mobilized into the armed forces. Many tens of millions were killed, injured, left disabled. Civilian casualties increased sharply. They accounted for almost half of the total losses, while in the First World War - 5 percent.

It is extremely difficult to accurately determine the number of dead military personnel and civilians for a number of countries, since in many of them there are no statistics on population losses for the war as a whole, or these data do not reflect the actual situation. In addition, the fascists tried in every possible way to hide their atrocities, and after the war their ideological advocates deliberately distorted the indicators of the casualties of individual countries. All this was the reason for significant discrepancies in the estimate of the number of deaths. The most authoritative studies show that more than 50 million people died during the Second World War.

In addition to direct human losses, many warring states also suffered large indirect losses. The mobilization of a significant part of the male population into the armed forces, the accelerated involvement of women in the system of socially organized labor, material and domestic difficulties, etc., dramatically changed the mode of population reproduction, lowered birth rates and increased mortality.

The states of Europe suffered the largest direct and indirect population losses. About 40 million people died here, that is, significantly more than on other continents combined. During the war years, in almost all European countries on long time the conditions for the existence and development of the population worsened.

In 1938, the population of European countries was 390.6 million people, and in 1945 - 380.9 million. If not for the war, with the same birth and death rates, it would have increased over the years by about 12 million people . The war seriously deformed the age, gender, family and marriage structure of the population of the continent. The quality and, in many countries, the level of general education and vocational training have declined significantly.

Half of the human losses in Europe are in the USSR. They amounted to over 20 million people, a significant part of them - the civilian population who died in the Nazi death camps, as a result of fascist repression, disease and hunger, from enemy air raids. The losses of the USSR significantly exceed the human losses of its Western allies. The country has lost a large part of the population of the most able-bodied and productive ages, with labor experience and professional training. The great losses of the Soviet Union were due primarily to the fact that it took upon itself the main blow of Nazi Germany and for a long time alone opposed the fascist bloc in Europe. They are explained by the particularly cruel policy of mass extermination of Soviet people, which was pursued by the aggressor.

A difficult demographic situation developed after the Second World War in Poland and Yugoslavia, which lost a significant part of their population: Poland - 6 million, Yugoslavia - 1.7 million people.

The fascist leadership set as its goal to change the demographic process in Europe, and subsequently throughout the world. This provided for the mass physical destruction of the conquered peoples, as well as forcible birth control. Along with this, the Nazis sought to stimulate the growth of the "chosen" nations in order to gain a foothold in the occupied territories. However, the war led to great losses in Germany itself - over 13 million people were killed, wounded, captured, missing. Fascist Italy lost 500,000 dead.

The population losses of countries such as France (600 thousand) and Great Britain (370 thousand) are less than the losses of a number of other states participating in the war, but they also had a negative impact on their post-war development.

The peoples of Asia suffered considerable human losses during the war years. The number of dead and wounded in China amounted to over 5 million people. Japan lost 2.5 million people - mostly military personnel. Of the 350,000 civilians who died in Japan, the majority - over 270,000 people - were victims of the atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Compared to Europe and Asia, other continents suffered significantly less human losses. In general, they amounted to 400 thousand people. The United States lost about 300 thousand people dead, Australia and New Zealand - over 40 thousand, Africa - 10 thousand people (206).

Large differences in human losses in relation to individual countries, groups of states, regions of the world are due, on the one hand, to the nature and degree of their participation directly in the armed struggle, and on the other hand, to the class and political goals pursued by the warring countries. The latter determined their different attitude towards prisoners of war and the civilian population of the enemy, as well as towards the fate of the population of the allied states and the world as a whole.

