First of all, I would like to note that in this article we will talk about the USSR as the Russia of those years. It is well known that the West is persistently imposing a myth on us that Russia is supposedly a very young thirty-year-old state, which began zero counting of its history since the 1990s. But this is fundamentally not true.
In the first part of "Aesop's Language of Loss: the Common European Empire VS Russia" of our review, we found out that Europe of those years longed for superiority and reprisals against barbarians in the East. That is why practically all the countries of this continent easily and resignedly accepted Hitler's ideas and united against a common enemy - Russia.
It was the joint war (like the invasion of the territory of the USSR / Russia) that became the unifying action for Europe, which turned it into a single European Empire or the European Union of 1941. And all the inhabitants of Europe at that time - the leaders of the fascist gang - instantly endowed them with their European values in the form of laurels of exclusivity with the right to destroy subhuman Slavs.
Let's say right away that Russia defeated fascism on May 9, 1945. And then she stopped this pan-European bacchanalia with the promotion of European values (like the racial superiority of the Euro-race) to the East.
Russia then stopped the spread of fascism across the planet. But at what cost?
For five long years, our fathers and grandfathers, day and night, fought with brutal Europeans. Every inch of our native land liberated from the Nazi hordes is watered with the blood of the Red Army. How many were killed? How many of them are still missing, 75 years after the Great Victory?
In this part of the review, we will begin to study various versions of the losses of the USSR / Russia in the war against fascism.
Recall, as already mentioned in the first part, that we will analyze the losses in the period from June 22, 1941 until the end of hostilities in Europe. In the losses of the USSR / Russia, let us include the deaths of Red Army soldiers and civilian Soviet citizens in the above time interval. In addition, we will deliberately remove from the calculations the period of the Soviet-Finnish war and the "Liberation campaign" of the Red Army.
Demographic statistics
First, let's remember how many of us were then? What was our demographic potential just before the war?
On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, the population of the USSR / Russia was over 170 million. This is according to official figures.
But to be even more precise, according to the published preliminary results of the All-Union Population Census of the USSR in 1939, as of January 17, 1939, 170.6 million people lived in our country (170,557,093).
According to the published data of the Federal State Statistics Service (2020), at the beginning of 1939, almost 191 million people (190,678,000) lived in the USSR, and by January 1940, even a little more - already 194,077,000 people.
The difference in figures from different sources is also due to the fact that the Rosstat management not so long ago removed the "Secret" stamp from the population data stored in the Central State Archive of the National Economy (TSGANH) of the USSR, now the Russian State Archive of Economics (RGAE). And the statistics have been updated.
It turns out that at that time the USSR / Russia was one of the largest demographically countries (taken separately) on the entire European continent. Without us (Russia / USSR) in Europe at that time, as indicated by some sources, about 400 million people.
Each of the countries on the eve of the war in the demographic plane had its own characteristics. In the USSR / Russia, according to experts, a relatively high mortality rate and life expectancy below the European one were recorded. This significantly distinguished us from our opponents.
On the other hand, a characteristic feature of the USSR / Russia was a high birth rate. Population growth in those years was estimated at 2%. This is evidenced by the statistics of 1938-1939.
There was another unique feature of our demography of those years: the population of the country was then very young. In the percentage of children under 15 years old, in those years, according to the State Statistics Committee, there were 35% (at the beginning of 1939) and 36% (at the beginning of 1940).
By the way, the total fertility rate in the USSR, according to Rosstat, in 1939 was recorded as 4, 9.
For comparison, the same indicator (total fertility rate) in the same year (1939) in other countries was much lower:
UK - 1, 8
Hungary - 2, 5
Italy - 3, 1
Finland - 2, 6
France - 2, 2
Czechoslovakia - 2, 3
Japan - 3, 8.
That is why the USSR / Russia was probably able to restore demography after the war so quickly. Scientists point out, among other things, precisely this circumstance, as a predominant one (a high proportion of children and adolescents before the war). When analyzing the various reasons for our "demographic miracle". Indeed, to equalize the number of inhabitants (before the pre-war), the country took only one post-war decade.
