World War II casualties

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World War II was humanity's deadliest war, causing tens of millions of deaths. The tables below provide a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.

Total human losses

The total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II was roughly 72 million people, making it the deadliest and most destructive war in human history. The civilian toll was around 47 million, including 20 million deaths due to war-related famine and disease. The military toll was about 25 million, including the deaths of about 4 million prisoners of war in captivity. The Allies lost approximately 61 million people, and the Axis powers lost 11 million.

Recent historical scholarship

Nazi massacre in Kerch, 1942. The death toll in the Soviet Union during World War II was immense.

World War II casualty statistics vary to a great extent. Estimates of the death toll range from 50 million to over 70 million.^[36] Recent historical scholarship has shed new light on the casualties of World War II. Research in Russia since the fall of communism has revised the estimate of Soviet war dead. Losses of the USSR, within postwar borders, are now estimated at 26.6 million.^[37] Historians in post-communist Poland now estimate the losses of Polish citizens at between 4.9 and 5.1 million in German hands.^{[43] [94]},^[47] The German Army historian Dr. Rüdiger Overmans published a study in 2000 that estimated German military dead and missing at 5.3 million.^[6] The war dead totals on this page for the British Commonwealth are based on the research by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to identify and commemorate Commonwealth war dead.^[29]. The casualties listed here include about 12 million war related famine deaths in China, Indonesia, French Indochina and India that are often omitted from other compilations of World War II casualties.^[9][5]

Casualties by country

The casualties of World War II were suffered disproportionately by the various participants. This is especially true regarding civilian casualties. The following chart gives data on the casualties suffered by each country, along with population information to show the relative impact of losses. Military casualties include battle deaths and personnel missing in action, as well as fatalities due to accidents, disease and deaths of prisoners of war in captivity. Civilian casualties include deaths caused by strategic bombing, Nazi persecution, Japanese war crimes, population transfers in the Soviet Union and deaths due to war related famine and disease. Jewish losses in the Holocaust are listed separately for each nation, since they are known. Compiling or estimating the numbers of deaths caused during wars and other violent conflicts is a controversial subject. Historians often put forward many different estimates of the numbers killed during World War II.^[36] The distinction between military and civilian casualties caused directly by warfare and collateral damage is not always clear cut. For nations that suffered huge losses such as the U.S.S.R, China, Poland and Yugoslavia, our sources can give us only the total estimated population loss caused by the war and a rough estimate of the breakdown between deaths caused by military activity, crimes against humanity and war related famine. The footnotes give a detailed breakdown of the casualties and their sources.

