Those who died during World War II by country. How many Soviet people died in World War II? Through the lens of party statistics

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Before jumping into explanations, statistics, and so on, let's first clarify what we mean. This article discusses the losses suffered by the Red Army, the Wehrmacht and the troops of the satellite countries of the Third Reich, as well as the civilian population of the USSR and Germany, only in the period from 06/22/1941 until the end of hostilities in Europe (unfortunately, in the case of Germany, this is practically impracticable). The Soviet-Finnish war and the "liberation" campaign of the Red Army were deliberately excluded. The issue of the losses of the USSR and Germany has been repeatedly raised in the press, there are endless disputes on the Internet and on television, but the researchers of this issue cannot come to a common denominator, because, as a rule, all arguments come down to emotional and politicized statements. This once again proves how painful this issue is in the domestic. The purpose of the article is not to "clarify" the final truth in this matter, but an attempt to summarize the various data contained in disparate sources. We leave the right to draw a conclusion to the reader.

With all the variety of literature and online resources about the Great Patriotic War, ideas about it in many respects suffer from a certain superficiality. The main reason for this is the ideologization of this or that research or work, and it does not matter what kind of ideology it is - communist or anti-communist. The interpretation of such a grandiose event in the light of any ideology is obviously false.

It is especially bitter to read lately that the war of 1941-45. was just a clash of two totalitarian regimes, where one, they say, fully corresponded to the other. We will try to look at this war from the point of view of the most justified - geopolitical.

Germany of the 1930s, with all its Nazi "peculiarities", directly and steadily continued that powerful desire for primacy in Europe, which for centuries determined the path of the German nation. Even the purely liberal German sociologist Max Weber wrote during the 1st World War: “... we, 70 million Germans ... are obliged to be an empire. We have to do it even if we are afraid to fail.” The roots of this aspiration of the Germans go back centuries, as a rule, the Nazi appeal to medieval and even pagan Germany is interpreted as a purely ideological event, as the construction of a myth mobilizing the nation.

From my point of view, everything is more complicated: it was the Germanic tribes that created the empire of Charlemagne, and later the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation was formed on its foundation. And it was the “empire of the German nation” that created what is called “European civilization” and began the aggressive policy of Europeans from the sacramental “Drang nach osten” - “onslaught to the east”, because half of the “originally” German lands, up to the 8th-10th centuries, belonged to Slavic tribes. Therefore, the assignment of the name "Plan Barbarossa" to the plan of war against the "barbarian" USSR is not a coincidence. This ideology of "primacy" of Germany as the fundamental force of "European" civilization was the original cause of two world wars. Moreover, at the beginning of World War II, Germany was able to really (albeit briefly) fulfill its aspirations.

Invading the borders of one or another European country, the German troops met amazing resistance in their weakness and indecision. Short-term clashes between the armies of European countries with the German troops invading their borders, with the exception of Poland, were rather the observance of a certain “custom” of war than actual resistance.

Much has been written about the exaggerated European "resistance movement" that allegedly inflicted enormous damage on Germany and testified that Europe categorically rejected its unification under German leadership. But, with the exception of Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland and Greece, the extent of the Resistance is the same ideological myth. Undoubtedly, the regime established by Germany in the occupied countries did not suit the general population. In Germany itself, there was also resistance to the regime, but in neither case was this the resistance of the country and the nation as a whole. For example, in the resistance movement in France, 20 thousand people died in 5 years; over the same 5 years, about 50 thousand Frenchmen who fought on the side of the Germans died, that is, 2.5 times more!

V Soviet time the exaggeration of the Resistance was introduced into the minds as a useful ideological myth, they say, our fight against Germany was supported by all of Europe. In fact, as already mentioned, only 4 countries put up serious resistance to the invaders, which is explained by their “patriarchy”: they were alien not so much to the “German” orders imposed by the Reich as to the pan-European ones, because these countries, in their way of life and consciousness, are largely not belonged to European civilization (although geographically included in Europe).

Thus, by 1941, almost all of continental Europe, one way or another, but without much shock, became part of new empire with Germany at the head. Of the two dozen European countries that existed, almost half - Spain, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Croatia - joined the war against the USSR together with Germany, sending their armed forces to the Eastern Front (Denmark and Spain without a formal announcement wars). The rest of the European countries did not take part in the hostilities against the USSR, but somehow "worked" for Germany, or rather, for the newly formed European Empire. A misconception about the events in Europe made us completely forget about many real events of that time. So, for example, the Anglo-American troops under the command of Eisenhower in November 1942 in North Africa fought at first not with the Germans, but with a 200,000-strong French army, despite a quick “victory” (Jean Darlan, due to the clear superiority of the Allied forces, ordered the French troops to surrender), 584 Americans, 597 British and 1,600 French were killed in the fighting. Of course, these are meager losses on the scale of the entire Second World War, but they show that the situation was somewhat more complicated than is usually thought.

The Red Army in the battles on the Eastern Front captured half a million prisoners who are citizens of countries that did not seem to be at war with the USSR! It can be objected that these are the "victims" of German violence, which drove them into the Russian expanses. But the Germans were no more stupid than you and me and would hardly have allowed a completely unreliable contingent to the front. And while another great and multinational army won victories in Russia, Europe was, by and large, on its side. Franz Halder in his diary on June 30, 1941 recorded Hitler's words: "European unity as a result of a common war against Russia." And Hitler quite correctly assessed the situation. In fact, the geopolitical goals of the war against the USSR were carried out not only by the Germans, but by 300 million Europeans, united on various grounds - from forced submission to desired cooperation - but, one way or another, acting together. Only thanks to the reliance on continental Europe, the Germans were able to mobilize 25% of the entire population into the army (for reference: the USSR mobilized 17% of its citizens). In a word, the strength and technical equipment of the army that invaded the USSR was provided by tens of millions of skilled workers throughout Europe.

Why did I need such a long introduction? The answer is simple. Finally, we must realize that the USSR fought not only with the German Third Reich, but with almost all of Europe. Unfortunately, the eternal "Russophobia" of Europe was superimposed by the fear of the "terrible beast" - Bolshevism. Many volunteers from European countries who fought in Russia fought precisely against the communist ideology alien to them. No fewer of them were conscious haters of the "inferior" Slavs, infected with the plague of racial superiority. The modern German historian R. Ruhrup writes:

"Many documents of the Third Reich imprinted the image of the enemy - Russian, deeply rooted in German history and society. Such views were characteristic even of those officers and soldiers who were not convinced or enthusiastic Nazis. They (these soldiers and officers) also shared ideas about" eternal struggle" of the Germans ... about the protection of European culture from the "Asian hordes", about the cultural vocation and the right of domination of the Germans in the East. The image of an enemy of this type was widespread in Germany, he belonged to the "spiritual values".

And this geopolitical consciousness was characteristic not only of the Germans, as such. After June 22, 1941, volunteer legions appeared by leaps and bounds, later turning into the SS divisions Nordland (Scandinavian), Langemarck (Belgian-Flemish), Charlemagne (French). Guess where they defended "European civilization"? That's right, quite far from Western Europe, in Belarus, in Ukraine, in Russia. The German professor K. Pfeffer wrote in 1953: “Most of the volunteers from the countries of Western Europe went to the Eastern Front because they saw this as a GENERAL task for the entire West ...” It was with the forces of almost all of Europe that the USSR was destined to face, and not only with Germany, and this clash was not “two totalitarianisms”, but “civilized and progressive” Europe with the “barbarian state of subhumans”, which for so long frightened Europeans from the east.

1. Losses of the USSR

According to the official data of the 1939 census, 170 million people lived in the USSR - significantly more than in any other single country in Europe. The entire population of Europe (excluding the USSR) was 400 million people. By the beginning of World War II, the population Soviet Union differed from the population of future enemies and allies by a high mortality rate and low life expectancy. Nevertheless, the high birth rate ensured a significant increase in the population (2% in 1938–39). Also, the difference from Europe was in the youth of the population of the USSR: the proportion of children under 15 years old was 35%. It was this feature that made it possible relatively quickly (within 10 years) to restore the pre-war population. The share of the urban population was only 32% (for comparison: in the UK - more than 80%, in France - 50%, in Germany - 70%, in the USA - 60%, and only in Japan did it have the same value as in THE USSR).

In 1939, the population of the USSR increased markedly after the entry into the country of new regions (Western Ukraine and Belarus, the Baltic States, Bukovina and Bessarabia), whose population ranged from 20 to 22.5 million people. The total population of the USSR, according to the certificate of the CSB on January 1, 1941, was determined at 198,588 thousand people (including the RSFSR - 111,745 thousand people). According to modern estimates, it was still less, and on June 1, 41 it was 196.7 million people.

Population of some countries for 1938–40

USSR - 170.6 (196.7) million people;
Germany - 77.4 million people;
France - 40.1 million people;
Great Britain - 51.1 million people;
Italy - 42.4 million people;
Finland - 3.8 million people;
USA - 132.1 million people;
Japan - 71.9 million people.

By 1940, the population of the Reich had increased to 90 million people, and taking into account satellites and conquered countries - 297 million people. By December 1941, the USSR had lost 7% of the country's territory, on which 74.5 million people lived before the start of the Second World War. This once again emphasizes that despite Hitler's assurances, the USSR had no advantages in human resources over the Third Reich.

During the entire period of the Great Patriotic War in our country, 34.5 million people put on military uniforms. This amounted to about 70% of the total number of men aged 15–49 in 1941. The number of women in the Red Army was approximately 500,000. The percentage of those called up was higher only in Germany, but as we said earlier, the Germans covered the labor shortage at the expense of European workers and prisoners of war. In the USSR, such a deficit was covered by the increased length of the working day and the widespread use of the labor of women, children and the elderly.

For a long time, the USSR did not talk about direct irretrievable losses of the Red Army. In a private conversation, Marshal Konev in 1962 called the figure 10 million people, the well-known defector - Colonel Kalinov, who fled to the West in 1949 - 13.6 million people. The figure of 10 million people was published in the French version of the book "Wars and Population" by B. Ts. Urlanis, a well-known Soviet demographer. In 1993 and 2001, the authors of the well-known monograph “Secret Classified Removed” (under the editorship of G. Krivosheev) published the figure of 8.7 million people; at the moment, it is indicated in most reference literature. But the authors themselves state that it does not include: 500,000 conscripts called up for mobilization and captured by the enemy, but not included in the lists of units and formations. The almost completely dead militiamen of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and other large cities are also not taken into account. Currently, the most complete lists of irretrievable losses of Soviet soldiers are 13.7 million people, but approximately 12-15% of the records are repeated. According to the article " Dead Souls Great Patriotic War (NG, 06/22/99), the historical and archival search center Fate of the War Memorials association found that due to double and even triple counting, the number of dead soldiers of the 43rd and 2nd Shock armies in the studied the center of the battles was overestimated by 10-12%. Since these figures refer to the period when the accounting of losses in the Red Army was not accurate enough, it can be assumed that in the whole war, due to double counting, the number of dead Red Army soldiers is overestimated by about 5–7%, i.e., by 0.2– 0.4 million people

On the issue of prisoners. The American researcher A. Dallin, according to archival German data, estimates their number at 5.7 million people. Of these, 3.8 million died in captivity, that is, 63%. Domestic historians estimate the number of captured Red Army soldiers at 4.6 million people, of which 2.9 million died. Unlike German sources, this does not include civilians (for example, railway workers), as well as seriously wounded who remained on the battlefield occupied by the enemy, and subsequently died from wounds or shot (about 470-500 thousand). The situation of prisoners of war was especially desperate in the first year of the war, when more than half of their total number (2.8 million people) was captured, and their labor had not yet been used in interests of the Reich. camps under open sky, hunger and cold, illness and lack of medicines, the most cruel treatment, mass executions of the sick and incapable of work, and simply of all those who are objectionable, primarily commissars and Jews. Unable to cope with the flow of prisoners and guided by political and propaganda motives, the invaders in 1941 sent home over 300 thousand prisoners of war, mainly natives of western Ukraine and Belarus. Subsequently, this practice was discontinued.

Also, do not forget that approximately 1 million prisoners of war were transferred from captivity to the auxiliary units of the Wehrmacht. In many cases, this was the only chance for prisoners to survive. Yet again most of these people, according to German data, at the first opportunity tried to desert from units and formations of the Wehrmacht. In the local auxiliary forces of the German army stood out:

1) voluntary helpers (hiwi)
2) order service (one)
3) front-line auxiliary parts (noise)
4) police and defense teams (gema).

At the beginning of 1943, the Wehrmacht operated: up to 400 thousand Khivs, from 60 to 70 thousand Odies, and 80 thousand in the eastern battalions.

Some of the prisoners of war and the population of the occupied territories made a conscious choice in favor of cooperation with the Germans. So, in the SS division "Galicia" for 13,000 "places" there were 82,000 volunteers. More than 100 thousand Latvians, 36 thousand Lithuanians and 10 thousand Estonians served in the German army, mainly in the SS troops.

In addition, several million people from the occupied territories were deported to forced labor in the Reich. The ChGK (Extraordinary State Commission) immediately after the war estimated their number at 4.259 million people. More recent studies give a figure of 5.45 million people, of which 850-1000 thousand died.

Estimates of the direct physical extermination of the civilian population, according to the ChGK of 1946.

RSFSR - 706 thousand people.
Ukrainian SSR - 3256.2 thousand people.
BSSR - 1547 thousand people
Lit. SSR - 437.5 thousand people.
Lat. SSR - 313.8 thousand people.
Est. SSR - 61.3 thousand people.
Mold. SSR - 61 thousand people.
Karelo-Fin. SSR - 8 thousand people. (10)

Such high figures for Lithuania and Latvia are explained by the fact that there were death camps and concentration camps for prisoners of war. The losses of the population in the front line during the hostilities were also huge. However, it is virtually impossible to determine them. The minimum allowable value is the number of deaths in besieged Leningrad, that is, 800 thousand people. In 1942, the infant mortality rate in Leningrad reached 74.8%, that is, out of 100 newborns, about 75 babies died!

Another important question. How many former Soviet citizens chose not to return to the USSR after the end of the Great Patriotic War? According to Soviet archival data, the number of "second emigration" was 620 thousand people. 170,000 Germans, Bessarabians and Bukovinians, 150,000 Ukrainians, 109,000 Latvians, 230,000 Estonians and Lithuanians, and only 32,000 Russians. Today, this estimate seems to be clearly underestimated. According to modern data, emigration from the USSR amounted to 1.3 million people. Which gives us a difference of almost 700 thousand, previously attributed to irretrievable losses of the population.

