How many lives did World War 2 claim? Updated estimates of the number of deaths in the Great Patriotic War

In 1993, after the collapse of the USSR, the first public Soviet statistics of losses during World War II appeared, created under the leadership of General Grigory Krivosheev by order of the USSR Ministry of Defense. Here is an article by St. Petersburg amateur historian Vyacheslav Krasikov about what the Soviet military genius actually calculated.

The topic of Soviet losses in World War II still remains taboo in Russia, primarily due to the unwillingness of society and the state to look at this problem as an adult. The only “statistical” study on this topic is the work “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed: Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in Wars, Combat Actions and Military Conflicts,” published in 1993. In 1997, an English-language edition of the study was published, and in 2001, the second edition of “Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in Wars, Combat Actions and Military Conflicts” appeared.

If you do not pay attention to the shamefully late appearance of statistics on Soviet losses in general (almost 50 years after the end of the war), the work of Krivosheev, who headed a team of employees of the Ministry of Defense, did not make a big splash in the scientific world (of course, for post-Soviet autochthons it became a balm per capita, since it brought Soviet losses to the same level as German ones). One of the main sources of data for the team of authors led by Krivosheev is the General Staff fund in the central archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (TsAMO), which is still classified and where access is denied to researchers. That is, it is objectively impossible to verify the accuracy of the work of military archivists. For this reason, in the West, Krivosheev’s work science community, which has been dealing with the issue of losses in World War II for almost 60 years, reacted coolly and was simply not even noticed.

In Russia, numerous attempts were made to criticize the research of Grigory Krivosheev - critics reproached the general for methodological inaccuracies, the use of unverified and unproven data, purely arithmetic inconsistencies, and so on. As an example, you can look. We want to offer our readers not so much another criticism of Krivosheev’s work itself, but rather an attempt to introduce new, additional data (for example, party and Komsomol statistics), which will shed more light on the size of total Soviet losses. Perhaps this will further contribute to their gradual approach to reality and the development of normal, civilized scientific discussion in Russia. The article by Vyacheslav Krasikov, which contains all the links, can be downloaded in full. All scans of the books he refers to are

Soviet historiography: how many remain unforgotten?

After a war, civilized countries usually reflect on the course of battles by subjecting them to critical discussion in the light of enemy documents that have become available. Such work, of course, requires maximum objectivity. Otherwise, it is simply impossible to draw the right conclusions so as not to repeat past mistakes. However, the works that were published in the USSR in the first post-war decade cannot be called historical research even with great stretch. They consisted mainly of clichés on the theme of the inevitability of victory under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, the original superiority of Soviet military art and the genius of Comrade Stalin. During the life of the “leader of the peoples,” almost no memoirs were published, and the little that came out of print looked more like science fiction literature. The censorship essentially had no serious work to do in such a situation. Unless to identify those who are not diligent enough in the work of glorification. Therefore, this institute turned out to be completely unprepared for the surprises and metamorphoses of the hectic Khrushchev “thaw”.

However, the information explosion of the 50s was not the merit of Nikita Sergeevich alone. The above-described blissful idyll was destroyed by banal human ambition.

The fact is that in the West the process of understanding the recent hostilities followed a normal, civilized path. The generals talked about their achievements and shared smart thoughts with the public. The Soviet military elite, of course, also wanted to participate in such an interesting and exciting process, but the “Kremlin highlander” did not like this kind of activity. But after March 1953, this obstacle disappeared. As a result, the Soviet censorship was immediately bombarded with an order to publish translations of certain works about World War II written by former enemies and allies. In this case, they limited themselves to only excerpts of particularly unpleasant pages and editorial comments that helped Soviet readers “correctly” understand the work of “falsification-prone” foreigners. But when after this a large number of their own gold-purchasing authors received permission to publish memoirs, the process of “comprehension” finally got out of control. And it led to results that were completely unexpected for its initiators. Many events and figures became public knowledge, which, complementing and clarifying each other, formed a completely different mosaic than the previously existing picture of the war. What is the cost of just one threefold increase in the official figure of the total losses of the USSR from 7 to 20 million people?

Of course, the writers themselves understood what was going on and tried to pass over their own failures in silence. But something was reported about similar moments in the combat path of former comrades. As a result, side effects appeared. Such as the public scandal with written complaints against each other in the CPSU Central Committee of Marshals Zhukov and Chuikov, who did not share the victorious laurels. In addition, any fact that is pleasant at first glance can, in one fell swoop, destroy a myth that has been created over the years. For example, the information, flattering for high-ranking “home front workers,” that Soviet industry always produced more equipment than German industry, inevitably cast doubt on the general’s boast about victories “not in numbers, but in skill.”

Thus, military-historical science has taken, on the scale of the Soviet Union, a gigantic step forward. After which it became impossible to return to Stalin's times. However, with Brezhnev coming to power, they again tried to streamline matters in the field of covering the events of the Great Patriotic War.

Thus, by the mid-80s, the intellectual environment of domestic historiography of the Second World War was finally formed. Most of the specialists who are developing this topic today are also fed by its traditions. It cannot, of course, be said that all historians continue to cling to the stereotypes of “the times of Ochakov and the conquest of Crimea.” Suffice it to recall the “perestroika” euphoria of revelations, which ended in a huge scandal in 1991, when, in order to appease the generals from history, who had literally gone into “protective” hysteria, the editorial board was purged with the new 10-volume “History of the Great Patriotic War”, since its authors wanted to rise to objective analysis, made according to Western scientific standards. The result was the excommunication of “rootless cosmopolitans” from the archives, as well as corresponding organizational conclusions. The head of the Institute of Military History, General D. A. Volkogonov, was relieved of his post, and most of his young assistants were dismissed from the army. Control over the work on the preparation of the 10-volume work was tightened, for which purpose marshals and generals who had been tried and tested in their previous activities were involved in it. However, a fairly large amount of statistical information on this topic managed to escape through the archival doors during the post-war decades. Let's try to systematize it.

Official Soviet figures

If we carefully trace the history of how the “numerical equivalents” of the victims of World War II changed in the USSR, we will immediately discover that these changes were not in the nature of chaotic digital chaos, but were subject to easily traceable relationships and strict logic.

Until the end of the 80s of the last century, this logic boiled down to the fact that propaganda, although very, very slowly, was gradually giving way to science - albeit overly ideological, but based on archival materials. Therefore, Stalin’s 7,000,000 total military losses of the USSR under Khrushchev turned into 20,000,000, under Brezhnev into “more than 20,000,000,” and under Gorbachev into “more than 27,000,000.” The Armed Forces casualty figures also “danced” in the same direction. As a result, already in the early 60s it was officially recognized that more than 10,000,000 soldiers died at the front alone (not counting those who did not return from captivity). In the 70s of the last century, the figure “more than 10,000,000 died at the front” (not counting those killed in captivity) became generally accepted. It was cited in the most authoritative publications of the time. As an example, it is enough to recall the article by Corresponding Member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Colonel General of the Medical Service E.I. Smirnov, published in a collection that was prepared jointly by the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Military History of the USSR Ministry of Defense, and was published by the Nauka publishing house "

By the way, in the same year, another “milestone” book was presented to readers - “The Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945,” where the numbers of army losses and Red Army soldiers killed in captivity were made public. For example, in German concentration camps alone, up to 7 million civilians (?) and up to 4 million captured Red Army soldiers died, which gives a total of up to 14 million dead Red Army soldiers (10 million at the front and 4 million in captivity). Here, apparently, it is also appropriate to recall that at that time in the USSR, each such figure was an official state figure - it necessarily passed through the strictest censorship “sieve” - it was repeatedly double-checked and often reproduced in various reference and information publications.

