World War II casualties

World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished, or about 3% of the 2.3 billion (est.) people on Earth in 1940. Deaths directly caused by the war (including military and civilian fatalities) are estimated at 50–56 million, with an additional estimated 19–28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine. Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. More than half of the total number of casualties are accounted for by the dead of the Republic of China and of the Soviet Union. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses. Statistics on the number of military wounded are included whenever available.
Recent historical scholarship has shed new light on the topic of Second World War casualties. Research in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union has caused a revision of estimates of Soviet World War II fatalities. According to Russian government figures, USSR losses within postwar borders now stand at 26.6 million, including 8 to 9 million due to famine and disease. In August 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated Poland's dead at between 5.6 and 5.8 million. Historian Rüdiger Overmans of the Military History Research Office (Germany) published a study in 2000 that estimated the German military dead and missing at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders, in Austria, and in east-central Europe. The Red Army claimed responsibility for the majority of Wehrmacht casualties during World War II. The People's Republic of China puts its war dead at 20 million, while the Japanese government puts its casualties due to the war at 3.1 million. An estimated 7-10 million people died in the Dutch, British, French and US colonies in South and Southeast Asia, mostly from war-related famine.
Classification of casualties.
Compiling or estimating the numbers of deaths and wounded caused during wars and other violent conflicts is a controversial subject. Historians often put forward many different estimates of the numbers killed and wounded during World War II. The authors of the "Oxford Companion to World War II" maintain that "casualty statistics are notoriously unreliable". The table below gives data on the number of dead and military wounded for each country, along with population information to show the relative impact of losses. When scholarly sources differ on the number of deaths in a country, a range of war losses is given, in order to inform readers that the death toll is disputed. Since casualty statistics are sometimes disputed the footnotes to this article present the different estimates by official governmental sources as well as historians. Military figures include battle deaths (KIA) and personnel missing in action (MIA), as well as fatalities due to accidents, disease and deaths of prisoners of war in captivity. Civilian casualties include deaths caused by strategic bombing, Holocaust victims, German war crimes, Japanese war crimes, population transfers in the Soviet Union, Allied war crimes, and deaths due to war-related famine and disease.
The sources for the casualties of the individual nations do not use the same methods, and civilian deaths due to starvation and disease make up a large proportion of the civilian deaths in China and the Soviet Union. The losses listed here are actual deaths; hypothetical losses due to a decline in births are not included with the total dead. 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 Soviet Union, China, Poland, Germany, and Yugoslavia, sources can give only the total estimated population loss caused by the war and a rough estimate of the breakdown of deaths caused by military activity, crimes against humanity and war-related famine. The casualties listed here include 19 to 25 million war-related famine deaths in the USSR, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and India that are often omitted from other compilations of World War II casualties.
The footnotes give a detailed breakdown of the casualties and their sources, including data on the number of wounded where reliable sources are available.
Human losses by country.
Soviet Union.
The estimated breakdown for each Soviet republic of total war dead
The source of the figures is . Erlikman, a Russian historian, notes that these figures are his estimates.
Holocaust deaths.
Included in the figures of total war dead for each nation are victims of the Holocaust.
Jewish deaths.
The Holocaust is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II. Martin Gilbert estimates 5.7 million (78%) of the 7.3 million Jews in German-occupied Europe were Holocaust victims. Estimates of Holocaust deaths range between 4.9 and 5.9 million Jews.
The figures for the pre-war Jewish population and deaths in the table below are from "The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust". The low, high and average percentage figures for deaths of the pre-war population have been added.
Non-Jews persecuted and killed by Nazi and Nazi-affiliated forces.
Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the other victims persecuted and killed by the Nazis.
The following figures are from "The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust", the authors maintain that "statistics on Gypsy losses are especially unreliable and controversial. These figures (cited below) are based on necessarily rough estimates".
German war crimes.
Nazi Germany ordered, organized and condoned a substantial number of war crimes in World War II. The most notable of these is the Holocaust in which millions of Jews, Poles, and Romani were systematically murdered or died from abuse and mistreatment. Millions also died as a result of other German actions.
While the Nazi Party's own SS forces (in particular the "SS-Totenkopfverbände", "Einsatzgruppen" and Waffen-SS) of Nazi Germany was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of the Holocaust, the regular armed forces represented by the "Wehrmacht" committed war crimes of their own, particularly on the Eastern Front in the war against the Soviet Union.
Japanese war crimes.
Included with total war dead are victims of Japanese war crimes.