So, what are the losses of the Red Army, the civilian population of the USSR and the general demographic losses in the Great Patriotic War. For twenty years, the main estimate was the figure of 20 million people, "far-fetched" by N. Khrushchev. In 1990, as a result of the work of a special commission of the General Staff and the USSR State Statistics Committee, a more reasonable estimate of 26.6 million people appeared. At the moment it is official. Attention is drawn to the fact that back in 1948, the American sociologist Timashev gave an assessment of the losses of the USSR in the war, which practically coincided with the assessment of the General Staff Commission. Maksudov's assessment made in 1977 also coincides with the data of the Krivosheev Commission. According to the commission of G. F. Krivosheev.

So let's summarize:

Post-war estimate of the losses of the Red Army: 7 million people.
Timashev: Red Army - 12.2 million people, civilian population 14.2 million people, direct casualties 26.4 million people, total demographic 37.3 million.
Arntts and Khrushchev: direct human: 20 million people.
Biraben and Solzhenitsyn: Red Army 20 million people, civilian population 22.6 million people, direct human resources 42.6 million, total demographic 62.9 million people.
Maksudov: Red Army - 11.8 million people, civilian population 12.7 million people, direct casualties 24.5 million people. It is impossible not to make a reservation that S. Maksudov (A.P. Babenyshev, Harvard University, USA) determined the purely combat losses of the spacecraft at 8.8 million people
Rybakovsky: direct human 30 million people.
Andreev, Darsky, Kharkov (General Staff, Krivosheev Commission): direct combat losses of the Red Army 8.7 million (11,994 including prisoners of war) people. Civilian population (including prisoners of war) 17.9 million people. Direct human losses 26.6 million people.
B. Sokolov: the loss of the Red Army - 26 million people
M. Harrison: total losses of the USSR - 23.9 - 25.8 million people.

What do we have in the "dry" residue? We will be guided by simple logic.

The estimate of the losses of the Red Army, given in 1947 (7 million) is not credible, because not all calculations, even with the imperfection of the Soviet system, were completed.

Khrushchev's assessment is also not confirmed. On the other hand, the “Solzhenitsyn” 20 million people lost only to the army or even 44 million are just as unfounded (without denying some talent of A. Solzhenitsyn as a writer, all the facts and figures in his writings are not confirmed by a single document and understand where he came from took - impossible).

Boris Sokolov is trying to explain to us that the losses of the armed forces of the USSR alone amounted to 26 million people. He is guided by the indirect method of calculations. The losses of the officers of the Red Army are quite accurately known, according to Sokolov, this is 784 thousand people (1941–44). , displays the ratio of the losses of the officer corps to the rank and file of the Wehrmacht, as 1:25, that is, 4%. And, without hesitation, he extrapolates this technique to the Red Army, receiving his own 26 million irretrievable losses. However, this approach, on closer examination, turns out to be inherently false. Firstly, 4% of officer losses is not an upper limit, for example, in the Polish campaign, the Wehrmacht lost 12% of officers to the total losses of the Armed Forces. Secondly, it would be useful for Mr. Sokolov to know that with the regular strength of the German infantry regiment of 3049 officers, there were 75 people in it, that is, 2.5%. And in the Soviet infantry regiment, with a strength of 1582 people, there are 159 officers, i.e. 10%. Thirdly, appealing to the Wehrmacht, Sokolov forgets that the more combat experience in the troops, the lower the losses among officers. In the Polish campaign, the loss of German officers is -12%, in the French - 7%, and on the Eastern Front - already 4%.

The same can be applied to the Red Army: if at the end of the war the loss of officers (not according to Sokolov, but according to statistics) was 8-9%, then at the beginning of the Second World War it could have been 24%. It turns out, like a schizophrenic, everything is logical and correct, only the initial premise is incorrect. Why did we dwell on Sokolov's theory in such detail? Yes, because Mr. Sokolov very often sets out his figures in the media.

In view of the foregoing, discarding deliberately underestimated and overestimated estimates of losses, we get: the Krivosheev Commission - 8.7 million people (with prisoners of war 11.994 million data for 2001), Maksudov - losses are even slightly lower than the official ones - 11.8 million people. (1977 −93), Timashev - 12.2 million people. (1948). The opinion of M. Harrison can also be included here, with the level of total losses indicated by him, the losses of the army should fit into this interval. These data were obtained by various calculation methods, since both Timashev and Maksudov, respectively, did not have access to the archives of the USSR and Russian Defense Ministry. It seems that the losses of the USSR Armed Forces in the Second World War lie very close to such a "heap" group of results. Let's not forget that these figures include 2.6-3.2 million destroyed Soviet prisoners of war.

In conclusion, one should probably agree with Maksudov's opinion that the emigration outflow, which amounted to 1.3 million people, should be excluded from the number of losses, which was not taken into account in the study of the General Staff. By this value, the value of the losses of the USSR in the Second World War should be reduced. In percentage terms, the structure of losses of the USSR looks like this:

41% - aircraft losses (including prisoners of war)
35% - aircraft losses (without prisoners of war, i.e. direct combat)
39% - loss of the population of the occupied territories and the front line (45% with prisoners of war)
8% - home front population
6% - GULAG
6% - emigration outflow.

2. 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. According to 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 only about 3.1 million German servicemen in Soviet prisoner of war camps. The discrepancy, as you can see, is about 0.7 million people. This discrepancy is explained by differences in the estimate of the number of Germans who died 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.

The vast majority of publications devoted to the calculations of the combat demographic losses of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops are based on data from the central bureau (department) of accounting for losses personnel armed forces, part of the German General Staff of the Supreme High Command. Moreover, while denying the reliability of Soviet statistics, the German data are regarded as absolutely reliable. But upon closer examination, it turned out that the opinion about the high reliability of the information of this department was greatly exaggerated. Thus, the German historian R. Overmans in the article “The human casualties of World War II in Germany” came to the conclusion that “... the channels of information in the Wehrmacht do not reveal the degree of reliability that some authors attribute to them.” As an example, he reports that “... the official report of the losses department at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht, relating to 1944, documented that the losses that were incurred during the Polish, French and Norwegian campaigns and the identification of which did not present any technical difficulties were almost twice as high as originally reported." According to Muller-Gillebrand, which many researchers believe, the demographic losses of the Wehrmacht amounted to 3.2 million people. Another 0.8 million died in captivity. However, according to a certificate from the organizational department of the OKH dated May 1, 1945, only the ground forces, including the SS troops (without the Air Force and Navy), for the period from September 1, 1939 to May 1, 1945, lost 4 million 617.0 thousand people. people This is the most recent report on the losses of the German Armed Forces. In addition, from mid-April 1945, there was no centralized accounting of losses. And since the beginning of 1945, the data is incomplete. It remains a fact that in one of the last radio broadcasts with his participation, Hitler announced the figure of 12.5 million total losses of the German Armed Forces, of which 6.7 million are irretrievable, which exceeds the Müller-Hillebrand data by about two times. This was in March 1945. I do not think that in two months the soldiers of the Red Army did not kill a single German.

In general, the data of the Wehrmacht loss department cannot serve as the initial data for calculating the losses of the German Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War.

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.

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). Of the total dead soldiers Wehrmacht of non-German nationality accounts for 75-80% of the Soviet-German front, i.e. 0.6-0.7 million people.

Secondly, this figure refers to the beginning of the 90s of the last century. Since then, the search for German graves in Russia, the CIS countries and Eastern Europe has 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.

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.

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.

Finally, fifthly, the Wehrmacht soldiers who died of “natural” death (0.1–0.2 million people) were also among the buried.

Major General V. Gurkin's articles are devoted to assessing the losses of the Wehrmacht using the balance of the German armed forces during the war years. Its calculated figures are given in the second column of Table. 4. Here, attention is drawn to two figures characterizing the number of Wehrmacht soldiers mobilized during the war, and the number of prisoners of war of Wehrmacht soldiers. The number of those mobilized during the war years (17.9 million people) is taken from the book by B. Müller-Hillebrand “The German Land Army 1933-1945”, vol.Z. At the same time, V.P. Bokhar believes that more were drafted into the Wehrmacht - 19 million people.

The number of prisoners of war of the Wehrmacht was determined by V. Gurkin by summing up the prisoners of war taken by the Red Army (3.178 million people) and the allied forces (4.209 million people) until May 9, 1945. In my opinion, this number is too high: it also included prisoners of war who were not soldiers of the Wehrmacht. The book by Paul Karel and Ponter Beddecker “German Prisoners of War of the Second World War” states: “... In June 1945, the Allied Joint Command became aware that there were 7,614,794 prisoners of war and unarmed military personnel in the “camps, of which 4,209,000 by the time capitulations were already in captivity." Among the indicated 4.2 million German prisoners of war, in addition to Wehrmacht soldiers, there were many other persons. For example, in the French camp of Vitrilet-Francois, among the prisoners, "the youngest was 15 years old, the oldest - almost 70." The authors write about captive Volksturmites, about the organization by the Americans of special "children's" camps, where captured twelve-thirteen-year-old boys from the "Hitler Youth" and "Werwolf" were gathered. Mention is made of the placement of even disabled people in the camps. In the article "My way to Ryazan captivity" (" Map" No. 1, 1992) Heinrich Shippmann noted:

"It should be taken into account that at first they were taken prisoner, although predominantly, but not exclusively, not only Wehrmacht soldiers or SS troops, but also Air Force service personnel, members of the Volkssturm or paramilitary unions (organization "Todt", "Service labor of the Reich", etc.) Among them were not only men, but also women - and not only Germans, but also the so-called "Volksdeutsche" and "aliens" - Croats, Serbs, Cossacks, North and West Europeans, who in any way fought on the side of the German Wehrmacht or were ranked among it.In addition, during the occupation of Germany in 1945, anyone who wore a uniform was arrested, even if it was the head of the railway station.

In general, among the 4.2 million prisoners of war taken by the Allies before May 9, 1945, approximately 20–25% were not Wehrmacht soldiers. This means that the Allies had 3.1–3.3 million Wehrmacht soldiers in captivity.

The total number of Wehrmacht soldiers who were captured before the surrender was 6.3-6.5 million people.

In general, the demographic combat losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops on the Soviet-German front are 5.2–6.3 million people, of which 0.36 million died in captivity, and irretrievable losses (including prisoners) 8.2 -9.1 million people It should also be noted that until recent years, Russian historiography did not mention some data on the number of Wehrmacht prisoners of war at the end of hostilities in Europe, apparently for ideological reasons, because it is much more pleasant to assume that Europe "fought" against fascism than to be aware that that some and a very large number of Europeans deliberately fought in the Wehrmacht. So, according to a note by General Antonov, on May 25, 1945. The Red Army captured 5 million 20 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers alone, of which 600 thousand people (Austrians, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Poles, etc.) were released before August after filtration measures, and these prisoners of war were sent to camps The NKVD did not send. Thus, the irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht in battles with the Red Army can be even higher (about 0.6 - 0.8 million people).

There is another way to "calculate" the losses of Germany and the Third Reich in the war against the USSR. Quite correct, by the way. Let's try to "substitute" the figures relating to Germany into the methodology for calculating the total demographic losses of the USSR. And we will use ONLY the official data of the German side. Thus, the population of Germany in 1939, according to Müller-Hillebrandt (p. 700 of his work, so beloved by supporters of the theory of "clouding with corpses"), was 80.6 million people. At the same time, you and I, the reader, must take into account that this includes 6.76 million Austrians, and the population of the Sudetenland - another 3.64 million people. That is, the population of Germany proper within the borders of 1933 in 1939 was (80.6 - 6.76 - 3.64) 70.2 million people. We figured out these simple mathematical operations. Further: natural mortality in the USSR was 1.5% per year, but in the countries of Western Europe the mortality rate was much lower and amounted to 0.6 - 0.8% per year, Germany was no exception. However, the birth rate in the USSR exceeded the European one in approximately the same proportion, due to which the USSR had a consistently high population growth throughout the pre-war years, starting from 1934.

We know about the results of the post-war population census in the USSR, but few people know that a similar population census was conducted by the Allied occupation authorities on October 29, 1946 in Germany. The census gave the following results:

Soviet zone of occupation (without East Berlin): men - 7.419 million, women - 9.914 million, total: 17.333 million people.

All western zones of occupation, (without western Berlin): men - 20.614 million, women - 24.804 million, total: 45.418 million people.

Berlin (all sectors of occupation), men - 1.29 million, women - 1.89 million, total: 3.18 million people.

The total population of Germany is 65?931?000 people. A purely arithmetic operation of 70.2 million - 66 million, it seems, gives a decrease of only 4.2 million. However, everything is not so simple.

At the time of the census in the USSR, the number of children born since the beginning of 1941 was about 11 million, the birth rate in the USSR during the war years fell sharply and amounted to only 1.37% per year of the pre-war population. The birth rate in Germany and in peacetime did not exceed 2% per year of the population. Suppose it fell only 2 times, and not 3, as in the USSR. That is, the natural increase in the population during the years of the war and the first post-war year was about 5% of the pre-war population, and in numbers amounted to 3.5-3.8 million children. This figure must be added to the final figure of the decline in the population of Germany. Now the arithmetic is different: the total population loss is 4.2 million + 3.5 million = 7.7 million people. But this is not the final figure either; for completeness of calculations, we need to subtract from the figure of population loss the figure of natural mortality for the years of the war and 1946, which is 2.8 million people (let's take the figure of 0.8% to be "higher"). Now the total decline in the population of Germany, caused by the war, is 4.9 million people. Which, in general, is very “similar” to the figure of the irretrievable losses of the Reich ground forces, given by Müller-Gillebrandt. So what did the USSR, which lost 26.6 million of its citizens in the war, really “fill up with corpses” of its enemy? Patience, dear reader, let's still bring our calculations to their logical conclusion.

The fact is that the population of Germany proper in 1946 grew by at least another 6.5 million people, and presumably even by 8 million! By the time of the 1946 census (according to German, by the way, data published back in 1996 by the "Union of Exiles", and in total about 15 million Germans were "forcibly displaced") only from the Sudetenland, Poznan and Upper Silesia were evicted to Germany 6.5 million Germans. About 1 - 1.5 million Germans fled from Alsace and Lorraine (unfortunately, there are no more accurate data). That is, these 6.5 - 8 million must be added to the losses of Germany proper. And these are “slightly” different figures: 4.9 million + 7.25 million (arithmetic average of the number of Germans “expelled” to their homeland) = 12.15 million. Actually, this is 17.3% (!) of the German population in 1939. Well, that's not all!