In principle, in the USSR in the 70s, they essentially admitted that the army’s losses in those killed at the front and in captivity for the years 1941-1945 amounted to approximately 16,000,000 - 17,000,000 people. True, the statistics were published in a somewhat veiled form.

Here in the 1st volume of the Soviet Military Encyclopedia (article “Combat losses”) it says: “ So, if in the 1st World War about 10 million people were killed and died from wounds, then in the 2nd World War only the losses killed on the fronts amounted to 27 million people". These are precisely army losses, since the total number of deaths in World War II in the same publication is determined to be 50 million people.

If we subtract from these 27,000,000 losses Armed Forces all participants in World War II, except the USSR, then the remainder will be about 16-17 million. These figures are the number of military personnel killed (at the front and in captivity) recognized in the USSR. It was then possible to count “everyone except the USSR” using Boris Urlanis’s book “Wars and the Population of Europe,” which was first published in the Union in 1960. Now it is easy to find on the Internet under the title “History of War Losses”.

All of the above statistics on army losses were repeatedly reproduced in the USSR until the end of the 80s. But in 1990, the Russian General Staff published the results of its own new “refined” calculations of irretrievable army losses. Surprisingly, in some mysterious way they turned out not larger than the previous “stagnant” ones, but smaller. Moreover, less cool - almost in 2 times. Specifically – 8,668,400 people. The solution to the rebus here is simple - during the period of Gorbachev's perestroika, history was again politicized to the limit, turning into a propaganda tool. And the “big stripes” from the Ministry of Defense decided in this manner “on the sly” to improve the “patriotic” statistics.

Therefore, no explanation was given for such a strange arithmetic metamorphosis. On the contrary, soon these 8,668,400 (again without explanation) were “detailed” in the reference book “Classified as Classified”, which was then supplemented and republished. And what is most striking is that the Soviet figures were instantly forgotten - they simply quietly disappeared from books published under the patronage of the state. But the question about the logical absurdity of such a situation remains:

It turns out that for 3 decades in the USSR they tried to “denigrate” one of their most important achievements - the victory over Nazi Germany - they pretended that they fought worse than they really did and for this they published false data on army losses, inflated by two times. times.

But the real “beautiful” statistics were kept classified as “secret”...

Secrecy vulture eating the dead

By analyzing all the amazing data from Krivosheev’s “research”, several solid monographs can be written. Various authors are most often carried away by examples of analysis of the results of individual operations. These are, of course, good visual illustrations. However, they cast doubt only on specific figures – against the backdrop of overall losses, they are not very large.

Krivosheev hides the bulk of his losses among the “re-conscripts.” In “Statement of Secrecy” he indicates their number as “more than 2 million”, and in “Russia in Wars” he completely removes from the text of the book an indication of the number of this category of conscripts. He simply writes that the total number of mobilized people is 34,476,700 - excluding those re-conscripted. The exact number of re-conscripts - 2,237,000 people - was named by Krivosheev in only one article, published in a small-circulation collection sixteen years ago.

Who are the “recallees”? This is, for example, when a person was seriously wounded in 1941 and, after a long treatment, was “written off” from the army “due to health.” But, when in the second half of the war human resources were already coming to an end, the medical requirements were revised and lowered. As a result, the man was again declared fit for service and drafted into the army. And in 1944 he was killed. Thus, Krivosheev counts this person among the mobilized only once. But he is “removed” from the ranks of the army twice - first as a disabled person, and then as a dead man. Ultimately, it turns out that one of the “withdrawn” is hidden from being included in the total irrecoverable losses.

Another example. The man was mobilized, but was soon transferred to the NKVD troops. A few months later, this part of the NKVD was transferred back to the Red Army (for example, on the Leningrad Front in 1942, an entire division was transferred from the NKVD to the Red Army at once - they simply changed the number). But Krivosheev takes this soldier into account in the initial transfer from the army to the NKVD, but does not notice the return transfer from the NKVD to the Red Army (since his re-conscripts are excluded from the list of mobilized). Therefore, it turns out that the person is again “hidden” - he is actually a member of the post-war army, but is not taken into account by Krivosheev.

Another example. The man was mobilized, but in 1941 he went missing - he remained surrounded and “took root” among the civilian population. In 1943, this territory was liberated, and the Primak was again drafted into the army. However, in 1944 his leg was torn off. As a result, disability and write-off “clean”. Krivosheev deducts this person from 34,476,700 as many as three times - first as a missing person, then among the 939,700 encircled people called up in the former occupied territory, and also as a disabled person. It turns out that he is “hiding” two losses.

It would take a long time to list all the tricks used in the reference book to “improve” statistics. But it is much more productive to recalculate the figures that Krivosheev proposes as basic ones. But count in normal logic - without “patriotic” guile. To do this, let us again turn to the statistics indicated by the general in the small-circulation collection on losses already mentioned above.

Then we get:
4,826,900 – the strength of the Red Army and the Red Army on June 22, 1941.
31,812,200 – Number of mobilized (including re-conscripts) during the entire war.
Total – 36,639,100 people.

After the end of hostilities in Europe (at the beginning of June 1945), there were a total of 12,839,800 people in the Red Army and the Red Army (along with the wounded in hospitals). From here you can find out the total losses: 36.639.100 – 12.839.800 = 23.799.300

Next, let's count those who various reasons left the USSR Armed Forces alive, but not at the front:
3,798,200 – commissioned due to health reasons.
3,614,600 – transferred to industry, MPVO and VOKhR.
1,174,600 - transferred to the NKVD.
250,400 - transferred to the Allied armies.
206,000 were expelled as unreliable.
436,600 – convicted and sent to prison.
212.400 – deserters not found.
Total – 9.692.800

Let us subtract these “living” from the total losses and thus find out how many people died at the front and in captivity, and were also released from captivity in the last weeks of the war.
23.799.300 – 9.692.800 = 14.106.500

To establish the final number of demographic losses suffered by the Armed Forces, it is necessary to subtract from 14,106,500 those who returned from captivity but did not re-enlist in the army. For a similar purpose, Krivosheev deducts 1,836,000 people registered by the repatriation authorities. This is another trick. In the collection “War and Society”, prepared by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute Russian history An article by V. N. Zemskov “Repatriation of displaced Soviet citizens” was published, where all the components of the number of prisoners of war that interests us are revealed in detail.

It turns out that 286,299 prisoners were released on the territory of the USSR before the end of 1944. Of these, 228,068 people were re-mobilized into the army. And in 1944-1945 (during the period of hostilities outside the USSR), 659,190 people were released and mobilized into the army. Simply put, they are also already included among the re-callers.

That is, 887,258 (228,068 + 659,190) former prisoners at the beginning of June 1945 were among the 12,839,800 souls who served in the Red Army and the Red Army. Consequently, from 14,106,500 it is necessary to subtract not 1.8 million, but approximately 950,000 who were released from captivity, but were not mobilized a second time into the army during the war.

