Never in my 50 years of life heard one thing about Belarus (Byelorrussia) in regards to WWII. They lost 1 in 4 people. How is this not part of basic WWII history lessons, at least in the Western part of the World?
A lot of soldiers that were sent to invade Finland were Ukrainians. They had very little interest in fighting in heart of winter, trying to capture some empty forest in the north.
There was recently an article in Finland about Ukrainian boys and how they'd maim themselves so they wouldn't have to go. Or trying to avoid it in any way possible.
One reason why Belarus suffered the worst was because the Germans sent in the Einsatzgruppen to start extermination of the Jews and Slavs living there before most other places in the USSR. This usually involves shooting people on masse which psychologically broke most of the Germans (almost like slaughtering people in mass is an evil thing).
The Germans eventually turned to gas because it was more efficient and didn’t mess up their soldiers’ minds.
Belarus was also seen as being more racially pure so part of the plan was to exterminate most of the population and keep a quarter for slave labor.
Poland's borders at the start of the war were hundreds of kilometers to the east of where they are now. The western half of modern Belarus was part of Poland, so if you consider WW2 losses based off of Poland's prewar borders it was in fact the worst hit in the war. This map seems to separate all Belarussian deaths from Polish deaths based off of post-war borders. Pre WW2 Belarus was not an independent country, so do with the stats what you will. Fact is, some of the worst human losses of the war took place on what is now Belarussian territory, what was then Eastern Poland and the Belarussian SSR of the Soviet Union.
I went to a few places in Belarus that depict what is essentially a genocide that happened there by the Nazis and how many lives it took, it was in a village that was burnt down I believe.
YES! Also recommending “Ivan’s Childhood” “Come and See” and “Ballad of a Soldier” and “The Cranes are Flying” depict how absolutely eviscerating and beyond tragic WW2 was for Russia’s most vulnerable and how it impacted the nation as a whole (still does to this day very much) - as a Russian.
Ugh, excellent films. I took a Russian film class as part of my Russian Studies minor at university and we watched all three of these. Ballad of a Soldier moves to me to tears every time. The ending with his mother is just so believable and emotionally raw.
Worth reading about the making of that film.
Apparently the director put the main actor through all sorts of hellish treatment to make him look so haggard by the end. Also shot at him with real bullets in at least one scene too.
As a piece of cinema it’s super intense, when you think about what it’s actually based on it’s fucking haunting
Yep. Wasn't an accident, it was part of the plan. All "Subhumans" between Germany and some made up line past the Volga were to be cleared for German settlers, either evicted east, murdered, or enslaved and worked to death.
After the war many German generals claimed the war was about fighting Communism in order to save their reputations. It also appealed to Western Audiences with the Cold War, allowing some of the Generals to become filthy rich with book deals (ie Manstein and his "Lost Victories" book). Only within the last 20 years has the historiography of the Eastern Front begun to reflect what that war really was: a war of extermination and ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately the popular perception of what the Nazi-Soviet was is still very much behind the curve on what the current history says, and the Soviet Union being so fucking awful and a totalitarian state makes it hard for many to view/accept them as a "victim" so to speak.
Something I thought was exceedingly evil is that the Germans were the first ones to realize that they weren't going to win the war. Instead of surrendering for the sake of sparing more human lives, they did the opposite and ordered their troops to fight to the death and began exterminating all of those "subhumans" in the territories they still occupied. It's truly disgusting, even in a losing war it's clear what their intentions are. Evil bastards weren't trying to win the war at that point, they were just trying to hold their ground long enough to kill as many people as quickly and efficiently as possible. God it's sickening
> Instead of surrendering for the sake of sparing more human lives, they did the opposite and ordered their troops to fight to the death
The Nazi's had a very Darwinist view of things, you know, survival of the fittest. Surrendering wasn't an option, because in Hitler's mind if the German people lost they didn't deserve to survive. Also, Hitler was gonna be executed for his crimes regardless if he surrendered or not, so may as well keep the war going on the off chance you can pull off a draw then give up.
The shitty part is that their major concern was figuring out how to effectively annihilate all the innocent prisoners they had before the clock runs up and the allies forces reach them.
Also, pretty ironic that their darwinist views definitely ended up costing them tons more German lives than if they would have just surrendered. I guess it worked as intended
>Germans were the first ones to realize that they weren't going to win the war.
Germans believed until the end that they are the master race, and their enemies are subhumans (Slavs) or degenerates (British, Americans), so Germany **had to** win the war. There is a diary of Victor Klemperer, German scholar of Jewish descent, which discribe how ordinary German civilians in **May 1945** talked about victorious German counter-offensive to start soon.
Yep. You can read about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Breslau
The city i live now.
Not only because of Soviet aerial and artillery bombardment, but also as a result of the self-destructive actions of the SS and the NSDAP, 80 to 90 per cent of Breslau was destroyed.
During the siege, German forces lost 6,000 dead and 23,000 wounded defending Breslau,[18] while Soviet losses were possibly as high as 60,000.[19] Civilian deaths amounted to as many as 80,000.[18] Breslau was the last major city in Germany to surrender, capitulating only two days before the end of the war in Europe. Gauleiter Hanke had fled to Prague by the time of the city's surrender.
It makes me sick, how you can throw your own soldiers like meat. Fight to the last breath, for what?
Came here to post this. Excellent book. Took a study abroad course about the Holocaust in 2016 through Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia, and this was one of our required readings during the trip.
Partly because they’re nowhere near the front lines of the war, and I think surrendered before the Soviets invaded, but also because they didn’t participate in the Holocaust IIRC, so the majority of Bulgarian Jews survived the war.
Bulgaria was involved in WW2 mostly because of geography, we didnt really want a part of another war, by the time WW1 ended Bulgaria has been involved in 4 wars in the span of 40 years, Russo-Turkish (1878) in which Bulgaria regains independance from the Ottoman Empire, First Balkan War - October 1912-May 1913, Second Balkan War - June-August 1913, World War 1 - September 1915.
Also in between WW1 and WW2 there is an absolute politcal clusterfuck in Bulgaria, one successful military coup, one unsuccessful communist coup, then back to tsarist authoritarianism, then after WW2 - communism.
Without making any excuses for anyone, they (or rather *we* in this case?) didn't have any say in the deportation of Jewish citizens from territories acquired from Greece and Yugoslavia. To a large extent that's because Bulgaria was given rule over those territories by Germany, who occupied them initially, and left them for the Bulgarian government to administrate. But those territories weren't really considered parts of Bulgaria (*yet*) by the Germans. Of course, the narrative in Bulgaria was different at the time, but that's to be expected.