I emphasize once again: the Third Reich is not even ONLY Germany at all! By the time of the attack on the USSR, the Third Reich “officially” included: Germany (70.2 million people), Austria (6.76 million people), Sudetenland (3.64 million people), captured from Poland "Baltic corridor", Poznan and Upper Silesia (9.36 million people), Luxembourg, Lorraine and Alsace (2.2 million people), and even Upper Corinthia cut off from Yugoslavia, a total of 92.16 million people.

These are all territories that were officially included in the Reich, and whose inhabitants were subject to conscription into the Wehrmacht. We will not take into account the “Imperial Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” and the “Governorship of Poland” (although ethnic Germans were drafted into the Wehrmacht from these territories). And ALL of these territories until the beginning of 1945 remained under the control of the Nazis. Now we get the “final calculation” if we take into account that the losses of Austria are known to us and amount to 300,000 people, that is, 4.43% of the country's population (which, of course, is much less in % than Germany). It will not be a big "stretch" to assume that the population of the remaining areas of the Reich suffered the same percentage losses as a result of the war, which will give us another 673,000 people. As a result, the total human losses of the Third Reich are 12.15 million + 0.3 million + 0.6 million people. = 13.05 million people. This "number" is already more like the truth. Taking into account the fact that these losses include 0.5 - 0.75 million dead civilians (and not 3.5 million), we get the losses of the Third Reich Armed Forces equal to 12.3 million people irrevocably. Considering that even the Germans recognize the loss of their Armed Forces in the East as 75-80% of all losses on all fronts, then the Reich Armed Forces lost about 9.2 million in battles with the Red Army (75% of 12.3 million) man irrevocably. Of course, by no means all of them were killed, but having data on the released (2.35 million), as well as prisoners of war who died in captivity (0.38 million), it can be said quite accurately that actually killed and died from wounds and in captivity, and also missing, but not captured (read "killed", and this is 0.7 million!), The Third Reich Armed Forces lost about 5.6-6 million people during the campaign to the East. According to these calculations, the irretrievable losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR and the Third Reich (without allies) are correlated as 1.3: 1, and the combat losses of the Red Army (data from the team led by Krivosheev) and the Armed Forces of the Reich as 1.6: 1.

The procedure for calculating the total human losses of Germany

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

Every tenth German died! Every twelfth was captured!!!

Conclusion
In this article, the author does not pretend to seek out the "golden section" and "ultimate truth." The data presented in it are available in the scientific literature and the web. It's just that they are all scattered and scattered across various sources. The author expresses his personal opinion: it is impossible to trust the German and Soviet sources of the war, because their own losses are underestimated by at least 2-3 times, the losses of the enemy are exaggerated by the same 2-3 times. It is all the more strange that German sources, in contrast to Soviet ones, are recognized as completely “reliable”, although, as the simplest analysis shows, this is not so.

The irretrievable losses of the USSR Armed Forces in the Second World War amount to 11.5 - 12.0 million people irrevocably, with actual combat demographic losses of 8.7-9.3 million people. The losses of the Wehrmacht and the SS troops on the Eastern Front amount to 8.0 - 8.9 million people irrevocably, of which 5.2-6.1 million are purely combat demographics (including those who died in captivity) people. In addition to the losses of the German Armed Forces themselves on the Eastern Front, it is necessary to add the losses of the satellite countries, and this is neither more nor less than 850 thousand (including those who died in captivity) people killed and more than 600 thousand prisoners. Total 12.0 (largest) million versus 9.05 (lowest) million.

A logical question: where is the “filling up with corpses”, about which Western, and now domestic “open” and “democratic” sources talk so much? The percentage of dead Soviet prisoners of war, even according to the most benign estimates, is at least 55%, and German, according to the largest, no more than 23%. Maybe the whole difference in losses is explained simply by the inhuman conditions of the prisoners?

The author is aware that these articles differ from the latest officially proclaimed version of the losses: the losses of the USSR Armed Forces - 6.8 million servicemen killed, and 4.4 million captured and missing, Germany's losses - 4.046 million servicemen dead, dead from wounds, missing (including 442.1 thousand dead in captivity), the loss of satellite countries 806 thousand killed and 662 thousand prisoners. Irretrievable losses of the armies of the USSR and Germany (including prisoners of war) - 11.5 million and 8.6 million people. The total loss of Germany 11.2 million people. (for example on Wikipedia)

The issue with the civilian population is more terrible against 14.4 (the smallest number) million people of the victims of the Second World War in the USSR - 3.2 million people (the largest number) of victims from the German side. So who fought with whom? It is also necessary to mention that, without denying the Holocaust of the Jews, the German society still does not perceive the “Slavic” Holocaust, if everything (thousands of works) is known about the suffering of the Jewish people in the West, then they prefer to “modestly” keep quiet about the crimes against the Slavic peoples. The non-participation of our researchers, for example, in the all-German "dispute of historians" only exacerbates this situation.

I would like to end the article with the phrase of an unknown British officer. When he saw a column of Soviet prisoners of war being driven past the "international" camp, he said: "I forgive the Russians in advance for everything they do to Germany."

The article was written in 2007. Since then, the author has not changed his opinion. That is, there was no “stupid” flooding with corpses from the side of the Red Army, however, as well as a special numerical superiority. This is also proved by the recent appearance of a large layer of Russian “oral history”, that is, memoirs of ordinary participants in the Second World War. For example, Electron Priklonsky, the author of The Diary of a Self-Propelled Soldier, mentions that during the entire war he saw two “killing fields”: when our troops were attacked in the Baltic states and they came under machine gun flank fire, and when the Germans broke through from the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky pocket. The example is a single one, but nevertheless, it is valuable in that the diary of the war period, which means it is quite objective.

Assessment of the ratio of losses based on the results of a comparative analysis of losses in the wars of the last two centuries

The application of the method of comparative analysis, the foundations of which were laid by Jomini, to the assessment of the ratio of losses requires statistical data on wars of different eras. Unfortunately, more or less complete statistics are available only for the wars of the last two centuries. Data on irretrievable combat losses in 19th wars and XX centuries, summarized by the results of the work of domestic and foreign historians, are given in Table. The last three columns of the table demonstrate the obvious dependence of the results of the war on the magnitude of relative losses (losses expressed as a percentage of the total army strength) - the relative losses of the winner in the war are always less than that of the loser, and this dependence has a stable, recurring character (it is valid for all types of wars), that is, it has all the features of the law.

This law - let's call it the law of relative losses - can be formulated as follows: in any war, victory goes to the army that has the least relative losses.

Note that the absolute numbers of irretrievable losses for the victorious side can be either less (Patriotic War of 1812, Russian-Turkish, Franco-Prussian wars), or more than those of the defeated side (Crimean, World War I, Soviet-Finnish) , but the relative losses of the winner are always less than those of the loser.

The difference between the relative losses of the winner and the loser characterizes the degree of persuasiveness of the victory. Wars with similar values of the relative losses of the parties end with peace treaties with the defeated side retaining the existing political system and army (for example, Russo-Japanese War). In wars ending, like the Great Patriotic War, in the complete surrender of the enemy (Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1871), the relative losses of the winner are significantly less than the relative losses of the vanquished (by at least 30%). In other words, the greater the loss, the greater must be the size of the army in order to win a convincing victory. If the losses of the army are 2 times greater than those of the enemy, then in order to win the war, its strength must be at least 2.6 times more numbers the opposing army.

And now let's return to the Great Patriotic War and see what human resources the USSR and Nazi Germany had during the war. Available data on the strength of the opposing sides on the Soviet-German front are given in Table. 6.

From Table. 6 it follows that the number of Soviet participants in the war was only 1.4-1.5 times the total number of opposing troops and 1.6-1.8 times the regular German army. In accordance with the law of relative losses, with such an excess in the number of participants in the war, the losses of the Red Army, which destroyed the fascist military machine, in principle could not exceed the losses of the armies of the fascist bloc by more than 10-15%, and the losses of regular German troops - by more than 25-30 %. This means that the upper limit of the ratio of irretrievable combat losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht is the ratio of 1.3:1.

The figures for the ratio of irretrievable combat losses given in Table. 6 do not exceed the value of the upper limit of the loss ratio obtained above. However, this does not mean that they are final and not subject to change. As new documents, statistical materials, research results appear, the losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht (Tables 1-5) can be refined, changed in one direction or another, their ratio can also change, but it cannot be higher than 1.3 :one.

Sources:
1. Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR "Number, composition and movement of the population of the USSR" M 1965
2. "The population of Russia in the 20th century" M. 2001
3. Arntts "Casual losses in the Second World War" M. 1957
4. Frumkin G. Population Changes in Europe since 1939 N.Y. 1951
5. Dallin A. German rule in Russia 1941–1945 N.Y.- London 1957
6. "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century" M.2001
7. Polyan P. Victims of two dictatorships M. 1996.
8. Thorwald J. The Illusion. Soviet soldiers in Hitler,s Army N. Y. 1975
9. Collection of messages of the Extraordinary State Commission M. 1946
10. Zemskov. Birth of the second emigration 1944–1952 SI 1991 No. 4
11. Timasheff N. S. The postwar population of the Soviet Union 1948
13 Timasheff N. S. The postwar population of the Soviet Union 1948
14. Arnts. Human losses in World War II M. 1957; "International Life" 1961 No. 12
15. Biraben J. N. Population 1976.
16. Maksudov S. Population losses in the USSR Benson (Vt) 1989.; "About the front-line losses of the SA during the Second World War" "Free Thought" 1993. No. 10
17. The population of the USSR for 70 years. Edited by Rybakovsky L. L. M 1988
18. Andreev, Darsky, Kharkov. "Population of the Soviet Union 1922–1991" M 1993
19. Sokolov B. " New Newspaper"No. 22, 2005," The Price of Victory - "M. 1991
20. Germany's War against the Soviet Union 1941-1945, edited by Reinhard Ruhrup 1991. Berlin
21. Müller-Gillebrand. "Land Army of Germany 1933-1945" M.1998
22. Germany's War against the Soviet Union 1941-1945, edited by Reinhard Ruhrup 1991. Berlin
23. Gurkin V. V. About human losses on the Soviet-German front in 1941–45. NiNI No. 3 1992
24. M. B. Denisenko. WWII in the demographic dimension "Eksmo" 2005
25. S. Maksudov. The loss of the population of the USSR during the Second World War. "Population and Society" 1995
26. Yu. Mukhin. If not for the generals. "Yauza" 2006
27. V. Kozhinov. The Great War of Russia. Series of lectures 1000th anniversary of Russian wars. "Yauza" 2005
28. Materials of the newspaper "Duel"
29. E. Beevor "The Fall of Berlin" M.2003

“I forgive the Russians in advance for everything they do with Germany” (With)

This article discusses the losses suffered by the Red Army, the Wehrmacht and the troops of the satellite countries of the Third Reich, as well as the civilian population of the USSR and Germany, only in the period from 06/22/1941 until the end of hostilities in Europe

1. Losses of the USSR

According to the official data of the 1939 census, 170 million people lived in the USSR - significantly more than in any other single country in Europe. The entire population of Europe (excluding the USSR) was 400 million people. By the beginning of World War II, the population of the Soviet Union differed from the population of future enemies and allies by a high mortality rate and low life expectancy. Nevertheless, the high birth rate ensured a significant increase in the population (2% in 1938–39). Also, the difference from Europe was in the youth of the population of the USSR: the proportion of children under 15 years old was 35%. It was this feature that made it possible relatively quickly (within 10 years) to restore the pre-war population. The share of the urban population was only 32% (for comparison: in the UK - more than 80%, in France - 50%, in Germany - 70%, in the USA - 60%, and only in Japan did it have the same value as in THE USSR).

Population of some countries for 1938–40

USSR - 170.6 (196.7) million people;
Germany - 77.4 million people;
France - 40.1 million people;
Great Britain - 51.1 million people;
Italy - 42.4 million people;
Finland - 3.8 million people;
USA - 132.1 million people;
Japan - 71.9 million people.

For a long time, the USSR did not talk about direct irretrievable losses of the Red Army. In a private conversation, Marshal Konev in 1962 called the figure 10 million people, the well-known defector - Colonel Kalinov, who fled to the West in 1949 - 13.6 million people. The figure of 10 million people was published in the French version of the book "Wars and Population" by B. Ts. Urlanis, a well-known Soviet demographer. In 1993 and 2001, the authors of the well-known monograph “Secret Classified Removed” (under the editorship of G. Krivosheev) published the figure of 8.7 million people; at the moment, it is indicated in most reference literature. But the authors themselves state that it does not include: 500,000 conscripts called up for mobilization and captured by the enemy, but not included in the lists of units and formations. The almost completely dead militiamen of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and other large cities are also not taken into account. Currently, the most complete lists of irretrievable losses of Soviet soldiers are 13.7 million people, but approximately 12-15% of the records are repeated. According to the article "Dead Souls of the Great Patriotic War" ("NG", 06/22/99), the historical and archival search center "Destiny" of the "War Memorials" association found that due to double and even triple counting, the number of dead soldiers of the 43rd and 2 th Shock armies in the battles studied by the center were overestimated by 10-12%. Since these figures refer to the period when the accounting of losses in the Red Army was not accurate enough, it can be assumed that in the whole war, due to double counting, the number of dead Red Army soldiers is overestimated by about 5–7%, i.e., by 0.2– 0.4 million people

On the issue of prisoners. The American researcher A. Dallin, according to archival German data, estimates their number at 5.7 million people. Of these, 3.8 million died in captivity, that is, 63%. Domestic historians estimate the number of captured Red Army soldiers at 4.6 million people, of which 2.9 million died. Unlike German sources, this does not include civilians (for example, railway workers), as well as seriously wounded who remained on the battlefield occupied by the enemy, and subsequently died from wounds or shot (about 470-500 thousand). The situation of prisoners of war was especially desperate in the first year of the war, when more than half of their total number (2.8 million people) was captured, and their labor had not yet been used in interests of the Reich. Open-air camps, hunger and cold, illness and lack of medicines, cruel treatment, mass executions of the sick and incapable of work, and simply of all those who are objectionable, primarily commissars and Jews. Unable to cope with the flow of prisoners and guided by political and propaganda motives, the invaders in 1941 sent home over 300 thousand prisoners of war, mainly natives of western Ukraine and Belarus. Subsequently, this practice was discontinued.

Also, do not forget that approximately 1 million prisoners of war were transferred from captivity to the auxiliary units of the Wehrmacht. In many cases, this was the only chance for prisoners to survive. Again, most of these people, according to German data, at the first opportunity tried to desert from units and formations of the Wehrmacht. In the local auxiliary forces of the German army stood out:

1) voluntary helpers (hiwi)
2) order service (one)
3) front-line auxiliary parts (noise)
4) police and defense teams (gema).

