How many Europeans died in World War II. The ratio of irretrievable losses of the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World War

Recently, parliamentary hearings “Patriotic Education of Russian Citizens: “The Immortal Regiment”” were held in the Duma. They were attended by deputies, senators, representatives of the legislative and supreme executive bodies of state power of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the Ministries of Education and Science, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Culture, members of public associations, organizations of foreign compatriots ... True, there were no those who came up with - ​journalists from Tomsk TV-2, no one even remembered them. And, in general, there was really no need to remember. "Immortal Regiment", which, by definition, did not provide for any staffing, no commanders and political officers, has already completely transformed into a sovereign "box" of parade crew, and its main task today is to learn to step in step and keep alignment in the ranks.

“What is a people, a nation? First of all, it is respect for victories,” Vyacheslav Nikonov, chairman of the parliamentary committee, admonished the participants when opening the hearings. – Today, when a new war is going on, which someone calls “hybrid”, our Victory becomes one of the main targets for attacks on historical memory. There are waves of falsification of history that should make us believe that it was not us, but someone else who won, and still make us apologize ... "For some reason, the Nikonovs are seriously sure that it was they, long before their own birth, who won the Great A victory for which, moreover, someone is trying to make them apologize. But they weren't attacked! And the aching note of the nationwide misfortune that has not passed, the phantom pain for the third generation of the descendants of the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War is drowned out by a cheerful, thoughtless cry: “We can repeat it!”

Really, can we?

It was at these hearings that a terrible figure was named in between times, which for some reason was not noticed by anyone, which did not make us stop in horror on the run in order to understand WHAT we were told after all. Why this was done now, I do not know.

At the hearings, the co-chairman of the Immortal Regiment of Russia movement, State Duma deputy Nikolai Zemtsov, presented the report “Documentary basis People's Project"Establishing the fate of the missing defenders of the Fatherland", within the framework of which studies were carried out on the decline in the population, which changed the idea of ​​​​the scale of the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.

“The total decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 was more than 52 million 812 thousand people,” Zemtsov said, citing declassified data from the USSR State Planning Committee. - Of these, irretrievable losses as a result of the action of war factors - more than 19 million military personnel and about 23 million civilians. The total natural mortality of military personnel and the civilian population during this period could have amounted to more than 10 million 833 thousand people (including 5 million 760 thousand - ​deceased children under the age of four). The irretrievable losses of the population of the USSR as a result of the action of war factors amounted to almost 42 million people.

Can we… do it again?!

Back in the 60s of the last century, the then young poet Vadim Kovda wrote a short poem in four lines: “ If only in my front door / there are three elderly disabled people / then how many of them were injured? / And killed?

Now these elderly people with disabilities due to natural causes are less and less visible. But Kovda imagined the scale of losses quite correctly, it was enough just to multiply the number of front doors.

Stalin, proceeding from considerations inaccessible to a normal person, personally determined the losses of the USSR at 7 million people - a little less than the losses of Germany. Khrushchev - 20 million. Under Gorbachev, a book was published, prepared by the Ministry of Defense under the editorship of General Krivosheev, "The Classification Mark Removed", in which the authors named and in every possible way justified this very figure - 27 million. Now it turns out that she was wrong.

The process of reviewing the role of the participants in the anti-Hitler coalition in the victory over fascist Germany is also connected with the change in the balance of power in the international arena. Not only in modern media, but also in a number of historical works old myths are maintained or new ones are created. The old opinion can be attributed to the opinion that the Soviet Union achieved victory only due to incalculable losses, many times greater than the losses of the enemy, and to the new - about decisive role Western countries, mainly the United States, in victory and the high level of their military skill. We will try, based on the statistical material available to us, to offer a different opinion.

As a criterion, summary data are used, such as, for example, the losses of the parties during the entire war, which, due to their simplicity and clarity, confirm one or another point of view.

In order to choose from sometimes contradictory data those on which one can rely with a significant degree of reliability, it is necessary to use specific values ​​in addition to total values. Such values ​​may include losses per unit of time, for example, daily, losses attributable to a certain section of the front length, etc.

A group of authors led by Colonel-General G. F. Krivosheev in 1988-1993. a comprehensive statistical study of archival documents and other materials containing information about casualties in the army and navy, border and internal troops NKVD. The results of this capital research were published in the work "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century."

During the Great Patriotic War, 34 million people were drafted into the Red Army, including those called up for June 1941. This number is almost equal to the mobilization resource that the country had at that time. The losses of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War amounted to 11,273 thousand people, that is, a third of the number of those called up. These losses are, of course, very great, but everything is known in comparison: after all, the losses of Germany and its allies on the Soviet-German front are also great.

Table 1 presents the irretrievable losses of the personnel of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Data on the magnitude of annual losses are taken from the work "Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century". This includes the dead, missing, captured and those who died in captivity.