Human Losses of World War Two by Country

Country Population 1939 Military deaths Civilian deaths Jewish Holocaust deaths Total deaths Deaths as % of 1939 population  Albania[1] 1,073,000 28,000 200 28,200 2.63%  Australia[2] 6,998,000 39,400 700 40,100 0.57%  Austria[3] 6,653,000 40,500 65,000 105,500 1.59%  Belgium[4] 8,387,000 12,100 49,600 24,400 86,100 1.02%  Brazil[5] 40,289,000 1,000 1,000 2,000 0.00%  Bulgaria[6] 6,458,000 22,000 3,000 25,000 0.38%  Burma[7] 16,119,000 22,000 250,000 272,000 1.16%  Canada[8] 11,267,000 45,300 45,300 0.40%  Republic of China[9] 517,568,000 3,800,000 16,200,000 20,000,000 3.86%  Cuba[10] 4,235,000 100 100 0.00%  Czechoslovakia[11] 15,300,000 25,000 43,000 277,000 345,000 2.25%  Denmark[12] 3,795,000 2,100 1,000 100 3,200 0.08%  Estonia[13] 1,134,000 48,000 1,000 49,000 4.62%  Ethiopia[14] 17,700,000 5,000 95,000 100,000 0.6%  Finland[15] 3,700,000 95,000 2,000 97,000 2.62%  France[16] 41,700,000 217,600 267,000 83,000 567,600 1.35%  French Indochina[17] 24,600,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 4.07%  Nazi Germany[18][19][20][21] 69,623,000 5,533,000 1,600,000 160,000 7,293,000 10.47%  Greece[22] 7,222,000 20,000 220,000 71,300 311,300 4.31%  Hungary[23] 9,129,000 300,000 80,000 200,000 580,000 6.35%  Iceland[24] 119,000 200 200 0.17% Indian Empire[25] 378,000,000 87,000 1,500,000 1,587,000 0.42%  Dutch East Indies[26] 69,435,000 4,000,000 4,000,000 5.76%  Iran[27] 14,340,000 200 200 0.00%  Iraq[28] 3,698,000 1,000 1,000 0.03%  Ireland[29] 2,960,000 200 200 0.00%  Italy[30] 44,394,000 301,400 145,100 8,000 454,500 1.02%  Empire of Japan[31] 71,380,000 2,120,000 580,000 2,700,000 3.78%  Korea[32] 23,400,000 378,000 378,000 1.6%  Latvia[33] 1,995,000 147,000 80,000 227,000 11.38%  Lithuania[34] 2,575,000 212,000 141,000 353,000 13.71%  Luxembourg[35] 295,000 1,300 700 2,000 0.68%  Malaya[36] 4,391,000 100,000 100,000 2.28%  Malta[37] 269,000 1,500 1,500 0.56%  Mexico[38] 19,320,000 100 100 0.00%  Mongolia[39] 819,000 300 300 0.04%  Netherlands[40] 8,729,000 15,800 109,300 106,000 231,100 2.65%  Newfoundland[41] 300,000 1,000 100 1,100 0.37%  New Zealand[42] 1,629,000 11,900 11,900 0.67%  Norway[43] 2,945,000 3,000 5,800 700 9,500 0.32%  Philippines[44] 16,000,000 57,000 90,000 147,000 0.92% Micronesia[45] 1,900,000 57,000 57,000 3.00%  Poland[46] 34,849,000 240,000 2,360,000 3,000,000 5,600,000 16.07%  Portuguese Timor[47] 500,000 55,000 55,000 11.00%  Romania[48] 19,934,000 300,000 64,000 469,000 833,000 4.22%  Singapore[49] 728,000 50,000 50,000 6.87%  South Africa[50] 10,160,000 11,900 11,900 0.12%  Soviet Union[51] 168,500,000 10,700,000 11,400,000 1,000,000 23,100,000 13.71%  Spain[52] 25,637,000 4,500 4,500 0.02%  Sweden[53] 6,341,000 200 2,000 2,200 0.03%  Switzerland[54] 4,210,000 100 100 0.00%  Thailand[55] 15,023,000 5,600 300 5,900 0.04%  United Kingdom[56] 47,760,000 382,600 67,800 450,400 0.94%  United States[57] 131,028,000 416,800 1,700 418,500 0.32%  Yugoslavia[58] 15,400,000 446,000 514,000 67,000 1,027,000 6.67% Totals 1,961,913,000 25,273,700 41,743,400 5,754,400 72,771,500 3.71%

Notes

Chart showing World War II deaths by country in millions as well as by percentage of population, and piechart with percentage of military and civilian deaths for the Allied and the Axis Powers.

• Figures rounded to the nearest hundredth place.
• Population in 1939 - Source: Population Statistics[59]
• War losses are for the national boundaries of 1939.
• Total Soviet losses in the postwar 1946-91 boundaries [60] were 26.6 million.^[37]
• Total Polish losses in the postwar 1946 boundaries[61] were 2,723,000.^[40,183]
• Total Romanian losses in the postwar 1946 boundaries. [62] were 460,000^[2,133]
• Military Deaths - Losses include deaths of regular military forces from combat as well as non combat causes. Partisan (military) and Resistance fighter deaths forces are included with military losses. The deaths of prisoners of war in captivity and personnel missing in action are also included with military deaths. The armed forces of the various nations are treated as single entities, for example the deaths of Austrians, Soviets, French and ethnic Germans in the Wehrmacht are included with German military losses.
  Prisoner of war deaths in Nazi captivity totaled 3.1 Million^{[17,Table A]}600,000 in Soviet captivity ^{[7,278] [3,]}.
  POW deaths in Japanese captivity totaled 467,000. Detailed by country: China 400,000 .^{[5,Table 5A]} ; Netherlands-Military 8,500 ^{[5,Table 5A]}; U.K. 12,430 ^{[5,Table 5A]}; U.K. Colonies 11,060 ^{[5,Table 5A]} ; Canada 270 ^{[5,Table 5A]}; Philippines 27,260.^{[5,Table 5A]}; Australia 7,410^{[5,Table 5A]}; and the United States 12,643 ^[89]
• Civilian Deaths - Includes losses from military action and war related deaths caused by famine and disease.
  The Holocaust took the lives of between 5.1 to 6.0 million Jews.^[61] Other groups persecuted and killed by the Nazis ^{[80][60] [49] [48] [17]}. included 130,000 to 500,000 Gypsies ^{[48] [50] [62]}; 150,000 to 200,000 handicapped persons ^[51] ; 2.6 to 3 million Soviet prisoners of war^[52]; 1.8 to 1.9 million Poles ^[38]; 4.5 to 8.2 million Soviet civilians ^{[53][60] [48]}; about 10,000 Gay men^[54]; about 1,000 Jehovah's Witnesses ^[55]; between 1,000 to 2,000 Roman Catholic clergy