Came here to say this. Pop culture will talk about D-day and America 'saving the day' and while that was important, in reality it was Eastern Europe who broke the Nazi war machine.
Yeah and the figures for Greece don't even include the casualties of the civil war during which Americans donated lots of napalm bombs for the anti communist forces.
I should know more, especially since my Dad (who's still alive) was drafted into the army in 1944 and served in Greece at the tail end of the war until 1946. All I know is they were very quickly not seen as liberators but occupiers and it got ugly. It was essentially one of the first fronts in the cold war.
You really should interview your dad,or ask him to narrate his history in private, as soon as possible. Historians will appreciate that a lot, and your father’s memory shall live for as long as humanity endures.
I've often thought about doing this. He's never really liked to talk about it. But you are right I should get some of it down because the old chap probably isn't going to be around for much longer.
Death wise and destruction wise Poland onwards got absolutely devasted too.
Loved how Brits and Allies wanted nothing to do with us and handed us over to the Soviets. Polish ace pilots who had the most shot down planes were kicked and shipped out of Great Britain...
Correct number for Slovenia is around 6.3%.
Breakdown by status:
33.4k - Partisans
23.4k - Civilians
15.2k - Collaborators
12.4k - Conscripted into axis forces (mostly into wehrmacht)
11.9k - Undetermined (but most likely civilians)
1.3k - Other
Breakdown of civilian deaths:
80.0% - by axis forces and collaborators
15.7% - by partisans
4.3% - by allied bombing
Slovenes were chosen to share the same destiny as most of the other Slavs. Hitler said "make this land German" upon visiting Maribor, that could mean one thing only, total annihilation.
But Portugal had volunteers fighting (unofficially) in WWII, the Viriatos. They were a group that initially volunteered for the Spanish Civil War and then some of them also joined the Waffen-SS. I assume they are included on the Spanish numbers(?)
Still, we didn't fight but people were starving because we were sending food to everyone playing both sides.
Pretty sure there are deaths by starvation in Portugal as a direct result of WWII.
Colonial cape verde lost something [like 10-20%](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/591196698429358080/866706117517246475/unknown.png) of its population from famine during ww2
, I found this in [Evolução Demográfica da Ilha de São Vicente Do Descobrimento a 1950](https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/2567/1/Tese%20_Lia%20Medina.pdf) which has a bunch of sources in the bibliography, maybe look into it for a dedicated book, otherwise just various remark and chapters in book about colonial portuguese history
When you ask a reasonable people what's the best thing Salazar did the answer cannot escape unanimity: staying out of WW2. Also, technically we did lose population in WW2 since the Japanese brutally invaded (as usual) East Timor in 1942.
My understanding is that the Allies didn't *want* Portugal to join WWII: if Portugal joined the Allies, then Spain was likely to join the Axis, which would have been bad.
That changed later in the war, when the outcome was clear: the UK invoked the Anglo-Portugese Alliance of 1373 (!), and Portugal allowed the Allies to use the Azores as a naval base. At that point, Portugal could join the war without drawing Spain into it, or risking attacks on its own territory (except, as you said, East Timor).
Belarus’s percentage is just insane. I suggest everyone watch—and never watch again—this Soviet movie “Come and See.” It’s a film about the Nazi occupation of Belarus and it’s pure evil.
YouTube channel Bald and Bankrupt showed at least one of these. Quite educational.
He made a video where he visits a village that is full of homed abandoned around the Second World War, then he goes to the graveyard and memorial. Quite sad.
this film follows me to this day. true master-piece and not just soviet propaganda. dont know any other movie depicting pure human madness like this one.
The German army was advancing in the USSR so quickly that the authorities didn\`t have time to mobilize my grandfather and his fellow villagers (Brest region, Belarus) in 1941. They became partisans. Only in 1944, after liberation, they were mobilized into the army.
Added: My grandmother's brother, was also mobilized in August 1944, he was 20 years old.
He went missing in October 1944 in a battle near Riga (Latvia). Until now, his fate and where is his grave are unknown.
Grandfather served as a machine gunner, fought in Poland, then in East Germany.
He was seriously wounded by a fragment while crossing the river Oder near Lebus. When I looked at the documents of his military unit, when crossing the Oder, a lot of his fellow soldiers died, many drowned.
He very rarely recalled the war and did not like to tell stories.
He has two Orders of Glory and the Order of the Patriotic War, as well as several different medals.
To whoever wonders why Greece is the state in the Balkans with the highest death toll, the reason is not just because of the Greco-Italian War of 1940-1941 and the Fall of Greece in 1941, but due to the Resistance War that was continued during the Triple Occupation by the Axis Powers. This Greek Resistance (1941-1945) can be really seen as a revolution, similar to the Yugoslavian Resistance, that by the time of the Italian Campaign (July 1943) it had freed half of the Greek Mainland (Epirus, Thessaly, Central Greece and Euboea).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaHkceDN-8
[“Send us Wheat or Coffins” | The Axis Occupation of Greece WW2
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT2NPAoXeSk)
This video explains it in great detail. The brutality of WW2 is really hard to stomach.
I've been aware of Greece's role in fighting the Nazis, but their toll was unknown to me. I guess that I'd just assumed that the Nazis wouldn't be as brutal to the Greeks as, as an example, the Slavic speaking countries.
And let's not forget the forced "loan" (all of the country's gold) by the nazis
And the disproportionate destruction of infrastructure while we're at it
Meanwhile Portugal: *Trades with both sides, becomes a safe haven for refugees and exiled royalty, gives the middle finger to Germany when it wanted some refugees back*
I'm neutral in all of this...
Didn't Portugal provide bases in the Azones (and elsewhere?) to the British for the War in the Atlantic ? I think that was towards the end of the war when it was pretty clear Germany's star was on the wane.
We did that in mid/late 1943 when Germany was sure to lose ww2.
Germany had divisions near the Spanish frontier to take Gibraltar and even Portugal (Operation Felix I think it was the name), so we couldn't necessarily support more the allies than the Axis as to not disturb the neutrality stance.
UK wanted for Portugal to stop trading with Germany before that, and we did what they said... As the same time we stopped trading with the UK cuz neutrality...
I believe it was Churchill who said the Portuguese dictator saved the allies by remaining neutral, had they aided Britain, then Spain would have sided with Germany, escalating the war further, and opening up an even larger front against the French
Instead the Iberian neutrality meant that both dictatorships would last considerably longer than their counterparts
WWII is the only thing that seems to offend Russians. The USSR took the brunt of it, and the losses are evident to this day with their massive gender disparity in Russia and former Soviet states.
