How many of ours died in the wwii. Losses by periods and campaigns of war

The Soviet Union suffered the most significant losses during the Second World War - about 27 million people. At the same time, the division of the dead along ethnic lines has never been welcomed. However, such statistics exist.

Counting history

For the first time, the total number of victims among Soviet citizens in World War II was named by the Bolshevik magazine, which published in February 1946 the figure of 7 million people. A month later, Stalin quoted the same figure in an interview with the Pravda newspaper.

In 1961, at the end of the post-war census, Khrushchev announced the corrected data. "How can we sit back and wait for a repeat of 1941, when the German militarists unleashed a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed two tens of millions of Soviet lives?"

In 1965, on the 20th anniversary of the Victory, the new head of the USSR, Brezhnev, declared: “Such a brutal war that the Soviet Union endured did not fall to the lot of any people. The war claimed more than twenty million Soviet lives. "

However, all these calculations were approximate. Only in the late 1980s, a group of Soviet historians led by Colonel-General Grigory Krivosheev was admitted to the materials of the General Staff, as well as the main headquarters of all branches of the Armed Forces. The result of the work was the figure of 8 million 668 thousand 400 people, reflecting the losses of the power structures of the USSR during the entire war.

The final data of all the human losses of the USSR for the entire period of the Great Patriotic War were published by the state commission, which worked on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 26.6 million people: this figure was announced at the ceremonial meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 8, 1990. This figure turned out to be unchanged, despite the fact that the methods for calculating the commission were repeatedly called incorrect. In particular, it was noted that the final figure included collaborators, "hivis" and other Soviet citizens who collaborated with the Nazi regime.

By nationality

For a long time, no one was involved in counting those killed in the Great Patriotic War on a national basis. Such an attempt was made by the historian Mikhail Filimoshin in the book "Human Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR". The author noted that the work was significantly complicated by the absence of a personal list of the dead, deceased or missing with an indication of nationality. This practice was simply not foreseen in the Urgent Report Card.

Filimoshin substantiated his data with the help of proportionality coefficients, which were calculated on the basis of reports on the payroll of the Red Army servicemen based on socio-demographic characteristics for 1943, 1944 and 1945. At the same time, the researcher was unable to establish the nationality of about 500 thousand conscripts who were called up in the first months of the war to mobilize and who went missing along the route to the unit.

1. Russians - 5 million 756 thousand (66.402% of the total number of irrecoverable losses);

2. Ukrainians - 1 million 377 thousand (15.890%);

3. Belarusians - 252 thousand (2.917%);

4. Tatars - 187 thousand (2.165%);

5. Jews - 142 thousand (1.644%);

6. Kazakhs - 125 thousand (1.448%);

7. Uzbeks - 117 thousand (1.360%);

8. Armenians - 83 thousand (0.966%);

9. Georgians - 79 thousand (0.917%)

10. Mordovians and Chuvashs - 63 thousand each (0.730%)

Demographer and sociologist Leonid Rybakovsky in the book "The Human Losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War" separately calculates the casualties among the civilian population using the ethno-demographic method. This method includes three components:

1. The death of civilians in areas of hostilities (bombing, shelling, punitive operations, etc.).

2. Failure to return a part of the Ostarbeiters and other population who voluntarily or under duress served the invaders;

3. an increase in the mortality rate of the population above the normal level from hunger and other deprivation.

According to Rybakovsky, Russians thus lost 6.9 million civilians, Ukrainians - 6.5 million, Belarusians - 1.7 million.Alternative estimates

Historians of Ukraine give their own methods of calculation, which relate primarily to the losses of Ukrainians in the Great Patriotic War. Researchers Nezalezhnaya refer to the fact that Russian historians adhere to certain stereotypes when counting victims, in particular, they do not take into account the contingent of correctional labor institutions, where a significant part of dispossessed Ukrainians were located, who were replaced by serving their sentences by sending them to penal companies.

Head of the research department of the Kiev "National Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." Lyudmila Rybchenko refers to the fact that Ukrainian researchers have collected a unique fund of documentary materials on the registration of human military losses in Ukraine during the Great Patriotic War - funerals, lists of the missing, correspondence on the search for the dead, and loss accounting books.

In total, according to Rybchenko, more than 8.5 thousand archival files were collected, in which there are about 3 million personal certificates about the dead and missing soldiers called up from the territory of Ukraine. However, the museum worker does not pay attention to the fact that representatives of other nationalities lived in Ukraine, which could well have been included in the number of 3 million victims.

Belarusian experts also provide estimates of the number of losses during the Second World War, independent of Moscow. Some believe that every third inhabitant of Belarus with a population of 9 million fell victim to Hitler's aggression. One of the most authoritative researchers of this topic is the professor of the State Pedagogical University, Doctor of Historical Sciences Emmanuel Ioffe.