As a result, we get at least 13,150,000 military personnel of the Red Army and the Red Army who died in 1941-1945 at the front, in captivity and were among the “defectors.” However, that's not all. Krivosheev also “hides” losses (killed, died in captivity and defectors) among those written off for health reasons. Here, “The classification of secrecy has been lifted” p. 136 (or “Russia in the wars...” p. 243). In the figure of 3,798,158 disabled people, he also takes into account those who were sent on leave due to injury. In other words, people did not leave the army - they were actually listed in its ranks, and the directory excludes them and thus “hides” at least several hundred thousand more killed.

That is, if we proceed from the figures that Krivosheev himself proposes as the initial basis for calculations, but treat them without the general’s manipulations, then we will get not 8,668,400 killed at the front, in captivity and “defectors,” but about 13,500. 000.

Through the prism of party statistics

However, the data on the number of mobilized in 1941-1945, which Krivosheev stated as “baseline” figures for calculating losses, also seem to be underestimated. A similar conclusion arises if you check the reference book with information from official statistics of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Komsomol. These calculations are much more accurate than army reports, since in the Red Army people often did not even have documents or even posthumous medallions (the Interpreter’s blog partially touched on the related topic of dog tags in the Red Army). But communists and Komsomol members were taken into account incomparably better. Each of them necessarily had a party card in hand and regularly participated in party meetings, the minutes of which (indicating the number of names of the “cell”) were sent to Moscow.

This data was sent separately from the army - along a parallel party line. And this figure was published much more willingly in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev USSR - censorship treated it more leniently - as indicators of ideological victories, where even losses were perceived as proof of the unity of society and the people’s devotion to the system of socialism.

The essence of the calculation comes down to the fact that the losses of the USSR Armed Forces in terms of Komsomol members and communists are known quite accurately. In total, by the beginning of the war in the USSR there were slightly less than 4,000,000 members of the CPSU (b). Of these, 563,000 were in the Armed Forces. During the war years, 5,319,297 people joined the party. And immediately after the end of hostilities, there were about 5,500,000 people in its ranks. Of which 3,324,000 served in the Armed Forces.

That is, the total losses of members of the CPSU (b) amounted to more than 3,800,000 people. Of which, about 3,000,000 died at the front in the ranks of the Armed Forces. In total, approximately 6,900,000 communists passed through the Armed Forces of the USSR in 1941-1945 (out of 9,300,000 in the party during the same period of time). This figure consists of 3,000,000 killed at the front, 3,324,000 who were in the Armed Forces immediately after the end of hostilities in Europe, as well as about 600,000 disabled people discharged from the Armed Forces in 1941-1945.

Here it is very useful to pay attention to the ratio of killed and disabled people: 3,000,000 to 600,000 = 5:1. And Krivosheev has 8,668,400 to 3,798,000 = 2.3:1. This is a very eloquent fact. Let us repeat once again that party members were taken into account incomparably more carefully than non-party members. They were obligatorily given a party card; each unit (up to the company level) had its own party cell, which registered each newly arrived party member. Therefore, party statistics were much more accurate than ordinary army statistics. And the difference in this very accuracy is clearly illustrated by the ratio between those killed and disabled among non-party members and communists in official Soviet figures and in Krivosheev.

Now let's move on to the Komsomol members. As of June 1941, the Komsomol numbered 1,926,000 people from the Red Army and the Red Army. At least several tens of thousands more people were included in Komsomol organizations NKVD troops. Therefore, we can accept that in total there were about 2,000,000 members of the Komsomol in the Armed Forces of the USSR at the beginning of the war.

More than 3,500,000 more Komsomol members were drafted into the Armed Forces during the war years. In the Armed Forces themselves, during the war years, more than 5,000,000 people were accepted into the ranks of the Komsomol.

That is, in total, more than 10,500,000 people passed through the Komsomol in the Armed Forces in 1941-1945. Of these, 1,769,458 people joined the CPSU(b). Thus, it turns out that in total no less than 15,600,000 communists and Komsomol members passed through the Armed Forces in 1941-1945 (about 6,900,000 communists + more than 10,500,000 Komsomol members - 1,769,458 Komsomol members who joined the CPSU(b).

This is approximately 43% of the 36,639,100 people who, according to Krivosheev, passed through the Armed Forces during the war years. However, official Soviet statistics of the 60-80s do not confirm this ratio. It says that at the beginning of January 1942, there were 1,750,000 Komsomol members and 1,234,373 communists in the Armed Forces. This is slightly more than 25% of the entire armed forces, which numbered about 11.5 million people (including the wounded who were being treated).

Even twelve months later, the share of communists and Komsomol members was no more than 33%. At the beginning of January 1943, there were 1,938,327 communists and 2,200,200 Komsomol members in the Armed Forces. That is, 1,938,327 + 2,200,000 = 4,150,000 communists and Komsomol members from the Armed Forces, which had approximately 13,000,000 people.

13,000,000, since Krivosheev himself claims that since 1943 the USSR has supported the army at the level of 11,500,000 people (plus approximately 1,500,000 in hospitals). In mid-1943, the share of communists and non-party members did not increase very noticeably, reaching only 36% in July. At the beginning of January 1944, there were 2,702,566 communists and approximately 2,400,000 Komsomol members in the Armed Forces. I haven’t found a more accurate figure yet, but in December 1943 it was exactly 2,400,000 - the highest number for the entire war. That is, in January 1943 it could not have happened anymore. It turns out - 2,702,566 + 2,400,000 = approximately 5,100,000 communists and Komsomol members from an army of 13,000,000 people - about 40%.

At the beginning of January 1945, there were 3,030,758 communists and 2,202,945 Komsomol members in the Armed Forces. That is, at the beginning of 1945, the share of communists and Komsomol members (3,030,758 + 2,202,945) in the army of approximately 13,000,000 people was again approximately 40%. It is also appropriate to remember here that the bulk of the losses of the Red Army and the Red Army (and, accordingly, the number of mobilized people called to replace them) occurred in the first year and a half of the war, when the share of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Komsomol was less than 33%. That is, it turns out that on average during the war the share of communists and Komsomol members in the Armed Forces was no more than 35%. In other words, if we take as a basis the total number of communists and Komsomol members (15,600,000), then the number of people who passed through the Armed Forces of the USSR in 1941-1945 will be approximately 44,000,000. And not 36,639,100, as indicated by Krivosheev. Accordingly, total losses will increase.

By the way, the total losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR for 1941-1945 can also be approximately calculated if we start from the official Soviet data on losses among communists and Komsomol members, published in the 60-80s. They say that the army organizations of the CPSU (b) lost approximately 3,000,000 people. And the Komsomol organization has approximately 4,000,000 people. In other words, 35% of the army lost 7,000,000. Consequently, the entire Armed Forces lost about 19,000,000 – 20,000,000 souls (those killed at the front, those who died in captivity and those who became “defectors”).

Losses of 1941

By analyzing the dynamics of the number of communists and Komsomol members in the Armed Forces, it is possible to quite clearly calculate Soviet front-line losses by year of the war. They are also at least two times (usually more than two) higher than the data published in the Krivosheevsky reference book.

For example, Krivosheev reports that in June-December 1941 the Red Army irretrievably lost (killed, missing, died from wounds and illnesses) 3,137,673 people. This figure is easy to check. The encyclopedia “The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945” reports that by June 1941 there were 563 thousand communists in the army and navy. It is further stated that in the first six months of the war, over 500,000 members of the CPSU (b) died. And that on January 1, 1942, there were 1,234,373 party members in the army and navy.