Table 1. Losses of the Red Army

The last column of the proposed table shows the average daily losses suffered by the Red Army. In 1941, they were the highest, since our troops had to retreat in very unfavorable conditions, and large formations fell into an environment, into the so-called boilers. In 1942, the losses were much less, although the Red Army also had to retreat, but there were no more large boilers. In 1943, there were very stubborn battles, especially on the Kursk Bulge, but, starting from that year and until the end of the war, the troops of Nazi Germany had to retreat. In 1944, the Soviet High Command planned and carried out a number of brilliant strategic operations to defeat and encircle entire groups of German armies, so the losses of the Red Army are relatively small. But in 1945, daily losses increased again, because the stubbornness of the German army increased, since it was already fighting on its own territory, and the German soldiers courageously defended their fatherland.

Compare the losses of Germany with the losses of England and the United States on the Second Front. We will try to evaluate them based on the data of the well-known Russian demographer B. Ts. Urlanis. In the book "History of military losses", Urlanis, speaking of the losses of England and the United States, gives the following data:

Table 2. Losses of the British armed forces in the Second World War (in thousands of people)

In the war with Japan, England lost "11.4% of the total number of dead soldiers and officers", therefore, in order to estimate the magnitude of England's losses on the Second Front, we need to subtract the losses for 4 years of the war from the total losses and multiply by 1 - 0.114 = 0.886:

(1 246 - 667) 0.886 = 500 thousand people.

The total losses of the United States in World War II amounted to 1,070 thousand, of which about three-quarters were losses in the war with Germany, thus

1,070 * 0.75 = 800 thousand people

The total combined losses of England and the United States are

1,246 + 1,070 = 2,316 thousand people

Thus, the losses of England and the United States on the Second Front are approximately 60% of their total total losses in World War II.

As mentioned above, the losses of the USSR amount to 11.273 million people, that is, at first glance, they are not comparable with the losses of 1.3 million people suffered by England and the USA on the Second Front. On this basis, it is concluded that the Allied command fought skillfully and took care of people, while the Soviet High Command allegedly filled up enemy trenches with the corpses of its soldiers. Let us disagree with such views. Based on the data on daily losses given in Table 1, it can be obtained that from June 7, 1944 to May 8, 1945, that is, during the existence of the Second Front, the losses of the Red Army amounted to 1.8 million people, which only slightly exceeds the losses of the allies. As you know, the length of the Second Front was 640 km, and the Soviet-German - from 2,000 to 3,000 km, on average - 2,500 km, i.e. 4-5 times more than the length of the Second Front. Therefore, on a sector of the front with a length equal to the length of the Second Front, the Red Army lost about 450 thousand people, which is 3 times less than the losses of the allies.

On the fronts of World War II, the armed forces of Nazi Germany proper lost 7,181 thousand, and the armed forces of its allies - 1,468 thousand people, in total - 8,649 thousand.

Thus, the ratio of losses on the Soviet-German front turns out to be 13:10, that is, 13 killed, missing, wounded, captured Soviet soldiers, accounts for 10 Germanic.

According to the chief of the German General Staff F. Halder, in 1941-1942. the fascist army daily lost about 3,600 soldiers and officers, therefore, in the first two years of the war, the losses of the fascist bloc amounted to about two million people. This means that over the subsequent time, the losses of Germany and its allies amounted to about 6,600 thousand people. During the same period, the losses of the Red Army amounted to approximately 5 million people. Thus, in 1943-1945, for every 10 dead Red Army soldiers, there are 13 dead soldiers. fascist army. This simple statistic clearly and objectively characterizes the quality of troop driving and the degree of respect for the soldiers.

General A.I. Denikin

“Be that as it may, no tricks could detract from the significance of the fact that the Red Army has been fighting skillfully for some time now, and the Russian soldier selflessly. It was impossible to explain the successes of the Red Army by numerical superiority alone. In our eyes, this phenomenon had a simple and natural explanation.

From time immemorial, a Russian person has been smart, talented and inwardly loved his homeland. From time immemorial, the Russian soldier has been immensely hardy and selflessly brave. These human and military qualities could not drown out in him twenty-five Soviet years of suppression of thought and conscience, collective farm slavery, Stakhanovist exhaustion and the substitution of national self-consciousness with international dogma. And when it became obvious to everyone that there was an invasion and conquest, and not liberation, that only the replacement of one yoke with another was foreseen - the people, postponing accounts with communism until a more appropriate time, rose beyond the Russian land in the same way as their ancestors rose during the invasions Swedish, Polish and Napoleonic ...

The inglorious Finnish campaign and the defeat of the Red Army by the Germans on the way to Moscow took place under the sign of the International; under the slogan of defending the Motherland, the German armies were defeated!”

The opinion of General A.I. Denikin is especially important for us because he received a deep and comprehensive education at the Academy of the General Staff, had his own rich experience in military operations, acquired in the Russo-Japanese, World War I and Civil Wars. His opinion is also important because, while remaining an ardent patriot of Russia, he was and until the end of his life remained a consistent enemy of Bolshevism, so you can rely on the impartiality of his assessment.