R. J. Rummel.
R. J. Rummel estimates the civilian victims of Japanese democide at 5,964,000. Detailed by country: 
Rummel estimates POW deaths in Japanese custody at 539,000. Detailed by country: 
Werner Gruhl.
Werner Gruhl estimates the civilian deaths at 20,365,000.
Gruhl estimates POW deaths in Japanese captivity at 331,584.
Out of 60,000 Indian Army POWs taken at the Fall of Singapore, 11,000 died in captivity. There were 14,657 deaths among the total 130,895 western civilians interned by the Japanese due to famine and disease.
Oppression in the Soviet Union.
The total war dead in the USSR includes about 1 million victims of Stalin's regime. The number of deaths in the Gulag labor camps increased as a result of wartime overcrowding and food shortages. The Stalin regime deported the entire populations of ethnic minorities considered to be potentially disloyal. Since 1990 Russian scholars have been given access to the Soviet-era archives and have published data on the numbers of people executed and those who died in Gulag labor camps and prisons. The Russian scholar Viktor Zemskov puts the death toll from 1941 to 1945 at about 1 million based on data from the Soviet archives. The Soviet-era archive figures on the Gulag labor camps has been the subject of a vigorous academic debate outside Russia since their publication in 1991. J. Arch Getty and Stephen G. Wheatcroft maintain that Soviet-era figures more accurately detail the victims of the Gulag labor camp system in the Stalin era. Robert Conquest and Steven Rosefielde have disputed the accuracy of the data from the Soviet archives, maintaining that the demographic data and testimonials by survivors of the Gulag labor camps indicate a higher death toll. Rosefielde posits that the release of the Soviet Archive figures is disinformation generated by the modern KGB. Rosefielde maintains that the data from the Soviet archives is incomplete; for example, he pointed out that the figures do not include the 22,000 victims of the Katyn massacre. Rosefielde's demographic analysis puts the number of excess deaths due to Soviet repression at 2,183,000 in 1939–40 and 5,458,000 from 1941 to 1945. Michael Haynes and Rumy Husun accept the figures from the Soviet archives as being an accurate tally of Stalin's victims, they maintain that the demographic data depicts an underdeveloped Soviet economy and the losses in World War Two rather than indicating a higher death toll in the Gulag labor camps.
In August 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated 150,000 Polish citizens were killed due to Soviet repression. Since the collapse of the USSR, Polish scholars have been able to do research in the Soviet archives on Polish losses during the Soviet occupation. Andrzej Paczkowski puts the number of Polish deaths at 90,000–100,000 of the 1.0 million persons deported and 30,000 executed by the Soviets. In 2005 Tadeusz Piotrowski estimated the death toll in Soviet hands at 350,000.
The Estonian State Commission for the Examination of Repressive Policies Carried out During the Occupations put civilian deaths due to the Soviet occupation in 1940–1941 at 33,900 including (7,800 deaths) of arrested people, (6,000) deportee deaths, (5,000) evacuee deaths, (1,100) people gone missing and (14,000) conscripted for forced labor. After the reoccupation by the USSR, 5,000 Estonians died in Soviet prisons during 1944–45.
The following is a summary of the data from the Soviet archives:
Reported deaths for the years 1939–1945 1,187,783, including: judicial executions 46,350; deaths in Gulag labor camps 718,804; deaths in labor colonies and prisons 422,629.
Deported to special settlements: (figures are for deportations to Special Settlements only, not including those executed, sent to Gulag labor camps or conscripted into the Soviet Army. Nor do the figures include additional deportations after the war).
Deported from annexed territories 1940–41 380,000 to 390,000 persons, including: Poland 309–312,000; Lithuania 17,500; Latvia 17,000; Estonia 6,000; Moldova 22,842. In August 1941, 243,106 Poles living in the Special Settlements were amnestied and released by the Soviets.
Deported during the War 1941–1945 about 2.3 million persons of Soviet ethnic minorities including: Soviet Germans 1,209,000; Finns 9,000; Karachays 69,000; Kalmyks 92,000; Chechens and Ingush 479,000; Balkars 37,000; Crimean Tatars 191,014; Meskhetian Turks 91,000; Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians from Crimea 42,000; Ukrainian OUN members 100,000; Poles 30,000.
A total of 2,230,500 persons were living in the settlements in October 1945 and 309,100 deaths were reported in special settlements for the years 1941–1948.
Russian sources list Axis prisoner of war deaths of 580,589 in Soviet captivity based on data in the Soviet archives (Germany 381,067; Hungary 54,755; Romania 54,612; Italy 27,683; Finland 403, and Japan 62,069). However some western scholars estimate the total at between 1.7 and 2.3 million.