How do you know what meaning lies behind “above”? The twelfth volume of “The History of the Second World War 1939-1945” states that during the first six months of the war, more than 1,100,000 communists joined the army and navy organizations from the “civilian” era. It turns out: 563 (as of June 22) + “more than” 1,100,000 (mobilized) = “more than” 1,663,000 communists.
Further. In the sixth volume “History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945” from the plate “Numerical growth of the party” you can find out that military party organizations accepted 145,870 people into their ranks in July-December 1941.

It turns out: “More than” 1,663,000 + 145,870 = “more than” 1,808,870 communists were involved in the Red Army in June-December 1941. Now from this amount we subtract the amount that was on January 1, 1942:
“More”1.808.870 – 1.234.373 = “More” 574.497

It was we who received irrevocable losses of the CPSU (b) - killed, captured, missing.

Now let's decide on the Komsomol members. From the “Soviet Military Encyclopedia” you can find out that at the beginning of the war there were 1,926,000 Komsomol members in the army and navy. The encyclopedia “The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945” reports that in the first six months of the war, over 2,000,000 Komsomol members were drafted into the army and navy and indicates that in addition to the Komsomol, 207,000 people were already accepted into the ranks of the Red Army and the Red Army. We also see there that by the end of 1941, the Komsomol organizations in the Armed Forces numbered 1,750,000 people.

Let’s count – 1,926,000 + “over” 2,000,000 + 207,000 = “over” 4,133,000. This is the total number of Komsomol members who passed through the Armed Forces in 1941. Now you can find out the deadweight loss. From the total quantity we subtract what we had on January 1, 1942: “Over” 4,133,000 – 1,750,000 = “over” 2,383,000.

It was we who received the killed, missing, and captured.

However, here the figure should be reduced a little - by the number of people who left the Komsomol by age. That is, approximately one tenth of those remaining in service. It is also necessary to take away the Komsomol members who joined the CPSU (b) - approximately 70,000 people. Thus, according to a very conservative estimate, the irretrievable losses of the Red Army and the Red Army among communists and Komsomol members amounted to at least 2,500,000 souls. And Krivosheev’s number in this column is 3,137,673. Of course, together with non-party members.

3,137,673 – 2,500,000 = 637,673 – this remains with non-party members.

How many non-party members were mobilized in 1941? Krivosheev writes that by the beginning of the war there were 4,826,907 souls in the Red Army and Navy. In addition, another 805,264 people were at training camps in the ranks of the Red Army at that time. It turns out - 4,826,907 + 805,264 = 5,632,171 people by June 22, 1941.

How many people were mobilized in June - December 1941? The answer is found in an article by General Gradoselsky published in the Military Historical Journal. From the analysis of the figures given there, we can conclude that during the two mobilizations of 1941, more than 14,000,000 people came to the Red Army and the Red Red Army (excluding militias). In total, 5,632,171 + more than 14,000,000 = approximately 20,000,000 people were involved in the army in 1941. This means that from 20,000,000 we subtract “more” 1,808,870 communists and about 4,000,000 Komsomol members. We get about 14,000,000 non-party people.

And, if you look at these figures through the statistics of losses in the Krivosheev directory, it turns out that 6,000,000 communists and Komsomol members irretrievably lost 2,500,000 people. And 14,000,000 non-party people, 637,673 people...

Simply put, the losses of non-party members are underestimated by at least six times. And the total irretrievable losses of the Soviet Armed Forces in 1941 should be not 3,137,673, but 6-7 million. This is based on the most minimal estimates. Most likely more.

In this regard, it is useful to remember that the German Armed Forces in 1941 lost about 300,000 people killed and missing on the Eastern Front. That is, for each of their soldiers, the Germans took at least 20 souls from the Soviet side. Most likely, more - up to 25. This is approximately the same ratio with which European armies of the 19th-20th centuries beat African savages in colonial wars.

The difference in the information that governments communicated to their people looks about the same. Hitler in one of his last public speaking in March 1945 announced that Germany had lost 6,000,000 people in the war. Now historians believe that this was not very different from reality, determining the final result at 6,500,000-7,000,000 dead at the front and in the rear. Stalin said in 1946 that Soviet losses amounted to about 7,000,000 lives. Over the next half century, the number of human losses in the USSR increased to 27,000,000. And there is a strong suspicion that this is not the limit.

Editor's note . For 70 years, first the top leadership of the USSR (rewriting history), and later the government Russian Federation supported a monstrous and cynical lie about the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century - the Second World War, mainly by privatizing the victory in it and keeping silent about its cost and the role of other countries in the outcome of the war. Now in Russia they have made a ceremonial picture of victory, they support victory at all levels, and the cult of the St. George’s ribbon has reached such an ugly form that it has actually developed into outright mockery of the memory of millions of fallen people. And while the whole world mourns for those who died fighting Nazism or became its victims, eReFiya is organizing a blasphemous Sabbath. And over these 70 years, the exact number of losses of Soviet citizens in that war has not been finally clarified. The Kremlin is not interested in this, just as it is not interested in publishing statistics on the deaths of Russian military personnel in the Donbass, in the Russian-Ukrainian war, which it unleashed. Only a few who did not succumb to the influence of Russian propaganda are trying to find out the exact number of losses in WWII.

In the article that we bring to your attention, the most important thing is that the Soviet and Russian authorities did not care about the fate of how many millions of people, while promoting their feat in every possible way.

Estimates of the losses of Soviet citizens in World War II have a huge range: from 19 to 36 million. The first detailed calculations were made by the Russian emigrant, demographer Timashev in 1948 - he came up with 19 million. The maximum figure was called by B. Sokolov - 46 million. The latest calculations show , that the USSR military alone lost 13.5 million people, but the total losses were over 27 million.

At the end of the war, long before any historical and demographic studies, Stalin named the figure - 5.3 million military losses. He also included missing persons (obviously, in most cases, prisoners). In March 1946, in an interview with a correspondent of the Pravda newspaper, the generalissimo estimated the human losses at 7 million. The increase was due to civilians who died in the occupied territory or were deported to Germany.

In the West, this figure was perceived with skepticism. Already at the end of the 1940s, the first calculations of the demographic balance of the USSR during the war years appeared, contradicting Soviet data. An illustrative example is the calculations of the Russian emigrant, demographer N. S. Timashev, published in the New York “New Journal” in 1948. Here is his technique.

The All-Union Population Census of the USSR in 1939 determined its number at 170.5 million. Growth in 1937-1940. reached, according to his assumption, almost 2% for each year. Consequently, the population of the USSR by mid-1941 should have reached 178.7 million. But in 1939-1940. Western Ukraine and Belarus, three Baltic states, the Karelian lands of Finland were annexed to the USSR, and Romania returned Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Therefore, minus the Karelian population who went to Finland, the Poles who fled to the West, and the Germans repatriated to Germany, these territorial acquisitions gave a population increase of 20.5 million. Considering that the birth rate in the annexed territories was no more than 1% in year, that is, lower than in the USSR, and also taking into account the short time period between their entry into the USSR and the beginning of World War II, the author determined the population growth for these territories by mid-1941 at 300 thousand. Consistently adding up the above figures, he received 200.7 million who lived in the USSR on the eve of June 22, 1941.