Consider the ratio of losses of the Allied and German armies. The literature gives the total losses of the German army, but data on the losses of Germany on the Second Front is not given, probably deliberately. The Great Patriotic War lasted 1418 days, the Second Front existed for 338 days, which is 1/4 of the duration of the Great Patriotic War. Therefore, it is assumed that Germany's losses on the Second Front are four times less. Thus, if Germany's losses on the Soviet-German front are 8.66 million people, then we can assume that Germany's losses on the Second Front are about 2.2 million, and the ratio of losses is about 10 to 20, which would seem to confirm point of view on the high military art of our allies in World War II.

It is impossible to agree with such a point of view. Some Western researchers do not agree with it either. “Against the inexperienced, albeit eager Americans and war-weary British, the Germans could field an army that, in the words of Max Hastings, “won a historical reputation for undaunted and reached its zenith under Hitler.” Hastings states: "Everywhere during the Second World War, whenever and wherever British and American troops met head-on, the Germans won."<…>Most of all, Hastings and other historians were struck by the ratio of losses, which was in the proportion of two to one and even higher in favor of the Germans.

American Colonel Trevor Dupuis conducted a detailed statistical study of German actions in World War II. Some of his explanations for why Hitler's armies were much more effective than their opponents seem unfounded. But no critic has questioned his main conclusion, that on almost every battlefield during the course of the war, including in Normandy, the German soldier performed more effectively than his opponents.

Unfortunately, we do not have the data that Hastings used, but if there is no direct data on German losses on the Second Front, then we will try to estimate them indirectly. Considering that the intensity of the battles waged by the German army in the West and in the East was the same, and that the losses per kilometer of the front are approximately equal, we find that Germany's losses on the Eastern Front should not be divided by 4, but, taking into account the difference in the length of the front line, around 15-16. Then it turns out that Germany lost no more than 600 thousand people on the Second Front. Thus, we get that on the Second Front the ratio of losses is 22 Anglo-American soldiers to 10 German soldiers, and not vice versa.

A similar ratio was observed in the Ardennes operation, which was carried out by the German command from December 16, 1944 to January 28, 1945. As the German General Melentin writes, during this operation, the allied army lost 77 thousand soldiers, and the German one - 25 thousand, that is, we get a ratio of 31 to 10, even exceeding that obtained above.

Based on the above reasoning, one can refute the myth about the insignificance of German losses on the Soviet-German front. It is said that allegedly Germany lost about 3.4 million people. If we assume that this value is true, then we will have to accept that German losses on the Second Front amounted to:

3.4 million / 16 = 200 thousand people,

which is 6-7 times less than the losses of England and the United States on the Second Front. If Germany fought so brilliantly on all fronts and suffered such insignificant losses, then it is not clear why she did not win the war? Therefore, the assumptions that the loss of the British american army lower than the German one, as well as the fact that German losses are significantly lower than Soviet ones, must be rejected, since they are based on incredible numbers, are not consistent with reality and common sense.

Thus, it can be argued that the power of the German army was decisively undermined by the victorious Red Army on the Soviet-German front. With an overwhelming superiority in people and equipment, the Anglo-American command showed amazing indecision and inefficiency, one might say mediocrity, comparable to the confusion and unpreparedness of the Soviet command in initial period war in 1941-1942.

This assertion can be supported by a number of pieces of evidence. First, let's give a description of the actions of the special groups, which were led by the famous Otto Skorzeny, during the offensive of the German army in the Ardennes.

“On the first day of the offensive, one of Skorzeny’s groups managed to pass through a gap made in the allied lines and advance to Yun, which stretches near the banks of the Meuse. There she, having changed her German uniform to an American one, dug in and fortified herself at the intersection of roads and watched the movement of enemy troops. The group leader, who spoke fluent English, went so far as to walk around the area in his audacity to "get familiar with the situation."

A few hours later an armored regiment passed by them, and its commander asked them for directions. Without blinking an eye, the commander gave him the completely wrong answer. Namely, he stated that these “German pigs have just cut several roads. He himself received an order to make a big detour with his column. Very happy that they were warned in time, the American tankers actually headed along the path that "our man" showed them.

Returning to the location of their unit, this detachment cut several telephone lines and removed the signs posted by the American quartermaster service, and also planted mines in some places. Twenty-four hours later all the soldiers and officers of this group returned in perfect health to their troops, bringing interesting observations about the confusion that reigned behind the American front line at the beginning of the offensive.

Another of these small detachments also crossed the line and advanced all the way to the Meuse. According to his observations, the Allies can be said to have done nothing to protect the bridges in the area. On the way back, the detachment was able to block three highways leading to the front line, hanging colored ribbons on the trees, which, in the American army, mean that the roads are mined. Subsequently, Skorzeny's scouts saw that the columns of the British and American troops actually avoided these roads, preferring to make a big detour.

