how many soviet soldiers died in ww2

Immediately after the start of the German invasion, the NKVD massacred large numbers of inmates in most of their prisons in Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, while the remainder was to be evacuated in death marches.[133]. Stumbling colossus: the Red Army on the eve of World War. Ten days later the Red Army reached the prewar Polish border. Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas. This production represents 35% of the total fuel production of the Axis, including synthetic products and substitutes, and 70% of the total production of crude oil. Towards the south, the 1st Panzer Army had reached the Caucasian foothills and the Malka River. WebBattle of Berlin 67 languages For the RAF bombing campaign, see Battle of Berlin (air). However, on Christmas Eve the retreat began anew when the First Ukrainian Front (renamed from the Voronezh Front) struck them in the same place. [71], This decision caused a severe leadership crisis. Some recent reports raise the number of Belarusians who perished in the war to "3 million 650 thousand people, unlike the former 2.2 million. The offensive at Estonia claimed another 480,000 Soviet soldiers, 100,000 of them classed as dead. This battle also enabled Army Group South to recapture Korosten and gain some time to rest. The Soviet commander, Lieutenant General Andrey Vlasov, later defected to Germany and formed the ROA or Russian Liberation Army. By February 1942, 2,000,000 of the 3,300,000 Soviet soldiers in German custody up to that point had died from starvation, exposure, disease, or shooting. A Soviet parachute drop by two battalions of the 201st Airborne Brigade and the 250th Airborne Regiment on 18 and 22 January was designed to "cut off enemy communications with the rear." To save the position in the south, the Germans decided to abandon the Rzhev salient in February, freeing enough troops to make a successful riposte in eastern Ukraine. According to British historian Geoffrey Hosking, "The full demographic loss to the Soviet peoples was even greater: since a high proportion of those killed were young men of child-begetting age, the postwar Soviet population was 45 to 50 million smaller than post-1939 projections would have led one to expect."[116]. 10 Countries With The Highest World War II Fatalities Soviet Union - 24,000,000 China - 19,500,000 Germany - 7,700,000 Poland - 5,600,000 Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) - 3,500,000 Japan - 2,850,000 India - 2,087,000 French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) - 1,250,000 Yugoslavia - 1,000,000 Romania - 833,000 1. Stalin's objective in January 1942 was "to deny the Germans any breathing space, to drive them westward without let-up, to make them use up their reserves before spring comes"[83], The main blow was to be delivered by a double envelopment orchestrated by the Northwestern Front, the Kalinin Front and the Western Front. [108], At 2:41 am on 7 May 1945, at SHAEF headquarters, German Chief-of-Staff General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender documents for all German forces to the Allies at Reims in France. (referenced to BA-MA, N69/18.). 1990. By 1946, 80 per cent of civilians and 20 per cent of POWs were freed, others were re-drafted, or sent to labour battalions. The fairly limited scope of the Soviet offensive, although still eventually targeted on Rostov, also allowed Hitler time to see sense and pull Army Group A out of the Caucasus and back over the Don.[85]. [31] The separate Tripartite Pact between what became the three prime Axis Powers would not be signed until some four years after the Anti-Comintern Pact. The fall of Knigsberg allowed Stavka to free up General Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front (2BF) to move west to the east bank of the Oder. On 25 January 1945, Hitler renamed three army groups. Although the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention (1929), it is generally accepted that it considered itself bound by the provisions of the Hague convention. [88] The Leningrad Front's offensives towards Tallinn, a main Baltic port, were stopped in February 1944. Soviet Russia had lost substantial territory in Eastern Europe as a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918), where the Bolsheviks in Petrograd conceded to German demands and ceded control of Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, and other areas, to the Central Powers. Germany's military production was tied to resources outside its area of control, a dynamic not found amongst the Allies. In addition, the SovietFinnish Continuation War is generally also considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front. Beginning in autumn 1941, units that had proved themselves by superior performance in combat were given the traditional "Guards" title. The main problem for the Wehrmacht was that these defences had not yet been built; by the time Army Group South had evacuated eastern Ukraine and begun withdrawing across the Dnieper during September, the Soviet forces were hard behind them. Adolf Hitler had argued in his autobiography Mein Kampf (1925) for the necessity of Lebensraum ("living space"): acquiring new territory for Germans in Eastern Europe, in particular Russia. Officers with initiative