Timashev further divided 200 million into three age groups, again relying on data from the 1939 All-Union Census: adults (over 18 years old) - 117.2 million, teenagers (from 8 to 18 years old) - 44.5 million, children (under 8 years) - 38.8 million. At the same time, he took into account two important circumstances. First: in 1939-1940. From childhood, two very weak annual streams moved from childhood to the group of teenagers, born in 1931-1932, during the famine, which covered large areas of the USSR and negatively affected the size of the teenage group. Second: in the former Polish lands and Baltic states there were more people over 20 years of age than in the USSR.

Timashev supplemented these three age groups with the number of Soviet prisoners. He did it in the following way. By the time of the elections of deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in December 1937, the population of the USSR reached 167 million, of which voters made up 56.36% of the total figure, and the population over 18 years of age, according to the All-Union Census of 1939, reached 58.3%. The resulting difference of 2%, or 3.3 million, in his opinion, was the population of the Gulag (including the number of those executed). This turned out to be close to the truth.

Next, Timashev moved on to post-war figures. The number of voters included in the voting lists for the elections of deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in the spring of 1946 amounted to 101.7 million. Adding to this figure the 4 million Gulag prisoners he calculated, he received 106 million adult population in the USSR at the beginning of 1946. When calculating the adolescent group, he took as a basis the 31.3 million primary and secondary school students in 1947/48 academic year, compared with data from 1939 (31.4 million schoolchildren within the borders of the USSR before September 17, 1939) and arrived at a figure of 39 million. When calculating the children’s group, he proceeded from the fact that by the beginning of the war the birth rate in the USSR was approximately 38 per 1000, in the second quarter of 1942 it decreased by 37.5%, and in 1943-1945. - half.

Subtracting from each year group the percentage calculated according to the normal mortality table for the USSR, he received 36 million children at the beginning of 1946. Thus, according to his statistical calculations, in the USSR at the beginning of 1946 there were 106 million adults, 39 million adolescents and 36 million children, and a total of 181 million. Timashev’s conclusion is as follows: the population of the USSR in 1946 was 19 million less than in 1941.

Other Western researchers came to approximately the same results. In 1946, under the auspices of the League of Nations, F. Lorimer’s book “The Population of the USSR” was published. According to one of his hypotheses, during the war the population of the USSR decreased by 20 million.

In the article “Human Losses in the Second World War,” published in 1953, the German researcher G. Arntz came to the conclusion that “20 million people is the closest figure to the truth of the total losses of the Soviet Union in the Second World War.” The collection including this article was translated and published in the USSR in 1957 under the title “Results of the Second World War.” Thus, four years after Stalin’s death, Soviet censorship released the figure of 20 million into the open press, thereby indirectly recognizing it as correct and making it available, at least, to specialists: historians, international affairs experts, etc.

Only in 1961, Khrushchev, in a letter to Swedish Prime Minister Erlander, admitted that the war against fascism “claimed two tens of millions of lives of Soviet people.” Thus, compared to Stalin, Khrushchev increased Soviet casualties by almost 3 times.

In 1965, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, Brezhnev spoke of “more than 20 million” human lives lost by the Soviet people in the war. In the 6th and final volume of the fundamental “History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union,” published at the same time, it was stated that of the 20 million dead, almost half “were military and civilians killed and tortured by the Nazis in occupied Soviet territory.” In fact, 20 years after the end of the war, the USSR Ministry of Defense recognized the death of 10 million Soviet troops.

Four decades later, the head of the Center for Military History of Russia at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor G. Kumanev, in a line-by-line commentary, told the truth about the calculations that military historians carried out in the early 1960s when preparing the “History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union”: “Our losses in the war were then it was determined at 26 million. But the figure “over 20 million” was accepted by high authorities.”

As a result, “20 Million” not only took root in historical literature for decades, but also became part of the national consciousness.

In 1990, M. Gorbachev made public new figure losses obtained as a result of research by demographers - “almost 27 million people.”

In 1991, B. Sokolov’s book “The Price of Victory” was published. The Great Patriotic War: the unknown about the known.” It estimated direct military losses of the USSR at approximately 30 million, including 14.7 million military personnel, and “actual and potential losses” at 46 million, including 16 million unborn children.”

A little later, Sokolov clarified these figures (he added new losses). He obtained the loss figure as follows. From the size of the Soviet population at the end of June 1941, which he determined to be 209.3 million, he subtracted 166 million who, in his opinion, lived in the USSR on January 1, 1946, and received 43.3 million dead. Then, from the resulting number, I subtracted the irretrievable losses of the Armed Forces (26.4 million) and received the irretrievable losses of the civilian population - 16.9 million.

“We can name the number of Red Army soldiers killed during the entire war, which is close to reality, if we determine the month of 1942, when the Red Army’s losses in casualties were taken into account most fully and when it had almost no losses in prisoners. For a number of reasons, we chose November 1942 as such a month and extended the ratio of the number of dead and wounded obtained for it to the entire period of the war. As a result, we came to a figure of 22.4 million Soviet military personnel killed in battle and died from wounds, illnesses, accidents and executed by tribunals.”

To the 22.4 million received in this way, he added 4 million soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who died in enemy captivity. This is how it turned out to be 26.4 million irretrievable losses suffered by the Armed Forces.

In addition to B. Sokolov, similar calculations were carried out by L. Polyakov, A. Kvasha, V. Kozlov and others. The methodological weakness of this kind of calculations is obvious: the researchers proceeded from the difference between the size of the Soviet population in 1941, which is known very approximately, and the size of the post-war population USSR, which is almost impossible to accurately determine. It was this difference that they considered the total human losses.

In 1993, a statistical study “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed: Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in Wars, Combat Actions and Military Conflicts” was published, prepared by a team of authors headed by General G. Krivosheev. The main source of statistical data was previously secret archival documents, primarily reports of the General Staff. However, the losses of entire fronts and armies in the first months, and the authors specifically stipulated this, were obtained by calculation. In addition, the reporting of the General Staff did not include the losses of units that were not organizationally part of the Soviet Armed Forces (army, navy, border and internal troops of the NKVD of the USSR), but were directly involved in the battles: people's militia, partisan detachments, groups of underground fighters.

Finally, the number of prisoners of war and missing in action is clearly underestimated: this category of losses, according to the reports of the General Staff, totals 4.5 million, of which 2.8 million remained alive (were repatriated after the end of the war or again drafted into the ranks of the Red Army in the liberated from the occupiers of the territory), and, accordingly, the total number of those who did not return from captivity, including those who did not want to return to the USSR, amounted to 1.7 million.

As a result, the statistical data in the “Classified as Classified” directory was immediately perceived as requiring clarification and additions. And in 1998, thanks to the publication of V. Litovkin “During the war years, our army lost 11 million 944 thousand 100 people,” these data were replenished by 500 thousand reservists drafted into the army, but not yet included in the lists of military units and who died along the way to the front.

The study by V. Litovkin states that from 1946 to 1968, a special commission of the General Staff, headed by General S. Shtemenko, prepared a statistical reference book on losses in 1941-1945. At the end of the commission’s work, Shtemenko reported to the USSR Minister of Defense Marshal A. Grechko: “Taking into account that the statistical collection contains information national importance, the publication of which in the press (including closed ones) or in any other way is currently not necessary and undesirable, the collection is supposed to be stored at the General Staff as a special document, which will be accessible to a strictly limited circle of people.” And the prepared collection was kept under seven seals until the team under the leadership of General G. Krivosheev made its information public.