The historian believes that in just 1941-1944, 1 million 845 thousand 400 inhabitants of Belarus died. From this figure, he subtracts 715 thousand Belarusian Jews who became victims of the Holocaust. Among the remaining 1 million 130 thousand 155 people, in his opinion, about 80% or 904 thousand people are ethnic Belarusians.

, border and internal troops of the NKVD. At the same time, the results of the work of the General Staff commission for determining losses, headed by General of the Army S.M. Shtemenko (- years), and a similar commission of the Ministry of Defense under the leadership of General of the Army M.A.Gareev (g.) Were used. The collective was also admitted to the declassified ones in the late 1980s. materials of the General Staff and the main headquarters of the branches of the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, border troops and other archival institutions of the former USSR.

The total number of casualties in the Great Patriotic War was first announced in a rounded form (“ almost 27 million people») At the ceremonial meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 8, dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. The results of the study were published in the book "The secrecy stamp has been removed. Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in Wars, Hostilities and Military Conflicts: A Statistical Study ”, which was then translated into English. A reprint of the book “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. Losses of the Armed Forces: A Statistical Study.

To determine the scale of human losses, this team used various methods, in particular:

• accounting and statistical, that is, by analyzing the available accounting documents (first of all, reports on the losses of personnel of the Armed Forces of the USSR),
• balance, or the method of demographic balance, that is, by comparing the size and age structure of the population of the USSR at the beginning and end of the war.

Loss of life

Overall score

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, in 26.6 million people... This includes all those who died as a result of military and other enemy actions, who died as a result of an increased mortality rate during the war in the occupied territory and in the rear, as well as persons who emigrated from the USSR during the war years and did not return after its end. For comparison, according to the estimates of the same team of researchers, the decline in the population of Russia in the First World War (losses of servicemen and civilians) amounted to 4.5 million people, and a similar decline in the Civil War - 8 million people.

As for the sex composition of the deceased and the deceased, the overwhelming majority, of course, were men (about 20 million). In general, by the end, the number of women between the ages of 20 and 29 was twice the number of men of the same age in the USSR.

Considering the work of GF Krivosheev's group, American demographers S. Maksudov and M. Elman come to the conclusion that the estimate of human losses given to her at 26-27 million is relatively reliable. However, they point to both the possibility of underestimating the number of losses due to incomplete accounting of the population of the territories annexed by the USSR before the war and at the end of the war, and the possibility of overestimating losses due to neglect of emigration from the USSR in 1941-45. In addition, official estimates do not take into account the drop in the birth rate, due to which the population of the USSR by the end should have been approximately 35-36 million people more than in the absence of war. However, this number is considered hypothetical by them, since it is based on insufficiently strict assumptions.

According to another foreign researcher M. Haynes, the number of 26.6 million obtained by G.F.Krivosheev's group sets only the lower limit of all Soviet losses in the war. The total population decline from June 1941 to June 1945 was 42.7 million, and this number corresponds to the upper limit. Therefore, the real number of military losses is in this interval. However, M. Harrison objects to him, who, on the basis of statistical calculations, comes to the conclusion that even taking into account some uncertainty in assessing emigration and a decrease in the birth rate, the real military losses of the USSR should be estimated within from 23.9 to 25.8 million people.

Military personnel

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, irrecoverable losses during the hostilities on the Soviet-German front from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945 amounted to 8,860,400 Soviet servicemen. The source was the data declassified in 1993 - 8,668,400 servicemen and data obtained during the search work of the Memory Watch and in the historical archives. Of these (according to data from 1993):

According to M.V. Filimoshin, during the Great Patriotic War, 4,559,000 Soviet servicemen and 500,000 conscripts called up for mobilization, but not enlisted in the lists of troops, were captured and disappeared

According to G.F.Krivosheev's data: during the Great Patriotic War, in total, 3,396,400 servicemen went missing and were captured (about 1,162,600 more were attributed to unaccounted for combat losses of the first months of the war, when the combat units did not provide any reports); 1,836,000 servicemen returned from captivity, did not return (died, emigrated) - 1,783,300, 939,700 - were called up again from the liberated territories.

Civilian population

A group of researchers led by G.F.Krivosheev estimated the losses of the civilian population of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War at approximately 13.7 million people... The total number is 13 684 692 people. consists of the following components:

According to S. Maksudov's estimates, about 7 million people died in the occupied territories and in besieged Leningrad (of which 1 million were in besieged Leningrad, 3 million were Jewish victims of the Holocaust), and about 7 million more died as a result of increased mortality in unoccupied territories.

Property losses

During the war years, 1,710 cities and towns of the urban type and more than 70,000 villages and villages, 32,000 industrial enterprises were destroyed on Soviet territory, 98,000 collective farms and 1,876 state farms were destroyed. The state commission found that material damage amounted to about 30 percent of the national wealth of the Soviet Union, and in the areas subjected to occupation, about two-thirds. In general, the material losses of the Soviet Union are estimated at about 2 trillion. 600 billion rubles. For comparison, the national wealth of England decreased by only 0.8 percent, France - by 1.5 percent, and the United States essentially avoided material losses.