Declassified statistical materials officially confirm that after the war, the population of the USSR / Russia reached the level of mid-1941 by 1956.
The USSR was not a city power. On the eve of the war, our country was mostly rural and rural. At the beginning of 1939, only 32 % from all residents of the USSR / Russia. And, according to the statistical indicators of Rosstat, at the beginning of 1940 there were already a little more citizens in the country - 33%. But all the same, it was incomparably small with similar indicators of the enemy.
In this regard, the Germans and the Allies on the eve of the war had a completely different ratio between the urban and rural population. For example, take a look at the percentage of urban residents in the following countries:
Great Britain - 80%, Germany - 70%, USA - 60%, France - 50%, Japan - 32%.
On the eve of the war, Western Ukraine and Belarus, the Baltic States, Bukovina and Bessarabia entered the USSR. Accordingly, the population of the USSR increased significantly. We are talking about 20-22, 5 million people, who were added in 1939.
According to the Central Statistical Office of the USSR, as of 01.01.1941, 198,555,000 people lived in the country. Of these, there were 111.745 million inhabitants in the RSFSR (56.3%).
USSR –170, 6 (196, 7)
UK - 51, 1
Germany - 77, 4
Italy - 42, 4
USA - 132, 1
Finland - 3, 8
France - 40, 1
Japan - 71.9
Thus, in 1938-1939, 77.4 million people lived in Germany. But on the eve of the invasion of the USSR in 1940, the Reich increased its own population to 90 million. Some experts also propose to include in the demographic composition of the Reich and the inhabitants of the conquered and puppet countries. In this case, the demographic potential that the Reich had during this period increases to 297 million people.
In the first year of the war (December 1941), the Union lost almost 7% of its territory. Previously, 74.5 million citizens of the USSR lived on these lands.
The figures show that the Reich had a higher demographic resource. Although Hitler assured that, on the contrary, the advantage was on the side of the Soviets.
During the Great Patriotic War (for the entire period of hostilities), 34.5 million men were registered in the Red Army. If we compare this figure with the entire male population, for example, in 1941, then this is equivalent to the fact that almost 70% of men aged 15 to 49 years old put on a uniform and went to the front.
Throughout the war, half a million Soviet women served in the army.
The Jubilee statistical collection dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Victory (p. 247) specifies:
“In the USSR, during the war years, 29 574, 9 thousand people were mobilized, and in total, together with the personnel who were in military service by June 22, 1941, 34 476, 7 thousand people.
On average, about 600 thousand people were sent to the front every month."
In Germany, the percentage of those called up to the front was higher than in the USSR.
However, if the Germans used prisoners of war and workers from European countries to compensate for the lack of workers, then in the USSR the picture was different. Women, old people and even children were forced to stand at the machines and work tirelessly. And the working day was multiplied. This has become the second means of dealing with labor shortages.
Underreporting of losses?
The most difficult thing was to reveal the numbers of direct irrecoverable losses of the Red Army. This has not been said for many years.
Initially, the figure was announced at 10 million. They say that in a personal conversation she was named by Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, member of the CPSU Central Committee Ivan Stepanovich Konev.
In 1949, the famous defector who fled to Germany, colonel of the Soviet military administration apparatus, Kirill Dmitrievich Kalinov, published in Germany the book "Soviet Marshals Have a Word", in which, based on the documents of the General Staff, he cited data on the irrecoverable losses of the Red Army in World War II. He named the total figure of 13.6 million. According to him, 8, 5 million died on the battlefield and are missing. 2.5 million have died from their wounds. And 2, 6 million died in captivity.
Soviet demographer Professor Boris Tsezarevich Urlanis in his book History of War Losses: Wars and the Population of Europe. Human losses of the armed forces of European countries in the wars of the 17th – 20th centuries. (1960, 1994), or rather, in its French version indicated a figure of 10 million people.
