World War II casualties of the Soviet Union from all related causes are commonly estimated in excess of 20,000,000, both civilians and military. With the total pre-war population of the country being about 170,000,000, the loss constitutes about 10–15% of the population.
World War II casualtiesWorld War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Over 60 million people were killed. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.-Total dead:...
statistics vary to a great extent. While the numbers of 20–23 million were accepted for a long time, losses of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, within postwar borders, are now estimated at 26.6 million.
Estimates
The estimates below total to 23,100,000.•
- The official recorded military war dead from 1941–45 were 8,668,400 comprising 6,329,600 combat related deaths, 555,500 non combat deaths.• ., 500,000 missing in action and 1,283,300 POWs.• . Figures include Navy losses of 154,771. • Non combat deaths include 157,000 sentenced to death by court martial•
- Casualties in 1939–40 include the following dead and missing, Battle of Khalkhin Gol
The Battle of Khalkhyn Gol was the decisive engagement of the undeclared Soviet-Japanese Border War, or Japanese-Soviet War that was fought between the Soviet Union, Mongolia and the Empire of Japan in 1939. The battle was named after the river Khalkhyn Gol passing through the battlefield...
in 1939 (8,931); Invasion of PolandThe 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II, sixteen days after the beginning of the Nazi German attack on Poland...
of 1939 (1,139); Winter WarThe Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939, three months after the German invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
with Finland (1939–40) (126,875).
- The number of wounded includes 2,576,000 permanently disabled.•
- The number of Soviet POW who survived the war was 1,836,000, plus and additional 939,700 POW and MIA who were redrafted as territory was liberated•
- Conscripted reservists is an estimate of men called up, primarily in 1941, who were killed in battle or died as POWs before being listed on active strength.•
- Estimated total Soviet military war dead from 1941–45 on the Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of war between the European Axis powers, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia and Finland , and the Soviet Union which encompassed central and eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9...
including missing in actionMissing in action is a status assigned to armed services personnel who are reported missing during active service. They may have been killed, wounded, become a prisoner of war, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave can be positively identified...
, POWs and Soviet partisansThe Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during the Second World War....
range from 8.6 to 10.6 million. • There were an additional 127,000 war dead in 1939–40 during the Winter WarThe Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939, three months after the German invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
with Finland • •
Military losses of 10.7 million include 7.7 million killed or missing in action and 2.6 million POW dead (out of 5.2 million total POWs), plus 400,000 paramilitary and Soviet partisan losses. The official total of military deaths from 1941–1945 is 8,668,400; including 6,330,000 killed in action/died of wounds and 556,000 dead from non-combat causes plus an estimated 500,000
MIAMissing in action is a status assigned to armed services personnel who are reported missing during active service. They may have been killed, wounded, become a prisoner of war, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave can be positively identified...
and 1,283,000
POWA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
dead out of 4,059,000 total POW. Additional casualties in 1939–40 were 136,945 which included the following dead and missing,
Battle of Khalkhin GolThe Battle of Khalkhyn Gol was the decisive engagement of the undeclared Soviet-Japanese Border War, or Japanese-Soviet War that was fought between the Soviet Union, Mongolia and the Empire of Japan in 1939. The battle was named after the river Khalkhyn Gol passing through the battlefield...
in 1939 (8,931);
Invasion of PolandThe Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II...
of 1939 (1,139);
Winter WarThe Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939, three months after the German invasion of Poland and the start of World War II, and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
with Finland (1939–40) (126,875).
However, the estimate by western historians of Soviet military POW deaths is about 3 million out of 5.7 million total POWs in German hands
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007178.
Richard OveryRichard Overy is a British historian who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich. In 2007 as The Times editor of Complete History of the World he chose the 50 key dates of world history....
has noted that " The official figures themselves must be viewed critically, given the difficulty of knowing in the chaos of 1941 and 1942 exactly who had been killed, wounded or even conscripted". The official statistics do not include an additional estimated 1,500,000 conscripted reservists missing or killed, primarily in 1941, before being listed on active strength,150,000 militia and 250,000 Soviet partisan dead. Total Soviet population losses included approximately 12 million men aged 18 to 39.
The names of many Soviet war dead are presented in the
OBD MemorialOBD Memorial is a project by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to scan and make available online data on all Soviet defenders of the Motherland who were killed or were missing in action during the Great Patriotic War and afterwards....
database online
http://www.obd-memorial.ru/Civilian deaths listed here of 12.4 million are for USSR within 1939 borders
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ribbentrop-Molotov.svg, these losses do not include an estimated 3.5 million civilian dead in the territories annexed by the USSR in 1939–1945 and the 215,000 Soviet war dead in the German armed forces.-. Civilian losses in territories annexed by USSR are included in totals of the Baltic states(600,000), Poland(2,500,000)
CzechoslovakiaCarpathian Ruthenia, aka Transcarpathian Ruthenia, Transcarpathian Ukraine, Zakarpattia, Rusinko, Subcarpathian Rus, Subcarpathia is a small region in Central Europe, now...
(80,000) and Romania(300,000).
Total deaths in the USSR, including the annexed territories, exceeded the pre war level by 26.6 million from 1941–45, including an increase of 1.3 million in
infant mortalityInfant mortality is defined as the number of infant deaths per 1000 live births. The most common cause worldwide has traditionally been due to dehydration from diarrhea...