V. Litovkin’s research sowed even greater doubts about the completeness of the information published in the collection “Classified as Classified”, because a logical question arose: were all the data contained in the “statistics collection of the Shtemenko Commission” declassified?

For example, according to the data given in the article, during the war years, military justice authorities convicted 994 thousand people, of whom 422 thousand were sent to penal units, 436 thousand to places of detention. The remaining 136 thousand were apparently shot.

And yet, the reference book “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed” significantly expanded and complemented the ideas not only of historians, but of everyone Russian society about the price of the Victory of 1945. It is enough to refer to the statistical calculation: from June to November 1941, the Armed Forces of the USSR lost 24 thousand people every day, of which 17 thousand were killed and up to 7 thousand wounded, and from January 1944 to May 1945 - 20 thousand people , of which 5.2 thousand were killed and 14.8 thousand were wounded.

In 2001, a significantly expanded statistical publication appeared - “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. Losses of the armed forces." The authors supplemented the General Staff materials with reports from military headquarters about losses and notifications from military registration and enlistment offices about the dead and missing, which were sent to relatives at their place of residence. And the figure of losses he received increased to 9 million 168 thousand 400 people. These data were reproduced in volume 2 of the collective work of the staff of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Population of Russia in the 20th century. Historical essays”, published under the editorship of academician Yu. Polyakov.

In 2004, the second, corrected and expanded, edition of the book by the head of the Center for Military History of Russia at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor G. Kumanev, “Feat and Forgery: Pages of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945,” was published. It provides data on losses: about 27 million Soviet citizens. And in the footnote comments to them, the same addition mentioned above appeared, explaining that the calculations of military historians back in the early 1960s gave a figure of 26 million, but the “high authorities” preferred to accept something else as the “historical truth”: “over 20 million."

Meanwhile, historians and demographers continued to look for new approaches to determining the magnitude of the USSR's losses in the war.

The historian Ilyenkov, who served in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, followed an interesting path. He tried to calculate the irretrievable losses of the Red Army personnel based on the files of irretrievable losses of privates, sergeants and officers. These files began to be created when, on July 9, 1941, a department for recording personal losses was organized as part of the Main Directorate for the Formation and Recruitment of the Red Army (GUFKKA). The responsibilities of the department included personal accounting of losses and compiling an alphabetical card index of losses.

The records were kept in the following categories: 1) dead - according to reports from military units, 2) dead - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices, 3) missing in action - according to reports from military units, 4) missing - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices, 5) dead in German captivity , 6) those who died from illnesses, 7) those who died from wounds - according to reports from military units, those who died from wounds - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices. At the same time, the following were taken into account: deserters; military personnel sentenced to forced labor camps; sentenced to capital punishment - execution; removed from the register of irretrievable losses as survivors; those on suspicion of having served with the Germans (the so-called “signals”), and those who were captured but survived. These military personnel were not included in the list of irretrievable losses.

After the war, the card files were deposited in the Archive of the USSR Ministry of Defense (now the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation). Since the early 1990s, the archive began counting registration cards by letters of the alphabet and categories of losses. As of November 1, 2000, 20 letters of the alphabet were processed; a preliminary calculation was carried out using the remaining 6 uncounted letters, which had fluctuations up or down by 30-40 thousand persons.

The calculated 20 letters for 8 categories of losses of privates and sergeants of the Red Army gave the following figures: 9 million 524 thousand 398 people. At the same time, 116 thousand 513 people were removed from the register of irretrievable losses as those who turned out to be alive according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices.

A preliminary calculation based on 6 uncounted letters gave 2 million 910 thousand people as irretrievable losses. The result of the calculations was as follows: 12 million 434 thousand 398 Red Army soldiers and sergeants were lost by the Red Army in 1941-1945. (Recall that this is without losses of the Navy, internal and border troops of the NKVD of the USSR.)

Using the same methodology, the alphabetical card index of irretrievable losses of officers of the Red Army was calculated, which is also stored in the TsAMO of the Russian Federation. They amounted to about 1 million 100 thousand people.

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

These data are 4 million 865 thousand 998 people higher than the irretrievable losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR (payroll) according to the General Staff, which included the Red Army, sailors, border guards, and internal troops of the NKVD of the USSR.

Finally, we note another new trend in the study of the demographic results of the Second World War. Before the collapse of the USSR, there was no need to estimate human losses for individual republics or nationalities. And only at the end of the twentieth century L. Rybakovsky tried to calculate the approximate amount of human losses of the RSFSR within its then borders. According to his estimates, it amounted to approximately 13 million people - slightly less than half of the total losses of the USSR.

(Quotes: S. Golotik and V. Minaev - “Demographic losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War: history of calculations”, “New Historical Bulletin”, No. 16, 2007.)

On the eve of Victory Day, I would like to raise several important, fundamental issues. I will try to outline in general terms the pre-war potential of the USSR and Nazi Germany, and will also provide data on human losses on both sides, including the latest. There is also the latest data on the number of dead Yakut residents.

The issue of losses in the Second World War has been discussed throughout the world for several years. There are various assessments, including sensational ones. Quantitative indicators are influenced not only by various calculation methods, but also by ideology and a subjective approach.

Western countries, led by the USA and England, tirelessly repeat the mantra that victory was “forged” in the sands North Africa, Normandy, on the sea routes of the North Atlantic and through the bombing of industrial targets in Germany and its allies.

The USSR’s war against Germany and its allies is presented to the Western public as “unknown.” Some residents Western countries, judging by polls, they seriously claim that the USSR and Germany were allies in that war.

The second favorite saying of some Westerners and home-grown “Western-style” liberal democrats is that the Victory over fascism was “littered with the corpses of Soviet soldiers,” “one rifle for four,” “the command threw its soldiers at machine guns, the retreating detachments were shot,” “ millions of prisoners,” without the help of the allied troops, the Red Army’s victory over the enemy would have been impossible.

Unfortunately, after N.S. Khrushchev came to power, some of the Soviet military leaders, in order to elevate their role in the battle against the “brown plague” of the 20th century, described in their memoirs the implementation of orders from the Headquarters of Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin, as a result of which Soviet troops suffered unreasonably high losses.

And few people pay attention to the fact that during the period of active defensive, and even offensive battles, the main task was and is to achieve replenishment - additional troops from the reserve. And in order to satisfy the request, you need to provide such a combat note about the large losses of personnel of a particular military unit in order to receive replenishment.

As always, the truth is in the middle!

At the same time, official data on the losses of Nazi armies on the Soviet side were often clearly underestimated or, conversely, overestimated, which led to a complete distortion of statistical data on the military losses of Nazi Germany and its direct allies.

Captured documents available in the USSR, in particular, 10-day reports from OKW (the highest military command of the Wehrmacht), were classified, and only in Lately military historians gained access to them.

For the first time, I.V. Stalin announced the losses of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War in 1946. He said that as a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irretrievably lost about seven million people in battles with the Germans, as well as as a result of the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet people to German penal servitude.

Then N.S. Khrushchev, in 1961, having debunked Stalin’s personality cult, in a conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, mentioned that 20 million people died in the war.

And finally, a group of researchers led by G.F. Krivosheev estimates the total human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, determined by the demographic balance method, at 26.6 million people. This includes all those killed as a result of military and other actions of the enemy, those who died as a result of military and other actions of the enemy, those who died as a result of higher level mortality during the war in the occupied territory and in the rear, as well as persons who emigrated from the USSR during the war and did not return after its end.