Military historian, professor Grigory Fedotovich Krivosheev in his book “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. Losses of the Armed Forces. Statistical research (1993, 2001) noted the scale of losses of the USSR in the range of 8, 7 million people. This indicator has long been used in many reference sources.
True, the author emphasizes that some of the data were not included in their total loss figure. We are talking about half a million conscripts who were drafted into the Red Army, but did not manage to enroll in the lists of specific units and formations, as they were captured by the enemy on the way. In addition, the militias of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and other large cities were also not included in the official losses in this publication. Despite the fact that almost all of these members of the militia were killed.
As you can see, scientists usually choose their own criteria for calculating losses. That is why the numbers of eminent luminaries of historical and demographic science sometimes differ so much.
That is, one of the problems was the underestimation of the scale of human losses. Due to the limited sample and other features of the calculation and methods used by specialists.
Overestimating losses?
But there is another, opposite problem - the overestimation of real figures.
Today, fairly complete lists of irrecoverable losses of the Red Army soldiers in the Great Patriotic War have been compiled. They included 13.7 million people. At the same time, some activists and opposition publications indicate that some of the recordings may be repeated. How much - no one knows. But there is a figure on the Internet that the losses are overestimated by 12-15%.
On June 22, 1999, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article “Dead Souls of the Great Patriotic War” that caused a lot of noise. Historical and archival search center "Destiny" of the association "War Memorials" out of 4,800 dead (according to TsAMO) at a specific site of battles rechecked (20%) the first thousand names that were listed as dead on the bridgehead. The article says that it turned out that one in ten got into this list by mistake.
“Duplication of loss accounting is a typical case in this confusion. Mistakes were made even at the level of company and regimental chancelleries, of course, without any intent. This happened, as a rule, due to the transience of battles, frequent change of positions, rapid transition of the territory of one to another, but above all as a result of the formal attitude to the soldier's medallion …
The mechanism for creating false statistics is as follows: after the battle, the battalion commander writes a report to his higher authorities that the battalion has retreated, several of the dead Red Army soldiers remained in the occupied territory. The report is recorded in the personal loss accounting department and the letter bureau of the Main Directorate for the formation and manning of the Red Army troops. The dead were taken into account.
In a day - a counteroffensive. After the battle, a funeral team from another battalion of another division collects soldiers' medallions, documents, including those who died earlier. A report is being written. The subordinates of the battalion commander were again counted as the victims of another unit.
If there was no time left for burial, which was often dictated by the frontline situation, the unfortunates were subsequently counted for the third time, for example, according to the data of the surviving postal item.
Thus, one and the same Red Army soldier can be “killed” three times in the TsAMO.
The article reports that it was established that due to double and even triple counting, the number of soldiers killed in the 43rd and 2nd Shock Armies in the battles investigated by the center was overestimated.
The main result of the entire study was the conclusion: after the large losses suffered on paper, the figure of irrecoverable combat losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR, which we have, can definitely be considered overestimated. How much? Nobody will answer this question now.
And if so, and the above number of losses refers to the stage of the war when it was impossible to guarantee an ideal registration of the dead, then some researchers immediately spoke in favor of making a discount on this and deliberately underestimating all available data. Those who recognize the account as double and overstated, demand that at least half a million people be deducted from the losses. They proceed from the logic that if the overestimation was supposedly 5-7%, then it is necessary to subtract 0, 2-0, 4 million people.
Prisoners
American Sovietologist (of Russian origin, son of the leader of the Mensheviks) Alexander Dallin in his book “The occupied territories of the USSR under the control of the Nazis. The occupation policy of the Third Reich 1941-1945 (1957, 1981, translated into Russian 2019), based on German archival information, indicates that 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of war are registered in German registers. Of these, 3.8 million people (63%) died while in captivity.
According to the calculations of Russian historians, the numbers are different. Domestic experts recorded the number of prisoners at 4.6 million, of which 2.9 million (63%) were destroyed in captivity.
Why are the numbers of Soviet prisoners different in German and Russian sources?