, based on a study by the Russian Academy of Science , Contemporary Russian historians estimate 2.5 to 3.2 million civilian dead due to famine in Soviet territory not occupied by the Germans, these deaths are included in the total of 12.4 million Soviet civilian losses.. Additional famine deaths which totaled 1 million during 1946–47 are not included with in these figures .
The deaths of 8.2 million Soviet civilians, including Jews, were documented from 1942–1946 by the Soviet
Extraordinary State CommissionThe Extraordinary State Commission - fully: „Extraordinary State Commission for ascertaining and investigating crimes perpetrated by the German-Fascist invaders and their accomplices, and the damage inflicted by them on citizens, collective farms, social organisations, State enterprises and...
. The official Soviet era statistics for war losses list 25.3 million war related deaths. Military losses of 8.7 million including 1.8 million missing in action and POW dead (out of 4.0 million total POWs). Civilian deaths in German hands totaled 13.7 million, including 7.4 million victims of Nazi genocide and reprisals; 2.2 million deaths of persons deported to Germany for forced labor; and 4.1 million famine and disease deaths in occupied territory. There were an additional estimated 3.0 million famine deaths in the territory not under German occupation. These losses are for the entire territory of the USSR in 1941, including territories annexed in 1939–40 Documents from the Soviet archives list the total deaths of prisoners in the
GulagThe Gulag or GULAG was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. The term is infamous for its association with remote places where prisoners were kept and sometimes disappeared...
from 1941 to 1945 at 621,637. . However, an independent Russian journalist believes the actual death toll may be as high as 1.7 million, when one takes into account summary executions and
deaths of those forcibly deported during the war.Population transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers", deportations of nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite directions to...
.
Total Soviet military dead from 1941–45, including partisans & militia, of the individual Soviet republics were 10.5 million:
Russia 6,750,000; Armenia 150,000; Azerbaijan 210,000; Belarus 620,000; Georgia 190,000; Moldova 41,000; Ukraine 1,620,000; Estonia 13,000; Latvia 18,000; Lithuania 27,000; Kazakhstan 310,000; Kyrgyzstan 70,00; Tajikistan 50,000; Turkmenistan 70,000; Uzbekistan 330,000.
Total war related civilian deaths, including territories annexed 1939–45, of the individual Soviet republics were 15.7 million:
Russia 7,200,000; Armenia 30,000; Azerbaijan 110,000; Belarus 1,670,000; Georgia 110,000; Moldova 120,000; Ukraine 5,200,000; Estonia 35,000; Latvia 220,000; Lithuania 345,000; Kazakhstan 350,000; Kyrgyzstan 50,00; Tajikistan 70,000; Turkmenistan 30,000; Uzbekistan 220,000.
The genocide of Roma people was 30,000 persons.Jewish Holocaust victims, within 1939 borders, totaled 1,000,000.
Causes
From 1941 on, Stalin was willing to strike back against the invading Axis forces at all costs and led the war with extreme brutality, including against his own soldiers. The Red Army took much higher casualties than any other military force during World War II, in part because of high manpower attrition and inadequate time for training. Faced with badly equipped
infantryInfantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of the Combat Arms they are the backbone of armies...
units barely capable of standing up against machine guns, tanks and
artilleryArtillery is a military combat Arm that employs weapons capable of discharging large projectiles in combat. They are generally capable of adding considerable fire power to the military capability of an armed force...
, the tactics of Soviet commanders were often based on mass infantry attacks, inflicting heavy losses on their own troops. This tactic was also used for clearing minefields, which were ‘attacked’ by waves of infantry soldiers, usually said to belong to penal battalions, in order to clear them, although it is uncertain if this was a common tactic. In accordance with the orders of Soviet High Command, retreating soldiers or even soldiers who hesitated to advance faced being shot by rearguard
SMERSHSMERSH were the counter-intelligence departments in the Soviet Army created in 1943...
units:
Stalin’s order No 270 of August 16, 1941, states that in case of retreat or surrender, all officers involved were to be shot on the spot and all enlisted men threatened with total annihilation as well as possible reprisals against their families.
The fighting involved millions of Axis and Soviet troops along the broadest land front in military history. It was by far the deadliest single theatre of war in World War II, with over 5 million deaths on the Axis Forces; Soviet combat deaths were about 8.6 to 10.6 million (out of which 3.3 to 3.5 million Soviets died in German captivity), and estimated civilian deaths range from about 14 to 17 million. Over 11.4 million Soviet civilians, and another estimated 3.5 million civilians from the Annexed territories were killed. Soviet and Russian historiography often uses the term "irretrievable casualties". According to the Narkomat of Defence order (№ 023, February 4, 1944), the irretrievable casualties include killed, missed, those who died due to war-time or subsequent wounds, maladies and
chilblainChilblains is a medical condition that is often confused with frostbite and trench foot. Chilblains are acral ulcers that occur when a predisposed individual is exposed to cold and humidity...
s and those who were captured. Also, the Nazis exterminated over 1 million Soviet Jews and another 4.2 million Jews from the Annexed Territories which include over 3 million Polish Jews in the Holocaust.
The genocidal death toll was attributed to several factors, including brutal mistreatment of POWs and captured partisans by both sides, multiple atrocities by the Germans and the Soviets against the civilian population and each other, the wholesale use of weaponry on the battlefield against huge masses of infantry. The multiple battles, and most of all, the use of
scorched earthA scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...
tactics destroyed
agricultural landAgriculture is the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and...
, infrastructure, and whole towns, leaving much of the population homeless and without food.