Commonwealth military casualties.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) Annual Report 2014–2015 is the source of the military dead for the British Empire. The war dead totals listed in the report are based on the research by the CWGC to identify and commemorate Commonwealth war dead. The statistics tabulated by the CWGC are representative of the number of names commemorated for all servicemen/women of the Armed Forces of the Commonwealth and former UK Dependencies, whose death was attributable to their war service. Some auxiliary and civilian organizations are also accorded war grave status if death occurred under certain specified conditions. For the purposes of CWGC the dates of inclusion for Commonwealth War Dead are 3 September 1939 to 31 December 1947.
Footnotes.
　Albania
　Australia
　Austria
　Belgium
　Brazil
　Bulgaria
　Burma
　Canada
　China
Sources for total Chinese war dead are divergent and range from 10 to 20 million as detailed below.
　Cuba
　Czechoslovakia
　Denmark
　Dutch East Indies
　Egypt
　Estonia
　Ethiopia
　Finland
　France
　French Indochina
　Germany
The following notes summarize German casualties, the details are presented in German casualties in World War II.
German population
Total German war dead
German military casualties
Civilian Casualties
Civilian casualties in air raids
&lt;poem&gt;*(1945–47) The United States Strategic Bombing Survey gave three different figures for German air raid deaths.
 1- The summary report of September 30, 1945 put total casualties for the entire period of the war at 305,000 killed and 780,000 wounded.
 2- The section "Effects of Strategic Bombing on the German War Economy" of October 31, 1945 put the losses at 375,000 killed and 625,000 wounded.
 3- The section "The Effect of Bombing on Health and Medical Care in Germany" of January 1947 made a preliminary calculated estimate of air raid dead at 422,000. Regarding overall losses, they concluded that "It was further estimated that an additional number, approximately 25% of known deaths in 1944–45, were still unrecovered and unrecorded. With an addition of this estimate of 1944–45 unrecorded deaths, the final estimation gave in round numbers a half a million German civilians killed by Allied aerial attacks."&lt;/poem&gt;
Civilians killed in 1945 military campaign
Deaths due to Nazi political, racial and religious persecution
Expulsion and flight of ethnic Germans
The following notes summarize German expulsion casualties, the details are presented in the flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union' and the Demographic estimates of the flight and expulsion of Germans. The figures for these losses are currently disputed, estimates of the total deaths range from 500,000 to 2,000,000. The death toll attributable to the flight and expulsions was estimated at 2.2 million by the West German government in 1958. German government reports which were released to the public in 1987 and 1989 have caused some historians in Germany to put the actual total at 500,000 to 600,000. English language sources put the death toll at 2 to 3 million based on the West German government statistical analysis of the 1950s.
German government figures of 2.0 to 2.5 million civilian deaths due to expulsions have been disputed by scholars since the publication of the results of the German church search service survey and the report by the German Federal Archive.
Post war increase in natural deaths
　Greece
　Guam
　Hungary
　Iceland
　India
Bengal famine of 1943
　Iraq
　Ireland
　Italy
&lt;poem&gt;
 Military war dead
 Confirmed dead were 159,957 (92,767 pre-armistice, 67,090 post armistice)
 Missing and presumed dead(including POWs) were 131,419 (111,579 pre-armistice, 19,840 post armistice)
 Losses by branch of service: Army 201,405; Navy 22,034; Air Force 9,096; Colonial Forces 354; Chaplains 91; Fascist militia
 10,066; Paramilitary 3,252; not indicated 45,078.
 Military Losses by theatre of war: Italy 74,725 (37,573 post armistice); France 2,060 (1,039 post armistice);
 Germany 25,430 (24,020 post armistice); Greece, Albania, and Yugoslavia 49,459 (10,090 post armistice);
 USSR 82,079 (3,522 post armistice); Africa 22,341 (1,565 post armistice), at sea 28,438 (5,526 post armistice);
 other and unknown 6,844 (3,695 post armistice).
