how many civilians died in ww2

Secondly, the XII Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. While this redeployment was in progress, gaps were left in the lines; and the remnants of General Dietrich von Saucken's German II Army, which had been bottled up in a pocket near Danzig, managed to escape into the Vistula delta. In Hamburg alone 45.000 were killed (pure genocide), in Dresden the official number is 25.000, Swinemnde 23.000 (USAAF air bombardment on refugees from the East escaping mass rap. Initial Soviet estimates had placed the total strength at 1million men, but this was an overestimate (, A large number of the 45,000 were troops of the, German estimate (Mller) based on incomplete archival data: 92,000 for Seelow, Halbe and inside Berlin; 100,000 for the whole Berlin area. The majority of figures (especially the largest) were taken from the National WWII Museum of New Orleans, which has some of the most consistent estimate datasets; other figures have been taken from official or academic sources from the respective country; while some of the lower figures (often excluded from major sources) have been taken from other online encyclopedias or compendiums. [55], Having failed to break through to Berlin, Wenck's XII Army made a fighting retreat back towards the Elbe and American lines after providing the IX Army survivors with surplus transport. How many people died during World War II? | Britannica [115] Schrner's Army Group Centre was forced to withdraw from the Battle of Berlin, along its lines of communications towards Czechoslovakia. Of the total number of deaths in World War II, approximately 85 percentmostly Soviet and Chinesewere on the Allied side and 15 percent on the Axis side. Heinrici correctly assessed that the main Soviet thrust would be made over the Oder River and along the main east-west Autobahn. [119] During the night, General Wenck reported to the German Supreme Army Command in Fuerstenberg that his XII Army had been forced back along the entire front. Current estimates place military deaths between 21 million and 25.5 million people. [21] The goal was to secure the oil region of Nagykanizsa and regain the Danube River for future operations, [22] but the depleted German forces had been given an impossible task. Statista. [118], At dawn on 28 April, the youth divisions Clausewitz, Scharnhorst, and Theodor Krner attacked from the south-west toward the direction of Berlin. Many civilians hid in caves . [78], On 26 April, Chuikov's 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought their way through the southern suburbs and attacked Tempelhof Airport, just inside the S-Bahn defensive ring, where they met stiff resistance from the Mncheberg Division. For information about the genesis of the "Das Deutsch Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg" project under the Military History Research Office of the Bundeswehr, refer to, The last offensive of the European war was the, Politically rehabilitated after the war and served in the, Politically rehabilitated after the war and served as the, One of the USSR's most effective and decorated leaders during, Known for unrelenting brutality; ordered the immediate hanging of all deserters, even in the final days of the war; served time for, The Soviets later estimated the number as 180,000, but this included many unarmed men in uniform, such as railway officials and members of the Reich Labour Service (, A number of sources cited in this article derive their casualty numbers from Krivosheev's archival work. [111] Meanwhile, the XII Army's bridgehead, with its headquarters in the park of Schnhausen, came under heavy Soviet artillery bombardment and was compressed into an area eight by two kilometres (five by one and a quarter miles). [123] By 6 May many German Army units and individuals had crossed the Elbe and surrendered to the US Ninth Army. Ukraine tallied the second-highest casualties, with 1,650,000 military deaths and 5,200,000 civilian deaths. On 9 March, Germany established its defence plan for the city with Operation Clausewitz. [62], On 22 April 1945, at his afternoon situation conference, Hitler fell into a tearful rage when he realised that his plans, prepared the previous day, could not be achieved. [112], The German III Panzer Army and the German XXI Army situated to the north of Berlin retreated westwards under relentless pressure from Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front, and was eventually pushed into a pocket 32km (20mi) wide that stretched from the Elbe to the coast. Get quick analyses with our professional research service. [42] Marshal Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front, which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt (Oder) in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the Seelow Heights. These breakthroughs allowed the two Soviet Fronts to envelop the German 9th Army in a large pocket west of Frankfurt. Commentary: Was American WWII Bombing Democide? "Estimated Number of Military and Civilian Fatalities Due to The Second World War per Country or Region between 1939 and 1945. "Estimated number of military and civilian fatalities due to the Second World War per country or region between 1939 and 1945." Civilians on Okinawa - PBS: Public Broadcasting Service Many civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass-bombings, disease, and starvation. The Soviet plan was to encircle Berlin first and then envelop the IX Army. [40][41], On 9 April, after a long resistance, Knigsberg in East Prussia fell to the Red Army. A Soviet tank spearhead was on the Havel River to the east of Berlin, and another had at one point penetrated the inner defensive ring of Berlin. facts. [139] Across the city over a million people were without homes.