The third group found an ammunition depot. Waiting for the onset of darkness; the commandos "removed" the guards, and then blew up this warehouse. A little later, they found a telephone collector cable, which they managed to cut in three places.

But the most significant story happened to another detachment, which on December 16 suddenly appeared directly in front of the American lines. Two GI companies prepared for a long defense, lined up pillboxes and set up machine guns. Skorzeny's people must have been a little confused, especially when one American officer asked them what was going on there, on the front lines.

Pulling himself together, the commander of the detachment, dressed in the fine uniform of an American sergeant, told the Yankee captain a very interesting story. Probably, the confusion that was read on the faces of the German soldiers was attributed by the Americans to the last skirmish with the "damned bosses." The commander of the detachment, pseudo-sergeant, stated that the Germans had already bypassed this position, both on the right and on the left, so that it was practically surrounded. The startled American captain immediately gave the order to retreat.

We will also use the observations of the German tanker Otto Carius, who from 1941 to 1944 fought against Soviet soldiers, and from 1944 to 1945 against the Anglo-American. Here is an interesting event from his front-line experience in the West. “Practically all of our Kubel cars were put out of action. So we decided one evening to replenish our fleet at the expense of the American. It never occurred to anyone to consider this a heroic deed!

The Yankees slept in the houses at night, as the "front-line soldiers" were supposed to. Outside, at best, there was one sentry, but only if the weather was good. Around midnight we set off with four soldiers and returned pretty soon with two jeeps. It was convenient that they did not require keys. One had only to turn on the toggle switch, and the car was ready to go. It wasn't until we were back in our positions that the Yankees fired indiscriminately into the air, probably to calm their nerves."

Having personal experience of the war on the eastern and western fronts, Carius concludes: "After all, five Russians were a greater danger than thirty Americans." Western researcher Stephen E. Ambrose says that casualties can be minimized "only by bringing the war to a speedy conclusion, and not by exercising caution during offensive operations."

Based on the above evidence and the ratios obtained above, it can be argued that at the final stage of the war, the Soviet command fought more skillfully than the German one and much more efficiently than the Anglo-American, because “the art of warfare requires courage and intelligence, and not just superiority in technique and number of troops.

Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. M. "OLMA-PRESS". 2001 p. 246.
B. Ts. Urlanis. History of military losses. SPb. 1994 228-232.
O'Bradley. Soldier's Notes. Foreign literature. M 1957 p. 484.
Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. M. "OLMA-PRESS". 2001 p. 514.
Colonel General F. Halder. War diary. Volume 3, book 2. Military publishing house of the USSR Ministry of Defense. S. 436
D. Lekhovich. White versus red. Moscow Sunday. 1992 p. 335.

F. Melentin. Tank battles 1939-1945. Polygon AST. 2000
Otto Skorzeny. Smolensk. Rusich. 2000 p. 388, 389
Otto Carius. "Tigers in the Mud" M. Centropolygraph. 2005 p. 258, 256
Stephen E. Ambrose. Day "D" AST. M. 2003. p. 47, 49.
J.F.S. Fuller World War II 1939-1945 Publishing House of Foreign Literature. Moscow, 1956, p.26.

Military losses during the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War have been the subject of both disputes and speculation for many years. Moreover, the attitude towards these losses is changing exactly the opposite. So, in the 70s, the propaganda apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU for some reason almost proudly broadcast about the heavy human losses of the USSR during the war years. And not so much about the victims of the Nazi genocide, but about the combat losses of the Red Army. With completely incomprehensible pride, the propaganda “canard” was exaggerated, allegedly about only three percent of the front-line soldiers born in 1923 who survived the war. With rapture they broadcast about entire graduation classes, where all the young men went to the front and not one returned. An almost socialist competition was launched among rural areas, who has more villages, where all the men who went to the front died. Although, according to demographic statistics, on the eve of the Great Patriotic War there were 8.6 million men in 1919-1923. birth, and in 1949, during the All-Union census of the population, there were 5.05 million of them alive, that is, the decline in the male population of 1919-1923. births during this period amounted to 3.55 million people. Thus, if we accept that for each of the ages 1919-1923. Since there is an equal size of the male population, there were 1.72 million men of each year of birth. Then it turns out that 1.67 million people (97%) died of conscripts born in 1923, and conscripts born in 1919-1922. births - 1.88 million people, i.e. about 450 thousand people of those born in each of these four years (about 27% of their total number). And despite the fact that the military personnel of 1919-1922. births made up the regular Red Army, which took the blow of the Wehrmacht in June 1941 and almost completely burned out in the battles of the summer and autumn of that year. This alone easily refutes all the conjectures of the notorious "sixties" about the allegedly three percent of the surviving front-line soldiers born in 1923.