Many hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war and millions of civilians were destroyed in the territories occupied by the Nazi and Japanese invaders. With particular ferocity, the Nazis applied their carefully developed policy of the physical destruction of the Soviet people. The Nazis carried out mass deportation of the civilian population to Germany, where they ended up either in hard labor or in concentration camps. Executions, poisoning in gas chambers, beatings, torture, monstrous medical experiments, forced to overwork - all this led to the mass destruction of people. Thus, out of 18 million European citizens who ended up in Nazi concentration camps, more than 11 million people were killed.

The aggressors themselves, although their armed forces were defeated and forced to unconditional surrender, suffered comparatively smaller losses, which was evidence of the humane attitude towards prisoners of war and the civilian population of the defeated countries on the part of the victors, primarily the USSR.

The war had a great impact not only on the natural reproduction of the population in all countries of the world, but also on its interstate and internal migration. Already the coming of the fascists to power and the preparation of aggression they began caused the flight of the population from Germany and other European states to the countries of Africa, North and Latin America. The offensive of the fascist armies led to the displacement of the population in almost all countries of Europe. In addition, the Nazis resorted to mass forcible export to Germany work force from the occupied areas. War-induced internal migration, accompanied by great hardship and hardship, contributed to an increase in mortality and a decrease in the birth rate. Similar processes took place in Asia.

Thus, the Second World War brought about major changes in the structure of population throughout the world. For a number of countries, including socialist ones, the demographic consequences of the war became one of the most unfavorable factors.

The Second World War confirmed the conclusions of Marxism-Leninism about the enormous impact of the economic factor on the outbreak of wars, the methods of their conduct, their course and results. In the Second World War, the most bloody and fierce, the interconnection and interdependence of economic, scientific, social, moral-political and military factors intensified. The results of the actions of the armed forces, along with other factors, were determined by the degree of their economic support. The volume and qualitative structure of the material needs of the armed forces have sharply expanded, and the importance of the timing of the main military-economic measures has increased. The influence of the social system of states on the military economy, its ability to meet the needs of the front, manifested itself with particular force.

One of the important lessons of the Second World War is the strengthening of its reverse impact on the economy. Subordination has risen sharply National economy the needs of the war. Almost all branches of the economy worked for her to some extent. The credit and financial system of states, money circulation, domestic and foreign trade underwent a deep restructuring.

In terms of the number of human and material losses, in terms of their immediate and long-term consequences, the Second World War has no equal in history. It far surpassed the First World War in terms of human casualties, expended material resources, the volume of production of military equipment, the intensity of economic efforts and the hardships that most of its participants had to endure.

The experience of the Second World War reminds us that not only the war itself and its consequences, but also the preparations for it, the arms race lead to a serious aggravation of population problems and to undermining the economy. Only a lasting democratic peace creates the necessary conditions for the development of economic and demographic processes in directions that meet the interests of social progress.

The results of Britain's involvement in World War II were mixed. The country retained its independence and made a significant contribution to the victory over fascism, at the same time it lost its role as a world leader and came close to losing its colonial status.

Political games

British military historiography often likes to point out that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 effectively untied the hands of the German war machine. At the same time, in Foggy Albion, the Munich Agreement, signed by England together with France, Italy and Germany a year earlier, is bypassed. The result of this conspiracy was the division of Czechoslovakia, which, according to many researchers, was the prelude to World War II.

September 30, 1938 in Munich, Britain and Germany signed another agreement - a declaration of mutual non-aggression, which was the culmination of the British "appeasement policy". Hitler succeeded quite easily in persuading British Prime Minister Arthur Chamberlain that the Munich Accords would be a guarantee of security in Europe.

Historians believe that Britain had high hopes for diplomacy, with the help of which it hoped to rebuild the Versailles system, which was in crisis, although already in 1938 many politicians warned the peacekeepers: “Concessions to Germany will only spur the aggressor!”.

Returning to London at the gangplank, Chamberlain said: "I brought peace to our generation." To which Winston Churchill, then a parliamentarian, prophetically remarked: “England was offered a choice between war and dishonor. She has chosen dishonor and will get war."