[140]. Many civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass-bombings, disease, and starvation. The nations of western Europe, however great their suffering from occupation, escaped with manpower losses that were hardly comparable with those of World War I. [143] In Soviet society, Full Cavaliers of the Order of Glory were accorded the same rights and privileges as Heroes of the Soviet Union. Axis forces employed biological and chemical weapons. Drizzling rain began to fall. Fourthly of the precise place in which the IX Army will break through. World War II, Germany & Facts - HISTORY | Watch Full Episodes of Your In addition, 14,000 German and Italian citizens who had been assessed as being security risks were also interned. This represents the most military deaths of any nation by a large margin. The dead from "Strategic" killing (bombardments) about 450.000. To use individual functions (e.g., mark statistics as favourites, set On 20 April 1945, Hitler's birthday, the 1st Belorussian Front led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, advancing from the east and north, started shelling Berlin's city centre, while Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front broke through Army Group Centre and advanced towards the southern suburbs of Berlin. [60] They were to anticipate a southward attack by the III Panzer Army and be ready to be the southern arm of a pincer attack that would envelop 1st Belorussian Front, which would be destroyed by SS-General Felix Steiner's Army Detachment advancing from north of Berlin. Between the start of the war in September 1939 and its end in August/September 1945, more than 100 million (and possibly as many as 300 million) combatants entered the fray. [55] To the north between Stettin and Schwedt, the 2nd Belorussian Front attacked the northern flank of Army Group Vistula, held by Hasso von Manteuffel's III Panzer Army. 10 Infographics that Explain the Normandy Invasion During World War II, Types of Landing Craft of World War II Infographic. But the overriding objective was to capture Berlin. https://www.britannica.com/question/How-many-people-died-during-World-War-II. Manage Settings [128], In those areas that the Red Army had captured and before the fighting in the centre of the city had stopped, the Soviet authorities took measures to start restoring essential services. Between 70 to 85 million people died, either as a direct result of the conflict or due to war-related factors like diseases and starvation. [69] Meanwhile, by 24 April 1945 elements of 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front had completed the encirclement of the city. [38] Heinrici was one of the best defensive tacticians in the German army, and he immediately started to lay defensive plans. It was not until the damaged bridges were repaired that artillery could be moved up in support. [61] Later in the day, when Steiner explained that he did not have the divisions to achieve this, Heinrici made it clear to Hitler's staff that unless the IX Army retreated immediately, it would be enveloped by the Soviets. See estimates for worldwide deaths, broken down by country, in World War II. An estimated 11 to 17 million civilians died either as a direct or as an indirect result of Nazi ideological policies, including the systematic genocide of around 6 million Jews during the Holocaust and an additional 5 to 6 million ethnic Poles and other Slavs (including Ukrainians and Belarusians), Roma, homosexuals, and other ethnic and minority groups. Those totals do not include the more than 14 million Soviet soldiers who were wounded during the war. (April 4, 2022). Figures rounded to thousands (and this device has been employed in all cases for total deaths) are estimates of varying reliability while omissions in any category indicate that any estimate would be the wildest of conjectures. Statistics for German World War II military casualties are divergent and contradictory. On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. . German military dead and missing at 5.3 million. Photographs Who's Who in Nazi Germany World War II Operation Torch and the Liberation of North African Jews Persecution American Victims of the Holocaust Concentration Camps Estimated Number of Jews Killed Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust & Nazi Persecution Euthanasia Program Einsatzgruppen Final Solution Forced Labor Ghettos [130] The Soviet authorities appointed local Germans to head each city block, and organised the cleaning-up. [89] The Reichstag had not been in use since it had burned in February 1933 and its interior resembled a rubble heap more than a government building. Nearly 5 million people died. [52] The next day, Bogdanov's 2nd Guards Tank Army advanced nearly 50km (31mi) north of Berlin and then attacked south-west of Werneuchen. Germany incurred the third-most casualties of World War II, with as many as 7.4 million total deaths Also of note is Poland, whose death toll includes an estimated 3.2 million Jewish civilians who died in Nazi concentration and death camps. China is estimated to have endured the second-highest number of total casualties in WWII. How many German civilians died in ww2? - Quora Russian historians, while not denying that Soviet forces committed rape, question whether the