were replaced with yes-men or with fanatical Nazis. Part of a series on the History of Berlin Margraviate of Brandenburg (11571806) Kingdom of Prussia (17011918) German Empire (18711918) Free State of Prussia (19181947) Weimar Republic (19191933) 1920s Berlin Assassination of Talat Pasha Greater Berlin Act WebWatch the launch of Operation Barbarossa, the German Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Two-thirds of all French trains in 1941 were used to carry goods to Germany. In the south the Red Army lunged over the Donets River at Izyum and drove a 100km (62mi) deep salient. ISBN978-1107020795. [167] The other main group of men joining the German army were citizens of the Baltic countries annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 or from Western Ukraine. How many [14] The vast majority of German soldiers viewed the war in Nazi terms, seeing the Soviet enemy as sub-human. Hitler's direction of the war ultimately proved disastrous for the German Army, though the skill, loyalty, professionalism and endurance of officers and soldiers enabled him to keep Germany fighting to the end. What shall we do?" After a 120-kilometre (75mi) advance in January and February, the Leningrad Front had reached the borders of Estonia. After the war, the battle near Prochorovka was idealised by Soviet historians as the largest tank battle of all time. [50]:128 The Soviet Union received shipments in war materials, military equipment and other supplies worth of $12.5billion, about a quarter of the American Lend-Lease aid provided to other Allied countries. When it joined up with the southern elements of Army Group South at Uman, the Group captured about 100,000 Soviet prisoners in a huge encirclement. Having already isolated the Crimea by severing the Perekop isthmus, Malinovsky's forces advanced across the mud to the Romanian border, not stopping on the river Prut. Though never sending in ground troops to the Eastern Front, the United States and the United Kingdom both provided substantial material aid to the Soviet Union in the form of the Lend-Lease program along with naval and air support. pp. But the over-riding objective was to capture Berlin. [50]:123 It is estimated that all the food supplies sent to Russia could feed a 12,000,000-man strong army a half pound of concentrated food per day, for the entire duration of the war. 130 kilometres (80mi) west of Kiev, the 4th Panzer Army, still convinced that the Red Army was a spent force, was able to mount a successful riposte at Zhytomyr during the middle of November, weakening the Soviet bridgehead by a daring outflanking strike mounted by the SS Panzer Corps along the river Teterev. 19441951 // . [152] Soviet and Russian historiography often uses the term "irretrievable casualties". [15], Hitler referred to the war in radical terms, calling it a "war of annihilation" (Vernichtungskrieg) which was both an ideological and racial war. Hitler's insistence on holding the Dnieper line, even when facing the prospect of catastrophic defeat, was compounded by his conviction that the Cherkassy pocket could break out and even advance to Kiev, but Manstein was more concerned about being able to advance to the edge of the pocket and then implore the surrounded forces to break out. After the failure of the attempt to capture Stalingrad, Hitler had delegated planning authority for the upcoming campaign season to the German Army High Command and reinstated Heinz Guderian to a prominent role, this time as Inspector of Panzer Troops. The massacres of Jews and other ethnic minorities were only a part of the deaths from the Nazi occupation. This decision, Hitler's "summer pause",[71] is believed to have had a severe impact on the outcome of the Battle of Moscow later in the year, by slowing down the advance on Moscow in favour of encircling large numbers of Soviet troops around Kiev. At this point, Hitler sacked several prominent generals, Manstein included. [77], Army Group South pushed down from the Dnieper to the Sea of Azov coast, also advancing through Kharkov, Kursk, and Stalino. [1][2] The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the European theatre of operations in World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis nations.[3]. Operation Barbarossa, original name Operation Fritz, during World War II, code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which was launched on June 22, 1941. Hitler had always intended to renege on his pact with the Soviet Union, eventually making the decision to invade in the spring of 1941. [106] Rapidly advancing Allied forces limited the jurisdiction of the new German government to an area around Flensburg near the Danish border, where Dnitz's headquarters were located, along with Mrwik. Stalin's five-year plans of the 1930s had resulted in the industrialisation of the Urals and central Asia. WebIn 1993 a study by the Russian Academy of Sciences estimated total Soviet population losses due the war at 26.6 million, [1] [2] [3] including military dead of 8.7 million calculated by the Russian Ministry of Defense. [22][25] The Soviet Union negotiated treaties of mutual assistance with France and with Czechoslovakia with the aim of containing Germany's expansion. The battles on the Eastern Front of the Second World War constituted the largest military