During the "perestroika" and so-called. reforms, the pendulum has swung the other way. Unthinkable figures of 30 and 40 million servicemen who died during the war were enthusiastically cited, the notorious B. Sokolov, a doctor of philology, by the way, and not a mathematician, is especially zealous with the methods of statistics. Absurd ideas were voiced that Germany lost only almost 100 thousand people during the entire war, about a monstrous ratio of 1:14 dead German and Soviet soldiers, etc. Statistical data on the losses of the Soviet Armed Forces, given in the reference book “Secrecy Removed”, published in 1993, and in the fundamental work “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century (Losses of the Armed Forces)”, were categorically declared falsifications. Moreover, according to the principle: since this does not correspond to someone's speculative concept of the losses of the Red Army, it means falsification. At the same time, the losses of the enemy were underestimated in every possible way and are being underestimated. With veal delight, figures are announced that do not climb into any gates. So, for example, the losses of the 4th Panzer Army and the Kempf task force during the German offensive near Kursk in July 1943 were cited in the amount of only 6900 killed soldiers and officers and 12 burnt tanks. At the same time, miserable and ridiculous arguments were invented to explain why, having practically retained 100% combat capability tank army suddenly backed away: from the Allied landings in Italy, to the lack of fuel and spare parts, or even about the rains that had begun.

Therefore, the question of the human losses of Germany during the Second World War is quite relevant. Moreover, interestingly, in Germany itself there are still no fundamental research about this question. Only circumstantial information is available. Most researchers, when analyzing Germany's losses during the Second World War, use the monograph of the German researcher B. Müller-Hillebrandt “The Land Army of Germany. 1933-1945". However, this historian resorted to outright falsification. Thus, indicating the number of those drafted into the Wehrmacht and the SS troops, Müller-Hillebrand gave information only for the period from 06/01/1939 to 04/30/1945, modestly keeping silent about the contingents previously called up for military service. But by June 1, 1939, Germany had been deploying its armed forces for four years, and by June 1 of that year, there were 3214.0 thousand people in the Wehrmacht! Therefore, the number of men mobilized in the Wehrmacht and the SS in 1935-1945. takes on a different form (see table 1).

In this way, total mobilized in the Wehrmacht and the SS troops is not 17,893.2 thousand people, but about 21,107.2 thousand people, which immediately gives a completely different picture of Germany's losses during the Second World War.

Now let's turn to the actual losses of the Wehrmacht. The Wehrmacht operated three different loss accounting systems:

1) through the channel "IIa" - military service;
2) through the channel of the medical and sanitary service;
3) through the channel of personal accounting of losses in the territorial bodies of the list accounting of German military personnel.

But at the same time, there was an interesting feature - the losses of units and subunits were taken into account not in total, but according to their combat mission. This was done in order for the Reserve Army to have comprehensive information about which contingents of military personnel needed to be submitted for replenishment in each specific division. A reasonable enough principle, but today this method of accounting for the loss of personnel allows you to manipulate the numbers of German losses.

Firstly, separate records were kept of the losses of personnel of the so-called. "combat strength" - Kampfwstaerke - and support units. So, in German infantry division The state of 1944 "combat strength" was 7160 people, the number of combat support and rear units - 5609 people, and the total number - Tagesstaerke - 12 769 people. In a tank division according to the state of 1944, the “combat strength” was 9307 people, the number of combat support and rear units was 5420 people, and the total number was 14,727 people. The "combat strength" of the active army of the Wehrmacht was approximately 40-45% of the total number of personnel. By the way, this allows you to very famously falsify the course of the war, when the total number of Soviet troops at the front is indicated, and the German ones - only combat. Like, signalmen, sappers, repairmen, they don’t go on attacks ...

Secondly, in the "combat strength" itself - Kampfwstaerke - the units "directly fighting" - Gefechtstaerke - were separately allocated. Infantry (motorized rifle, tank-grenadier) regiments, tank regiments and battalions and reconnaissance battalions were considered units and subunits "directly engaged in combat" as part of divisions. Artillery regiments and divisions, anti-tank and anti-aircraft divisions belonged to combat support units. AT Air force- Luftwaffe - "units directly engaged in combat" were considered flight personnel, in the Naval Forces - Kriegsmarine - sailors belonged to this category. And accounting for the losses of personnel of the "combat strength" was carried out separately for the personnel "directly fighting" and for the personnel of combat support units.

It is also interesting to note that only those killed directly on the battlefield were taken into account in combat losses, but the military personnel who died from severe wounds during the evacuation stages were already attributed to the losses of the Reserve Army and were excluded from the total number of irretrievable losses of the active army. That is, as soon as the wound was determined to require more than 6 weeks to heal, the Wehrmacht soldier was immediately transferred to the Reserve Army. And even if they did not have time to take him to the rear and he was dying near the front line, anyway, as an irretrievable loss, he was already taken into account in the Reserve Army and this serviceman was excluded from the number of combat irretrievable losses of a specific front (Eastern, African, Western, etc.) . That is why, in accounting for the losses of the Wehrmacht, almost only those killed and missing appear.