crimes were widespread (Lavrenov & Popov 2000, pp. Mainly for this reason, estimates of total dead in World War II vary anywhere from 35,000,000 to 60,000,000a statistical difference of no small import. [90] By 2 May 1945 the Red Army controlled the building entirely. [101] Goebbels was against surrender. Secondly of time intended to attack. Statistical accounting broke down in both Allied and Axis nations when whole armies were surrendered or dispersed. Instead, Heinrici arranged for engineers to fortify the Seelow Heights, which overlooked the Oder River at the point where the Autobahn crossed them. [31] The major Western Allied contribution to the battle was the bombing of Berlin during 1945. Under Japanese occupation, 170,000 to 250,000 civilians died. Few have ventured even to try to calculate the total number of persons who were wounded or permanently disabled. Countries with the highest fertility rates 2021, Urbanization in the United States 1790 to 2050, Historical population of the continents 10,000BCE-2000CE, Fertility, Mortality, and life expectancy, Facebook: quarterly number of MAU (monthly active users) worldwide 2008-2023, Quarterly smartphone market share worldwide by vendor 2009-2023, Number of apps available in leading app stores Q3 2022, Profit from additional features with an Employee Account. Allies: Great Britain + Commonwealth: 60,000: France: 360,000: United States: Minimal: USSR: Ninety-six shells fell in the centre of Berlin in the course of a few minutes. [3], The sector in which most of the fighting in the overall offensive took place was the Seelow Heights, the last major defensive line outside Berlin. In Asia and the Pacific, between 3 million and more than 10 million civilians, mostly Chinese (estimated at 7.5 million), were killed by the Japanese occupation forces. In, National WWII Museum, und Various sources. Omissions? [96], As the perimeter shrank and the surviving defenders fell back, they became concentrated into a small area in the city centre. [41] These lines consisted of anti-tank ditches, anti-tank gun emplacements, and an extensive network of trenches and bunkers. and over 1Mio. About 4,200,000 Germans died, and about 1,972,000 Japanese died. [83], In the early hours of 29 April the Soviet 3rd Shock Army crossed the Moltke Bridge and started to fan out into the surrounding streets and buildings. Hungarians were forced to work for the Soviet Union until 1955. There was sporadic fighting in a few isolated buildings where some SS troops still refused to surrender, but the Soviets reduced such buildings to rubble. They include Hamilton, who uses the figure of 361,367 without further breakdown (, Captured prisoners included many unarmed men in uniform, such as railway officials and members of the Reich Labour Service (, Bellamy states that most of the rapes occurred between 23 April and 8 May, after which the number of rapes gradually subsided (, "Fall of Berlin: Stopping the Nazi Heart", Hitler and several of his officials committed suicide, Supreme Commander [Western] Allied Expeditionary Force, Medal for Participation in the Battle of Berlin, "They raped every German female from eight to 80", "Boje polskie 19391945: przewodnik encyklopedyczny", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Berlin&oldid=1159148444, Unconditional surrender of the Berlin city garrison on 2 May, Capitulation of German forces outside Berlin on 8/9 May as part of unconditional surrender of all forces. [58] When the old southern flank of the IV Panzer Army had some local successes counter-attacking north against the 1st Ukrainian Front, Hitler unrealistically ordered the IX Army to hold Cottbus and set up a front facing west. [104] Only a handful of those who survived the initial breakout made it to the lines of the Western Alliesmost were either killed or captured by the Red Army's outer encirclement forces west of the city. Of the total number of deaths in World War II, approximately 85 percent were on the Allied side and 15 percent were on the Axis side, with many of these deaths caused by war crimes committed by German and Japanese forces in occupied territories. [107], The city's food supplies had been largely destroyed on Hitler's orders. Officially, roughly 8.6 million Soviet soldiers died in the course of the war, including millions of POWs. [112] Meanwhile, the 58th Guards Rifle Division of the 5th Guards Army in 1st Ukrainian Front made contact with the 69th Infantry Division (United States) of the United States First Army near Torgau, on the Elbe River. World War II Fatalities By Country - WorldAtlas [116] Hitler assumed that after a successful breakout from the pocket, the IX Army could combine forces with the XII Army and would be able to relieve Berlin. [20] Adolf Hitler insisted on a counter-attack to recapture the Drau-Danube triangle. [58], The forces available to General Weidling for the city's defence included roughly 45,000 soldiers in several severely depleted German Army and Waffen-SS divisions. Often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, World War II encircled the globe, forcing nearly every country on Earth to align with one of two massive military alliances: the Axis powers, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan; or the Allies, led by Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and China. Wiki User 2009-09-15 18:10:32. Of the 5.7 million Soviet POWs of the Germans, 57 percent died or were killed during the war, a total of 3.6 million. Precise casualty numbers for WWII are impossible to determine for most countries, whose stat-keeping capabilities faltered as nations rose and fell, borders changed, populations shifted, and vast numbers of soldiers were killed, wounded, captured, or declared missing in action. German casualties in World War II - Wikipedia [131] After the capitulation the Soviets went house to house, arresting and imprisoning anyone in a uniform including firemen and railwaymen. