Hi to all. This is my first post. I registered specifically to start this thread. I've been long interested in how the death toll sustained by the Soviet Union in the Soviet-German War 1941-45, which is usually believed to stand at 26.6 million, breaks down between its component parts. That is how many of the 26.6 million were soldiers lost in combat, prisoners of war who perished in enemy custody after having been disarmed, Jews murdered in the Holocaust, Soviet civilians killed by the occupational regime in anti-partisan reprisals and other killing policies, Soviet citizens who died due to repression of their own state, civilians who lost their lives directly in battles, civilians who died of malnutrition and disease in the occupied, western Soviet Union, as well as those who perished of similar reasons in the unoccupied, interior USSR, and so on and so on. Quickly, however, I discovered that historiography lacks in this regard. Quite frankly I was shocked how little work has been attempted in this direction. There just isn't a useful breakdown out there that I was able to find. To begin with such breakdowns appear to have been only attempted a few times, and even then the results were less than satisfactory. For example, GF Krivosheev in Russia and the USSR in the War of the 20th Century from 2001, gives a partial mini-breakdown of the casualties as being 8.7 million deaths from its armed forces, 7.4 million Soviet civilians shot, gassed or burned alive by the Germans , 2.2 million deaths of Soviet forced laborers in Germany, 641 thousand residents of Leningrad who succumbed to starvation in besieged Leningrad and 4.1 million who died due to malnutrition and disease in the western USSR under the German occupation. In fact, all but the last number, are certainly inaccurate. (I would estimate the deaths from the armed forces at 10-10.5 million, victims of the occupation who died violent deaths at 3.5 million, deaths arising from the deportation of Soviet forced laborers at 0.2 million and civilian deaths in the siege of Leningrad at 0.9 million.) Given this state of affairs I ended up delving into secondary sources and attempting a breakdown of the death toll of my own, which you may find here (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_UgkaVaFacSRkZzR2tDTnRPeUk). First of all, I find 25.3 million (not 26.6 million which is demographic loss) to be currently the best estimate of the total war death. Of this number 1.5 million is due to Soviet state repression, leaving 23.8 million due to war and occupation. In fact, let me copy the tables with my various estimates (many of which are not my own, but simply me citing figures from various historians that I found the most convincing and the best backed) here: Total Soviet Losses Calculated loss in excess of expected deaths (Andreev, Darskii, Kharkova): 26,600,000 War-related deaths of people expected to die in the timeframe of other causes (Harrison): 1,100,000 Expected deaths due to Soviet repression: 300,000 Total deficit of the Soviet population in the war: 28,000,000 Soviet Losses by Cause: Demographic loss of the Soviet Union in the Soviet-German War: 28,000,000 Of that losses in migration deficit (Ellman, Maksudov): 2,700,000 Total Soviet war dead: 25,300,000 Of that losses due to Soviet state repression: 1,500,000 Total losses due to war and occupation: 23,800,000 Losses due to Soviet State Repression: Deaths in prisons and camps and colonies of the gulag: 1,020,000 Deaths in deportations, internal exile and the labor army: 300,000 Executions by civil authorities: 65,000 Executions by military tribunals: 135,000 Total deaths due to Soviet state repression: 1,500,000 Losses due to War and Occupation Red Army and NKDV losses due to combat, accidents and disease: 7,250,000 Soviet partisan deaths: 150,000 Opolchenie militia deaths: 100,000 Soviet citizens killed fighting in German service: 215,000 Killed fighting as part of the UPA, the Polish Home Army or the Lithuanian anti-Soviet insurgency: 75,000 Deaths of Soviet prisoners of war in German captivity: 3,100,000 Deaths of Soviet prisoners of war in Finnish captivity: 20,000 Deaths of Soviet forced laborers in German-run Europe and the children born to them: 200,000 Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union murdered in the Holocaust: 2,550,000 Civilian deaths in the Siege of Leningrad: 900,000 Non-Jewish Civilians killed in German anti-partisan reprisals in the countryside: 650,000 Non-combatants killed in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in Galicia and Volhynia: 90,000 Killed in reprisals of the Soviet partisans: 60,000 Civilian deaths in the German strategic bombing of Soviet cities: 50,000 Civilians killed in all other German killing policies and repression: 200,000-400,000 Civilian deaths due to battle munitions in, and in the aftermath of, battles: 200,000-400,000 Civilian deaths due to general privation due to invasion and occupation: 7,600,000-8,000,000 Total deaths due to occupation and war: 23,800,000 If you are interested in the topic at all, please examine my full paper in 10,000 words here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_UgkaVaFacSRkZzR2tDTnRPeUk/ and offer any thoughts, comments, critique that you may have. Especially if you disagree with a part, or find it hard to believe. As they say sometime we learn the most from those we disagree with. Also, of course the paper can be improved further, which I intend to do. Obviously the most immediate candidates for improvement are the last three figures I give, for "civilians killed in all other German killing policies and repression", "Civilian deaths due to battle munitions in, and in the aftermath of, battles" and "civilian deaths due to general privation due to invasion and occupation", where I give wide ranges, and which are the estimates I am perhaps the most uncertain off. If you have a thought or a line of reasoning regarding any of these this would be particularly welcome. When it comes to civilians killed by the occupation in actions other than anti-partisan reprisals in the countryside I can probably expand the number of my sources, and rely on more than just the one figure for Belarus from Gerlach. The figure on civilian deaths in battles is probably destined to remain an educated guess, but I may grow more confident about it, if I had estimates on civilian deaths from combat from other battlefields of WWII and even other wars. Eg, how many civilians were killed due to land combat in Germany in 1945? I've seen everything from 20,000 for entire Germany to 130,000 just in Berlin. Finally as concerns the figure of deaths due to general privation, I suppose it might be possible to breakdown that number a tiny bit by estimating privation deaths in a few of the most affected cities, the evacuees and perhaps some other population as well. If you have any thoughts or comments at all please share.
Wow thats pretty cool seeing it like that. Its amazing that they could still keep going after pretty much losing the twice the amount of the whole population of Canada at the time.