Losses of Germany and their allies

Loss of life

In the war against the Soviet Union, the German command involved the population of the occupied countries by recruiting volunteers. Thus, separate military formations appeared from among the citizens of France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Croatia, as well as from the citizens of the USSR who were captured or in the occupied territory (Russians, Ukrainian, Armenian, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Muslim, etc.). How exactly the losses of these formations were taken into account, there is no clear information in the German statistics.

Also, a constant obstacle to determining the real number of losses of personnel of the troops was the mixing of losses of military personnel with losses of the civilian population. For this reason, in Germany, Hungary, and Romania, the losses of the armed forces are significantly reduced, since some of them are taken into account in the number of civilian casualties. (200 thousand people. The loss of military personnel, and 260 thousand - the civilian population). For example, in Hungary this ratio was "1: 2" (140 thousand - loss of military personnel and 280 thousand - loss of civilian population). All this significantly distorts the statistics on the losses of the troops of the countries that fought on the Soviet-German front.

A German radio telegram emanating from the Wehrmacht casualty department dated May 22, 1945, addressed to the Quartermaster General of the OKW, provides the following information:

On the OKW radiogram, Quartermaster General No. 82/266 dated 18.5.45, I inform you:

1. a) Fatalities, including 500 thousand who died from wounds - 2.03 million. In addition, 200 thousand died as a result of accidents and diseases;
c) Wounded ……………………………………………… 5.24 mln.
c) Missing persons …………………………… 2.4 mln.
Total losses ………………………………………… 9.73 mln.
2. Since 2.5.45, the USSR has about 70 thousand wounded and 135 thousand - from the Americans and the British.
3. The total number of wounded in the Reich at the present time is about 700 thousand ...
Department of losses of the Wehrmacht 22.5.55 g.

According to a reference from the OKH organizational department of May 10, 1945, only the ground forces, including the SS troops (without the Air Force and the Navy), lost 4 million 617.0 thousand people for the period from September 1 to May 1, 1945.

Two months before his death, Hitler announced in one of his speeches that Germany had lost 12.5 million killed and wounded, of which half were killed. With this message, he, in fact, refuted the estimates of the scale of human losses made by other fascist leaders and government agencies.

General Jodl, after the end of hostilities, said that Germany, in total, had lost 12 million 400 thousand people, of which 2.5 million were killed, 3.4 million were missing and captured and 6.5 million were wounded, of which about 12-15% did not return to service for one reason or another.

According to the appendix to the Federal Republic of Germany's law "On the Preservation of Burial Places," the total number of German soldiers buried in the USSR and Eastern Europe is 3.226 million, of which the names of 2.395 million are known.

According to Soviet data, on June 26, 1944, the Wehrmacht's losses amounted to 7.8 million killed and captured. Since the number of prisoners of war at that time was no less than 700,000 people, the German casualties were, according to Soviet figures, 7.1 million killed.

It should be noted that Overmans' modern data on German losses practically coincide with the then Hitler's data. For example, according to Overmans in 1941, 302,000 German soldiers died, and according to the data of that time, 260,000. American military observers estimated the losses of the Wehrmacht on December 11, 1941 at 1.3 million killed. And the Sovinformburo on December 15, 1941 in 6 million, that is, 1.5-2 million killed. But even Hitler himself admitted to Mussolini the falsity of German propaganda.

He himself later told Mussolini the reasons for this during their meeting in Salzburg in April 1942. “During a meeting in Salzburg,” Mussolini said, speaking at a meeting of the Council of Ministers, “Hitler confessed to me that last winter was terrible for Germany and she narrowly escaped a catastrophe ... The German High Command fell victim to a nervous crisis. Most of the generals under the influence of the Russian climate first she lost her health, and then her head and fell into complete moral and physical prostration. Officially, the Germans report 260 thousand killed. Hitler told me that in reality there are twice as many, in addition, more than a million wounded and frostbitten. There is not a single German family , in which there would be no killed or wounded.

Property losses

According to the data of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, published in 2005, during the Great Patriotic War, a total of 4,559,000 Soviet servicemen were taken prisoner. The vast majority of them (4 380 000 people) died. However, according to German documents, by May 1, 1944, the number of Soviet prisoners of war had reached 5,160,000. ...

Prisoners of war of Germany and its allies

Information about the number of prisoners of war of the armed forces of Germany and its allied countries, recorded in the camps of the NKVD of the USSR as of April 22

Alternative theories

Since the end of the 80s of the last century, new publications and scientific studies with data on the losses of the USSR in the war of 1939-1945 began to appear in the public space, which are very different from those adopted in the Soviet historiography of the war. As a rule, the estimated losses of the USSR are much higher than those given in Soviet historiography. And convincing arguments are presented in favor of this fact, for example, the fact that the documents of the Red Army units do not contain a huge number of unaccounted for personnel, marching reinforcements, mobilizations in the front line, etc. The annual work of search engines in places of hostilities only confirms this fact. And the dead continue to be found every year. There is no end in sight to this process, which also suggests the price of victory.