At the beginning of 1943, the Wehrmacht operated: up to 400 thousand Khivs, from 60 to 70 thousand Odies, and 80 thousand in the eastern battalions.

Estimates of the direct physical extermination of the civilian population, according to the ChGK of 1946.

RSFSR - 706 thousand people.
Ukrainian SSR - 3256.2 thousand people.
BSSR - 1547 thousand people
Lit. SSR - 437.5 thousand people.
Lat. SSR - 313.8 thousand people.
Est. SSR - 61.3 thousand people.
Mold. SSR - 61 thousand people.
Karelo-Fin. SSR - 8 thousand people. (10)

For twenty years, the main estimate of the losses of the Red Army was the figure of 20 million people, “far-fetched” by N. Khrushchev. In 1990, as a result of the work of a special commission of the General Staff and the USSR State Statistics Committee, a more reasonable estimate of 26.6 million people appeared. At the moment it is official. Attention is drawn to the fact that back in 1948, the American sociologist Timashev gave an assessment of the losses of the USSR in the war, which practically coincided with the assessment of the General Staff Commission. Maksudov's assessment made in 1977 also coincides with the data of the Krivosheev Commission. According to the commission of G. F. Krivosheev.

So let's summarize:

Post-war estimate of the losses of the Red Army: 7 million people.
Timashev: Red Army - 12.2 million people, civilian population 14.2 million people, direct casualties 26.4 million people, total demographic 37.3 million.
Arntts and Khrushchev: direct human: 20 million people.
Biraben and Solzhenitsyn: Red Army 20 million people, civilian population 22.6 million people, direct human resources 42.6 million, total demographic 62.9 million people.
Maksudov: Red Army - 11.8 million people, civilian population 12.7 million people, direct casualties 24.5 million people. It is impossible not to make a reservation that S. Maksudov (A.P. Babenyshev, Harvard University, USA) determined the purely combat losses of the spacecraft at 8.8 million people
Rybakovsky: direct human 30 million people.
Andreev, Darsky, Kharkov (General Staff, Krivosheev Commission): direct combat losses of the Red Army 8.7 million (11,994 including prisoners of war) people. Civilian population (including prisoners of war) 17.9 million people. Direct human losses 26.6 million people.
B. Sokolov: the loss of the Red Army - 26 million people
M. Harrison: total losses of the USSR - 23.9 - 25.8 million people.

The estimate of the losses of the Red Army, given in 1947 (7 million) is not credible, because not all calculations, even with the imperfection of the Soviet system, were completed.

Boris Sokolov is trying to explain to us that the losses of the armed forces of the USSR alone amounted to 26 million people. He is guided by the indirect method of calculations. The losses of the officers of the Red Army are quite accurately known, according to Sokolov, this is 784 thousand people (1941–44). , displays the ratio of the losses of the officer corps to the rank and file of the Wehrmacht, as 1:25, that is, 4%. And, without hesitation, he extrapolates this technique to the Red Army, receiving his own 26 million irretrievable losses. However, this approach, on closer examination, turns out to be inherently false. Firstly, 4% of officer losses is not an upper limit, for example, in the Polish campaign, the Wehrmacht lost 12% of officers to the total losses of the Armed Forces. Secondly, it would be useful for Mr. Sokolov to know that with the regular strength of the German infantry regiment of 3049 officers, there were 75 people in it, that is, 2.5%. And in the Soviet infantry regiment, with a strength of 1582 people, there are 159 officers, i.e. 10%. Thirdly, appealing to the Wehrmacht, Sokolov forgets that the more combat experience in the troops, the lower the losses among officers. In the Polish campaign, the loss of German officers? 12%, in the French - 7%, and on the Eastern Front already 4%.

In view of the foregoing, discarding deliberately underestimated and overestimated estimates of losses, we get: the Krivosheev Commission - 8.7 million people (with prisoners of war 11.994 million data for 2001), Maksudov - losses are even slightly lower than the official ones - 11.8 million people. (1977? 93), Timashev - 12.2 million people. (1948). The opinion of M. Harrison can also be included here, with the level of total losses indicated by him, the losses of the army should fit into this interval. These data were obtained by various calculation methods, since both Timashev and Maksudov, respectively, did not have access to the archives of the USSR and Russian Defense Ministry. It seems that the losses of the USSR Armed Forces in the Second World War lie very close to such a "heap" group of results. Let's not forget that these figures include 2.6-3.2 million destroyed Soviet prisoners of war.

41% - aircraft losses (including prisoners of war)
35% - aircraft losses (without prisoners of war, i.e. direct combat)
39% - loss of the population of the occupied territories and the front line (45% with prisoners of war)
8% - home front population
6% - GULAG
6% - emigration outflow.

2. Losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops

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 only about 3.1 million German servicemen in Soviet prisoner of war camps. The discrepancy, as you can see, is about 0.7 million people. This discrepancy is explained by differences in the estimate of the number of Germans who died 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.

The vast majority of publications devoted to the calculations of the combat demographic losses of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops are based on the data of the central bureau (department) for accounting for the losses of personnel of the armed forces, which is part of the German General Staff of the Supreme High Command. Moreover, while denying the reliability of Soviet statistics, the German data are regarded as absolutely reliable. But upon closer examination, it turned out that the opinion about the high reliability of the information of this department was greatly exaggerated. Thus, the German historian R. Overmans in the article “The human casualties of World War II in Germany” came to the conclusion that “... the channels of information in the Wehrmacht do not reveal the degree of reliability that some authors attribute to them.” As an example, he reports that “... the official report of the losses department at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht, relating to 1944, documented that the losses that were incurred during the Polish, French and Norwegian campaigns and the identification of which did not present any technical difficulties were almost twice as high as originally reported." According to Muller-Gillebrand, which many researchers believe, the demographic losses of the Wehrmacht amounted to 3.2 million people. Another 0.8 million died in captivity. However, according to a certificate from the organizational department of the OKH dated May 1, 1945, only the ground forces, including the SS troops (without the Air Force and Navy), for the period from September 1, 1939 to May 1, 1945, lost 4 million 617.0 thousand people. people This is the most recent report on the losses of the German Armed Forces. In addition, from mid-April 1945, there was no centralized accounting of losses. And since the beginning of 1945, the data is incomplete. It remains a fact that in one of the last radio broadcasts with his participation, Hitler announced the figure of 12.5 million total losses of the German Armed Forces, of which 6.7 million are irretrievable, which exceeds the Müller-Hillebrand data by about two times. This was in March 1945. I do not think that in two months the soldiers of the Red Army did not kill a single German.

Firstly, this figure takes into account only the burial places of the 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). Of the total number of dead Wehrmacht soldiers of non-German nationality, the Soviet-German front accounts for 75-80%, i.e. 0.6-0.7 million people.

Secondly, this figure refers to the beginning of the 90s of the last century. Since then, the search for German graves in Russia, the CIS countries and Eastern Europe has continued. And the messages that appeared on this topic were not informative enough. 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.

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.

Fourth, 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.

Finally, fifth, among the buried were Wehrmacht soldiers who died of "natural" death (0.1-0.2 million people)

The number of prisoners of war of the Wehrmacht was determined by V. Gurkin by summing up the prisoners of war taken by the Red Army (3.178 million people) and the allied forces (4.209 million people) until May 9, 1945. In my opinion, this number is too high: it also included prisoners of war who were not soldiers of the Wehrmacht. In the book of Paul Karel and Ponter Beddecker “German prisoners of war of the Second World War” it is reported: “... In June 1945, the Allied Joint Command became aware that there were 7,614,794 prisoners of war and unarmed military personnel in the “camps, of which 4,209,000 by the time capitulations were already in captivity." Among these 4.2 million German prisoners of war, in addition to Wehrmacht soldiers, there were many other people. For example, in the French camp of Vitrilet-François, among the prisoners, "the youngest was 15 years old, the oldest was almost 70." The authors write about the captive Volksturmites, about the organization by the Americans of special "children's" camps, where captured twelve-thirteen-year-old boys from the "Hitler Youth" and "Werewolf" were gathered. Mention is made of the placement in camps even of the handicapped.

The total number of Wehrmacht soldiers who were captured before the surrender was 6.3-6.5 million people.

Soviet zone of occupation (without East Berlin): men - 7.419 million, women - 9.914 million, total: 17.333 million people.
All western zones of occupation, (without western Berlin): men - 20.614 million, women - 24.804 million, total: 45.418 million people.
Berlin (all sectors of occupation), men - 1.29 million, women - 1.89 million, total: 3.18 million people.
The total population of Germany is 65,931,000 people.

A purely arithmetic operation of 70.2 million - 66 million, it seems, gives a decrease of only 4.2 million. However, everything is not so simple.

The procedure for calculating the total human losses of Germany

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

Every tenth German died! Every twelfth was captured!!!

Conclusion

I would like to end the article with the phrase of an unknown British officer. When he saw a column of Soviet prisoners of war being driven past the "international" camp, he said:

“I forgive the Russians in advance for everything they do with Germany”

Assessment of the ratio of losses based on the results of a comparative analysis of losses in the wars of the last two centuries

The application of the method of comparative analysis, the foundations of which were laid by Jomini, to the assessment of the ratio of losses requires statistical data on wars of different eras. Unfortunately, more or less complete statistics are available only for the wars of the last two centuries. Data on irretrievable combat losses in the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, summarized based on the results of the work of domestic and foreign historians, are given in Table. The last three columns of the table demonstrate the obvious dependence of the results of the war on the magnitude of relative losses (losses expressed as a percentage of the total army strength) - the relative losses of the winner in the war are always less than that of the loser, and this dependence has a stable, recurring character (it is valid for all types of wars), that is, it has all the features of the law.

This law - let's call it the law of relative losses - can be formulated as follows: in any war, victory goes to the army that has the least relative losses.

The difference between the relative losses of the winner and the loser characterizes the degree of persuasiveness of the victory. Wars with similar values of the relative losses of the parties end with peace treaties with the defeated side retaining the existing political system and army (for example, the Russo-Japanese War). In wars ending, like the Great Patriotic War, in the complete surrender of the enemy (Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1871), the relative losses of the winner are significantly less than the relative losses of the vanquished (by at least 30%). In other words, the greater the loss, the greater must be the size of the army in order to win a convincing victory. If the losses of an army are 2 times greater than those of the enemy, then in order to win the war, its strength must be at least 2.6 times the strength of the opposing army.

As new documents, statistical materials, research results appear, the losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht (Tables 1-5) may be refined, changed in one direction or another, their ratio may also change, but it cannot be higher than 1.3: 1 .

Sources:

1. Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR "Number, composition and movement of the population of the USSR" M 1965
2. "The population of Russia in the 20th century" M. 2001
3. Arntts "Casual losses in the Second World War" M. 1957
4. Frumkin G. Population Changes in Europe since 1939 N.Y. 1951
5. Dallin A. German rule in Russia 1941–1945 N.Y.- London 1957
6. "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century" M.2001
7. Polyan P. Victims of two dictatorships M. 1996.
8. Thorwald J. The Illusion. Soviet soldiers in Hitler,s Army N. Y. 1975
9. Collection of messages of the Extraordinary State Commission M. 1946
10. Zemskov. Birth of the second emigration 1944–1952 SI 1991 No. 4
11. Timasheff N. S. The postwar population of the Soviet Union 1948
13 Timasheff N. S. The postwar population of the Soviet Union 1948
14. Arnts. Human losses in World War II M. 1957; "International Life" 1961 No. 12
15. Biraben J. N. Population 1976.
16. Maksudov S. Population losses in the USSR Benson (Vt) 1989.; "About the front-line losses of the SA during the Second World War" "Free Thought" 1993. No. 10
17. The population of the USSR for 70 years. Edited by Rybakovsky L. L. M 1988
18. Andreev, Darsky, Kharkov. "Population of the Soviet Union 1922–1991" M 1993
19. Sokolov B. "Novaya Gazeta" No. 22, 2005, "The Price of Victory -" M. 1991
20. Germany's War against the Soviet Union 1941-1945, edited by Reinhard Ruhrup 1991. Berlin
21. Müller-Gillebrand. "Land Army of Germany 1933-1945" M.1998
22. Germany's War against the Soviet Union 1941-1945, edited by Reinhard Ruhrup 1991. Berlin
23. Gurkin V. V. About human losses on the Soviet-German front in 1941–45. NiNI No. 3 1992
24. M. B. Denisenko. WWII in the demographic dimension "Eksmo" 2005
25. S. Maksudov. The loss of the population of the USSR during the Second World War. "Population and Society" 1995
26. Yu. Mukhin. If not for the generals. "Yauza" 2006
27. V. Kozhinov. The Great War of Russia. Series of lectures 1000th anniversary of Russian wars. "Yauza" 2005
28. Materials of the newspaper "Duel"
29. E. Beevor "The Fall of Berlin" M.2003

Literature

Boris SOKOLOV— was born in 1957 in Moscow. Graduated from the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. Doctor philological sciences, Candidate of Historical Sciences. Author of more than 40 books, including Bulgakov: Encyclopedia (translated in Poland), Gogol: Encyclopedia, World War II: facts and versions, biographies of Stalin, Zhukov, Tukhachevsky, Beria, Inessa Armand and Nadezhda Krupskaya, Sergei Yesenin and others. Translations of books were also published in Latvia and Lithuania. He teaches at the Russian State Social University. Lives in Moscow.

The question of how much mankind lost in the course of the largest war in history in general, and how much exactly the countries that suffered the greatest absolute losses, remains relevant today, 60 years after the end of World War II. This difficult task has not yet been solved. Moreover, it is now clear that for all participating countries in total it cannot be solved with an accuracy exceeding plus or minus 10 million. So the figure that I will give as a result of my calculations will inevitably be conditional, but it is practically impossible to improve its accuracy either now or in the future.