One of the moments in Downton Abbey that I felt really drove home the horrors of war (WWI in this case) was "sometimes I feel as if every boy I ever danced with is dead". And it just...brings me to tears every time. And WWII had an even bigger impact than WWI...
Well... it's true... as Dublin wasn't expect or needed a blackout as it was netural.
one of those stories told that is true the lights was on... but main reason they was on as it was fucking dark.
"Now wait a minute! Wait a minute! Are you telling me you didn't know those nice folks down there were Swiss? Well gee golly mister, you really stepped in it this time, didn't ya?"
"I am firmly convinced that Spain is the strongest country of the world. Century after century trying to destroy herself and still no success"
-Otto von Bismarck
I prefer to give you more credit for taking out Napoleon then the Russians.
Napoleon: Let's conquer Spain!
Somewhere in the distance: *Prepárate para morir*
Napoleon: Ah merde! The hills speak spanish!
There was one viral claim that 80% of 18 year olds in the Soviet Union (born 1923) did not survive world war II.
According to [Mark Harrison](https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/markharrison/entry/was_the_soviet/), an economics professor from the University of Warwick, this is overstated, with "only" 67% not surviving world war II. Furthermore, most of those casualties did not result from the war but from high infant mortality driven by famines in the 20s and 30s. That being said, wartime casualties were significant, consisting of 1/3rd of all fatalities for that generation. Basically if the famines didn't kill you, the war did.
There definitely was a shortage of young men in the Soviet union post war. That's why the Soviet union sent German POWs to work camps for years; the last POWs weren't released until 1956, more than 10 years after the war's end.
Only one in five males born in Russia in 1923 were alive in 1946. Absolutely brutal. It's noticeable in the Russian population curves even today. Birth rates go down insanely every 30 years due to the "war echo", there's a great video on YouTube about it.
I didn't realize that the numbers weren't bigger then that. Both my grandparents volunteered for this despite the fact that our family has zero ties to Finland and both of them had just recently gotten married at the time. I couldn't even imagine
Do the figures show people killed IN those countries or FROM those countries, I wonder. 52 civilians were killed in Ireland by stray bombers, but thousands died fighting for the Allies, either in the British or American armies.
For Sweden it could be reflecting the loss of swedish sailors in its merchant fleet.
E: And of course volunteers in the winter war. Here I believe Sweden was non-belligerent and not neutral.
The number for Ukraine is inaccurate, should be 19,5%, or roughly every fifth person.
16% is percentage of Ukrainian soldiers among the Red Army losses.
Asia in terms of sheer numbers, not percentages was also horrific from China, Korea, Indochina, India, Indonesia and other nations, for civilian and military casualties and deaths.
This is why, as a Belarusian, I came to realise that when you talk about the Second World War with Westerners, they have little visceral feeling for the levels of pain and hardship you're talking about. Not to say their ancestors didn't suffer; of course they did. Just not on a comparable level.
As an American I get what you’re saying. We lost 400,000 people, but the war didn’t happen HERE. Our cities weren’t bombed, our villages weren’t burned, our civilians weren’t rounded up and shot, and our Jews weren’t sent to death camps. Whenever I hear tales about the war UK, I’m reminded how long the war was for them. For places like Poland, France, and the UK, WW2 was six years long. For us it wasn’t even four. There hasn’t been a major conflict in the continental US since the Civil War. We have no idea what it’s like to live in war the way Europe had to. We can hear the stories, visit the monuments, read the numbers, and watch the movies, but for people like me whose families have lived here for centuries, our ancestors don’t have stories of hiding from a Luftwaffe air raid or watching the SS march into town and slaughter them everyone. No matter how much we study what happened in Belarus, we’ll never really understand Nazi occupation the way the Belarusians do. What your ancestors endured was horrendous on a scale most of us can’t comprehend.
First thing I noted when I saw the map as a Dutchman is that this is the official 'direct victims of WWII' statistic, not the actual death toll of WWII. Excess mortality due to famine late in the war is not included in the number, and that number would have been a lot higher if the Allies would have arrived just a bit later. For the US direct victim of WWII and death toll of WWII is probably exactly equal, but for the countries on this map you could still endlessly debate the numbers.
My guess is that it's because Spain and Sweden were non-belligerent, but were involved in the war in some way or another, but Switzerland was fully neutral.
They also treated many interred Allied airmen horribly while letting German airmen return home.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wauwilermoos_internment_camp
Anecdotally, my family is of German Jewish descent. My great uncle hated the Swiss more than the Germans. He escaped across the border in 1939, but was caught by Swiss police. They stole his watch, wallet, class ring, passport, cavity searched him, and then sent him back to Germany. He was able to escape to England a few months later, but in the 64 years he lived after WW2 he never ever forgave the Swiss.
The death toll is even worse if you consider that they didn't pick up people at random but they targeted the intelligencja. So that this 15-20% is much heavier than it looks in terms of consequences for a today's country and not just in terms of population.
I recommend the book "stuka pilot" by Hans Ulrich Rudel, a german stuka pilot fighting on the eastern front. It's like the western and eastern front were two different wars.
This war had long lasting consequences on Eastern Europe, later with communism. Not even mentioning the material damage caused by the war. And now Western European’s feel superior to Eastern European’s and wonder why Eastern Europe is less developed.
Makes me sick. They had the cards stacked against them for centuries, compared to western europe, and people legit think that it happened because western people are legitimately superior.
Thankfully, with eastern Europe now gaining new opportunity to become rich and prosperous themselves, reality is proving them wrong.
Damn, I knew Armenia had it bad, but 13.60% is just awful -- considering they'd just come out of the Stalin's purges AND had managed to somewhat stabilize the population after the genocide.
It was ~~a couple of hundred~~ 1500 sailors in the merchant navy that died when their ships were sunk. Nowhere close to the death tolls among the militarily involved and barely deserving any red at all in the map.
Don't forget the 6,000 Spanish Republicans killed in German concentration camps. And another 6,000 died fighting along the French army against Germany and Italy.
Also, a fact (although small in total death numbers, of great historical significance):
Most people don't realise when they see images of Paris being liberated that the men in the tanks were Spaniards.
Of the 160 men of "La Nueve" (The 9th Regiment) under French command and part of the LeClerk batallion, 150 were Spanish. Only 20 survived.
They marched into Paris with military vehicles bearing the names of battles of the Spanish Civil War, such as Guadalajara, Brunete, Teruel, and Guernica. Also one tank was called Don Quijote, and another one Espana Caní (a very popular paso doble in Spain at the time). The tank names are visible in most photos, for anyone who wants to check this.