"Strange War"

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. On the same day, the Chamberlain government sent a note of protest to Berlin, and on September 3, Great Britain, as the guarantor of Poland's independence, declared war on Germany. Over the next ten days, the entire British Commonwealth joins it.

By mid-October, the British had moved four divisions to the Continent and taken up positions along the Franco-Belgian border. However, the section between the cities of Mold and Bayel, which is a continuation of the Maginot Line, was far from the epicenter of hostilities. Here, the allies created more than 40 airfields, but instead of bombing German positions, British aviation began to scatter propaganda leaflets appealing to the morality of the Germans.

In the following months, six more British divisions arrive in France, but neither the British nor the French are in a hurry to start active operations. That's how it went" strange war". The head of the British General Staff, Edmund Ironside, described the situation as follows: "passive waiting with all the excitement and anxiety that follows from this."

The French writer Roland Dorgelès recalled how the Allies calmly watched the movement of German ammunition trains: "apparently the main concern of the high command was not to disturb the enemy."

Historians have no doubt that the "strange war" is due to the wait-and-see attitude of the allies. Both Great Britain and France had to understand where German aggression would turn after the capture of Poland. It is possible that the Wehrmacht after Polish campaign immediately began the invasion of the USSR, the allies could support Hitler.

Miracle at Dunkirk

On May 10, 1940, according to the Gelb plan, Germany launched an invasion of Holland, Belgium and France. The political games are over. Churchill, who took office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, soberly assessed the strength of the enemy. As soon as the German troops took control of Boulogne and Calais, he decided to evacuate the parts of the British Expeditionary Force that were in the boiler near Dunkirk, and with them the remnants of the French and Belgian divisions. 693 British and about 250 French ships under the command of the English Rear Admiral Bertram Ramsey planned to transport about 350,000 coalition soldiers across the English Channel.

Military experts had little faith in the success of the operation under the sonorous name "Dynamo". The advance detachment of Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps was located a few kilometers from Dunkirk and, if desired, could easily defeat the demoralized allies. But a miracle happened: 337,131 soldiers, most of whom were British, reached the opposite shore with little or no interference.

Hitler unexpectedly stopped the advance of the German troops. Guderian called this decision purely political. Historians differed in their assessment of the controversial episode of the war. Someone believes that the Fuhrer wanted to save strength, but someone is sure of a secret agreement between the British and German governments.

One way or another, after the Dunkirk disaster, Britain remained the only country that had avoided complete defeat and was able to resist the seemingly invincible German machine. On June 10, 1940, the position of England became threatening when on the side Nazi Germany Fascist Italy entered the war.

Battle for England

Germany's plans to force Britain to surrender have not been canceled. In July 1940, British coastal convoys and naval bases were subjected to a massive bombardment by the German Air Force, and in August the Luftwaffe switched to airfields and aircraft factories.

On August 24, German aircraft launched the first bombing attack on central London. Some say it's wrong. The retaliatory attack was not long in coming. A day later, 81 RAF bombers flew to Berlin. No more than a dozen made it to the target, but this was enough to infuriate Hitler. At a meeting of the German command in Holland, it was decided to bring down the entire power of the Luftwaffe on the British Isles.

Within a few weeks, the sky over British cities turned into a boiling cauldron. Got Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Belfast. For the whole of August, at least 1,000 British citizens died. However, from mid-September, the intensity of the bombing began to decline, due to the effective opposition of British fighter aircraft.

The Battle of England is better characterized by numbers. In total, 2913 aircraft of the British Air Force and 4549 Luftwaffe aircraft were involved in air battles. The losses of the parties by historians are estimated at 1547 downed fighters of the Royal Air Force and 1887 German aircraft.

mistress of the seas

It is known that after the successful bombing of England, Hitler intended to launch Operation Sea Lion to invade the British Isles. However, the desired air superiority was not achieved. In turn, the military command of the Reich was skeptical about the landing operation. According to the German generals, the strength of the German army was precisely on land, and not at sea.