I'll start with the country whose losses cannot be estimated even approximately. This is China. He waged war with Japan from 1937 until the Japanese surrender. And it is, in principle, impossible to estimate how many soldiers and civilians died at that time from hunger and epidemics. The first population census in China took place only in 1950, and mass mortality from famine and epidemics was typical for China in the pre-war years, especially since in the 1920s and 1930s. the country was engulfed in civil war. There are no demographic statistics, nor any reliable statistics on the losses of Chinese government troops and Mao Zedong's communist guerrillas in the fight against the Japanese. At the same time, the losses of Japanese troops in China in 1937-1942. were relatively small and amounted to 641 thousand people killed. In 1942, the activity of hostilities in China decreased, and Japanese losses fell by half compared to 1941. If in 1943-1945. the level of losses of Japan in China remained at the level of 1942, then the Japanese had to lose about 150 thousand more soldiers, and the total losses of the Japanese army in China in 1937-1945. could amount to about 800 thousand dead. Chinese troops, according to official figures from the government of Chiang Kai-shek, lost 1,310,000 killed and 115,000 missing. Even assuming that all the missing people died and that the Japanese also suffered losses in the fight against the communist guerrillas, albeit significantly less, it is unlikely that the Chinese lost only 1.6 times more soldiers dead than their much better armed and trained enemy. Therefore, the statement of the Chinese authorities, referring to September 1945, that 1.8 million Chinese soldiers died in the war with Japan, and about 1.8 million more were wounded or missing, seems closer to reality. Taking into account the losses of the communist guerrillas and the dead among the missing, the total irretrievable losses of the Chinese armed forces certainly exceeded 2 million people 1 * . Urlanis, in particular, estimates the number of dead Chinese soldiers at 2.5 million people 2 , but this figure may also be underestimated. As for the data on the losses of the Chinese civilian population, they are purely conditional. So, V. Erlikhman estimates them at 7.2 million people, and to 2.5 million dead military personnel he adds another 300 thousand dead in captivity, obviously, so that the total figure of losses reaches 10 million, although there is no reliable data on the total number Chinese prisoners, or about how many of them died 3 . There are also lower ratings. V. Petrovich determines China's total losses at 5 million people 4 . Obviously, here the losses of the civilian population are simply taken in the amount of the losses of the army. It is clear that in the case of China, the loss of civilians could not be less than the loss of the army, although the number of civilians killed by the Japanese army, Chinese sources are probably exaggerating. For example, regarding the massacre perpetrated by the Japanese troops during the capture of Nanjing in December 1937, the Chinese speak of hundreds of thousands of dead (they give figures of 220,000 and 300,000), while the Japanese speak of only a few thousand. Here, the truth is rather closer to the smaller numbers, since the side affected by the massacre usually likes to give impressive round numbers, although no real statistics were hot on the trail, and demographic estimates were not possible in the then Chinese conditions. But in general, Chinese losses, mainly due to the civilian population, may not even be millions, but tens of millions, but it is not possible to establish their true value due to the lack of appropriate data and methods. Conventionally, for general calculations, I take the figure of 5 million Chinese losses, realizing that they can be much higher and exceed the losses of Germany.

Very conflicting data exist about the losses of Japan. The official figures of 470,000 army and navy casualties appear to be grossly underestimated. More credible is the post-war estimate of Japan's Economic Stabilization Council at 1,555,000 dead. True, it is not entirely clear whether this includes losses in the war with China. According to the American estimate, the Japanese suffered losses of 1,219,000 dead and wounded, including 126,000 in China in the period 1942-1945, as well as 41,000 prisoners. These data correlate with Japanese data proper, according to which 53,000 Japanese died in China in 1942. If we add 588 thousand people (killed in China in 1937-1941) to the American data, then the total number of deaths will reach 1 million 807 thousand people 5 . If we add to this at least 55,000 Japanese who died in Soviet captivity, as well as an unknown number of deaths in captivity of the Western Allies, as well as the number of deaths from disease, Japanese military losses will certainly exceed 2 million B. Urlanis estimates the losses of the Japanese armed forces at 2 million people, including losses in China 6 , and V. Erlikhman - in 1940 thousand, including 120 thousand who died in captivity, and in the war with China in 1937-1941. - 588 thousand people. The figure of 2 million dead seems to me closer to reality. He estimates the losses of the civilian population of Japan at 690 thousand people. Approximately 70 thousand more Japanese died in 1945 during deportation from a number of Asian countries or became victims of reprisals by local population 7. They can also be included in Japan's losses in the war. Then their total size can be estimated at 2 million people, of which 760 thousand are civilian losses. It is possible that in reality, due to the excess mortality in the war, the number of civilian casualties was higher.

The United States, Britain and France, the victorious powers, suffered relatively small losses, which after the war it was possible to calculate quite accurately. US Army losses amounted to 407.3 thousand dead 8 . There were almost no civilian casualties in the United States, since there were no hostilities on American soil. They are estimated at 5,000 men—they are sailors of the merchant fleet and civilian passengers on ships sunk by German submarines. The losses of the British army and navy, including representatives of the dominions and colonies who served in it, amounted to 429.5 thousand dead, of which 286.2 thousand were in England, 23.4 in Australia, 11.6 thousand in New Zealand , 39.3 thousand - to Canada, 8.7 thousand - to the Union of South Africa, 36.3 thousand - to India, 22 thousand - to Burma, 2 thousand - to Egypt 10 . The losses of the civilian population of Great Britain amounted to about 94 thousand people - victims of bombing and submarine attacks. Significant losses were suffered by the population of a number of British colonies in Asia, where the war exacerbated their usual mass starvation. In India, according to some estimates, from the famine of 1943-1945. up to 1.5 million people died, in Ceylon - 70 thousand, in Dutch Indonesia - about 2 million, in Vietnam - also up to 2 million, while in Laos and Cambodia together no more than 50 thousand people died 11 . In Burma, more than 1 million people became victims of famine and Japanese repressions, in Malaysia, including Singapore, 600,000, and in the Philippines, up to 1 million, of which only 42,000 were military and partisans. The only Japanese ally in Asia, Siam (Thailand), lost 2,000 dead soldiers, about 3,000 anti-Japanese partisans; and up to 120,000 Thais died building a strategic railroad in Burma 13 . In the Japanese colony of Korea, 10,000 people died in the ranks of the Japanese army, and another 70,000 civilians became victims of starvation and repression 14 . All these figures, as well as the figures for China, are conditional, an exact calculation is impossible here. Thus, in Asian countries, except for Japan and China, during the Second World War, about 8.5 million people died, mainly from starvation. With the addition of the losses of China and Japan, the total losses of Asian countries will increase to 21 million people, which, by the way, exceeds the total losses of all European countries, excluding the USSR, as well as the United States and British dominions. But in the losses of Asia, 75% of all losses fall on the civilian population, which has become primarily a victim of mass starvation traditional for this part of the world.

Let's see what were the losses of all European countries, except for the USSR. France lost 233,000 troops, including 47,000 who died in captivity. In addition, about 20 thousand members of the partisan movement died, whose losses are more logically attributed to the losses of military personnel. The losses of the civilian population amounted to about 442 thousand people, of which up to 30 thousand accounted for collaborators executed by court order or killed without trial 15 .

Belgian losses amounted to about 10,000 servicemen, including 1,800 in the ranks of the German army, 2,600 partisans and about 65,000 civilians 16 including 3,700 on the side of the Germans, 21,500 partisans and underground workers, and 182,000 civilians 17 . In the ranks of the German army, 2,200 Luxembourgers perished, while the loss of civilians in Luxembourg amounted to about 2,000 people 18 . Malta also lost about 2,000 civilians from the German-Italian bombardments. 19 Norway lost 2.8 thousand soldiers, including 700 people in the ranks of the German army. In addition, about 5,000 members of the Norwegian resistance movement and about 2,000 civilians were killed 20 . In Denmark, the losses amounted to 300-plus SS soldiers and 15,000 civilians 21 . The Spanish "Blue Division", which fought on the Eastern Front as the 250th division of the Wehrmacht, lost, according to some estimates, about 15 thousand people 22 . In Czechoslovakia, 4,570 people died fighting in the ranks of the Red Army, and 3,220 died in the troops of the Western Allies. In addition, approximately 5 thousand Czechs died in the Wehrmacht, and 7 thousand Slovaks died in the ranks of the allied Germany of the Slovak army. Another 4,000 Czechs and Slovaks died in Soviet captivity. The casualties among Czech and Slovak partisans and participants in the uprising in Prague reached 10 thousand people, and the loss of the civilian population - 385 thousand people 23 .

Significantly higher losses were Balkan countries Anti-Hitler coalition and Poland. This was determined by two factors - the fact that in Poland, along with the occupied Soviet territories and the allied Germany of Hungary and Romania, the “final solution of the Jewish question” took place, and a strong partisan movement (in Poland and in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula). The loss of Poland amounted to about 6 million people, including 2 million 920 thousand Jews killed during the Holocaust. Of this number, the losses of the Polish army in 1939 accounted for 66.3 thousand people. On the Eastern Front, 24,700 Poles died on the side of the Red Army, and 3,800 on the side of the Western Allies. In addition, approximately 120,000 Poles died in German captivity, and 130,000 in Soviet captivity. The number of victims of the partisan movement in Poland is estimated at 60 thousand people. The remaining 5.6 million dead are civilians. It is possible that these losses are overestimated due to the double counting of the victims of the Jews of Eastern Poland, which in 1939 was occupied by the Soviet Union. It is possible that these victims are included both in the losses of Poland and in the losses of the USSR. It is also likely that the number of civilians is overestimated - in particular, the figure of 120 thousand Warsaw civilians who died during the Warsaw Uprising, as well as the number of 40 thousand soldiers of the Home Army who fell in these battles, is doubtful 24 . More realistic is the figure of 40,000 dead Varsovians 25 . In general, casualties among the civilian population, as a rule, were declared in the first post-war years without any careful statistical calculations, and, quite possibly, the data on them contained propaganda exaggeration, so it is possible that due to the civilian population, the traditional figure of Poland's losses of 6 million people is exaggerated by 1–2 million.

The losses of Yugoslavia in the Second World War during the time of Tito were officially estimated at 1 million 706 thousand dead and died of starvation and disease. Now researchers are inclined to a much lower figure of 1 million 27 thousand people, including 20 thousand soldiers who died during the German invasion in April 1941, 16 thousand Croatian soldiers who died in battles against the Red Army on the Eastern Front and in battles with Tito's partisans and Mihailović's Chetniks; 22 thousand Yugoslav soldiers died in German captivity, 1.5 thousand Croatian soldiers died in Soviet captivity. Tito's partisans, according to German estimates, killed about 220 thousand (Tito himself spoke of 300 thousand dead). Losses among the civilian population are estimated at 770 thousand people, of which only 20 thousand people became victims of hostilities in 1941, and another 70 thousand died of starvation and disease. The number of those executed and died in camps and prisons is estimated at 650,000 people. In fact, this number also includes the victims of Croatian, Chetnik, Bosnian and Albanian collaborationist formations who fought against Tito's partisans. The number of victims of the terror unleashed by Tito's partisans in 1944-1945, mainly in May-June 1945, is estimated at 335,000 people, which increases the total number of victims of the war in Yugoslavia to 1,362,000 people.

In Greece, the army during the fighting against Italy and Germany lost 20 thousand dead, and another 10 thousand died in captivity. The losses of the partisans amounted to 30 thousand, another 6 thousand died during the civil war of 1944-1945. between the communists and the royalists, who were supported by the British troops. The loss of civilians in Greece today is estimated at 375,000 people, of which 210,000 died of starvation and disease 27 . Finally, Albania lost about 20 thousand partisans in the fight against the Italian and German troops, and another 35 thousand civilians became victims of punishers and hunger. In addition, during the civil war of 1944-1945. about 1,000 people died and several thousand more were executed 28 .

Germany's European allies also suffered heavy losses. Italy lost 304,000 soldiers killed and died from wounds and captured. Of the 74,000 who died in captivity, 28,000 died in Soviet camps, 40,000 in German camps, and 6,000 in Anglo-American ones. The losses of the Italian partisans are estimated at 71 thousand people. Also, about 105 thousand civilians became victims of the war, and approximately 50 thousand collaborators were destroyed by the victors in 1944-1945. 29

The losses of the Hungarian army in the war amounted to 195 thousand dead and died in captivity, the loss of the civilian population - up to 330 thousand people, including 170 thousand Jews 30 . The losses of the Romanian armed forces reached 550 thousand people, including 170 thousand who died in battles against German troops, 55 thousand died in Soviet captivity, and 15 thousand in German captivity. Losses of the civilian population reached 580 thousand people, of which 450 thousand were Jews 31 . The Finnish army lost 67.4 thousand people, of which 403 people died in Soviet captivity, and about 1 thousand died in battles with the Germans in 1944–1945. The losses of the civilian population of Finland are estimated at 1 to 3.5 thousand people, mainly from the bombing of Soviet aircraft 32 .

Much more were the losses of Germany itself. The irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht up to November 1944 are quite fully taken into account according to personal (personal) records. In the period from September 1, 1939 to December 31, 1944, the ground forces lost 1 million 750.3 thousand people killed on the battlefield, as well as those who died from wounds, illnesses, accidents and other reasons, and missing - 1 million 609.7 thousand people. The fleet during the same period lost 60 thousand people dead and 100.3 thousand people missing, and the air force - 155 thousand dead and 148.5 thousand missing. Losses for the period from January 1 to April 30, 1945 by the central accounting authorities were estimated for the ground forces at 250 thousand dead and 1 million missing, and for the Navy - at 5 thousand dead and 5 thousand missing, and for the Air Force - 10 thousand dead and 7 thousand missing 33 . According to the nature of the calculations, all those missing in the ground forces in the period from January 1 to April 30, 1945 can be classified as prisoners. Also, most of the missing during this period in the Navy and Air Force can be considered prisoners. Taking into account the data on the number of prisoners on different fronts, the number of deaths in the German ground forces from the beginning of the war until the end of 1944, I estimate at 2 million 496 thousand people. The total number of deaths in the German armed forces, including the Luftwaffe and the Navy, can be estimated at 4 million people, of which about 0.8 million died in captivity, including 0.45–0.5 million in the USSR and 0.3 -0.35 million - in the West (about 11 million prisoners in total, including 8 million in the West) 34 . Of this number, according to my estimate, about 2.6 million German servicemen died in the East, of which about 100,000 were killed by the Luftwaffe and the Navy. Thus, it should be emphasized that the irretrievable losses of the Red Army exceed the irretrievable losses of the German armed forces by about 10.3 times. If we take into account the losses of the German allies on the Eastern Front, then the ratio will decrease to 8: 1.