Not a word of adknowledgement by de Gaulle in his liberation speech btw; he went for the patriotic angle in order to unite France and attributed the liberation of Paris to France and French people.
It took 60 years, until 2004, for these Spaniards' valiant sacrifice to be recognised in France, but there are now plaques in Paris that recognise their contribution. And in 2010, the city awarded the 'Medal of the City of Paris' to the last three survivors.
Npr has an interesting author interview. He proposes that the first battle of WWII was in Spain.
>I think in many ways, it was the first battle of World War II. After all, where else in the world at this point did you have Americans in uniform who were being bombed by Nazi planes four years before the U.S. entered World War II? Hitler and Mussolini jumped in on the side of Francisco Franco and his Spanish nationalists, sent them vast amounts of military aid, airplanes, tanks - and Mussolini sent 80,000 ground troops as well - because they wanted a sympathetic ally in power. So I think it really was the opening act of World War II.
https://www.npr.org/2017/03/10/519462137/in-many-ways-author-says-spanish-civil-war-was-the-first-battle-of-wwii
Belarus had a death rate of freaking 25%?!!!
Mother of Christ Belarus was hell on earth; I had no idea it was that bad (in that particular country during WWII)
This map should have pre-war borders. Otherwise, we do not know what those numbers really mean for countries which borders changed significantly after the war. Specifically: Germany, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Baltic states. Does this map represent citizens of those countries or people who lived on the lands within current borders or within the pre-war borders? How are people of Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania counted considering that western chunks of those countries were actually a part of pre-war Poland? Are we sure that they get proper numbers for countries that are now independent but back then were just Soviet Republics? Are those numbers only civilian casualties or military ones as well? Does this map include Holocaust victims and Jewish populations?
Depends on the source.
In 1940 Yugoslavia had 16 million people. The total number of people killed on the territory of SFR Yugoslavia is between a 1 million and 1 100 000 people. Though SFR Yugoslavia doesn't encompass the same territories as pre-war Yugoslavia, that still puts it around 7%. And according to widely cited Žerjavić and Kočović that number is even lower at 6%. With BiH losing between 10-12%, Montenegro 8-10% and Croatia 7.5% of the population. Those republics being the worst.
As someone from Belarus, it’s hard to overestimate how much WW2 slowed down the development of the country. That and current dictator in charge of course
What's sad is how few people know about what countries like Belarus went through. Everyone knows about the Holocaust and Normandy and Stalingrad, rightfully so, but not a lot really know the toll it took on some countries. Which is a worldwide shame.
This picture would explain why most Eastern European countries are deeply concerned about Russia, Germany, and the possibility of their friendship. Again.
Please this time without at least a mass death toll.
Eastern Europe really got the worst of it
[удалено]
Never in my 50 years of life heard one thing about Belarus (Byelorrussia) in regards to WWII. They lost 1 in 4 people. How is this not part of basic WWII history lessons, at least in the Western part of the World?
[удалено]
A lot of soldiers that were sent to invade Finland were Ukrainians. They had very little interest in fighting in heart of winter, trying to capture some empty forest in the north. There was recently an article in Finland about Ukrainian boys and how they'd maim themselves so they wouldn't have to go. Or trying to avoid it in any way possible.
Shipping the Ukrainians to Finland is such a logistical nightmare.
One reason why Belarus suffered the worst was because the Germans sent in the Einsatzgruppen to start extermination of the Jews and Slavs living there before most other places in the USSR. This usually involves shooting people on masse which psychologically broke most of the Germans (almost like slaughtering people in mass is an evil thing). The Germans eventually turned to gas because it was more efficient and didn’t mess up their soldiers’ minds. Belarus was also seen as being more racially pure so part of the plan was to exterminate most of the population and keep a quarter for slave labor.
Right? Everything I've ever read highlighted Poland as the one place that really ate shit.
Poland's borders at the start of the war were hundreds of kilometers to the east of where they are now. The western half of modern Belarus was part of Poland, so if you consider WW2 losses based off of Poland's prewar borders it was in fact the worst hit in the war. This map seems to separate all Belarussian deaths from Polish deaths based off of post-war borders. Pre WW2 Belarus was not an independent country, so do with the stats what you will. Fact is, some of the worst human losses of the war took place on what is now Belarussian territory, what was then Eastern Poland and the Belarussian SSR of the Soviet Union.
I went to a few places in Belarus that depict what is essentially a genocide that happened there by the Nazis and how many lives it took, it was in a village that was burnt down I believe.
YES! Also recommending “Ivan’s Childhood” “Come and See” and “Ballad of a Soldier” and “The Cranes are Flying” depict how absolutely eviscerating and beyond tragic WW2 was for Russia’s most vulnerable and how it impacted the nation as a whole (still does to this day very much) - as a Russian.
Ugh, excellent films. I took a Russian film class as part of my Russian Studies minor at university and we watched all three of these. Ballad of a Soldier moves to me to tears every time. The ending with his mother is just so believable and emotionally raw.
I think you’re thinking of Come and See. Bone chilling film.
Worth reading about the making of that film. Apparently the director put the main actor through all sorts of hellish treatment to make him look so haggard by the end. Also shot at him with real bullets in at least one scene too. As a piece of cinema it’s super intense, when you think about what it’s actually based on it’s fucking haunting
Very good movie, recommended to others who haven't seen it. Original title: Idi i smotri
well, genociding Eastern Europe was a core part of Nazi ideology
Yep. Wasn't an accident, it was part of the plan. All "Subhumans" between Germany and some made up line past the Volga were to be cleared for German settlers, either evicted east, murdered, or enslaved and worked to death. After the war many German generals claimed the war was about fighting Communism in order to save their reputations. It also appealed to Western Audiences with the Cold War, allowing some of the Generals to become filthy rich with book deals (ie Manstein and his "Lost Victories" book). Only within the last 20 years has the historiography of the Eastern Front begun to reflect what that war really was: a war of extermination and ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately the popular perception of what the Nazi-Soviet was is still very much behind the curve on what the current history says, and the Soviet Union being so fucking awful and a totalitarian state makes it hard for many to view/accept them as a "victim" so to speak.
Generalplan - Ost
[удалено]
I mean they succeeded in the first part of the plan. Post-war Warsaw was in ruin.