&lt;/poem&gt;
　Japan
Military dead
 &lt;poem&gt;
 Key: Location, Army dead, "Navy dead," (Total dead)
 Japan Proper: 58,100, "45,800," (103,900)
 Bonin Islands: 2,700, "12,500," (15,200)
 Okinawa: 67,900, "21,500," (89,400)
 Formosa (Taiwan): 28,500, "10,600," (39,100)
 Korea: 19,600, "6,900," (26,500)
 Sakhalin, the Aleutian, and Kuril Islands: 8,200, "3,200," (11,400)
 Manchuria: 45,900, "800," (46,700)
 China (inc. Hong Kong): 435,600, "20,100," (455,700)
 Siberia: 52,300, "400," (52,700)
 Central Pacific: 95,800, "151,400," (247,200)
 Philippines: 377,500, "121,100," (498,600)
 French Indochina: 7,900, "4,500," (12,400)
 Thailand: 6,900, "100," (7,000)
 Burma (inc. India): 163,000, "1,500," (164,500)
 Malaya &amp; Singapore: 8,500, "2,900," (11,400)
 Andaman &amp; Nicobar Islands: 900, "1,500," (2,400)
 Sumatra: 2,700, "500," (3,200)
 Java: 2,700, "3,800," (6,500)
 Lesser Sundas: 51,800, "1,200," (53,000)
 Borneo: 11,300, "6,700," (18,000)
 Celebes: 1,500, "4,000," (5,500)
 Moluccas: 2,600, "1,800," (4,400)
 New Guinea: 112,400, "15,200," (127,600)
 Bismarck Archipelago: 19,700, "10,800," (30,500)
 Solomon Islands: 63,200, "25,000," (88,200)
 Total: 1,647,200, "473,800," (2,121,000)
 &lt;/poem&gt;
Overall, perhaps two thirds of all Japanese military dead came not from combat, but from starvation and disease. In some cases this figure was potentially even higher, up to 80% in the Philippines and a staggering 97% in New Guinea.
 &lt;poem&gt;
 Army
 China after Pearl Harbor 202,958 killed and 88,920 wounded.
 vs. United States 485,717 killed and 34,679 wounded.
 vs. U.K. and Netherlands 208,026 killed and 139,225 wounded.
 vs. Australia 199,511 killed and 15,000 wounded.
 French Indochina 2,803 killed and 6,000 wounded.
 Manchuria &amp; USSR 7,483 killed and 4,641 wounded.
 other overseas 23,388 killed and 0 wounded.
 Japan proper 10,543 killed and 6,782 wounded.
 Army total 1,140,429 killed and 295,247 wounded.
 Navy
 Sailors 300,386 killed and 12,275 wounded and missing.
 Civilians in Navy service 114,493 killed and 1,880 wounded and missing.
 Navy total 414,879 killed and 14,155 wounded and missing.
 &lt;/poem&gt;
Civilian Dead
1-Summary Report (July 1946) Total civilian casualties in Japan, as a result of 9 months of air attack, including those from the atomic bombs, were approximately 806,000. Of these, approximately 330,000 were fatalities.
2-United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Medical Division (1947) The bombing of Japan killed 333,000 civilians and injured 473,000. Of this total 120,000 died and 160,000 were injured in the atomic bombings, leaving 213,000 dead and 313,000 injured by conventional bombing.
3-The effects of air attack on Japanese urban economy. Summary report (1947) Estimated that 252,769 Japanese were killed and 298,650 injured in the air war.
4-The Effects of strategic bombing on Japanese morale Based on a survey of Japanese households the death toll was put at 900,000 dead and 1.3 million injured, the SBS noted that this figure was subject to a maximum sampling error of 30%.
5-Strategic Bombing Survey The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki The most striking result of the atomic bombs was the great number of casualties. The exact number of dead and injured will never be known because of the confusion after the explosions. Persons unaccounted for might have been burned beyond recognition in the falling buildings, disposed of in one of the mass cremations of the first week of recovery, or driven out of the city to die or recover without any record remaining. No sure count of even the prepaid populations existed. Because of the decline in activity in the two port cities, the constant threat of incendiary raids, and the formal evacuation programs of the Government, an unknown number of the inhabitants had either drifter away from the cities or been removed according to plan. In this uncertain situation, estimates of casualties have generally ranged between 100,000 and 180,000 for Hiroshima, and between 50,000 and 100,000 for Nagasaki. The Survey believes the dead at Hiroshima to have been between 70,000 and 80,000, with an equal number injured; at Nagasaki over 35,000 dead and somewhat more than that injured seems the most plausible estimate.
　Korea
　Latvia
　Lithuania
　Luxembourg
　Malaya and Singapore
　Malta 1,493 civilians were killed and 3,734 wounded during the Siege of Malta (World War II) Maltese civilians killed during the siege are also included with U.K. civilian deaths by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
　Mexico
　Mongolia
　Nauru
　Nepal
　Netherlands
&lt;poem&gt;
 Military deaths 6,750 which included 3,900 regular Army, 2,600 Navy forces, and 250 POW in Germany.