There are also higher estimates of Wehrmacht losses, but they seem to me too high. The German military historian R. Overmanns estimates the losses of the German armed forces in World War II at 5.3 million dead, including those who died in captivity 36 . This is about 1.3 million more than according to previous estimates made, in particular, by B. Müller-Gillebrand, the general who during the war was in charge of accounting for personnel. However, Overmanns' data are highly questionable. First, according to his calculations, it turns out that in the last 10 months of the war, almost as many German soldiers died as in the previous four and a half years. Only in the last three months of the war, according to a German researcher, about a million German soldiers died, taking into account those who died in captivity. However, it is known that in the last year of the war, the main losses of the Wehrmacht were captured, and not killed or wounded, and the size of the German army was steadily declining, so that there was simply no room for millions of dead. And the number of those who died in captivity, especially in the West, where the vast majority were released within two years, could not be so great. Most likely, Overmanns was summed up by the method of counting. He used the Wehrmacht military card index, which was kept in West Germany until the unification of the two German states in 1990. Since almost all German servicemen were captured after the surrender, only those servicemen who turned to the archive after the war (or their relatives who confirmed their return from captivity) were recorded as survivors. And far from always, archive employees could establish with certainty the death of a soldier in captivity, especially in relation to citizens of the GDR and Austria: a significant part of these people did not have a real opportunity to apply to the West German military archive, which means that the fact of their return from captivity could not be reflected in the file cabinet . Most of the foreigners who served in the German army and the SS and successfully survived captivity were apparently deprived of such an opportunity. Probably, due to these categories of those who returned from captivity, more than a million imaginary dead were formed.

An even greater difficulty is the determination of the losses of the civilian German population. For example, the death toll from the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 ranges from 25,000 to 250,000, 37 because the city hosted a significant but undetermined number of West German refugees whose number was impossible to count. According to official figures, 410,000 civilians and another 23,000 police and civilian employees of the armed forces became victims of air raids within the borders of the Reich in 1937. In addition, 160 thousand foreigners, prisoners of war and displaced persons from the occupied territories died from the bombings. Within the borders of 1942 (but without the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), the number of victims of air raids increases to 635 thousand people, and taking into account the victims of civilian employees of the Wehrmacht and policemen - up to 658 thousand people 38 . The losses of the German civilian population from ground fighting are estimated at 400 thousand people, the loss of the civilian population of Austria - at 17 thousand people. The victims of Nazi terror in Germany were 450 thousand people, including up to 160 thousand Jews, and in Austria - 100 thousand people, including 60 thousand Jews; and another 250,000 excess deaths from starvation and disease 39 . It is more difficult to determine how many Germans who were deported from the Sudetenland, Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, and also from the Balkan countries in 1945-1946 died. In total, more than 9 million Germans were evicted, including 250 thousand from Romania and Hungary and 300 thousand from Yugoslavia. The death toll among them is estimated at 350 thousand people. In addition, up to 20,000 war criminals and Nazi functionaries were executed in the German occupation zones, mainly in the Soviet zone, after the war, and another 70,000 internees died in camps 40 . In Austria, 1,100 people were executed by the Allies and died in internment camps 41 . There are other estimates of the victims of the German civilian population: about 2 million victims, including 600-700 thousand women aged 20 to 55 years 42 , 300 thousand victims of Nazi terror, including 170 thousand Jews 43 . The most reliable estimate of the dead among the expelled Germans is 473 thousand people - this is the number of people whose death is confirmed by eyewitnesses 44 . It must be emphasized that in the post-war years the borders changed and there were significant population movements, so it is not possible in practice to check the losses of Germany by comparing the pre-war and post-war population.

The total losses of Germany and Austria in World War II can be estimated at 6.3 million people, if we take higher estimates. It is possible that this figure may turn out to be 1-1.5 million more if we accept a higher estimate of the losses of the German army at 4.77 million people (including the Austrians who served in the Wehrmacht) 45 , as well as higher losses of the civilian population during ground fighting and casualties among the exiles. The losses of all European countries, except the USSR, in World War II can be estimated at 18.1 million dead, including here also the losses of the United States and the British dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa. It turns out that the losses of all European countries and countries close to them in culture and civilization on other continents, but with the exception of the losses of the Soviet Union, almost do not differ from the losses of Asian countries. Only in Asia, only 25% of the casualties were accounted for by the losses of the armed forces, and in Europe, more than 7 million dead military personnel accounted for 39% of all casualties.

But the Soviet Union suffered the biggest losses in the war. Since they are an order of magnitude higher than the losses of any other participating country, and also due to extremely poor accounting, determining the true losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War is a particularly difficult task. It must be solved by several alternative methods of calculation, because the losses documented and accounted for during the war are much less than half of their true number.

According to official data, released only in 1993, Soviet military losses in 1941-1945. amounted to 8,668,400 military personnel (including border and internal troops) who died on the battlefield or died from wounds, illnesses, accidents and in captivity, as well as those executed by tribunals and remaining in the West after being released from captivity. Of this number, in the war against Japan, only 12,031 people died and went missing (together with those who died from wounds and accidents, as well as due to illness).

However, the fact that the data of the book "Secrecy Removed" many times underestimate the true size of Soviet military losses is proved by the following example, taken from itself. On July 5, 1943, by the beginning of the Battle of Kursk, the troops of the Central Front numbered 738 thousand people, and during the defensive phase of the battle from July 5 to July 11, they suffered losses (sanitary and irretrievable) of 33,897 people. During the week of defensive battles, the composition of the Central Front practically did not change: one separate tank brigade was added and two rifle brigades were lost, which in the end could reduce the number of front troops by no more than 5-7 thousand people 47 . According to all the laws of mathematics, by July 12, the beginning of the offensive, the troops of the front should have included 704 thousand people, however, the authors of the book “Secrecy Removed” testify that on July 12, the Central Front numbered only 645,300 people. It turns out that at least 55 thousand Red Army soldiers in a week became unspotted deserters in the treeless Kursk steppes. It is characteristic that this case- the only one when the information of the book “Secrecy Removed” is verifiable, and at the same time the error turns out to be so great that it completely undermines the credibility of the official loss figure.

In the Red Army, accounting for losses was done very badly. After the Finnish war, privates and sergeants were deprived of their identity cards - Red Army books. True, the order of the People's Commissar of Defense on the introduction of the "Regulations on the personal accounting of losses and burial of personnel of the Red Army in wartime" appeared on March 15, 1941. This order introduced medallions for military personnel with basic information about the owner. But, for example, this order was brought to the troops of the Southern Front only in December 1941. As early as the beginning of 1942, many military personnel at the front did not have medallions, and by order of the People's Commissar of Defense of November 17, 1942, medallions were canceled altogether, which is even more confused the accounting of losses, although such a cancellation was dictated solely by the desire not to oppress the military with thoughts of possible death (many generally refused to take the medallions). Red Army books were introduced on October 7, 1941, but even at the beginning of 1942, the Red Army soldiers were not fully provided with them. The order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of April 12, 1942, stated: “The accounting of personnel, especially the accounting of losses, is completely unsatisfactory in the army ... The headquarters of the formations do not send in a timely manner to the center the personal lists of the dead. As a result of untimely and incomplete submission by military units of lists of losses (as in the document. - B.S.) there was a large discrepancy between the data of numerical and personal accounting of losses. At present, no more than one third of the actual number of those killed is on a personal record. The personal records of the missing and captured are even more far from the truth.” And in the future, the situation, taking into account the personnel and losses, did not undergo significant changes. The order of the People's Commissar of Defense dated March 7, 1945, two months before the end of the war with Germany, stated that "the military councils of the fronts, armies and military districts do not pay due attention" to this issue 48 .

Therefore, other methods of calculation are needed. As a basis for the calculation, I take the data published by D. Volkogonov on the irretrievable losses of the Red Army by months of 1942. 49 In addition, there is a monthly breakdown of the losses of the Red Army wounded (hit in battle) for the period from July 1941 to April 1945, expressed as a percentage from the average monthly level for the war 50 . I note that, contrary to popular belief, the monthly dynamics of casualties by the wounded indicates that in the last year or two of the war, the losses of the Red Army did not decrease at all. Wounded losses peaked in July and August 1943, amounting to 143% and 172% of the monthly average. The next largest maximum falls on July and August 1944, reaching 132% and 140%, respectively. Losses in March and April 1945 were only slightly less, amounting to 122% and 118%. This figure was higher only in August 1942, in October 1943, and in January and September 1944 (130% each), and also in September 1943 (137%).

One can try to estimate the total number of dead, assuming the number of those killed in battle is approximately directly proportional to the number of wounded. It remains to be determined when the record of irretrievable losses was most complete and when almost all irretrievable losses fell on the dead, and not on the prisoners. For a number of reasons, November was chosen as such a month, when the Red Army suffered almost no losses in prisoners, and the front line was stable until the 19th. Then, for 413 thousand killed and dead, there will be an indicator of 83% of those killed in battles, i.e., for 1% of the average monthly number of those killed in battles, there are approximately 5.0 thousand killed and died from wounds and diseases. If we take January, February, March or April as the baseline, then there the ratio, after excluding the approximate number of prisoners, will be even greater - from 5.1 to 5.5 thousand dead per 1% of the average monthly number of those killed in battles. Then the total number of those who died in battles, as well as those who died from wounds, can be estimated by multiplying 5 thousand people by 4656 (the sum, as a percentage of the monthly average, losses by the wounded during the war, taking into account the losses of June 41st and May 45th) to 23 .28 million people. From this it is necessary to subtract 940,000 who returned to their encirclement from among the missing 51 . 22.34 million people will remain. I assume that in the data cited by D. Volkogonov, non-combat losses are not classified as irretrievable, i.e. soldiers who died from diseases, accidents, suicides, were shot by tribunals and died for other reasons (except those who died in captivity). According to the latest estimate of the authors of the book The Classification Removed, the non-combat losses of the Red Army amounted to 555,500 men 52 . Then the total irretrievable losses of the Soviet armed forces (without those who died in captivity) can be estimated at 22.9 million people. If non-combat losses are included in Volkogonov's figures, then the irretrievable losses of the Red Army can be estimated at 22.34 million dead.

To obtain a final figure for military casualties, it is also necessary to estimate the number of Soviet prisoners of war who died in captivity. According to the final German documents, 5 million 754 thousand prisoners of war were taken on the Eastern Front, including 3 million 355 thousand in 1941, while the authors of the document presented to the Western allies in May 45, stipulated that for 1944 - 1945 the account of prisoners is incomplete. At the same time, the number of those who died in captivity was estimated at 3.3 million people 53 . However, I am inclined to join the higher estimate of the total number of Soviet prisoners of war in 1941 at 3.9 million people contained in German documents from early 1942. 54 Undoubtedly, this number also included approximately 200 thousand prisoners from the occupied in 1941. Taking this into account, as well as the prisoners taken by the allies of Germany (for example, Finland captured 68 thousand prisoners, of which 19,276 died - about 30%) 55, I estimate the total number of Soviet prisoners of war at 6.3 million Human. 1 million 836 thousand people returned to their homeland from German (as well as Finnish and Romanian) captivity, and approximately 250 thousand more, according to the USSR Foreign Ministry in 1956, remained in the West after the war 56 . The total number of those who died in captivity, adding here 19.7 thousand Red Army soldiers who died in Finnish captivity (out of 64.2 thousand of all captured) 57, I estimate at about 4 million people, taking into account those encirclement who managed to hide their being in captivity. This is 63.5% of the total number of prisoners. Then the total losses of the Soviet armed forces can be estimated at 26.3 - 26.9 million people.

I estimate the total losses - both the military and the civilian population of the USSR - at 43.3 million people, based on the estimate of the Central Statistical Bureau made in the early 50s, the population of the USSR at the end of 1945 at 167 million people, and from the estimate CSO, made in June 41st, the population of the USSR at the beginning of 1941 was 198.7 million people. Taking into account the recalculation that has been done for two regions, this last number should be increased by 4.6%. Consequently, the size of the Soviet population at the beginning of the war can be considered 209.3 million people 58 . Then the loss of the civilian population can be estimated at 16.4-16.9 million people.

It is possible to verify the figure we obtained above of 26.9 million dead Red Army soldiers by two alternative methods of calculation. The first one is as follows. By May 1994, the computer data bank of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonnaya Gora contained personal data on 19 million servicemen who died or went missing during the war and have not yet been found. Not all the dead were included here, as evidenced by the failures of dozens of citizens who turned to the museum with inquiries about the fate of their missing relatives and friends. It is practically impossible to establish by name all the dead half a century after the end of the war. Of the approximately 5,000 dead Soviet servicemen whose remains were found in 1994-1995. and whose identity could be established, about 30% were not listed in the archives of the Ministry of Defense and therefore did not get into the computer data bank 59 . Assuming that the 19 million people who got into this bank account for approximately 70% of all dead and missing, their total number should reach 27.1 million people. From here it is necessary to subtract about 2 million surviving prisoners and about 900 thousand who returned to their encirclement. Then the total number of dead soldiers and officers can be calculated at 24.2 million. However, this calculation was made on the basis of those 5 thousand dead who could be identified from the documents they had preserved. Consequently, these military personnel are more likely to be on the lists of the Ministry of Defense than the average killed, so, most likely, 19 million actually cover not 70%, but a smaller percentage of all the dead. Because of this circumstance, we consider the figure of 26.9 million dead in the ranks of the Soviet armed forces, obtained as a result of our previous calculations, to be closer to the truth.

It should also be borne in mind that there is no chance of any accurate calculation of the total number of persons who served in the Red Army during the war years, since in 1941-1944. a significant number of people were mobilized directly into the unit and there was no centralized record of such recruits, as well as hundreds of thousands and even millions of militias who died even before being enrolled in regular units. For example, the Southern Front alone, and in September 1943 alone, called up 115,000 people directly to the units, most of whom had not previously served in the Red Army. It is clear that for the entire period of the war the total number of those called up directly to the unit is estimated at many millions.