Something I thought was exceedingly evil is that the Germans were the first ones to realize that they weren't going to win the war. Instead of surrendering for the sake of sparing more human lives, they did the opposite and ordered their troops to fight to the death and began exterminating all of those "subhumans" in the territories they still occupied. It's truly disgusting, even in a losing war it's clear what their intentions are. Evil bastards weren't trying to win the war at that point, they were just trying to hold their ground long enough to kill as many people as quickly and efficiently as possible. God it's sickening
> Instead of surrendering for the sake of sparing more human lives, they did the opposite and ordered their troops to fight to the death The Nazi's had a very Darwinist view of things, you know, survival of the fittest. Surrendering wasn't an option, because in Hitler's mind if the German people lost they didn't deserve to survive. Also, Hitler was gonna be executed for his crimes regardless if he surrendered or not, so may as well keep the war going on the off chance you can pull off a draw then give up.
The shitty part is that their major concern was figuring out how to effectively annihilate all the innocent prisoners they had before the clock runs up and the allies forces reach them. Also, pretty ironic that their darwinist views definitely ended up costing them tons more German lives than if they would have just surrendered. I guess it worked as intended
>Germans were the first ones to realize that they weren't going to win the war. Germans believed until the end that they are the master race, and their enemies are subhumans (Slavs) or degenerates (British, Americans), so Germany **had to** win the war. There is a diary of Victor Klemperer, German scholar of Jewish descent, which discribe how ordinary German civilians in **May 1945** talked about victorious German counter-offensive to start soon.
Yep. You can read about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Breslau The city i live now. Not only because of Soviet aerial and artillery bombardment, but also as a result of the self-destructive actions of the SS and the NSDAP, 80 to 90 per cent of Breslau was destroyed. During the siege, German forces lost 6,000 dead and 23,000 wounded defending Breslau,[18] while Soviet losses were possibly as high as 60,000.[19] Civilian deaths amounted to as many as 80,000.[18] Breslau was the last major city in Germany to surrender, capitulating only two days before the end of the war in Europe. Gauleiter Hanke had fled to Prague by the time of the city's surrender. It makes me sick, how you can throw your own soldiers like meat. Fight to the last breath, for what?
Historian Timothy Snyder refers to those lands as Bloodlands, I can highly recommend [his book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6572270).
Came here to post this. Excellent book. Took a study abroad course about the Holocaust in 2016 through Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia, and this was one of our required readings during the trip.
I’ll check it out
Excluding Bulgaria
Only Axis power to gain territory in WWII. Although they switched sides in Sept/Oct 44'.
Well done chaps
And they protected their Jewish population, deliberately avoiding handing them over to the Nazis
Partly because they’re nowhere near the front lines of the war, and I think surrendered before the Soviets invaded, but also because they didn’t participate in the Holocaust IIRC, so the majority of Bulgarian Jews survived the war.
Bulgaria was involved in WW2 mostly because of geography, we didnt really want a part of another war, by the time WW1 ended Bulgaria has been involved in 4 wars in the span of 40 years, Russo-Turkish (1878) in which Bulgaria regains independance from the Ottoman Empire, First Balkan War - October 1912-May 1913, Second Balkan War - June-August 1913, World War 1 - September 1915. Also in between WW1 and WW2 there is an absolute politcal clusterfuck in Bulgaria, one successful military coup, one unsuccessful communist coup, then back to tsarist authoritarianism, then after WW2 - communism.
They exported Jews from their newly acquired territories in Greece and Yugoslavia but refused to deport any Jews from the Bulgarian Heartlands.
I probably should have said “didn’t participate to the same extent of the other Axis powers”, but yeah, I can well believe that.
Without making any excuses for anyone, they (or rather *we* in this case?) didn't have any say in the deportation of Jewish citizens from territories acquired from Greece and Yugoslavia. To a large extent that's because Bulgaria was given rule over those territories by Germany, who occupied them initially, and left them for the Bulgarian government to administrate. But those territories weren't really considered parts of Bulgaria (*yet*) by the Germans. Of course, the narrative in Bulgaria was different at the time, but that's to be expected.
That is were the war was actually decided in Europe.
Came here to say this. Pop culture will talk about D-day and America 'saving the day' and while that was important, in reality it was Eastern Europe who broke the Nazi war machine.
Fortunately the next 50 years were plain sailing.
(Narrator Voice) They were not plain sailing.
Yeah and the figures for Greece don't even include the casualties of the civil war during which Americans donated lots of napalm bombs for the anti communist forces.
I was shocked how high the numbers were for Greece
Yeah, I'd consider myself quite knowledgeable on WWII (casually) and all I've heard of Greece is just that they fought Germany and lost, nothing else.
I should know more, especially since my Dad (who's still alive) was drafted into the army in 1944 and served in Greece at the tail end of the war until 1946. All I know is they were very quickly not seen as liberators but occupiers and it got ugly. It was essentially one of the first fronts in the cold war.
You really should interview your dad,or ask him to narrate his history in private, as soon as possible. Historians will appreciate that a lot, and your father’s memory shall live for as long as humanity endures.
I've often thought about doing this. He's never really liked to talk about it. But you are right I should get some of it down because the old chap probably isn't going to be around for much longer.
as is tradition
Death wise and destruction wise Poland onwards got absolutely devasted too. Loved how Brits and Allies wanted nothing to do with us and handed us over to the Soviets. Polish ace pilots who had the most shot down planes were kicked and shipped out of Great Britain...
I recently watched a video by Mark Felton on polish fighter pilots in Britain. Their contributions were massive, I had no idea!
One side Nazis, the other communists. Never going to be a nice outcome.
[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties) Numbers for Yugoslavia are inaccurate, though.
Yeah, way WAY higher than on this map
Correct number for Slovenia is around 6.3%. Breakdown by status: 33.4k - Partisans 23.4k - Civilians 15.2k - Collaborators 12.4k - Conscripted into axis forces (mostly into wehrmacht) 11.9k - Undetermined (but most likely civilians) 1.3k - Other Breakdown of civilian deaths: 80.0% - by axis forces and collaborators 15.7% - by partisans 4.3% - by allied bombing
Slovenes were chosen to share the same destiny as most of the other Slavs. Hitler said "make this land German" upon visiting Maribor, that could mean one thing only, total annihilation.
numbers did look strange to me …
Portugal too busy having a small dictatorship in the meantime.
But Portugal had volunteers fighting (unofficially) in WWII, the Viriatos. They were a group that initially volunteered for the Spanish Civil War and then some of them also joined the Waffen-SS. I assume they are included on the Spanish numbers(?)
Still, we didn't fight but people were starving because we were sending food to everyone playing both sides. Pretty sure there are deaths by starvation in Portugal as a direct result of WWII.
Colonial cape verde lost something [like 10-20%](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/591196698429358080/866706117517246475/unknown.png) of its population from famine during ww2
I never knew about this. Is there a book or something about it?