 Civilian deaths of 203,250 which included 1,350 Merchant seaman, 2,800 executed, 2,500 dead in Dutch concentration camps,
 20,400 killed by acts of war, 104,000 Jewish Holocaust dead, 18,000 political prisoners in Germany, 27,000 workers in Germany,
 3,700 Dutch nationals in the German armed forces and 7,500 missing and presumed dead in Germany and 16,000 deaths
 in the Dutch famine of 1944. Not Included in the figure of 210,000 war dead are 70,000 "indirect war casualties",
 which are attributed to an increase in natural deaths from 1940 to 1945 and 1,650 foreign nationals killed while serving in the
 Dutch Merchant Marine.
&lt;/poem&gt;
　Newfoundland
　New Zealand
　Norway
&lt;poem&gt;
 Military(Norwegian &amp; Allied Forces) 2,000 (800 Army, 900 Navy and 100 Air).
 Civilians 7,500 (3,600 Merchant seaman, 1,500 resistance fighters, 1,800 civilians killed and 600 Jews killed)
 In German Armed Forces 700
&lt;/poem&gt;
　Papua New Guinea
　Philippines
　Poland
Total Polish war dead
Polish losses during the Soviet occupation (1939–1941)
Polish military casualties
　Timor
　Romania
　Ruanda Urundi
　South Africa
　South Seas Mandate
The following notes summarize Soviet casualties, the details are presented in World War II casualties of the Soviet Union.
　Spain
　Sweden
　Switzerland
　Thailand
　Turkey
　United Kingdom and Colonies
&lt;poem&gt;
 Total war dead of 357,116; Navy (50,758); Army (144,079); Air Force (69,606); Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (624);
 Merchant Navy (30,248); British Home Guard (1,206) and Civilians (60,595).
 The total still missing on 2/28/1946 were 6,244; Navy (340); Army (2,267); Air Force (3,089); Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (18);
 Merchant Navy (530); British Home Guard (0) and Civilians (0).
 These figures included the losses of Newfoundland and Southern Rhodesia.
 Colonial forces are not included in these figures.
 There were an additional 31,271 military deaths due to "natural causes" which are not included in these figures.
 Deaths due to air and V-rocket attacks were 60,595 civilians and 1,206 British Home Guard.
&lt;/poem&gt;
　United States
American military dead#
American civilian dead #
　Yugoslavia
The losses of Yugoslav collaborators
The reasons for the high human toll in Yugoslavia were as follows
A. Military operations between the occupying German military forces and their "Quislings and collaborators" against the Yugoslav resistance.
B. German forces, under express orders from Hitler, fought with a special vengeance against the Serbs, who were considered Untermensch. One of the worst one-day massacres during the German military occupation of Serbia was the Kragujevac massacre.
C. Deliberate acts of reprisal against target populations were perpetrated by all combatants. All sides practiced the shooting of hostages on a large scale. At the end of the war, many Ustaše and Slovene collaborators were killed in or as a result of the Yugoslav death march of Nazi collaborators.
D. The systematic extermination of large numbers of people for political, religious or racial reasons. The most numerous victims were Serbs. According to Yad Vashem, "During their four years in power, the Ustasa carried out a Serb genocide, exterminating over 500,000, expelling 250,000 and forcing another 200,000 to convert to Catholicism. The Ustasa also killed most of Croatia's Jews, 20,000 Gypsies, and many thousands of their political enemies." According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum "The Croat authorities murdered between 320,000 and 340,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia and Bosnia during the period of Ustaša rule; more than 30,000 Croatian Jews were killed either in Croatia or at Auschwitz-Birkenau".
 The USHMM reports between 77,000 and 99,000 persons were killed at the Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška concentration camps. The Jasenovac Memorial Site quotes a similar figure of between 80,000 and 100,000 victims. Stara Gradiška was a sub-camp of Jasenovac established for women and children. The names and data for 12,790 victims at Stara Gradiška have been established. Serbian sources currently claim that 700,000 persons were murdered at Jasenovac.
Some 40,000 Roma were murdered. Jewish victims in Yugoslavia totaled 67,122.
E. Reduced food supply caused famine and disease.
F. Allied bombing of German supply lines caused civilian casualties. The hardest hit localities were Podgorica, Leskovac, Zadar and Belgrade.
G. The demographic losses due to the reduction of 335,000 births and emigration of about 660,000 are not included with war casualties.
Other Nations