For example, the Russian literary critic Boris Sokolov estimated the total human losses of the USSR in 1939-1945 at 43 448 thousand people, and the total number of deaths in the ranks of the Soviet Armed Forces in 1941-1945. in 26.4 million people (of which 4 million people died in captivity). According to his calculations of the loss of 2.6 million German soldiers on the Soviet-German front, the loss ratio reaches 10: 1. At the same time, he estimated the total human losses in Germany in 1939-1945 at 5.95 million people (including 300 thousand Jews, Gypsies and anti-Nazis who died in concentration camps). His estimate of the dead soldiers of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS (including foreign formations) is 3,950 thousand people).

Notes (edit)

1. Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. Losses of the Armed Forces: A Statistical Study
2. General assessment of losses, table number 132] Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century: Statistical study. - M .: Olma-Press, 2001 .-- S. 514.
3. Human losses of the enemy, table number 201 Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century: Statistical research. - M .: Olma-Press, 2001 .-- S. 514.
4. Pravda, March 14, 1946
5. Gorbachev M. S. Lessons of War and Victory // Izvestia. 1990.9 May.
6. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century / Ed. by Colonel-General G.F. Krivosheev. London: Greenhill Books, 1997 .-- 304 p. ISBN 1-85367-280-7
7. G. F. Krivosheev (edited by). Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century: Losses of the armed forces
8. Ellman M., Maksudov S. Soviet deaths in the Great Patriotic War: a note // Europe-Asia Studies. 1994. Vol. 46, No. 4. Pp. 671-680.
9. Haynes, Michael. Counting Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: a Note // Europe-Asia Studies. 2003. Vol. 55, No. 2. Pp. 303-309.
10. Harrison, Mark. Counting Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: Comment // Europe-Asia Studies. 2003. Vol. 55, No. 6. Pp. 939-944. PDF
11. "The Ministry of Defense named the losses in the Great Patriotic War" // 05/04/2007.
12. "Human losses of the enemy", article on "Soldat.ru"
13. "Irrecoverable losses", article on "Soldat.ru"
14. Colonel General G. F. Krivosheev. "Analysis of forces and losses on the Soviet-German front." Report at the meeting of the Association of World War II Historians on December 29
15. Unknown soldiers
16. Civilian casualties
17. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945: A Brief History. - Moscow: Military Publishing, 1984, Chapter twenty-two
18. From Goering's directive on the economic robbery of the territory of the USSR planned for occupation.
19. Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-45
20. TsAMO. F. 48A, op. 3408, d.148, l. 225. Reference under the article "Human losses of the enemy"
21. Arntu G. “Human losses in the second world war. - Results of the Second World War. M., 1957, p. 594-595.
22. Military archive of the Federal Republic of Germany. WF No. 01/1913, l. 655.
23. Urlanis B. Ts. "War and the population of Europe." - M., 1960. p. 199.
24. A brief transcript of the interrogation of A. Yodl on 17.06.45 - GOU GSh. Inv. No. 60481.
25. Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century - Losses of the armed forces
26. THE PRICE OF VICTORY: HOW THE LIES ARE FIXED
27. Our Victory. Day by day - RIA Novosti project
28. MILITARY LITERATURE - [Military history] - Crusade to Russia
29. Ueberschar Gerd R., Wette Wolfram. Unternehmen Barbarossa: Der Deutsche Uberfall Auf Die Sowjetunion, 1941 Berichte, Analysen, Dokumente. - Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984. - P. 364-366. - ISBN 3-506-77468-9, with reference to: Nachweisung des Verbleibes der sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen nach dem Stand vom 1.05.1944(Bundesarchiv / Militararchiv Freiburg, RH 2 / v. 2623).
30. TSKHIDK. F.1p, op. 32-6, d.2, l.8-9. (The table does not include prisoners of war from among the citizens of the Soviet Union who served in the Wehrmacht.)
31. Sokolov B.V. World War II: facts and versions. - M .: AST-PRESS KNIGA, 2005, p. 340.
32. Ibid, p. 331.
33. In the same place. With. 343.
34. In the same place.

see also

Literature

• The secrecy label has been removed. Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in Wars, Hostilities and Military Conflicts: Statistical Study. / Under total. ed. G. F. Krivosheeva. Moscow: Military Publishing, 1993.
• Human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War: Sat. st. SPb., 1995.
• Maksudov S. Losses of the population of the USSR during the Second World War // Population and Society: Information Bulletin. 1995. No. 5.
• Mikhalev S.N. Human losses in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945: Statistical research. Krasnoyarsk: RIO KGPU, 2000.
• Mikhalev S. N., Shabaev A. A. The tragedy of opposition. Losses of the armed forces of the USSR and Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945: Historical and statistical research. M .: MGF "Domestic history", 2002.
• Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. Losses of the Armed Forces: A Statistical Study. / Under total. ed. G. F. Krivosheeva. M .: Olma-Press, 2001.
• Sokolov B.V. The cost of war: human losses of the USSR and Germany, 1939-1945 // Sokolov B.V. Truth about the Great Patriotic War (Collection of articles). - SPb .: Aleteya, 1989.
• Sokolov B.V. World War II: facts and versions. - M .: AST-PRESS KNIGA, 2005.