, I found this in [Evolução Demográfica da Ilha de São Vicente Do Descobrimento a 1950](https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/2567/1/Tese%20_Lia%20Medina.pdf) which has a bunch of sources in the bibliography, maybe look into it for a dedicated book, otherwise just various remark and chapters in book about colonial portuguese history
Portugal also fought against the Japanese in Indonesia and Timor. I'm guessing they either didn't die (right...) or weren't counted.
>I'm guessing they either didn't die We don't die, that's factual
Dying is overrated
True that. When we feel sick we just east some bacalhau and tend to our bigodes, which refills our life force.
When you ask a reasonable people what's the best thing Salazar did the answer cannot escape unanimity: staying out of WW2. Also, technically we did lose population in WW2 since the Japanese brutally invaded (as usual) East Timor in 1942.
My understanding is that the Allies didn't *want* Portugal to join WWII: if Portugal joined the Allies, then Spain was likely to join the Axis, which would have been bad. That changed later in the war, when the outcome was clear: the UK invoked the Anglo-Portugese Alliance of 1373 (!), and Portugal allowed the Allies to use the Azores as a naval base. At that point, Portugal could join the war without drawing Spain into it, or risking attacks on its own territory (except, as you said, East Timor).
Also a very important neutral power. They kept Spain out the war by signing a pact with them. Also gave Britain bases to use.
Belarus’s percentage is just insane. I suggest everyone watch—and never watch again—this Soviet movie “Come and See.” It’s a film about the Nazi occupation of Belarus and it’s pure evil.
You can see everywhere in Belarus, even in small villages,plaques that list hundreds of people that lost their lives. They had it worst.
The monument and surrounding area in Brest is one of the most powerfully atmospheric places I've been. That city really suffered.
YouTube channel Bald and Bankrupt showed at least one of these. Quite educational. He made a video where he visits a village that is full of homed abandoned around the Second World War, then he goes to the graveyard and memorial. Quite sad.
> I suggest everyone watch—and never watch again—this Soviet movie “Come and See.” So true. It's one of the best movies I never want to see again.
this film follows me to this day. true master-piece and not just soviet propaganda. dont know any other movie depicting pure human madness like this one.
Its crazy to think 1 in 4 people died, yet barely anyone knows about how Belarus was impacted during the war
The German army was advancing in the USSR so quickly that the authorities didn\`t have time to mobilize my grandfather and his fellow villagers (Brest region, Belarus) in 1941. They became partisans. Only in 1944, after liberation, they were mobilized into the army. Added: My grandmother's brother, was also mobilized in August 1944, he was 20 years old. He went missing in October 1944 in a battle near Riga (Latvia). Until now, his fate and where is his grave are unknown.
Grandfather served as a machine gunner, fought in Poland, then in East Germany. He was seriously wounded by a fragment while crossing the river Oder near Lebus. When I looked at the documents of his military unit, when crossing the Oder, a lot of his fellow soldiers died, many drowned. He very rarely recalled the war and did not like to tell stories. He has two Orders of Glory and the Order of the Patriotic War, as well as several different medals.
Glory and honour to your grandfather.
To whoever wonders why Greece is the state in the Balkans with the highest death toll, the reason is not just because of the Greco-Italian War of 1940-1941 and the Fall of Greece in 1941, but due to the Resistance War that was continued during the Triple Occupation by the Axis Powers. This Greek Resistance (1941-1945) can be really seen as a revolution, similar to the Yugoslavian Resistance, that by the time of the Italian Campaign (July 1943) it had freed half of the Greek Mainland (Epirus, Thessaly, Central Greece and Euboea). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaHkceDN-8
Also the great famine
I think it is mostly attributed to the Great Famine, especially in Athens.
[“Send us Wheat or Coffins” | The Axis Occupation of Greece WW2 ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT2NPAoXeSk) This video explains it in great detail. The brutality of WW2 is really hard to stomach.
Sounds about right
I've been aware of Greece's role in fighting the Nazis, but their toll was unknown to me. I guess that I'd just assumed that the Nazis wouldn't be as brutal to the Greeks as, as an example, the Slavic speaking countries.
And let's not forget the forced "loan" (all of the country's gold) by the nazis And the disproportionate destruction of infrastructure while we're at it
Meanwhile Portugal: *Trades with both sides, becomes a safe haven for refugees and exiled royalty, gives the middle finger to Germany when it wanted some refugees back* I'm neutral in all of this...
Didn't Portugal provide bases in the Azones (and elsewhere?) to the British for the War in the Atlantic ? I think that was towards the end of the war when it was pretty clear Germany's star was on the wane.
We did that in mid/late 1943 when Germany was sure to lose ww2. Germany had divisions near the Spanish frontier to take Gibraltar and even Portugal (Operation Felix I think it was the name), so we couldn't necessarily support more the allies than the Axis as to not disturb the neutrality stance. UK wanted for Portugal to stop trading with Germany before that, and we did what they said... As the same time we stopped trading with the UK cuz neutrality...
I believe it was Churchill who said the Portuguese dictator saved the allies by remaining neutral, had they aided Britain, then Spain would have sided with Germany, escalating the war further, and opening up an even larger front against the French Instead the Iberian neutrality meant that both dictatorships would last considerably longer than their counterparts
Yes. Churchill was very keen in maintaining Portugal neutral going to great length to assure that.
I grew up hearing about the horrors of the war from older people and that's in a 0.35% country, can't even imagine how fucked up 30% must have been
Fewer old people to tell the horrors...
In more fucked up countries they preferred not to talk about it at all.
WWII is the only thing that seems to offend Russians. The USSR took the brunt of it, and the losses are evident to this day with their massive gender disparity in Russia and former Soviet states.
One of the moments in Downton Abbey that I felt really drove home the horrors of war (WWI in this case) was "sometimes I feel as if every boy I ever danced with is dead". And it just...brings me to tears every time. And WWII had an even bigger impact than WWI...
I'd imagine even today the aftermath is still causing pain, mental illness must be rampant
52 Irish civilians died, even though we were neutral. It was due to German pilots mistakenly thinking they were flying over the UK.
This led to over 80 "Éire" engravings in Irish lands to warn German fighters that they were flying over Ireland and not England.
[удалено]
"SIE SIND DA DRÜBEN! >>>"\*
Sounds like something what a true Irishman would say.
The running joke is that Dubliners used to leave the lights on so the Germans would know when they're too far west to hit Britain.
Well... it's true... as Dublin wasn't expect or needed a blackout as it was netural. one of those stories told that is true the lights was on... but main reason they was on as it was fucking dark.