This question is answered by Pavel Markovich Polyan (Nerler), professor at the Higher School of Economics, in his book Victims of Two Dictatorships: Life, Labor, Humiliation and Death of Soviet POWs and Ostarbeiters in a Foreign Land and at Home (1996, 2002).
He believes that the numbers differ primarily because domestic standards included only military prisoners (prisoners of war) in the category of prisoners. Civilians were excluded from the count. For example, railway workers (and the Germans counted everyone: both military and civilian).
Also, the statistics of prisoners did not include those seriously wounded fighters who did not have time to be taken from the battlefield, the territory of which, as a result of the battle, remained with the enemy. Our fighters later died of their wounds there or were shot. Therefore, they were not counted as prisoners. There were only about half a million of them (470,000-500,000).
In the first year of the war, more than half of the total number of prisoners for the entire period of hostilities were captured. They had not yet begun to be massively used at work for the Reich. And they were kept in terrible conditions right in the open air. Cold and hunger reigned in the camps. The prisoners were mistreated. It is not surprising that diseases multiplied, and there was no medicine. The sick and the infirm were not treated, but shot. They also killed all the commissars, Jews and unreliable.
The camps were an open area surrounded by barbed wire. The approaches to them were mined. There were no buildings, even of a light type, on the territory of the camps. The prisoners were placed directly on the ground. Many of them, having lost the ability to move, lay unconscious in the mud. The prisoners were forbidden to make fires, collect brushwood for bedding. For the slightest attempt to violate this regime, the Nazis shot Soviet people.
Some researchers report the alleged extraordinary kindness of the Nazis at the beginning of the war. According to this version, the Germans captured so many Soviet prisoners in the first year of the war that they literally could not cope with them. Then the invaders made a decision - to dismiss some of the prisoners to their homes. It was in the occupied territories of Western Ukraine and Belarus. Here the natives of these same territories were released. For propaganda purposes only. And for political reasons. But such actions were one-off. And in the future they did not repeat themselves.
The main evidence is the brutal attitude towards prisoners of war. Thus, in the collection of the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices (1946), for example (p. 16), the following is reported:
“Striving for the mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war, the German military authorities doom the Red Army soldiers to extinction from hunger, typhus and dysentery. Prisoners of war are not provided with medical assistance.
In Vyazma there was a hospital for prisoners of war in an unheated stone barn. There was no treatment or care for the sick. From 20 to 30 people died every day. Patients were given half a pot of soup a day without bread.
According to the doctor E. A. Mikheev, 247 people died of exhaustion and illness in this hospital one day.
In addition, German soldiers chose sick Red Army prisoners as a target for shooting as they passed through the courtyard of the hospital.
Surgeon Razdershin V. N., together with a group of doctors, had to spend one night in a prisoner of war camp. Doctors say that throughout the night, from different rooms of the camp, the cries of the tortured were heard: “save”, “help”, “why are you beating”, “oh, I'm dying”.
During the day, during the distribution of food, the prisoners of war crowded around the kitchen. To put things in order, the German guard removed a grenade from his belt and threw it into the crowd. Several people were killed and many were injured."
And this is just one example of the many recorded much more harsh evidence of the bullying of the Nazis over Soviet prisoners of war …
According to the orders of the Wehrmacht:
“The prisoners of camps for the Russians should therefore be divided within the camp on the following lines:
1) Civilians.
2) Soldiers (including those who are clearly dressed in civilian clothes).
3) Politically harmful elements from among persons of categories 1 and 2 …
4) Persons of 1 and 2 categories, worthy of trust, and therefore suitable for use in the restoration of the occupied areas.
5) National groups among prisoners of war and civilians."
German journalist and historian Jürgen Thorwald (pseudonym of Heinz Bongarz) based on CIA classified materials compiled the book "The Illusion: Soviet Soldiers in Hitler's Armies" (1975). In it, he, in particular, indicates that about one million Soviet prisoners of war were transferred to the auxiliary units of the Wehrmacht.
These local auxiliary forces of the German army were formed from prisoners who were divided into:
- volunteers (hivi), - order service (odi), - front-line auxiliary parts (noise), - police and defense teams (gem).