There was another specific feature of accounting for losses in the Wehrmacht. Czechs drafted into the Wehrmacht from the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Poles drafted into the Wehrmacht from the Poznan and Pomeranian regions of Poland, as well as Alsatians and Lorraine through the channel of personal loss accounting in the territorial bodies of the German military personnel list were not taken into account, since they did not belong to the so-called . "Imperial Germans". In the same way, ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) drafted into the Wehrmacht from the occupied European countries were not taken into account through the personal accounting channel. In other words, the losses of these categories of servicemen were excluded from the total accounting of irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht. Although more than 1200 thousand people were called up from these territories to the Wehrmacht and the SS, not counting the ethnic Germans - Volksdoche - the occupied countries of Europe. Only from the ethnic Germans of Croatia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, six SS divisions were formed, not counting a large number military police units.

The Wehrmacht did not take into account the losses of auxiliary paramilitary formations: the National Socialist Automobile Corps, the Speer Transport Corps, the Imperial Labor Service and the Todt Organization. Although the personnel of these formations took a direct part in supporting the hostilities, and at the final stage of the war, units and units of these auxiliary formations rushed into battle against the Soviet troops on German territory. Often, the personnel of these formations were added as reinforcements to the Wehrmacht formations right at the front, but since this was not a reinforcement sent through the Reserve Army, no centralized accounting of this reinforcement was kept, and the combat loss of this personnel was not taken into account through the service loss accounting channels.

Separately from the Wehrmacht, the losses of the Volkssturm and the Hitler Youth were also recorded, which were widely involved in hostilities in East Prussia, East Pomerania, Silesia, Brandenburg, West Pomerania, Saxony and Berlin. The Volksshurm and the Hitler Youth were under the control of the NSDAP. Often, units of both the Volkssturm and the Hitler Youth were also directly at the front merged into the Wehrmacht units and formations as replenishment, but for the same reason as with other paramilitary formations, personal nominal accounting of this replenishment was not carried out.

Also, the Wehrmacht did not take into account the losses of the SS military-police units (primarily the Feljandarmerie), which fought against partisan movement, and at the final stage of the war they rushed into battle against units of the Red Army.

In addition, the so-called. "volunteer assistants" - Hilfswillige ("Hiwi", Hiwi), but the losses of this category of personnel in the total combat losses of the Wehrmacht were also not taken into account. Special mention should be made of "voluntary helpers". These "assistants" were recruited in all countries of Europe and the occupied part of the USSR, in total in 1939-1945. up to 2 million people joined the Wehrmacht and the SS as "voluntary assistants" (including about 500 thousand people from the occupied territories of the USSR). And although most of the Hiwi were service personnel of the rear structures and commandant's offices of the Wehrmacht in the occupied territories, a significant part of them were directly part of the combat units and formations.

Thus, unscrupulous researchers from the total number of irretrievable losses of Germany excluded a large number of lost personnel who directly participated in the hostilities, but were not formally related to the Wehrmacht. Although the auxiliary paramilitary formations, and the Volkssturm, and "voluntary assistants" suffered losses during the battles, these losses can rightly be attributed to the combat losses of Germany.

Table 2, presented here, attempts to bring together the strength of both the Wehrmacht and the German paramilitaries, and roughly calculate the loss of personnel of the armed forces of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

The number of German soldiers captured by the Allies and capitulating to them may be surprising, despite the fact that 2/3 of the Wehrmacht troops operated on the Eastern Front. The bottom line is that in the captivity of the Allies in a common boiler, both the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS (the designation of the SS field troops operating on the fronts of the Second World War) and the personnel of various paramilitary formations, Volkssturm, NSDAP functionaries, employees territorial divisions of the RSHA and police territorial formations, up to firefighters. As a result, the Allies counted as prisoners up to 4032.3 thousand people, although the actual number of prisoners of war from the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS was significantly lower than the Allies indicated in their documents - about 3000.0 thousand people, however, in our calculations will use official data. In addition, in April-May 1945 German troops, fearing retribution for the atrocities committed on the territory of the USSR, rapidly rolled back to the west, trying to surrender to the Anglo-American troops. Also at the end of April - beginning of May 1945, the formation of the Wehrmacht Reserve Army and all kinds of paramilitary formations, as well as police units, surrendered en masse to the Anglo-American troops.

Thus, the table clearly shows that the total losses of the Third Reich on the Eastern Front in killed and died from wounds, missing, dead in captivity reach 6071 thousand people.

However, as you know, not only German troops, foreign volunteers and paramilitary formations of Germany, but also the troops of their satellites fought against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. It is also necessary to take into account the losses and "voluntary assistants -" Hiwi ". Therefore, taking into account the losses of these categories of personnel, the overall picture of the losses of Germany and its satellites on the Eastern Front takes the picture shown in Table 3.