There is another option for calculating Soviet military losses - according to the ratio of losses of officers of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht. After all, officers were considered more accurate, and in the USSR, accounting for their irretrievable losses took many years after the war and ended only in 1963. lead. The Red Army during the same period (without the Navy and Air Force and with the exception of the political, administrative and legal composition of the ground forces, represented in Germany not by officers, but by officials) lost about 784 thousand officers only who died and did not return from captivity. This gives a ratio of about 12:161. In the German army in the East, the share of irretrievable losses of officers by the end of 1944 amounted to about 2.7%, 62 that is, it practically coincided with the share of officers in the irretrievable losses of the Soviet ground forces. For example, for the period of December 17–19, 1941, in the 323rd Rifle Division, the loss of commanding staff among the dead and missing amounted to 3.36% 63 . For the 5th Guards Army in the period of July 9-17, 1943, the ratio of losses of privates and officers was 15.88: 1, and with the exception of political and other "bureaucratic" compositions - 18.38: 1 64 . For the 5th Guards Tank Army, the corresponding ratios in the period from July 12 to 18, 1943 will be 9.64: 1 and 11.22: 1 65 . For the 48th Rifle Corps of the 69th Army in the period from July 1 to July 16, 1943, these ratios will be 17.17: 1 and 19.88: 1 66 . It must be borne in mind that the main losses in manpower during the war were borne by the combined arms, and not by the tank armies (in the latter, the proportion of officers was much higher). Therefore, the overall ratio of irretrievable losses of officers and ordinary Red Army soldiers as a whole will be much closer to what I have established for combined arms armies than for tank armies. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the used Soviet reports contain an underestimation of irretrievable losses, and to a greater extent at the expense of privates, and not officers. Moreover, this underestimation was very significant. So, according to reports, the 183rd rifle division of the 48th rifle corps lost in specified period 398 killed and 908 wounded (missing were not taken into account), and for those killed the ratio of soldiers and officers was 25.5: 1. However, the number of personnel of the division, even without taking into account possible replenishment, decreased from the beginning of the fighting and until July 15 from 7981 people to 2652, i.e., the real losses were not 1300, but 5329 soldiers and officers 67 . Obviously, the difference of 4029 people was formed mainly due to the unaccounted for missing persons, among whom, for sure, soldiers sharply prevailed over officers.

For comparison, you can take other divisions of the 48th corps, for which there is data on the missing. In the 93rd Guards Rifle Division, the ratio of soldiers and officers among those killed was 18.08: 1, and among the missing - 12.74: 1, in the 81st Guards, respectively - 12.96: 1 and 16.81 : 1, in the 89th Guards - 7.15: 1 and 32.37: 1, in the 375th Rifle - 67.33: 1 and 31: 1. In the latter case, such large numbers obviously turned out due to the small value irretrievable losses - 3 officers and 233 privates, which increases the risk of statistical error. I also note that in the 375th division there was a huge underestimation of losses. During the fighting, its numbers decreased from 8647 to 3526 people, which gives real losses not in 236, but in 5121 people. In cases where the proportion of officers among the missing is greater than among those killed, this should indicate that there was a huge undercount of the missing soldiers, since the fate of officers is usually determined more precisely. Therefore, in the case of divisions where there were more officers among the missing than among those killed, we will take the same ratio for the missing as was established for the dead, and exclude the 375th division from the calculation. By the way, I note that in the above report of the 323rd Infantry Division for December 1941, obviously, the missing persons were counted quite completely. For the 183rd Infantry Division, we will conditionally determine the number of missing people at 4,000. In this case, calculations for the 48th corps without one division will give the ratio of soldiers and officers in irretrievable losses equal to 21.02: 1. With the exception of the political staff, the legal and administrative ratio will be equal to 24.16. Interestingly, this is almost equal to the ratio that is obtained for the German association - the III motorized (tank) corps of General Eberhard Mackensen, but over a longer period of time. This corps operated on the Eastern Front from June 22, 1941 to November 13, 1942, and during this time lost 14,404 people dead and missing, including 564 officers, which gives a ratio of 24.54 soldiers and non-commissioned officers -officers- per officer 68 . I note that in the German motorized corps, the share of tank units and subunits was significantly less than in the Soviet tank army, therefore, in terms of the loss of soldiers and officers, it was closer to army corps than the Soviet tank armies were to combined arms armies. By the way, the ratio of soldiers and officers in the German corps is lower than in the Eastern Army as a whole. The difference probably arose due to the fact that the proportion of tank units was still higher in the corps, where the proportion of officers was higher than in the infantry, and also that the wounded and sick who died in hospitals were not taken into account in the corps reports, among which the proportion of officers was lower than among those killed and missing. In addition, in the corps reports, there was probably some underestimation of irretrievable losses, and primarily at the expense of the soldiers.

If we accept the final ratio between soldiers and officers in irretrievable losses, established by me for the 48th Rifle Corps in the period Battle of Kursk, close to the average ratio between soldiers and officers in the irretrievable losses of the ground forces of the Red Army throughout the war and extend it to the losses of the officer corps until the end of November 1944 (i.e., 784 thousand dead and not returning from captivity officers), then the total losses of the ground forces of the Red Army who died in the period from June 41st to November 44th can be estimated at 18,941 thousand people. If we add here the losses of the ground forces over the last six months of the war - probably at least 2 million, and add here the losses of the fleet and aviation - at least 200 thousand people, then we get about 21 million dead, which is within the accuracy of our estimates made by others methods. Taking into account the fact that in our assessment we were dealing with deliberately underestimated reports of losses, and underestimated mainly due to the soldiers, then the true value of the losses, in all likelihood, should be greater than that obtained from the assessment made by the method of comparing officer losses.

Therefore, the closest to the truth at the moment I accept the figure of 26.3-26.9 million dead soldiers and officers of the Red Army. At the same time, it is necessary to be aware that the accuracy of this figure is not high, within plus or minus five million, therefore tenths of a million in figures are quite arbitrary and reflect only methods of calculation. However, there is simply no chance to get a figure of greater accuracy, as well as to ever bury all the dead Red Army soldiers. At the same time, the losses of the Red Army as a whole are calculated more accurately than the losses of the civilian population and, accordingly, than the total irretrievable losses of the Soviet population. So if in the future the total losses of the USSR as a result of certain assessments are reduced, then this will happen mainly due to civilian losses.

The total number of mobilized, if my estimate is correct, also significantly exceeds the official data on the total number of citizens of the USSR called up for military service - 34 million 476.7 thousand people (including the peacetime army), of which 3 million 614.6 thousand people were transferred to work in the national economy and in the military formations of other departments. At the same time, by July 1, 1945, 11 million 390.6 thousand people remained in the Armed Forces of the USSR, and, in addition, 1,046 thousand were treated in hospitals 69 . If we proceed from the death toll of 26.9 million people, then, taking into account the disabled and those demobilized for work in industry, the net conscription to the Red Army can be estimated at 42.9 million people. In Germany, including the peacetime army, the total draft was 17.9 million. Of these, approximately 2 million were called back, primarily to work in industry, so that the net conscription was about 15.9 million, or 19.7% of the Reich's total population of 80.6 million in 1939. In the USSR, the share of net conscription could reach 20.5% of the population in the middle of 1941, estimated at 209.3 million people. Official data on the number of those mobilized into the Red Army were significantly underestimated due to those called up directly to the units.

In general, the total value of Soviet losses turns out to be greater than the total losses of all other states participating in the war. The latter in total lost about 38.95 million people, and together with the Soviet losses, the losses of all countries in World War II reach 82.4 million people, of which the USSR accounts for 52.6%. Interestingly, the losses of the Soviet civilian population are only slightly, 1.06 higher than the losses of the civilian population of Asia, but 1.5 higher than the losses of the civilian population of all European countries combined. As for the irretrievable losses of the Red Army, they significantly exceed the total losses of both the European (7.2 million) and Asian (5.3 million) armies, surpassing them combined by 2.13 times.

Almost all these figures clearly demonstrate that Russia remained an Asian country, both in the sense that during the war the authorities did not have the opportunity, and even a special desire to take care of the survival of the civilian population, and in the fact that victory could only be won by incurring losses, on the order of the passing losses of the enemy. It is curious that in the Sino-Japanese war, in which the Chinese mainly adhered to the tactics of a small, guerrilla war, the ratio of losses was in favor of Japan by no more than 2.5 times. Probably, if the Red Army had followed a predominantly defensive course of action in the war with Germany and paid more attention to guerrilla warfare, the ratio of losses would have been much more favorable for the Soviet side.

Notes

1 See: Urlanis B. Wars and population of Europe \\ M.: Sotsekgiz, 1960, p. 236-239.

2 Urlanis B. Population. Research, journalism \\ M.: Statistics, 1976, p. 203.

3 Erlichman W. Population loss in the 20th century. Handbook \\ M .: Russian panorama, 2004, p. 70.

4 Petrovich V. National history XX - beginning of the XXI century. A course of lectures for distance learning based on the textbook of the group of authors under the guidance of Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.O. Chubaryan \\ http://his.1september.ru/articlef.php?ID=200500109

5 Urlanis B. Wars and the population of Europe, c. 237-239.

6 Urlanis B. Population, c. 203.

7 Erlichman W. Population loss.., c. 81.

8 The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1997\\ Mahwah (NJ): World Almanac Books, 1996, p. 184.

9 Erlikhman V. Population loss.., c. 107-108.

10 Urlanis B. Wars and the population of Europe, c. 229; Erlikhman V. Population loss.., c. 133, 75.

11 Erlikhman V. Population loss.., c. 62, 80, 63, 59, 68, 72.

12 Ibid., p. 74, 79.

13 Ibid., p. 77-78.

14 Ibid., p. 71.

15 Ibid., p. 53.

16 Ibid., p. 38.

17 Ibid., p. 48.

18 Ibid., p. 47.

19 Ibid., p. 48.

20 Ibid., p. 48-49.

21 Ibid., p. 44.

22 Ibid., p. 46.

23 Ibid., p. 54.

24 Ibid., p. 49.

25 Durachinsky E. Warsaw Uprising // Another war 1939 - 1945 \\ M .: RGGU, 1996.

26 Erlichman W. Population loss, c. 55-56.

27 Ibid., p. 43-44.

28 Ibid., p. 37-38.

29 Ibid., p. 46-47.

30 Ibid., p. 41. The 40,000 supposedly killed in unarmed "labor battalions" are excluded from the military losses, because this figure seems to be significantly overestimated.

31 Ibid., p. 51.

32 Ibid., p. 52.

33 Müller-Hillebrand B. Land Army of Germany 1933-1945. Per. with him. T. 3. \\ M., 1976, p. 338.

34 There is also a lower estimate of the number of German prisoners who died in captivity with the Western Allies - 150 thousand people. Cm.: Erlichman W. Population loss.., c. 42-43.

35 Score on: Müller-Hillebrand B. Decree. op. T. 3. S. 323-344. For details see: Sokolov B. The Cost of War: Human Losses for the USSR and Germany, 1939 - 1945; Sokolov B. Secrets of World War II \\ M.: Veche, 2001, p. 247-250.

36 See: Overmann R. Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. // Beiträge zur Militärgeschichte. Bd.46. Schrifenreihe des Militärischen Forschungsamtes. - Wien - München. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1999; and a review of this book: Polyan P. Killer blitzkrieg // General newspaper, 2001, June 22; and the publication of a fragment of this book in Russian: Overmans. Human casualties of World War II in Germany // World War II. Discussions. Main trends. Research results \\ M.: All world, 1996. New studies of German historians.

37 Results of World War II\\ M.: Izdatinlit, 1957, p. 228.

38 Baker K. Military diaries of the Luftwaffe \\ M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2004, p. 538.

39 Erlichman W. Population loss.., cs. 36-27, 42-43.

40 Ibid., p. 42-43.

41 Ibid., p. 37.

42 Urlanis B. Wars and the population of Europe, c. 205.

43 Results of World War II\\ M.: Izdatinlit, 1957, p. 598.

44 Overmans R. Human sacrifices.., c. 692.

45 Urlanis B. Population, c. 203.

46 The seal of secrecy has been removed: Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, combat operations and military conflicts. Ed. G. Krivosheeva \\ M .: Military Publishing, 1993. S. 129, 132. In the second edition of this book, the numbers remained the same (Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. M .: Olma-Press, 2001. S. 236).

47 Confidentiality removed, c. 188-189.

48 Questions of History, 1990. No. 6, p. 185-187; "Military History Journal", 1990. No. 6, p. 185-187; Military Historical Journal, 1990, No. 4, p. 4-5; "Military History Journal", 1992. No. 9, p. 28-31.

49 Volkogonov D. We won despite the inhuman system // Izvestia. 1993, May 8, p. 5.

50 Smirnov E. War and military medicine. 2nd ed. \\ M.: Medicine, 1979, p. 188.

51 The seal of secrecy has been removed, c. 129.

52 Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century, c. 237.

53 Dallin A. German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 \\ L.-N. Y., 1957, p. 427.

54 Questions of History, 1989. No. 3, p. 37; Nuremberg Trials: in 7 vols. T. 3 \\ M., 1960, p. 29-30.

55 Oz A. Through the forests and camps of Suomi (in Finnish captivity) \\ "New Journal", New York, 1952, No. 30.

56 Gareev M. About old and new myths \\ Military History Journal, 1991, No. 4, p. 47.

57 See: Pietola E. Prisoners of war in Finland 1941 - 1944 \\ "Sever", Petrozavodsk, 1990, No. 12.

58 Kozhurin V. On the population of the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War \\ Military Historical Journal, 1991, No. 2, p. 23-26. For more details on the methodology for calculating the losses of both the army and the civilian population, see: Sokolov B. The Cost of War: Human Losses for the USSR and Germany, 1939 - 1945 \\ The Journal of Slavic Military Studies (JSMS), vol. 9, No. 1, March 1996; Sokolov B. Secrets of World War II \\ M.: Veche, 2001, p. 219-272.

59 Reported by S. D. Mityagin.

60 RGASPI, f. 83, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 75-77.

61 Counting by: Müller-Hillebrand Burkhart. Ground Army of Germany. 1933 - 1945. T. 3. \\ M .: Military Publishing House, 1976, p. 354-409; Shabaev A. Losses of officers of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War \\ Military Historical Archive. Issue. 3. M., 1998, p. 173-189; Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century\\ M.: Olma-Press, 2001, p. 430-436.

62 Müller-Hillebrand B. Decree. op. T. 3, p. 342-343.

63 The Hidden Truth of War: 1941/ Ed. Pavel N. Knyshevsky \\ M .: Russian book, 1992, p. 222.

64 TsAMO RF, f 5 gv A, op. 4855, d 20, fol. 4 (Quoted in: Lopukhovsky L. Prokhorovka - without a secrecy stamp // Military Historical Archive, 2004, No. 2, p. 73).

65 Ibid., p. 72. (TsAMO RF, f. 5 guards T.A., op. 4952, d. 7, l. 3).

66 TsAMO RF, f. 69 A, op. 10753, d. 442, l.24.

67 Zamulin V., Lopukhovsky L. Prokhorov battle. Myths and Reality // Military Historical Archive, 2003, No. 3, p. 101.

68 Calculated from: Mackensen E. From the Bug to the Caucasus (III Panzer Corps in the campaign against Soviet Russia in 1941-1942) \\ M .: AST, 2004.

69 Confidentiality removed, cs. 139, 141.

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. During all these four years of the war, in various circumstances, I tried very hard to be a restrained person and, it seems, I 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 of the 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 capture imperial palace, put 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 were destroyed.
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 active.
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.
Great Britain
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, civilian losses ranged 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 were injured, 85 thousand people were 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 post-war order of the world allies for anti-Hitler coalition began to discuss even in the midst of hostilities.
August 14, 1941 on board a warship in the 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 among the great powers - permanent members of the Security Council with the right of veto.
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.