Military experts were convinced that the British land army was no stronger than the broken French armed forces, and Germany had every chance of defeating the troops of the United Kingdom in a ground operation. The English military historian Liddell Hart noted that England managed to hold on only due to the water barrier.

In Berlin, they realized that the German fleet was noticeably inferior to the English. For example, by the beginning of the war, the British Navy had seven active aircraft carriers and six more on the slipway, while Germany was never able to equip at least one of its aircraft carriers. In the open sea, the presence of carrier-based aircraft could predetermine the outcome of any battle.

The German submarine fleet was only able to inflict serious damage on British merchant ships. However, having sunk 783 German submarines with US support, the British Navy won the Battle of the Atlantic. Until February 1942, the Fuhrer hoped to conquer England from the sea, until the commander of the Kriegsmarine, Admiral Erich Raeder, finally convinced him to abandon this idea.

Colonial interests

As early as the beginning of 1939, the UK Chiefs of Staff Committee recognized the defense of Egypt with its Suez Canal as one of the strategically most important tasks. From here Special attention armed forces of the Kingdom to the Mediterranean theater of operations.

Unfortunately, the British had to fight not at sea, but in the desert. May-June 1942 turned out for England, according to historians, a "shameful defeat" near Tobruk from the African corps of Erwin Rommel. And this is with a twofold superiority of the British in strength and technology!

The British managed to turn the tide of the North African campaign only in October 1942 at the Battle of El Alamein. Again, having a significant advantage (for example, in aviation 1200:120), the British Expeditionary Force of General Montgomery managed to defeat a group of 4 German and 8 Italian divisions under the command of the already familiar Rommel.

Churchill remarked about this battle: “Before El Alamein, we did not win a single victory. Since El Alamein, we haven't suffered a single defeat." By May 1943, British and American troops forced the 250,000th Italo-German grouping in Tunisia to capitulate, which opened the way for the Allies to Italy. In North Africa, the British lost about 220 thousand soldiers and officers.

And again Europe

On June 6, 1944, with the opening of the Second Front, British troops had the opportunity to redeem themselves for their shameful flight from the Continent four years earlier. The overall leadership of the allied ground forces was entrusted to the experienced Montgomery. The total superiority of the allies by the end of August crushed the resistance of the Germans in France.

In a different vein, events unfolded in December 1944 near the Ardennes, when a German armored group literally pushed through the lines of American troops. In the Ardennes meat grinder, the US army lost over 19 thousand soldiers, the British no more than two hundred.

This ratio of losses led to disagreements in the camp of the allies. American Generals Bradley and Patton threatened to resign if Montgomery did not relinquish leadership of the army. Montgomery's self-confident statement at a press conference on January 7, 1945, that it was British troops who had saved the Americans from the prospect of encirclement, jeopardized the conduct of a further joint operation. Only thanks to the intervention of the commander-in-chief of the allied forces, Dwight Eisenhower, the conflict was settled.

By the end of 1944, the Soviet Union had liberated a significant part of Balkan Peninsula which caused great concern in Britain. Churchill, who did not want to lose control over the important Mediterranean region, proposed to Stalin the division of the sphere of influence, as a result of which Moscow got Romania, London got Greece.

In fact, with the tacit consent of the USSR and the USA, Great Britain crushed the resistance of the Greek communist forces and on January 11, 1945, established full control over Attica. It was then that a new enemy clearly loomed on the horizon of British foreign policy. “In my eyes, the Soviet threat has already replaced the Nazi enemy,” Churchill recalled in his memoirs.

According to the 12-volume History of the Second World War, Great Britain, along with the colonies, lost 450,000 people in World War II. Britain's spending on the war accounted for more than half of foreign investment, the Kingdom's external debt by the end of the war reached 3 billion pounds. The United Kingdom paid off all its debts only by 2006.