Thus, the total deadweight losses Nazi Germany and its satellites on the Eastern Front in 1941-1945. reach 7 million 625 thousand people. If we take losses only on the battlefield, excluding those who died in captivity and the losses of "voluntary assistants", then the losses are: for Germany - about 5620.4 thousand people and for satellite countries - 959 thousand people, in total - about 6579.4 thousands of people. Soviet losses on the battlefield amounted to 6885.1 thousand people. Thus, the losses of Germany and its satellites on the battlefield, taking into account all factors, are only slightly less than the combat losses of the Soviet Armed Forces on the battlefield (about 5%), and there is no ratio of 1:8 or 1:14 combat losses of Germany and its satellites the losses of the USSR are out of the question.

The figures given in the tables above, of course, are very indicative and have serious errors, but they give, in a certain approximation, the order of losses of Nazi Germany and its satellites on the Eastern Front and during the war as a whole. At the same time, of course, if it were not for the inhuman treatment of Soviet prisoners of war by the Nazis, the total number of losses of Soviet military personnel would have been much lower. With an appropriate attitude towards Soviet prisoners of war, at least one and a half to two million people from among those who died in German captivity could have survived.

Nevertheless, a detailed and detailed study of the real human losses in Germany during the Second World War does not exist to date, because. there is no political order, and many data relating to the losses of Germany are still classified under the pretext that they can inflict “moral injuries” on the current German society (let it be better to remain in happy ignorance of how many Germans perished during the Second World War). Contrary to the popular print of the domestic media in Germany, actively falsifying history. The main goal of these actions is to introduce into public opinion the idea that in the war with the USSR, Nazi Germany was the defending side, and the Wehrmacht was the "vanguard of European civilization" in the fight against "Bolshevik barbarism." And there they actively praise the "brilliant" German generals, which held back the "Asian hordes of Bolsheviks" for four years, with minimal losses of German troops, and only the "twenty-fold numerical superiority of the Bolsheviks", who filled the Wehrmacht with corpses, broke the resistance of the "valiant" Wehrmacht soldiers. And the thesis is constantly being exaggerated that more “civilian” German population died than soldiers at the front, and most of of the dead civilian population allegedly falls on the eastern part of Germany, where Soviet troops allegedly committed atrocities.

In the light of the problems discussed above, it is necessary to touch on the clichés stubbornly imposed by pseudo-historians that the USSR won by “filling up the German with the corpses of its soldiers.” The USSR simply did not have such an amount of human resources. On June 22, 1941, the population of the USSR was about 190-194 million people. Including the male population was about 48-49% - approximately 91-93 million people, of which men 1891-1927. births were about 51-53 million people. We exclude approximately 10% of men unfit for military service even in war time, is about 5 million people. We exclude 18-20% of the "booked" - highly qualified specialists who are not subject to conscription - this is about 10 million more people. Thus, the draft resource of the USSR was about 36-38 million people. What the USSR actually demonstrated by conscripting 34,476.7 thousand people into the Armed Forces. In addition, it must be taken into account that a significant part of the draft contingent remained in the occupied territories. And many of these people were either deported to Germany, or died, or embarked on the path of collaborationism, and after the Soviet troops liberated from the occupied territories, many less people(by 40-45%) than could have been called before the occupation. In addition, the economy of the USSR simply could not stand it if almost all men capable of carrying weapons - 48-49 million people - were drafted into the army. Then there would be no one to melt steel, to produce T-34 and Il-2, to grow bread.

In order to have in May 1945 the Armed Forces numbering 11,390.6 thousand people, to have 1046 thousand people to be treated in hospitals, to demobilize 3798.2 thousand people for injuries and illnesses, to lose 4600 thousand people. prisoners and lose 26,400 thousand people killed, just 48,632.3 thousand people should have been mobilized into the Armed Forces. That is, with the exception of cripples completely unfit for military service, not a single man of 1891-1927. birth in the rear should not have remained! Moreover, given that some of the men of military age ended up in the occupied territories, and some worked at industrial enterprises, older and younger ages would inevitably fall under the mobilization. However, the mobilization of men older than 1891 was not carried out, as well as the mobilization of conscripts younger than 1927. In general, the doctor of philology B. Sokolov would have been engaged in the analysis of poetry or prose, perhaps he would not have become a laughingstock.

Returning to the losses of the Wehrmacht and the Third Reich as a whole, it should be noted that the issue of accounting for losses there is quite interesting and specific. Thus, the data on the losses of armored vehicles, cited by B. Müller-Gillebrandt, are very interesting and noteworthy. For example, in April-June 1943, when there was a lull on the Eastern Front, and fighting was going on only in North Africa, 1019 tanks and assault guns were taken into account as irretrievable losses. Moreover, by the end of March, the "Africa" ​​army had barely 200 tanks and assault guns, and in April and May, 100 armored vehicles were delivered to Tunisia at most. Those. in North Africa in April and May the Wehrmacht could lose at most 300 tanks and assault guns. Where did another 700-750 lost armored vehicles come from? Were there secret tank battles on the Eastern Front? Or did the Wehrmacht tank army find its end in Yugoslavia these days?

