World War II casualties
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Over 60 million people were killed. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.
Human losses by country
Some nations in World War II suffered disproportionally more casualties than others. This is especially true regarding civilian casualties. The following chart gives data on the number of dead for each country, along with population information to show the relative impact of losses. 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, Nazi persecution, Japanese war crimes, population transfers in the Soviet Union, Allied war crimes 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. 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, Germany and Yugoslavia, our sources can give us 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 footnotes give a detailed breakdown of the casualties and their sources, including data on the number of wounded where reliable sources are available.