confrontation in history. ISBN9780415021012. In the end, the high Soviet casualty rate was largely a result of Stalin's hurry to reach Berlin. Estimated civilian deaths range from about 14 to 17million. This date is celebrated as a national holiday Victory Day in Russia (as part of a two-day 89 May holiday) and some other post-Soviet countries. About 4,200,000 Germans died, and about 1,972,000 Japanese died. [55], On 27 May 1940, Germany signed the "Oil Pact" with Romania, by which Germany would trade arms for oil. Web. During the period it lasted (13 January 25 April), it cost the Red Army 584,788 casualties, and 3,525 tanks and assault guns. After the war the Soviets once again purged the Red Army (though not as brutally as in the 1930s) and demoted many successful officers (including Zhukov, Malinovsky and Koniev) to unimportant positions. Their next target was Smolensk, which fell on 16 July, but the fierce Soviet resistance in the Smolensk area and slowing of the Wehrmacht advance by the North and South Army Groups forced Hitler to halt a central thrust at Moscow and to divert the 3rd Panzer Group north. The OKW - Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or High Command of the German Army - claimed German losses of 77,000 killed, 334,000 wounded and 192,000 missing, with a total of 603,000 men, on the Eastern Front during January and February 1945.[99]. Having suffered a major defeat the German striking forces of Army Group Centre were retreating." After two weeks' of heavy fighting, the 1st Panzer managed to escape the pocket, at the cost of losing almost the entire heavy equipment. [117] Wild fauna were also affected. "[83]:64. The Soviet victory owed a great deal to the ability of its war industry to outperform the German economy, despite the enormous loss of population and land. [9] He envisaged settling Germans there, as according to Nazi ideology the Germanic people constituted the "master race", while exterminating or deporting most of the existing inhabitants to Siberia and using the remainder as slave labour. Rdiger Overmans states that it seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that one half of these men were killed in action and the other half died in Soviet custody. Battle of Stalingrad and its outcome | Britannica World War II [80], However, by 6 December it became clear that the Wehrmacht did not have the strength to capture Moscow, and the attack was suspended. It was a deliberate policy of the Nazi state. This included 400,000 trucks, 12,000 armoured vehicles (including 7,000 tanks), 11,400 aircraft and 1.75million tons of food. Another consideration was that Berlin itself held strategic assets, including Adolf Hitler and part of the German atomic bomb program. The intent was to pin Army Group South against the Sea of Azov, but as the winter eased the Wehrmacht counter-attacked and cut off the over-extended Soviet troops in the Second Battle of Kharkov. Marshal Shaposhnikov thus began his counter-attack, employing freshly mobilised reserves,[81] as well as some well-trained Far-Eastern divisions transferred from the east following intelligence that Japan would remain neutral. Quora - A place to share knowledge and better understand the Meanwhile, the 6th Army was driving towards Stalingrad, for a long period unsupported by 4th Panzer Army, which had been diverted to help 1st Panzer Army cross the Don. |Hill, Alexander (2016). WebBattle of Stalingrad, (194243) Unsuccessful German assault on the Soviet city in World War II. [82], The Soviet counter-offensive during the Battle of Moscow had removed the immediate German threat to the city. The data is divided by each nation that participated in the war. In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti. WebWe would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us. The Red Army and the Second World War. The huge death toll was attributed to several factors, including brutal mistreatment of POWs and captured partisans, the large deficiency of food and medical supplies in Soviet territories, and atrocities committed mostly by the Germans against the civilian population. The Eastern Front was known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and still is in some of its successor states, while almost everywhere else it has been called the Eastern Front. The Belorussian Offensive (codenamed Operation Bagration), which was agreed upon by Allies at the Tehran Conference in December 1943 and launched on 22 June 1944, was a massive Soviet attack, consisting of four Soviet army groups totalling over 120 divisions that smashed into a thinly held German line. 227 was promulgated 1,000 retreating troops were shot and 24,993 were sent to penal battalions. WebCosts of the war Killed, wounded, prisoners, or missing Learn about the horrible conditions of German and Soviet prisoners of war during World War II See all videos for this article The statistics on World War II casualties are inexact. The official Polish government report of war losses prepared in 1947 reported 6,028,000 victims out of a population of 27,007,000 ethnic Poles and Jews; this report excluded ethnic Ukrainian and Belarusian losses. Overall, France made the largest contribution to the German war effort. [98], In Slovakia, the Slovak National Uprising started as an armed struggle between