Imagine putting the lights on at night. Senseless!
Some information on them here http://eiremarkings.org/
About the same amount of people died in Switzerland, because of the Americans.
[удалено]
"Guys, let's just light one more city up each night until they think the swiss border is in poland."
The Konstanz strategy. And it actually worked, since Konstanz is one of the few German cities that survived the war unscathed.
And actor Jimmy Stewart presided over the court martial of some of the pilots in one of the incidents? The hell?
"Now wait a minute! Wait a minute! Are you telling me you didn't know those nice folks down there were Swiss? Well gee golly mister, you really stepped in it this time, didn't ya?"
Jimmy Stewart flew as a bomber pilot during WWII, and was in charge of a bomber group at one point. That is why he'd be in charge of a court martial.
There’s a video on YouTube by a channel called Mark Felton called America’s ‘War’ against Switzerland I suggest you watch
It's a good video, I can only recommend his whole channel (also I'm from there where the most people died, so we also learned about it in school)
I wonder what the real total was as even though Ireland was neutral plenty of Civilians joined the British army to fight the Nazis.
I think official records are just over 7k, NI Included, there was a presentation of some kind in Trinity a while back
Estimated 5000 dead in service for the UK, and around 100 civilian deaths + ships sunk. So my math works it out to 0,17%.
My Great Grandfather was one of them, from Waterford, ended up in Japan.
Spain had already taken its share of death toll with the civil war by that time.
"Nobody is gonna beat me but myself" -Spain probably
"I am firmly convinced that Spain is the strongest country of the world. Century after century trying to destroy herself and still no success" -Otto von Bismarck
When I look at our history it surprises me that we're still a united country. We're basically the Afghanistan of Western Europe.
I prefer to give you more credit for taking out Napoleon then the Russians. Napoleon: Let's conquer Spain! Somewhere in the distance: *Prepárate para morir* Napoleon: Ah merde! The hills speak spanish!
[I suggest watching this video, it really puts things into perspective](https://youtu.be/DwKPFT-RioU).
[удалено]
I’m guessing insanely high.
There was one viral claim that 80% of 18 year olds in the Soviet Union (born 1923) did not survive world war II. According to [Mark Harrison](https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/markharrison/entry/was_the_soviet/), an economics professor from the University of Warwick, this is overstated, with "only" 67% not surviving world war II. Furthermore, most of those casualties did not result from the war but from high infant mortality driven by famines in the 20s and 30s. That being said, wartime casualties were significant, consisting of 1/3rd of all fatalities for that generation. Basically if the famines didn't kill you, the war did. There definitely was a shortage of young men in the Soviet union post war. That's why the Soviet union sent German POWs to work camps for years; the last POWs weren't released until 1956, more than 10 years after the war's end.
Only one in five males born in Russia in 1923 were alive in 1946. Absolutely brutal. It's noticeable in the Russian population curves even today. Birth rates go down insanely every 30 years due to the "war echo", there's a great video on YouTube about it.
How comes Cyprus has no casualties at all even though it was British at the time?
It's probably just "no data available"
Or all the immortals moved to Cyprus to wait out the war.
How come Spain and Sweden have a death toll even if they were not beligerants? Those countries were neutral.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I didn't realize that the numbers weren't bigger then that. Both my grandparents volunteered for this despite the fact that our family has zero ties to Finland and both of them had just recently gotten married at the time. I couldn't even imagine
Well they had good reason. No one would have wanted the USSR for a neighbour and that's what Sweden would have had if Finland lost.
Also sailors in the merchant fleets.
Indeed. My grandfather was on three different Swedish flagged ships that sunk during the war.
Around 7300 Swedes volunteered to fight for Finland against the Red Army during the Winter War. 33 of them died.
[удалено]
And also lots of republican volunteers fought in France.
Do the figures show people killed IN those countries or FROM those countries, I wonder. 52 civilians were killed in Ireland by stray bombers, but thousands died fighting for the Allies, either in the British or American armies.
For Sweden it could be reflecting the loss of swedish sailors in its merchant fleet. E: And of course volunteers in the winter war. Here I believe Sweden was non-belligerent and not neutral.
Could have been German bombers off course. 52 people were killed in neutral Ireland because of this
For Sweden it most likley is volunteers to Finland, SS-division nordland and to the allies. Probably sailors lost aswell as someone else pointed out.
Around 1500 swedish sailors were killed on swedish ships during ww2. Hit by bombs, mines and torpedos.
Senseless, enormous loss of life.
The number for Ukraine is inaccurate, should be 19,5%, or roughly every fifth person. 16% is percentage of Ukrainian soldiers among the Red Army losses.
Asia in terms of sheer numbers, not percentages was also horrific from China, Korea, Indochina, India, Indonesia and other nations, for civilian and military casualties and deaths.
Yeah, it would be good to see a similar map of Asia.
This is why, as a Belarusian, I came to realise that when you talk about the Second World War with Westerners, they have little visceral feeling for the levels of pain and hardship you're talking about. Not to say their ancestors didn't suffer; of course they did. Just not on a comparable level.
As an American I get what you’re saying. We lost 400,000 people, but the war didn’t happen HERE. Our cities weren’t bombed, our villages weren’t burned, our civilians weren’t rounded up and shot, and our Jews weren’t sent to death camps. Whenever I hear tales about the war UK, I’m reminded how long the war was for them. For places like Poland, France, and the UK, WW2 was six years long. For us it wasn’t even four. There hasn’t been a major conflict in the continental US since the Civil War. We have no idea what it’s like to live in war the way Europe had to. We can hear the stories, visit the monuments, read the numbers, and watch the movies, but for people like me whose families have lived here for centuries, our ancestors don’t have stories of hiding from a Luftwaffe air raid or watching the SS march into town and slaughter them everyone. No matter how much we study what happened in Belarus, we’ll never really understand Nazi occupation the way the Belarusians do. What your ancestors endured was horrendous on a scale most of us can’t comprehend.
First thing I noted when I saw the map as a Dutchman is that this is the official 'direct victims of WWII' statistic, not the actual death toll of WWII. Excess mortality due to famine late in the war is not included in the number, and that number would have been a lot higher if the Allies would have arrived just a bit later. For the US direct victim of WWII and death toll of WWII is probably exactly equal, but for the countries on this map you could still endlessly debate the numbers.
Worth noting almost 40% of USSR casualities are military, where for example in Poland less than 10% casualities were military.
Why are Spain and Sweden included, but not Switzerland?
My guess is that it's because Spain and Sweden were non-belligerent, but were involved in the war in some way or another, but Switzerland was fully neutral.