Data on the losses of G. Krivosheev’s group are considered official. In 2001, the updated figures were as follows. USSR casualties:

- 6.3 million military personnel were killed or died from wounds,

- 555 thousand died from illnesses, as a result of accidents, incidents, were sentenced to death,

- 4.5 million– were captured and disappeared;

General demographic losses – 26.6 million Human.

German casualties:

- 4.046 million military personnel were killed, died of wounds, or went missing.

At the same time, the irretrievable losses of the armies of the USSR and Germany (including prisoners of war) are 11.5 million and 8.6 million (not counting 1.6 million prisoners of war after May 9, 1945), respectively.

However, new data is now emerging.

The beginning of the war is June 22, 1941. What was the balance of power between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union? What forces and capabilities did Hitler count on when preparing an attack on the USSR? How feasible was the “Barbarossa” plan prepared by the Wehrmacht General Staff?

It should be noted that in June 1941 the total population of Germany, including its direct allies, was 283 million people, and in the USSR - 160 million. Germany's direct allies at that time were: Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Croatia. In the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht personnel numbered 8.5 million people; four army groups with a total number of 7.4 million people were concentrated on the border with the USSR. Nazi Germany was armed with 5,636 tanks, more than 61,000 guns of various calibers, and over 10,000 aircraft (excluding the weapons of allied military formations).

General characteristics of the Red Army of the USSR for June 1941. The total number was 5.5 million military personnel. The number of divisions of the Red Army is 300, of which 170 divisions concentrated on western borders(3.9 million people), the rest were stationed at Far East(that's why Japan didn't attack) Central Asia, Transcaucasia. It must be said that the Wehrmacht divisions were staffed according to wartime levels, and each had 14-16 thousand people. Soviet divisions were staffed according to peacetime levels and consisted of 7-8 thousand people.

The Red Army was armed with 11,000 tanks, of which 1,861 were T-34 tanks and 1,239 were KV tanks (the best in the world at that time). The rest of the tanks - BT-2, BT-5, BT-7, T-26, SU-5 with weak weapons, many vehicles were idle due to lack of spare parts. Most of the tanks were to be replaced with new vehicles. More than 60% of the tanks were in the troops of the western border districts.

Represented a powerful fire force soviet artillery. On the eve of the war, the Red Army had 67,335 guns and mortars. Systems began to arrive volley fire"Katyusha". In terms of combat qualities, Soviet field artillery was superior to German, but was poorly equipped with mechanized traction. The needs for special artillery tractors were met by 20.5%.

In the western military districts of the Red Army Air Force, there were 7,009 fighters, and long-range aviation had 1,333 aircraft.

So, at the first stage of the war, qualitative and quantitative characteristics were on the side of the enemy. The Nazis had a significant advantage in manpower, automatic weapons, and mortars. And thus, Hitler’s hopes to carry out a “blitzkrieg” against the USSR were calculated taking into account real conditions and the distribution of available armed forces and means. In addition, Germany already had practical military experience gained as a result of military operations in other European countries. Surprise, aggressiveness, coordination of all forces and means, accuracy of execution of orders General Staff Wehrmacht, the use of armored forces at a relatively small area front - this was a proven, fundamental tactic of action by military formations of Nazi Germany.

This tactic performed exceptionally well in military operations in Europe; Wehrmacht casualties were small. For example, in France, 27,074 German soldiers were killed and 111,034 were wounded. At the same time, the German army captured 1.8 million French soldiers. The war ended in 40 days. The victory was absolute.

In Poland, the Wehrmacht lost 16,843 soldiers, Greece - 1,484, Norway - 1,317, and another 2,375 died en route. These "historic" victories German weapons Incredibly inspired Adolf Hitler, and they were given the order to develop the Barbarossa plan - a war against the USSR.

It should also be noted that the question of surrender was never raised by Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin; Headquarters quite soberly analyzed and calculated the current military situation. In any case, in the first months of the war there was no panic at the army headquarters; panickers were shot on the spot.

In mid-July 1941, the initial period of the war ended. Due to a number of subjective and objective factors, Soviet troops suffered serious losses in manpower and equipment. As a result heavy fighting, using air supremacy, the German armed forces by this time had reached the borders of the Western Dvina and the middle reaches of the Dnieper, advancing to a depth of 300 to 600 km and inflicting major defeats on the Red Army, especially on the formations of the Western Front. In other words, the Wehrmacht’s priority tasks were completed. But the “blitzkrieg” tactics still failed.

The Germans met fierce resistance from the retreating troops. The NKVD troops and border guards especially distinguished themselves. Here, for example, is the testimony of a former German sergeant major who participated in the attacks on the 9th outpost of the border city of Przemysl: “...The fire was terrible! We left a lot of corpses on the bridge, but we never took possession of it right away. Then the commander of my battalion gave the order to ford the river to the right and left in order to surround the bridge and capture it intact. But as soon as we rushed into the river, the Russian border guards began to pour fire on us here too. The losses were terrible... Seeing that the plan was failing, the battalion commander ordered fire from 80-mm mortars. Only under their cover did we begin to infiltrate the Soviet shore... We could not advance further as quickly as our command wanted. The Soviet border guards had firing points along the coastline. They sat in them and shot literally until the last cartridge... Nowhere, never have we seen such stamina, such military perseverance... They preferred death to the possibility of captivity or withdrawal...”

Heroic actions made it possible to gain time for the approach of the 99th Infantry Division of Colonel N.I. Dementyev. Active resistance to the enemy continued.

As a result of stubborn battles, according to US intelligence services, as of December 1941, Germany lost 1.3 million people killed in the war against the USSR, and by March 1943, Wehrmacht losses already amounted to 5.42 million people (information has been declassified by the American side in our time ).

Yakutia 1941. What was the contribution of the peoples of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to the fight against Nazi Germany? Our losses. Heroic fighters of the Olonkho Land.

As you know, the scientific work “History of Yakutia” has been prepared since 2013. Researcher at the Institute for Humanitarian Research and Problems of Indigenous Peoples of the North SB RAS Marianna Gryaznukhina, the author of the chapter of this scientific work, which talks about the human losses of the Yakut people during the Great Patriotic War, kindly provided the following data: the population of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1941, on the eve of the war, was 419 thousand Human. 62 thousand people were drafted and went to the front as volunteers.

However, this cannot be called exact quantity Yakutians who fought for their Motherland. By the beginning of the war, several hundred people were doing military service in the army, and a number were studying at military schools. Therefore, the number of Yakuts who fought can be considered from 62 to 65 thousand people.

Now about the human losses. In recent years, a figure has been cited - 32 thousand Yakutians, but it also cannot be considered accurate. According to the demographic formula, they did not return to the regions from the war; about 30% of those who fought died. It should be taken into account that 32 thousand did not return to the territory of Yakutia, but some soldiers and officers remained to live in other regions of the country, some returned late, until the 1950s. Therefore, the number of residents of Yakutia who died at the front is approximately 25 thousand people. Of course, for the small population of the republic this is a huge loss.

In general, the contribution of the Yakut people to the fight against the “brown plague” is enormous and has not yet been fully studied. Many became combat commanders, demonstrated military training, dedication, and courage in battles, for which they were awarded high military awards. Residents of the Khangalassky district of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) remember the general with warmth Prituzov (Pripuzov) Andrey Ivanovich. Participant of the First World War, commander of the 61st Guards Slavic Red Banner Division. The division fought through Romania, part of Austria and ended its journey in Bulgaria. The military general found his eternal peace in his native Pokrovsk.