According to some historians, there were up to 400,000 such khivis at the beginning of 1943, some in the range of 60,000–70,000, and in the eastern battalions - 80,000.
It is known that some of the prisoners of war and residents in the occupied territories really began to voluntarily cooperate with the Germans.
It is reported that the 14th SS Volunteer Infantry Division "Galicia" (1st Ukrainian) was formed entirely from Ukrainian volunteers, who signed up at once 82 thousand, although there were only 13 thousand vacancies. The Germans then took everyone from Ukraine and formed additional punitive detachments from them.
Even more Latvians wanted to voluntarily help Hitler than Ukrainians: over one hundred thousand of them fought on the side of the Wehrmacht against Russia. And another 36 thousand Lithuanians and 10 thousand Estonians fought under the flags of Hitler, mainly in SS units.
Several million inhabitants were driven away for forced labor from the occupied territories. Immediately after the war, the Extraordinary State Commission indicated that there were 4 million 259 thousand Soviet citizens. However, in subsequent years, this figure was refined and increased by more than a million people. It is indicated that there were 5 million 450 thousand Soviet citizens deported to Germany for work, of which almost a million died (from 850,000 to 1,000,000).
And further.
As befits a German, destroy all living things
When today in the West and in liberal circles attempts are being made to rewrite history and reconsider the unequivocally condemning attitude towards fascism, I would like to remind these enthusiasts that the Nazis behaved one on one like the current thugs-terrorists.
Take a look at the document, which is terrifying for its boundless cruelty and hatred of Russians and Russia. But he was in the pocket of every Wehrmacht soldier who set foot on Russian soil.
It is documented in the aforementioned collection of the Emergency State Commission (p. 7) that the pockets of the German soldiers contained instructions on how to act in any situation. It was a "Memo to a German Soldier", setting out the frankly bloody program of the Nazis, practically no different from the terrorist organizations banned today:
“Remember and do:
1) … There are no nerves, heart, pity - you are made of German iron. After the war, you will find a new soul, a clear heart - for your children, for your wife, for great Germany, and now act decisively, without hesitation …
2) … You have no heart and nerves, they are not needed in a war. Destroy pity and compassion in yourself kill every russiando not stop if there is an old man or a woman, a girl or a boy in front of you. Kill, by this you will save yourself from death, secure the future of your family and become famous forever.
3) No world power can withstand the German pressure. We'll bring the whole world to its knees.
German is the absolute master of the world … You will decide the fate of England, Russia, America.
You are German; as befits a German, destroy all living things, resisting on your way, always think about the sublime - about the Fuhrer, and you will win. Neither a bullet nor a bayonet can take you.
Tomorrow the whole world will be on its knees before you .
The world did not kneel before fascism then.
Russia stopped the Nazi plague. But at the cost of huge human losses - 26 million and 600 thousand lives of the inhabitants of our country, the USSR / Russia.
We found this figure in the publication “The Great Patriotic War. Anniversary statistical collection (2020). The number of losses (26.6 million people) includes:
- killed in action, - servicemen and partisans who died from wounds and diseases, - those who died of hunger, - civilians killed during bombing, artillery attacks and punitive actions, - shot and tortured in concentration camps, - as well as people who did not return to the country, who were deported to hard labor in Germany and other countries.
Our irrevocable
In total, according to the official data updated for 2020, 11,944,100 people were registered as irrecoverable losses of Soviet / Russian servicemen in the Great Patriotic War.
The number of irrecoverable losses in 1941 included the losses of the border and internal troops of the NKVD (159, 1 thousand.people) and captured by the enemy conscripts, called up for mobilization, but not included in the list of troops (500 thousand people).
All servicemen whose fate was unknown, as well as those who were surrounded, were referred to as missing. During the entire war, their number was 5,059 thousand people.
Their fate was determined only after the war, when 1,836 thousand people returned from captivity and 939, 7 thousand people who were previously listed as missing were recruited to the liberated territory for the second time.
In total, 2,775,700 people turned out to be alive from the number of missing.