Links

• It has nothing to do with science - an article with refutations of the calculations of B.V. Sokolov

Counting the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War remains one of the scientific problems unresolved by historians. Official statistics - 26.6 million deaths, including 8.7 million servicemen - underestimate the losses among those who were at the front. Contrary to popular beliefs, the bulk of the dead were military personnel (up to 13.6 million), and not the civilian population of the Soviet Union.

There is a mass of literature on this issue, and maybe someone gets the impression that it has been sufficiently researched. Yes, indeed, there is a lot of literature, but many questions and doubts remain. There are too many unclear, controversial and obviously unreliable here. Even the reliability of the current official data on the USSR's human losses in the Great Patriotic War (about 27 million people) raises serious doubts.

The history of counting and official state recognition of losses

The official figure of the demographic losses of the Soviet Union has changed several times. In February 1946, the number of casualties at 7 million was published in the Bolshevik magazine. In March 1946, Stalin said in an interview with the newspaper Pravda that the USSR had lost 7 million people during the war: seven million people. " The report "The military economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War" published in 1947 by the chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, Voznesensky, did not indicate any casualties.

In 1959, the first post-war population census of the USSR was carried out. In 1961, Khrushchev, in a letter to the Prime Minister of Sweden, reported 20 million dead: "Can we sit idly by and wait for a repeat of 1941, when the German militarists unleashed a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed two tens of millions of Soviet lives?" In 1965, Brezhnev, on the 20th anniversary of the Victory, declared more than 20 million dead.

In 1988-1993 A team of military historians under the leadership of Colonel-General GF Krivosheev conducted a statistical study of archival documents and other materials containing information about human losses in the army and navy, border and internal troops of the NKVD. The result of the work was the figure of 8668400 people of losses of the power structures of the USSR during the war.

Since March 1989, on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a state commission has been working to study the number of human losses in the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. The commission included representatives of the State Statistics Committee, the Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Defense, the Main Archive Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Committee of War Veterans, the Union of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The commission did not calculate the losses, but estimated the difference between the estimated population of the USSR at the end of the war and the estimated population that would have lived in the USSR if there had been no war. The commission first announced its demographic loss figure of 26.6 million people at a ceremonial meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 8, 1990.

On May 5, 2008, the President of the Russian Federation signed a decree “On the publication of the fundamental multivolume work“ The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 ””. On October 23, 2009, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation signed an order “On the Interdepartmental Commission for Calculating Losses during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”. The commission included representatives of the Ministry of Defense, FSB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rosstat, Rosarkhiv. In December 2011, a representative of the commission announced the total demographic losses of the country during the war. 26.6 million people, of which the losses of the active armed forces 8668400 people.

Military personnel

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense irrecoverable losses in the course of hostilities on the Soviet-German front from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945, there were 8,860,400 Soviet servicemen. The source was the data declassified in 1993 and the data obtained during the search work of the Memory Watch and in the historical archives.

According to declassified data from 1993: killed, died of wounds and diseases, non-combat losses - 6 885 100 people, including

• Killed - 5,226,800 people.
• Killed from injuries - 1 102 800 people.
• Killed from various causes and accidents, shot - 555,500 people.

Major General A. Kirilin, head of the RF Ministry of Defense Directorate for perpetuating the memory of those killed in the defense of the Fatherland, told RIA Novosti on May 5, 2010 that the figures for military losses were 8 668 400 , will be reported to the country's leadership, so that they are announced on May 9, on the day of the 65th anniversary of the Victory.

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

• missing, captured and unaccounted for combat losses - 4,559,000;
• 1,836,000 servicemen returned from captivity, did not return (died, emigrated) - 1,783,300, (that is, total prisoners - 3,619,300, which is more than together with the missing);
• previously considered missing and recruited a second time from the liberated territories - 939,700.

Thus, the official irrecoverable losses(6,885,100 killed, according to declassified data in 1993, and 1,783,300 who did not return from captivity) amounted to 8,668,400 military personnel. But from them, you need to subtract 939,700 recruited, who were considered missing. We get 7 728 700.

The mistake was pointed out, in particular, by Leonid Radzikhovsky. The correct calculation is as follows: the number 1 783 300 is the number of those who did not return from captivity and are missing (and not only those who did not return from captivity). Then the official irrecoverable losses (perished 6 885 100, according to declassified data of 1993, and who did not return from captivity and missing 1 783 300) amounted to 8 668 400 military personnel.