German Wehrmacht forces and rebel Slovak troops between August and October 1944. ISBN978-0700617890. In September 1941, Erich Koch was appointed to the Ukrainian Commissariat. Existing sources suggest that some 5.7 million Soviet army personnel fell into German hands during. active-duty Heer, Waffen SS, Luftwaffe ground forces, personnel of the naval coastal artillery and security units. How many Soviet Stalin and Hitler both disregarded human life in order to achieve their goal of victory. The Soviets incrementally upgraded existing designs, and simplified and refined manufacturing processes to increase production, and were helped by a mass infusion of harder to produce goods such as aviation fuel, machine tools, trucks, and high-explosives from Lend-Lease, allowing them to concentrate on a few key industries. World War II Sweden had access to internal German communications through breaking the crypto used in the Siemens and Halske T52 crypto machine also known as the Geheimschreiber and informed Stalin about the forthcoming invasion well ahead of June 22, but did not reveal its sources. [citation needed]. WebOf the estimated 7085 million deaths attributed to World War II, around 30 million occurred on the Eastern Front, including 9 million children. S2CID142875289. At the points of attack, the numerical and quality advantages of the Soviet forces were overwhelming. On 30 March the Red Army entered Austria and captured Vienna on 13 April. On 13 May 1945, all Soviet offensives ceased and the fighting on the Eastern Front of World War II came to an end. The Germans abducted approximately 12million foreign people from almost twenty European countries; about two-thirds came from Central Europe and Eastern Europe. This included the terrorisation of their own people, as well as mass deportations of entire populations. WebFrom 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809, the Russian Empire waged the Finnish War against the Kingdom of Sweden, ostensibly to protect the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, and eventually this led to the conquest and annexation of Finland and its conversion into an autonomous buffer state. The Red Army then launched a counter-offensive, Operation Kutuzov. The Soviets outnumbered the Germans on average by 56:1 in troops, 6:1 in artillery, 6:1 in tanks and 4:1 in self-propelled artillery. "Heaven-bound Missions", which involved fortifying even the most unimportant or insignificant of cities and the holding of these "fortresses" at all costs. A leap across the Don brought German troops to the Volga on 23 August but for the next three months the Wehrmacht would be fighting the Battle of Stalingrad street-by-street. Anti-Soviet Finland, which had fought the Winter War against the Soviet Union, also joined the offensive. Web. German forces invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and had advanced to the suburbs of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) by the summer of 1942. [149] Official OKW Casualty Figures list 65% of Heer killed/missing/captured as being lost on the Eastern Front from 1 September 1939, to 1 January 1945 (four months and a week before the conclusion of the war), with front not specified for losses of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.[150]. This force was joined by additional paratroopers of the 8th Airborne Brigade at the end of January. [g] In many towns, the battles were fought within towns and cities with trapped civilians caught in the middle. About 4,200,000 Germans died, and about 1,972,000 Japanese died. [68] For a month the offensive conducted on three axes was completely unstoppable as the panzer forces encircled hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops in huge pockets that were then reduced by slower-moving infantry armies while the panzers continued the offensive. Winter War On 31 January 1943, the 90,000 survivors of the 300,000-man 6th Army surrendered. Helmuth Weidling, defence commandant of Berlin, surrendered the city to the Soviet forces on 2 May. [57], Rolf Karlbom estimated that Swedish share of Germany's total consumption of iron may have amounted to 43% during the period of 193343. In the Soviet Union the end of the war is considered to be 9 May, when the surrender took effect Moscow time. WebOfficially, roughly 8.6 million Soviet soldiers died in the course of the war, including millions of POWs. Battle of Stalingrad and its outcome | Britannica The failure of German troops to defeat Soviet forces in the campaign signaled a crucial turning point in the war. Both sides practised widespread scorched earth tactics, but the loss of civilian lives in the case of Germany was incomparably smaller than that of the Soviet Union, in which at least 20million were killed. The next objective was to cross the Dnieper river, which was accomplished by 11 July. International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg, Germany. [164], The Soviets also lost 102,600 aircraft (combat and non-combat causes), including 46,100 in combat. Germany's economic, scientific, research and industrial capabilities were among the most technically advanced in the world at the time. in World War II Tank losses on both sides have been the source of controversy ever since.
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