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. All Order copies Visit us in Kew Pay for research This is an introductory guide to records of deaths of British and Commonwealth servicemen and women in the First and Second World Wars. A frequently quoted number is that 100,000 women in Berlin were raped by soldiers of the Red Army (Helke Sander & Barbara Johr: BeFreier und Befreite, Fischer, Frankfurt 2005). A). As many as 27 million Soviets lost their lives, with as many as 11.4 million military deaths joined by up to 10 million civilian deaths due to military activity and an additional 8 million to 9 million deaths due to famine and disease. The following countries have the highest estimated World War II casualties: the Soviet Union (20 to 27 million), China (15 to 20 million), Germany (6 to 7.4 million), Poland (5.9 to 6 million), Dutch East Indies/Indonesia (3 to 4 million), Japan (2.5 to 3.1 million), India (2.2 to 3 million), Yugoslavia (1 to 1.7 million), French Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, part of Vietnam) (1 to 2.2 million), and France (600,000). Home About History Famous people / organisations Civilian War Dead Roll of Honour 1939 - 1945 Civilian War Dead Roll of Honour 1939 - 1945 By a supplemental charter dated 7th February 1941 the Imperial War Graves Commission was empowered to collect and record the names of civilians who died from enemy action during World War II. The German government led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was responsible for the Holocaust, the killing of approximately 6 million Jews, 2.7 million ethnic Poles, and 4 million others who were deemed unworthy of life (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovahs Witnesses, and Romani) as part of a program of deliberate extermination. 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They were part of Wenck's XX Corps and were made up of men from the officer training schools, making them some of the best units the Germans had in reserve. [138], Despite Soviet efforts to supply food and rebuild the city, starvation remained a problem. In East Asia, the victims of famine and pestilence in China are to be numbered in the millions, in addition to other millions of both soldiers and civilians who perished in battle and bombardment. [37], On 20 March, General Gotthard Heinrici was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula replacing Himmler. A quarter of the people in the Soviet Union were wounded or killed. A Soviet officer raising his unit for an attack. He declared that the war was lost, blaming the generals for the defeat and that he would remain in Berlin until the end and then kill himself. The first defensive preparations at the outskirts of Berlin were made on 20 March, under the newly appointed commander of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrici. The number of civilian deaths in China alone might well be more than 50,000,000. Nobody knows how many civilians died but it could have been as high as 10,000. Pearl Harbor: Attack, Deaths & Facts - HISTORY | Watch Full Episodes of Home World War Two Civilian Casualties of World War Two. The figures are a clear indication that many Soviet civilians died in the war as a result of Nazi reprisals as well as . The U.S. Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 "Victim Nations Only for the United States and the British Commonwealth can official figures showing killed, wounded, prisoners or missing for the armed forces be cited with any degree of assurance. [92] To the Soviets the event as represented by the photo became symbolic of their victory demonstrating that the Battle of Berlin, as well as the Eastern Front hostilities as a whole, ended with the total Soviet victory. A table that details estimated deaths by country is available here. Category:American civilians killed in World War II - Wikipedia They covered a distance of about 24km (15mi), before being halted at the tip of Lake Schwielow, south-west of Potsdam and still 32km (20mi) from Berlin. [67], The capital was now within range of field artillery. [36] On 6 March, Hitler appointed Lieutenant General Helmuth Reymann commander of the Berlin Defence Area, replacing Lieutenant General Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild. During the months preceding to the battle, as the Red Army began its offensives into Germany proper, the STAVKA recognised the potential for lapses in discipline among vengeful troops as the Red Army began offensives in Germany proper in the months preceding the battle, and were able to check such behaviour to a certain extent. About 12 million, mostly Eastern Europeans, were employed in the German war economy as forced laborers. Nikolai Berzarin, commander of the Red Army in Berlin, quickly introduced penalties up to the death penalty for looting and rape. Deaths in the First and Second World Wars - The National Archives Corrections? What were the turning points of World War II? 1944, near 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed, more than died in the Hiroshima atomic bombing.

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