According to M.V. Filimoshin, during the Great Patriotic War, 4,559,000 Soviet servicemen and 500,000 conscripts called up for mobilization, but not enlisted in the lists of troops, were captured and disappeared without a trace. From this figure, the calculation gives the same result: if 1,836,000 returned from captivity and 939,700 were recruited from those who were listed as unknown, then 1,783,300 servicemen disappeared and did not return from captivity. Thus, the official irrecoverable losses (6 885 100 died, according to declassified data of 1993, and disappeared and did not return from captivity 1 783 300) 8 668 400 military personnel.

Additional information

Civilian population

A group of researchers led by G.F.Krivosheev estimated the losses of the civilian population of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War at approximately 13.7 million people.

The total number is 13 684 692 people. consists of the following components:

• was exterminated in the occupied territory and died as a result of hostilities (from bombing, shelling, etc.) - 7 420 379 people.
• died as a result of a humanitarian disaster (hunger, infectious diseases, lack of medical assistance, etc.) - 4,100,000 people.
• died in forced labor in Germany - 2,164,313 people. (451,100 more people did not return for various reasons and became emigrants).

According to S. Maksudov's estimates, about 7 million people died in the occupied territories and in besieged Leningrad (of which 1 million in besieged Leningrad, 3 million were Jews, victims of the Holocaust), and about 7 million more died as a result of increased mortality in non-occupied territories.

The total losses of the USSR (together with the civilian population) amounted to 40–41 million people. These estimates are confirmed by comparing the data of the 1939 and 1959 censuses, since there is reason to believe that in 1939 there was a very significant underestimation of men in the draft contingents.

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

Finally, let us 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 assess human losses for individual republics or nationalities. And only at the end of the twentieth century L. Rybakovsky tried to calculate the approximate value of the human losses of the RSFSR in its then borders. According to his estimates, it amounted to about 13 million people - slightly less than half of the total losses of the USSR.

The greatest losses on the battlefields of the Second World War were suffered by the Russians and Ukrainians. Many Jews were killed. But the fate of the Belarusian people turned out to be the most tragic. In the first months of the war, the entire territory of Belarus was occupied by the Germans. During the war, the Byelorussian SSR lost up to 30% of its population. In the occupied territory of the BSSR, the Nazis killed 2.2 million people. (The data of the latest research on Belarus are as follows: the fascists killed civilians - 1 409 225 people, killed prisoners in German death camps - 810 091 people, stolen into German slavery - 377 776 people). It is also known that in the percentage ratio - the number of dead soldiers / the number of the population, among the Soviet republics, Georgia suffered a lot of damage. Of the 700 thousand residents of Georgia called up to the front, almost 300 thousand did not return.

Losses of the Wehrmacht and SS troops

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

The discrepancy is about 0.7 million people. This discrepancy is explained by differences in the assessment of the number of those killed in German captivity: according to Russian archival documents, 356,700 Germans were killed in Soviet captivity, and according to German researchers, approximately 1.1 million people. It seems that the Russian figure of the Germans killed in captivity is more reliable, and the missing 0.7 million Germans who disappeared and did not return from captivity actually died not in captivity, but on the battlefield.

There is another statistics of losses - statistics of burials of Wehrmacht soldiers. According to the appendix to the Federal Republic of Germany's law "On the Preservation of Burial Places," the total number of German soldiers in the recorded graves 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 a starting point for calculating the demographic losses of the Wehrmacht, however, it also needs to be adjusted.

1. Firstly, this figure takes into account only the burials of the Germans, and a large number of soldiers of other nationalities fought in the Wehrmacht: Austrians (of whom 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 share of the Soviet-German front accounts for 75-80%, that is, 0.6-0.7 million people.
2. Secondly, this figure refers to the early 90s of the last century. Since then, the search for German burials in Russia, the CIS countries and the countries of Eastern Europe has continued. And the messages that appeared on this topic were not informative enough. For example, the Russian Association of War Memorials, created in 1992, reported that over the 10 years of its existence, it had transferred information about the burials of 400,000 Wehrmacht soldiers to the German Union for the Care of War Graves. However, it is unclear whether these were newly discovered burials or whether they were already included in the figure of 3 million 226 thousand. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find generalized statistics of the newly discovered graves of Wehrmacht soldiers. It can be tentatively assumed that the number of burials of Wehrmacht soldiers newly discovered over the past 10 years is in the range of 0.2–0.4 million people.
3. Thirdly, many of the graves of the dead Wehrmacht soldiers on Soviet soil disappeared or were deliberately destroyed. Approximately 0.4-0.6 million Wehrmacht soldiers could have been buried in such disappeared and unmarked graves.
4. Fourth, these data do not include the burials of German soldiers killed in battles with Soviet troops on the territory of Germany and Western European countries. According to R. Overmans, in the last three spring months of the war alone, about 1 million people died. (the minimum estimate is 700 thousand) In general, about 1.2-1.5 million Wehrmacht soldiers died in the battles with the Red Army on German soil and in Western European countries.
5. Finally, fifthly, the number of those buried also included the Wehrmacht soldiers who died a "natural" death (0.1-0.2 million people)