The process of reviewing the role of the participants in the anti-Hitler coalition in the victory over fascist Germany is also connected with the change in the balance of power in the international arena. Not only in modern media, but also in a number of historical works, old myths are supported, or new ones are created. The old opinion can be attributed to the opinion that the Soviet Union achieved victory only due to incalculable losses, many times greater than the losses of the enemy, and to the new - about the decisive role of Western countries, mainly the United States, in the victory and the high level of their military skills. We will try, based on the statistical material available to us, to offer a different opinion.

As a criterion, summary data are used, such as, for example, the losses of the parties during the entire war, which, due to their simplicity and clarity, confirm one or another point of view.

In order to choose from sometimes contradictory data those on which one can rely with a significant degree of reliability, it is necessary to use specific values in addition to total values. Such values may include losses per unit of time, for example, daily, losses attributable to a certain section of the front length, etc.

A group of authors led by Colonel-General G. F. Krivosheev in 1988-1993. a comprehensive statistical study of archival documents and other materials containing information about casualties in the army and navy, border and internal troops of the NKVD was carried out. The results of this capital research were published in the work "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century."

During the Great Patriotic War, 34 million people were drafted into the Red Army, including those called up for June 1941. This number is almost equal to the mobilization resource that the country had at that time. The losses of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War amounted to 11,273 thousand people, that is, a third of the number of those called up. These losses are, of course, very great, but everything is known in comparison: after all, the losses of Germany and its allies on the Soviet-German front are also great.

Table 1 presents the irretrievable losses of the personnel of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Data on the magnitude of annual losses are taken from the work "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century". This includes the dead, missing, captured and those who died in captivity.

Table 1. Losses of the Red Army

The last column of the proposed table shows the average daily losses suffered by the Red Army. In 1941, they were the highest, since our troops had to retreat in very unfavorable conditions, and large formations fell into an environment, into the so-called boilers. In 1942, the losses were much less, although the Red Army also had to retreat, but there were no more large boilers. In 1943, there were very stubborn battles, especially on the Kursk Bulge, but, starting from that year and until the end of the war, the troops of Nazi Germany had to retreat. In 1944, the Soviet High Command planned and carried out a number of brilliant strategic operations to defeat and encircle entire groups of German armies, so the losses of the Red Army are relatively small. But in 1945, daily losses increased again, because the stubbornness of the German army increased, since it was already fighting on its own territory, and the German soldiers courageously defended their fatherland.

Compare the losses of Germany with the losses of England and the United States on the Second Front. We will try to evaluate them based on the data of the well-known Russian demographer B. Ts. Urlanis. In the book "History of military losses", Urlanis, speaking of the losses of England and the United States, gives the following data:

Table 2. Losses of the British armed forces in the Second World War (in thousands of people)

In the war with Japan, England lost "11.4% of the total number of dead soldiers and officers", therefore, in order to estimate the magnitude of England's losses on the Second Front, we need to subtract the losses for 4 years of the war from the total losses and multiply by 1 - 0.114 = 0.886:

(1 246 - 667) 0.886 = 500 thousand people.

The total losses of the United States in World War II amounted to 1,070 thousand, of which about three-quarters were losses in the war with Germany, thus

1,070 * 0.75 = 800 thousand people

The total combined losses of England and the United States are

1,246 + 1,070 = 2,316 thousand people

Thus, the losses of England and the United States on the Second Front are approximately 60% of their total total losses in World War II.

As mentioned above, the losses of the USSR amount to 11.273 million people, that is, at first glance, they are not comparable with the losses of 1.3 million people suffered by England and the USA on the Second Front. On this basis, it is concluded that the Allied command fought skillfully and took care of people, while the Soviet High Command allegedly filled up the enemy trenches with the corpses of their soldiers. Let us disagree with such views. Based on the data on daily losses shown in Table 1, it can be obtained that from June 7, 1944 to May 8, 1945, that is, during the existence of the Second Front, the losses of the Red Army amounted to 1.8 million people, which only slightly exceeds the losses of the allies. As you know, the length of the Second Front was 640 km, and the Soviet-German - from 2,000 to 3,000 km, on average - 2,500 km, i.e. 4-5 times more than the length of the Second Front. Therefore, on a sector of the front with a length equal to the length of the Second Front, the Red Army lost about 450 thousand people, which is 3 times less than the losses of the allies.

On the fronts of World War II, the armed forces of Nazi Germany proper lost 7,181 thousand, and the armed forces of its allies - 1,468 thousand people, in total - 8,649 thousand.

Thus, the ratio of losses on the Soviet-German front turns out to be 13:10, that is, for 13 killed, missing, wounded, captured Soviet soldiers, there are 10 German ones.

According to the chief of the German General Staff F. Halder, in 1941-1942. the fascist army daily lost about 3,600 soldiers and officers, therefore, in the first two years of the war, the losses of the fascist bloc amounted to about two million people. This means that over the subsequent time, the losses of Germany and its allies amounted to about 6,600 thousand people. During the same period, the losses of the Red Army amounted to approximately 5 million people. Thus, in 1943-1945, for every 10 dead Red Army soldiers, there were 13 dead soldiers of the fascist army. This simple statistic clearly and objectively characterizes the quality of troop driving and the degree of respect for the soldiers.

General A.I. Denikin

“Be that as it may, no tricks could detract from the significance of the fact that the Red Army has been fighting skillfully for some time now, and the Russian soldier selflessly. It was impossible to explain the successes of the Red Army by numerical superiority alone. In our eyes, this phenomenon had a simple and natural explanation.

From time immemorial, a Russian person has been smart, talented and inwardly loved his homeland. From time immemorial, the Russian soldier has been immensely hardy and selflessly brave. These human and military qualities could not drown out in him twenty-five Soviet years of suppression of thought and conscience, collective farm slavery, Stakhanovist exhaustion and the substitution of national self-consciousness with international dogma. And when it became obvious to everyone that there was an invasion and conquest, and not liberation, that only the replacement of one yoke with another was foreseen - the people, postponing accounts with communism until a more appropriate time, rose beyond the Russian land in the same way as their ancestors rose during the invasions Swedish, Polish and Napoleonic ...

The inglorious Finnish campaign and the defeat of the Red Army by the Germans on the way to Moscow took place under the sign of the International; under the slogan of defending the Motherland, the German armies were defeated!”

The opinion of General A.I. Denikin is especially important for us because he received a deep and comprehensive education at the Academy of the General Staff, had his own rich experience in military operations, acquired in the Russian-Japanese, World War I and civil wars. His opinion is also important because, while remaining an ardent patriot of Russia, he was and until the end of his life remained a consistent enemy of Bolshevism, so you can rely on the impartiality of his assessment.

Consider the ratio of losses of the Allied and German armies. The literature gives the total losses of the German army, but data on the losses of Germany on the Second Front is not given, probably deliberately. The Great Patriotic War lasted 1418 days, the Second Front existed for 338 days, which is 1/4 of the duration of the Great Patriotic War. Therefore, it is assumed that Germany's losses on the Second Front are four times less. Thus, if Germany's losses on the Soviet-German front are 8.66 million people, then we can assume that Germany's losses on the Second Front are about 2.2 million, and the ratio of losses is about 10 to 20, which would seem to confirm point of view on the high military art of our allies in World War II.

It is impossible to agree with such a point of view. Some Western researchers do not agree with it either. “Against the inexperienced, albeit eager Americans and war-weary British, the Germans could field an army that, in the words of Max Hastings, “won a historical reputation for undaunted and reached its zenith under Hitler.” Hastings states: "Everywhere during the Second World War, whenever and wherever British and American troops met head-on, the Germans won."<…>Most of all, Hastings and other historians were struck by the ratio of losses, which was in the proportion of two to one and even higher in favor of the Germans.

American Colonel Trevor Dupuis conducted a detailed statistical study of German actions in World War II. Some of his explanations for why Hitler's armies were much more effective than their opponents seem unfounded. But no critic has questioned his main conclusion, that on almost every battlefield during the course of the war, including in Normandy, the German soldier performed more effectively than his opponents.

Unfortunately, we do not have the data that Hastings used, but if there is no direct data on German losses on the Second Front, then we will try to estimate them indirectly. Considering that the intensity of the battles waged by the German army in the West and in the East was the same, and that the losses per kilometer of the front are approximately equal, we find that Germany's losses on the Eastern Front should not be divided by 4, but, taking into account the difference in the length of the front line, around 15-16. Then it turns out that Germany lost no more than 600 thousand people on the Second Front. Thus, we get that on the Second Front the ratio of losses is 22 Anglo-American soldiers to 10 German soldiers, and not vice versa.

A similar ratio was observed in the Ardennes operation, which was carried out by the German command from December 16, 1944 to January 28, 1945. As the German General Melentin writes, during this operation, the allied army lost 77 thousand soldiers, and the German one - 25 thousand, that is, we get a ratio of 31 to 10, even exceeding that obtained above.

Based on the above reasoning, one can refute the myth about the insignificance of German losses on the Soviet-German front. It is said that allegedly Germany lost about 3.4 million people. If we assume that this value is true, then we will have to accept that German losses on the Second Front amounted to:

3.4 million / 16 = 200 thousand people,

which is 6-7 times less than the losses of England and the United States on the Second Front. If Germany fought so brilliantly on all fronts and suffered such insignificant losses, then it is not clear why she did not win the war? Therefore, the assumptions that the losses of the Anglo-American army are lower than the German ones, as well as that the German losses are significantly lower than the Soviet ones, must be rejected, since they are based on incredible numbers, is not consistent with reality and common sense.

Thus, it can be argued that the power of the German army was decisively undermined by the victorious Red Army on the Soviet-German front. With an overwhelming superiority in people and equipment, the Anglo-American command showed amazing indecision and inefficiency, one might say mediocrity, comparable to the confusion and unpreparedness of the Soviet command in initial period war in 1941-1942.

This assertion can be supported by a number of pieces of evidence. First, let's give a description of the actions of the special groups, which were led by the famous Otto Skorzeny, during the offensive of the German army in the Ardennes.

“On the first day of the offensive, one of Skorzeny’s groups managed to pass through a gap made in the allied lines and advance to Yun, which stretches near the banks of the Meuse. There she, having changed her German uniform to an American one, dug in and fortified herself at the intersection of roads and watched the movement of enemy troops. The group leader, who spoke fluent English, went so far as to walk around the area in his audacity to "get familiar with the situation."

A few hours later an armored regiment passed by them, and its commander asked them for directions. Without blinking an eye, the commander gave him the completely wrong answer. Namely, he stated that these “German pigs have just cut several roads. He himself received an order to make a big detour with his column. Very happy that they were warned in time, the American tankers actually headed along the path that "our man" showed them.

Returning to the location of their unit, this detachment cut several telephone lines and removed the signs posted by the American quartermaster service, and also planted mines in some places. Twenty-four hours later all the soldiers and officers of this group returned in good health to their troops, bringing interesting observations about the confusion that reigned behind the American front line at the beginning of the offensive.

Another of these small detachments also crossed the line and advanced all the way to the Meuse. According to his observations, the Allies can be said to have done nothing to protect the bridges in the area. On the way back, the detachment was able to block three highways leading to the front line, hanging colored ribbons on the trees, which, in the American army, mean that the roads are mined. Subsequently, Skorzeny's scouts saw that the columns of the British and American troops actually avoided these roads, preferring to make a big detour.

The third group found an ammunition depot. Waiting for the onset of darkness; the commandos "removed" the guards, and then blew up this warehouse. A little later, they found a telephone collector cable, which they managed to cut in three places.

But the most significant story happened to another detachment, which on December 16 suddenly appeared directly in front of the American lines. Two GI companies prepared for a long defense, lined up pillboxes and set up machine guns. Skorzeny's people must have been a little confused, especially when one American officer asked them what was going on there, on the front lines.

Pulling himself together, the commander of the detachment, dressed in the fine uniform of an American sergeant, told the Yankee captain a very interesting story. Probably, the confusion that was read on the faces of the German soldiers was attributed by the Americans to the last skirmish with the "damned bosses." The commander of the detachment, pseudo-sergeant, stated that the Germans had already bypassed this position, both on the right and on the left, so that it was practically surrounded. The startled American captain immediately gave the order to retreat.

We will also use the observations of the German tanker Otto Carius, who from 1941 to 1944 fought against Soviet soldiers, and from 1944 to 1945 against the Anglo-American. Here is an interesting event from his front-line experience in the West. “Practically all of our Kubel cars were put out of action. So we decided one evening to replenish our fleet at the expense of the American. It never occurred to anyone to consider this a heroic deed!

The Yankees slept in the houses at night, as the "front-line soldiers" were supposed to. Outside, at best, there was one sentry, but only if the weather was good. Around midnight we set off with four soldiers and returned pretty soon with two jeeps. It was convenient that they did not require keys. One had only to turn on the toggle switch, and the car was ready to go. It wasn't until we were back in our positions that the Yankees fired indiscriminately into the air, probably to calm their nerves."

Having personal experience wars on the eastern and western fronts, Carius concludes: "After all, five Russians were a greater danger than thirty Americans." Western researcher Stephen E. Ambrose says that casualties can be minimized "only by bringing the war to a speedy conclusion, and not by exercising caution during offensive operations."

Based on the above evidence and the ratios obtained above, it can be argued that at the final stage of the war, the Soviet command fought more skillfully than the German one and much more effectively than the Anglo-American, because “the art of warfare requires courage and intelligence, and not just superiority in technique and number of troops.

Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. M. "OLMA-PRESS". 2001 p. 246.
B. Ts. Urlanis. History of military losses. SPb. 1994 228-232.
O'Bradley. Soldier's Notes. Foreign literature. M 1957 p. 484.
Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. M. "OLMA-PRESS". 2001 p. 514.
Colonel General F. Halder. War diary. Volume 3, book 2. Military publishing house of the USSR Ministry of Defense. S. 436
D. Lekhovich. White versus red. Moscow Sunday. 1992 p. 335.

F. Melentin. Tank battles 1939-1945. Polygon AST. 2000
Otto Skorzeny. Smolensk. Rusich. 2000 p. 388, 389
Otto Carius. "Tigers in the Mud" M. Centropolygraph. 2005 p. 258, 256
Stephen E. Ambrose. Day "D" AST. M. 2003. p. 47, 49.
J.F.S. Fuller World War II 1939-1945 Publishing House of Foreign Literature. Moscow, 1956, p.26.

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