How can one not remember on the eve of Victory Day about the Yakut snipers - two of whom were included in the legendary top ten snipers of the Second World War. This is a Yakut Fedor Matveevich Okhlopkov, on whose personal account there are 429 killed Nazis. Before becoming a sniper, he destroyed several dozen fascists with a machine gun and machine gun. And Fyodor Matveevich received the Hero of the Soviet Union only in 1965. Legendary person!

The second one is Evenk Ivan Nikolaevich Kulbertinov- 489 killed Nazis. He taught sniper training to young Red Army soldiers. Originally from the village of Tyanya, Olekminsky district.

It should be noted that until the end of 1942, the Wehrmacht command missed the opportunity of sniper warfare, for which it paid dearly. During the war, the Nazis began hastily learning the art of snipers using captured Soviet military training films and instructions for snipers. At the front they used the same Soviet captured Mosin and SVT rifles. Only by 1944 did the Wehrmacht military units include trained snipers.

Our colleague, lawyer, Honored Lawyer of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), has passed the worthy path of a front-line soldier. Yuri Nikolaevich Zharnikov. He began his military career as an artilleryman, in 1943 he retrained as a T-34 driver, his tank was hit twice, and the hero himself received severe concussions. He has dozens of military victories, hundreds of killed enemies, and a large number of broken and burned enemy heavy equipment, including German tanks. As Yuri Nikolaevich recalled, the calculation of enemy losses was carried out by the commander of the tank unit, and his concern was the constant maintenance of the mechanical part of the combat vehicle. For military exploits, Yu.N. Zharnikov was awarded many orders and medals, of which he was proud. Today Yuri Nikolaevich is not among us, but we, the lawyers of Yakutia, keep his memory in our hearts.

Results of the Great Patriotic War. Losses of the German armed forces. The ratio of the losses of Nazi Germany and its direct allies with the losses of the Red Army

Let us turn to the latest publications of a prominent Russian military historian Igor Ludvigovich Garibyan, who did a tremendous amount of statistical work, studying not only Soviet sources, but also captured archival documents of the Wehrmacht General Staff.

According to the Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht High Command - OKW, Wilhelm Keitel, Germany lost 9 million soldiers killed on the Eastern Front, 27 million were seriously wounded (without the possibility of returning to duty), went missing, were captured, all of this is united by the concept of “irretrievable losses.” "

Historian Gharibyan calculated German losses based on 10-day OKW reports, and the following data was obtained:

Germans and Austrians killed during hostilities - 7,541,401 people (data as of April 20, 1945);

Missing – 4,591,511 people.

The total irretrievable losses are 17,801,340 people, including disabled people, prisoners, and those who died from diseases.

These figures concern only two countries – Germany and Austria. The losses of Romania, Hungary, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia and other countries that fought against the USSR are not taken into account here.

Thus, Hungary, with its population of nine million, lost only 809,000 soldiers and officers killed in the war against the Red Army, mostly young people aged 20 to 29 years. 80,000 died in battle civilian population. Meanwhile, in the same Hungary in 1944, on the eve of the collapse of the fascist regime, 500,000 Hungarian Jews and Gypsies were exterminated, according to Western media mass media they prefer to remain “bashfully” silent.

To sum up, we must admit that the USSR had to fight virtually one-on-one (in 1941-1943) with all of Europe, except England. All factories in France, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Italy worked for the war. The Wehrmacht was provided not only with military materials, but also with the human resources of Germany's direct allies.

As a result, the Soviet people, showing the will to Victory and mass heroism both on the battlefield and in the rear, defeated the enemy and defended the Fatherland from the “brown plague” of the 20th century.

The article is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather - Stroev Gavril Egorovich, a resident of the village of Batamai, Ordzhonikidze district of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the chairman of the Zarya collective farm, who died heroically in the Great Patriotic War in 1943, and all the Yakut residents who did not return from the war.

Yuri PRIPUZOV,

President of the Yakut Republican

Bar Association "Petersburg"

Honored Lawyer of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

One of important issues, which causes controversy among many researchers, - how many people died in the second world war. There will never be general identical data on the number of deaths on the German side and on the side of the Soviet Union (the main opponents). Approximately dead - 60 million people from all over the world.

This gives rise to many myths and unjustified rumors. Most of the dead were civilians killed during the shelling settlements, genocide, bombing, fighting.

War is greatest tragedy for humanity. Discussions about the consequences of this event continue to this day, although more than 75 years have passed. After all, more than 70% of the population took part in the war.

Why are there differences between the death tolls? The whole point is in the differences between the calculations, which are carried out using different methods, and information is obtained from different sources, and after all, how much time has already passed...

History of the death toll

It is worth starting with the fact that the calculations of the amount dead people began only during the period of glasnost, that is, at the end of the 20th century. Until that time, no one had done this. One could only guess about the number of dead.

There were only the words of Stalin, who stated that 7 million people died in the Union during the war, and Khrushchev, who reported in a letter to the Minister of Sweden about losses of 20 million people.

For the first time, the total number of human losses was announced at a plenum dedicated to the 45th anniversary of victory in the war (May 8, 1990). This figure amounted to almost 27 million dead.

3 years later, in a book called “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed. Losses of the armed forces..." the results of the study were highlighted, during which 2 methods were used:

• accounting and statistical (analysis of documents of the Armed Forces);
• demographic balance (comparison of population at the beginning and after the end of hostilities)

Death of people in World War II according to Krivosheev:

One of the scientists who worked in a team researching the issue of the number of deaths in the war was G. Krivosheev. Based on the results of his research, the following data were published:

1. The people's losses of the USSR during the Second World War (together with the civilian population) amounted to 26.5 million dead.
2. German losses - 11.8 million.

This study also has critics, according to whom Krivosheev did not take into account the 200 thousand prisoners of war released by the German invaders after 1944 and some other facts.

There is no doubt that the war (which took place between the USSR and Germany and its companions) was one of the bloodiest and most horrific in history. The horror was not only in the number of participating countries, but in the cruelty, mercilessness, and ruthlessness of peoples towards each other.

The soldiers had absolutely no compassion for civilians. Therefore, the question of the number of people killed in the Second World War remains debatable even now.

To date, it is not known exactly how many people died in World War II. Less than 10 years ago, statisticians claimed that 50 million people had died; 2016 figures put the number of victims above 70 million. Perhaps, after some time, this figure will be refuted by new calculations.

Number of deaths during the war

The first mention of the dead was in the March 1946 issue of the Pravda newspaper. At that time, the official figure was 7 million people. Today, when almost all archives have been studied, it can be argued that the losses of the Red Army and the civilian population of the Soviet Union in total amounted to 27 million people. Other countries that were part of the anti-Hitler coalition also suffered significant losses, or rather:

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

Budapest, Hungary. A monument on the banks of the Danube in memory of the Jews executed in these places in 1944-45.

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

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

The fewest deaths were in Switzerland, Finland, Mongolia and Ireland.

During what period did the greatest losses occur?

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

Video on the topic

World War II: the cost of empire. Film one - The Gathering Storm.

World War II: the cost of empire. Film two - Strange War.

World War II: the cost of empire. The third film is Blitzkrieg.

World War II: the cost of empire. Film four - Alone.