Approximate procedure for calculating the total loss of life in Germany

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

conclusions

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

During the war, almost 27 million Soviet citizens died (the exact number is 26.6 million). This number included:

• killed and died from wounds of military personnel;
• those who died from disease;
• executed by firing squad (based on the results of various denunciations);
• missing and captured;
• representatives of the civilian population, both in the occupied territories of the USSR, and in other regions of the country, in which, due to the hostilities in the state, there was an increased mortality from hunger and diseases.

This also includes those who emigrated from the USSR during the war and did not return to their homeland after the victory. The overwhelming number of deaths were men (about 20 million). Modern researchers argue that by the end of the war, among men born in 1923. (i.e. those who in 1941 were 18 years old and could be drafted into the army) about 3% survived. By 1945, there were twice as many women in the USSR as men (data for people aged 20 to 29).

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

How did the official data on the losses of the USSR change?

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

Irrecoverable losses of the Soviet Union as a result of the factors of the Second World War - more than 19 million servicemen.

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

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

According to the report, this information is confirmed by a large number of authentic documents, authoritative publications and testimonies (for details, see the Immortal Regiment website and other resources).

The history of the issue is as follows

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

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

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

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

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

A natural question arises: where were the aforementioned "data of the USSR State Planning Committee" about the combat losses of our Army kept, if even the heads of the special commissions of the Ministry of Defense could not study them for more than 70 years? How true are they?

Everything is relative. It is worth remembering that it was in the book "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century" that we were finally allowed in 2001 to find out how many of our compatriots were mobilized into the ranks of the Red (Soviet) Army during the Second World War: 34,476,700 people (pp. . 596.).

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

I think a resident of any settlement of the former USSR will not agree with this. In every village or aul there are plates with the names of the fallen compatriots. At best, only half of those who went to the front 70 years ago are on them.

Tatarstan statistics

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

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

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

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

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

Is it possible that the losses in other regions of the former USSR are even less on average across the country?

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

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

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

But that's a completely different story ...

Mikhail Cherepanov, illustrations provided by the author

reference

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

• Was born in 1960.
• Graduated from Kazan State University. IN AND. Ulyanov-Lenin with a degree in Journalism.
• Since 2007 he has been working at the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan.
• One of the creators of the 28-volume book "Memory" of the Republic of Tatarstan about those who died during the Second World War, 19 volumes of the Book of Memory of the Victims of Political Repression of the Republic of Tatarstan, etc.
• Creator of the electronic book in memory of the Republic of Tatarstan (a list of natives and residents of Tatarstan who died during the Second World War).
• Author of thematic lectures from the cycle "Tatarstan during the war", thematic excursions "The feat of fellow countrymen on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War."
• Co-author of the concept of the virtual museum "Tatarstan to the Fatherland".
• Member of 60 search expeditions for the burial of the remains of soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War (since 1980), member of the board of the Union of search units of Russia.
• Author of over 100 scientific and educational articles, books, participant of all-Russian, regional, international conferences. Columnist for Realnoe Vremya.

Hello, dear friends of the ShkolaLa blog! In the days of celebrating our victory in the war of 1941-1945, we continue to publish materials on the military theme. Today I am ready to invite you to prepare a presentation entitled "The Great Patriotic War in Figures." In it, we will designate only dry facts in order to show once again how difficult it was for our people to reclaim Russian land from the German invaders.

Lesson plan:

Big dates about a big war

For an attack on our country, Germany developed a special operation called "Plan Barbarossa", in honor of the German king, Roman emperor Frederick I.

Hitler planned to conduct a lightning war, completely defeat the USSR and seize Russian lands in just 150 days! But he was mistaken in underestimating the dedication and heroism of the Soviet people. As a result, the fleeting war desired by the Germans turned into a protracted one for 4 long years.

The war began in the early morning at 4 o'clock on June 22, 1941, when our diplomat in Berlin was presented with a note (official appeal) declaring war. Prior to that, at 03:06 German planes crossed the airspace of the Soviet Union, fire was opened on them. The Great Patriotic War lasted 1418 days and nights.

It was the 165th day of the war, when the Soviet troops managed to stop the advance of the German occupation forces near Moscow. Barbarossa's plan was thwarted.

The Kursk battle, which began on the 743rd day of the war, allowed taking the strategic initiative and moving from defense to attack.

We remember each

Of course, it is quite difficult to calculate exactly how many fought in the Second World War and how many servicemen and civilians died. These data are still being refined by researchers. Here are general figures that are most often mentioned in different sources.

