Civilian Casualties of World War Two
Approximately 60,000,000–85,000,000 people lost their lives during World War Two, which has gone down in history as the deadliest military conflict in history. Estimates for civilian casualties of World War Two vary widely, with the civilian death toll in the USSR being particularly difficult to estimate. There is still a great deal of debate surrounding the accuracy of Soviet-era archives.
However, the Soviet Union wasn't the only power whose devastating impact is difficult to predict. Nazi Germany, for example, is believed to have been directly responsible for the deaths of more than 10 million people, although historians now estimate this figure could be closer to 20 million. Furthermore, historians claim that there were an additional 19 to 28 million deaths from famine and disease as a result of the war.
Below is a list of the predicted figures for civilian casualties for both Allied and Axis Powers between 1939 and 1945:
Allies:
| Great Britain + Commonwealth | 60,000 |
| France | 360,000 |
| United States | Minimal |
| USSR | 7,700,000 |
| Belgium | 90,000 |
| Holland | 190,000 |
| Norway | Minimal |
| Poland | 5,300,000 |
| Greece | 80,000 |
| Yugoslavia | 1,300,000 |
| Czechoslovakia | 330,000 |
| China (from 1937 on) | 10,000,000 |
| Total | 25,410,000 |
Axis powers:
| Germany | 3,810,000 |
| Austria | 80,000 |
| Italy | 85,000 |
| Rumania | 465,000 |
| Hungary | 280,000 |
| Bulgaria | 7,000 |
| Finland | Minimal |
| Japan | 360,000 |
| Total | 5,087,000 |
Total civilian casualties Allies + Axis = 30,497,000
Total civilian + military casualties (Allies + Axis) = 55,014,000
MLA Citation/Reference
"Civilian Casualties of World War Two". HistoryLearning.com. 2024. Web.