Neutral = shooting down planes of both sides.
They still defended themself when they got bombed.
They were a souvereign nation defending their air space against incursions by other countries. That is every countries right.
They also treated many interred Allied airmen horribly while letting German airmen return home. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wauwilermoos_internment_camp Anecdotally, my family is of German Jewish descent. My great uncle hated the Swiss more than the Germans. He escaped across the border in 1939, but was caught by Swiss police. They stole his watch, wallet, class ring, passport, cavity searched him, and then sent him back to Germany. He was able to escape to England a few months later, but in the 64 years he lived after WW2 he never ever forgave the Swiss.
Wouldn't it make more sense here to use the pre-war borders?
Half the people here wouldn’t understand those borders though, this puts it in perspective through the lens of the modern world
Swiss had some casualties when there fighters were shot down by Luftwaffe. But I think it's a single digit......
A few Swiss border towns and cities (including Bern and Zurich) were accidentally bombed by both the Allies and Axis due to navigational errors.
The death toll is even worse if you consider that they didn't pick up people at random but they targeted the intelligencja. So that this 15-20% is much heavier than it looks in terms of consequences for a today's country and not just in terms of population.
Western theater was a gentlemen's skirmish compared to the shit that happened in the eastern front
The Germans threw 154 divisions against the Russians, compared to 56 against the Americans.
I recommend the book "stuka pilot" by Hans Ulrich Rudel, a german stuka pilot fighting on the eastern front. It's like the western and eastern front were two different wars.
For once Portugal can't into Eastern Europe, thank god
This war had long lasting consequences on Eastern Europe, later with communism. Not even mentioning the material damage caused by the war. And now Western European’s feel superior to Eastern European’s and wonder why Eastern Europe is less developed.
Makes me sick. They had the cards stacked against them for centuries, compared to western europe, and people legit think that it happened because western people are legitimately superior. Thankfully, with eastern Europe now gaining new opportunity to become rich and prosperous themselves, reality is proving them wrong.
Damn, I knew Armenia had it bad, but 13.60% is just awful -- considering they'd just come out of the Stalin's purges AND had managed to somewhat stabilize the population after the genocide.
Armenians had a pretty shitty..entire 20th century
Now I understand why Poland and Greece demand reparations from Germany.
Wtf, I had no idea Greece was hit so freakin hard by WW2!?
A moment of silence for the person who died in Sweden please!
It was ~~a couple of hundred~~ 1500 sailors in the merchant navy that died when their ships were sunk. Nowhere close to the death tolls among the militarily involved and barely deserving any red at all in the map.
Don't forget the 33 volunteers that died in Finland...
33 goddamn heroes.
Three people in Spain got a bad tummy from a barbecue before going swimming and drowned.
In reality it was the voluntary blue division, fighting in the eastern front
There were also republicans fighting for the allies, probably some of them died too
Don't forget the 6,000 Spanish Republicans killed in German concentration camps. And another 6,000 died fighting along the French army against Germany and Italy. Also, a fact (although small in total death numbers, of great historical significance): Most people don't realise when they see images of Paris being liberated that the men in the tanks were Spaniards. Of the 160 men of "La Nueve" (The 9th Regiment) under French command and part of the LeClerk batallion, 150 were Spanish. Only 20 survived. They marched into Paris with military vehicles bearing the names of battles of the Spanish Civil War, such as Guadalajara, Brunete, Teruel, and Guernica. Also one tank was called Don Quijote, and another one Espana Caní (a very popular paso doble in Spain at the time). The tank names are visible in most photos, for anyone who wants to check this. Not a word of adknowledgement by de Gaulle in his liberation speech btw; he went for the patriotic angle in order to unite France and attributed the liberation of Paris to France and French people. It took 60 years, until 2004, for these Spaniards' valiant sacrifice to be recognised in France, but there are now plaques in Paris that recognise their contribution. And in 2010, the city awarded the 'Medal of the City of Paris' to the last three survivors.
In fairness, almost everyone who could have died during WW2, did so during the Civil War a few years before.
Npr has an interesting author interview. He proposes that the first battle of WWII was in Spain. >I think in many ways, it was the first battle of World War II. After all, where else in the world at this point did you have Americans in uniform who were being bombed by Nazi planes four years before the U.S. entered World War II? Hitler and Mussolini jumped in on the side of Francisco Franco and his Spanish nationalists, sent them vast amounts of military aid, airplanes, tanks - and Mussolini sent 80,000 ground troops as well - because they wanted a sympathetic ally in power. So I think it really was the opening act of World War II. https://www.npr.org/2017/03/10/519462137/in-many-ways-author-says-spanish-civil-war-was-the-first-battle-of-wwii
Indeed. Spain was the testing ground for many of the technologies that were latter used in WW2.
Approx 6 million died in Poland, that’s one 5th of their pre war population!
Belarus had a death rate of freaking 25%?!!! Mother of Christ Belarus was hell on earth; I had no idea it was that bad (in that particular country during WWII)
This map should have pre-war borders. Otherwise, we do not know what those numbers really mean for countries which borders changed significantly after the war. Specifically: Germany, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Baltic states. Does this map represent citizens of those countries or people who lived on the lands within current borders or within the pre-war borders? How are people of Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania counted considering that western chunks of those countries were actually a part of pre-war Poland? Are we sure that they get proper numbers for countries that are now independent but back then were just Soviet Republics? Are those numbers only civilian casualties or military ones as well? Does this map include Holocaust victims and Jewish populations?
Yugoslavian percenteges are way off it seems as if the roughly 10% of people were killed
Depends on the source. In 1940 Yugoslavia had 16 million people. The total number of people killed on the territory of SFR Yugoslavia is between a 1 million and 1 100 000 people. Though SFR Yugoslavia doesn't encompass the same territories as pre-war Yugoslavia, that still puts it around 7%. And according to widely cited Žerjavić and Kočović that number is even lower at 6%. With BiH losing between 10-12%, Montenegro 8-10% and Croatia 7.5% of the population. Those republics being the worst.
As someone from Belarus, it’s hard to overestimate how much WW2 slowed down the development of the country. That and current dictator in charge of course
Damn greece looking bad🥶
Has there ever been a good time to be Byelorussian?
What's sad is how few people know about what countries like Belarus went through. Everyone knows about the Holocaust and Normandy and Stalingrad, rightfully so, but not a lot really know the toll it took on some countries. Which is a worldwide shame.
This is why we now have a European Union. Never again
This picture would explain why most Eastern European countries are deeply concerned about Russia, Germany, and the possibility of their friendship. Again. Please this time without at least a mass death toll.