It is believed that about 34.5 million people fought in the Red Army, while on the side of Germany, along with its allies, there were 17.5 million.

More than 1 million partisans fought with the enemy in the rear, scouting and transmitting valuable information and sabotaging objects that were especially valuable to the Nazis. Volunteers alone were able to destroy more than 1,000,000 German soldiers, disable more than 4,000 units of military equipment, about 65,000 vehicles, 1,100 aircraft, and blew up over 20,000 railway trains.

In total, during the war years, about 11,900,000 Soviet soldiers, about 13,700,000 civilians, were among the dead, captured and missing. Some sources point to a total figure of 26.6 million. Disputes about the human losses incurred by our country are still ongoing.

It is believed that 8.6 million people were irretrievably lost by Germany.

Scientists are convinced that the Soviet Union paid for one occupier with three Soviet soldiers and officers.

World War II geography

If you count the territory where all hostilities took place in 1941-1945, you get about 3 million square kilometers on the main 8 strategic fronts. The total front line was 3000 kilometers.

On the first day of Germany's attack on our country, the Nazis destroyed 1200 Soviet aircraft.

In four years, fascist Germany advanced 1,500 kilometers from the Soviet borders to the Volga River. During the war, Soviet troops traveled 2,000 kilometers from the east to the west, liberating their territory from the invaders along the way.

During the war years on the territory of the Soviet Union, the German invaders destroyed 1,710 cities, 70,000 villages, destroyed 98,000 collective farms, 1,876 state farms and 32,000 industrial factories and plants. Wiped out from the face of the earth 2,000 architectural monuments, more than 400 museums, 30,000,000 dwellings.

During the war years, 1,523 large industrial enterprises, 145 higher educational institutions, 66 museums were evacuated. They managed to save 300 thousand exhibits from the Russian Museum and more than a million from the Hermitage, taking them out of Leningrad. 700,000 of the most valuable books from the Lenin Library and 100,000 from the Historical Library were sent to the East.

Researchers calculated the sum of the financial losses of the Soviet Union from the destructive actions of Germany - 30% of all our Soviet national wealth. This figure is being refined over and over again, changing and amounting to not tens, hundreds of billions of dollars. At pre-war prices, it is fixed at $ 128 billion.

The Leningrad blockade, which began on September 8, 1941, lasted 872 days. They could break it only on January 27, 1944. During this time, about 800,000 people "locked in the ring" died of hunger, cold and bombing. According to food ration cards, servicemen were given 500 grams of bread per day, workers - 250 grams, the rest - 125. During the blockade, 107,000 bombs were dropped on the city and 150,000 artillery shells were fired.

In the historic battle for Stalingrad in February 1943, the Soviet army irrevocably lost 480,000 people, 4,340 tanks and mortars, and 2,769 aircraft. 24 German generals were taken prisoner.

During the decisive turn of the war, the Battle of Kursk in August 1943, Soviet losses exceeded the casualties on the part of Germany by 7 times: 360 thousand killed, missing and wounded.

Everything for the front! Everything for the victory!

Every inhabitant of the Soviet Union during the war years worked for the front, working without rest to help Soviet troops cope with the enemy. For their work during the war years, 16 million workers were awarded orders and medals, and about 200 people became Heroes of Socialist Labor.

According to various sources, during the war years, industrial enterprises produced more than 130,000 aircraft, 105,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, 660,000 cannons and mortars, more than 8 million tons of ammunition and about 20 million small arms. More than 50% of the country's entire budget went to military production.

On May 8, 1945 at 22:43 in the suburb of Berlin, the city of Karlshorst, Germany signed an act of surrender. The war for the Soviet Union is over.

In memory of the war

Every fifth Soviet soldier was awarded orders and medals for courage and heroism, many received them posthumously. Five pioneers of the USSR were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Over 200 children and adolescents received the medal "Partisan of the Great Patriotic War", more than 15 thousand - "For the defense of Leningrad", more than 20 thousand - "For the defense of Moscow."

For selflessness, 12 Soviet cities became steel, and the Brest Fortress received the title of a hero-fortress.

About 70,000 plaques and memorials have immortalized the memory of those who fell during the war.

At the salute on May 9, 1945, out of 1000 guns, 30,000 salvos were fired, and at the Victory Parade, 1,850 pieces of equipment with the participation of 34,000 servicemen passed through Red Square.

Here is an article today from dry facts about the war. With this, I say goodbye to you in the hope that each of you will remember those who gave their lives for our happiness and I urge you to honor the memory of those who died.

And let this excerpt from E. Asadov's poem sum up our score.

Victory Day. And in the fireworks

Like thunder: - Remember forever,

That in battles every minute

Yes, literally every minute

Ten people died!

On the eight fronts of my homeland

Carried away the whirlpool of war

Every minute ten lives

So, every hour is already six hundred! ..

And like this, four bitter years,

Day after day - an incredible score!

For our honor and freedom

The people managed to do everything and prevailed.