Similarly, the loss of armored vehicles in December 1942, when there were fierce tank battles on the Don, or the losses in January 1943, when the German troops rolled back from the Caucasus, abandoning their equipment, Müller-Hillebrand leads in the amount of only 184 and 446 tanks and assault guns. But in February-March 1943, when the Wehrmacht launched a counteroffensive in the Donbass, the losses of the German BTT suddenly reached 2069 units in February and 759 units in March. It must be borne in mind that the Wehrmacht was advancing, the battlefield remained with the German troops, and all armored vehicles damaged in battles were delivered to the tank repair units of the Wehrmacht. In Africa, the Wehrmacht could not suffer such losses, by the beginning of February the “Afrika” army consisted of no more than 350-400 tanks and assault guns, and in February-March received only about 200 armored vehicles for replenishment. Those. even if all German tanks in Africa, the losses of the Afrika army in February-March could not exceed 600 units, the remaining 2228 tanks and assault guns were lost on the Eastern Front. How could this happen? Why did the Germans lose five times more tanks in the offensive than in the retreat, although the experience of the war shows that the opposite is always the case?

The answer is simple: in February 1943, the 6th German Army of Field Marshal Paulus capitulated in Stalingrad. And the Wehrmacht had to transfer to the list of irretrievable losses all armored vehicles, which they had long lost in the Don steppes, but continued to be modestly listed in the medium and long-term repairs in the 6th Army.

It is impossible to explain why, while gnawing through the defenses of the Soviet troops near Kursk in depth, saturated with anti-tank artillery and tanks in July 1943, the German troops lost fewer tanks than in February 1943, when they delivered counterattacks against the troops of the South-Western and Voronezh fronts. Even if we assume that in February 1943 the German troops lost 50% of their tanks in Africa, it is difficult to assume that in February 1943 in the Donbass, small Soviet troops were able to knock out more than 1000 tanks, and in July near Belgorod and Orel - only 925.

Not by chance for a long time when the documents of the German “panzer divisions” were captured in the “cauldrons”, serious questions arose as to where the German equipment had gone if no one had broken out of the encirclement, and the amount of abandoned and broken equipment did not correspond to what was written in the documents. Each time, the Germans had significantly fewer tanks and assault guns than were listed according to the documents. And only by the middle of 1944 did they realize that the real composition of the German tank divisions must be determined by the column "combat-ready". Often there were situations when in the German tank and tank-grenadier divisions there were more "dead tank souls" than actually available combat-ready tanks and assault guns. And burnt out, with turrets rolled to the side, with gaping gaps in the armor, the tanks stood in the yards of tank repair enterprises, on paper moving from vehicles of one repair category to another, waiting either to be sent for remelting, or they were captured by Soviet troops. On the other hand, German industrial corporations at that time were quietly "sawing" the finances allocated for supposedly long-term repairs or repairs "with shipment to Germany." In addition, if the Soviet documents immediately and clearly indicated that the irretrievably lost tank burned down or was broken so that it could not be restored, then the German documents indicated only the disabled unit or unit (engine, transmission, chassis), or the location of combat damage was indicated (hull, turret, bottom, etc.). At the same time, even a tank completely burned out from a shell hit in the engine compartment was listed as having engine damage.

If we analyze the loss data from the same B. Muller-Gillebrandt “ Royal tigers”, an even more striking picture emerges. At the beginning of February 1945, the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS had 219 Pz. Kpfw. VI Ausf. B "Tiger II" ("Royal Tiger"). By this time, 417 tanks of this type had been produced. And lost, according to Muller-Gillebrandt, - 57. In total, the difference between the produced and lost tanks is 350 units. In stock - 219. Where did 131 cars go? And that is not all. According to the same retired general in August 1944, there were no lost King Tigers at all. And many other researchers of the history of the Panzerwaffe also find themselves in an awkward position, when almost everyone points out that the German troops recognized the loss of only 6 (six) Pz. Kpfw. VI Ausf. B "Tiger II". But what about the situation when, near the town of Szydlów and the village of Oglendow near Sandomierz, Soviet trophy groups and special groups from the armored department of the 1st Ukrainian Front were studied in detail and described with serial numbers of 10 wrecked and burnt and 3 fully serviceable "Royal Tigers" ? It remains only to assume that, standing within the line of sight of the German troops, the wrecked and burnt "Royal Tigers", were listed by the Wehrmacht in their long-term repair under the pretext that theoretically these tanks could be beaten off during a counterattack and then returned to service. Original logic, but nothing else comes to mind.

According to B. Müller-Gillebrandt, by February 1, 1945, 5840 heavy tanks Pz. Kpfw. V "Panther" ("Panther"), lost - 3059 units, 1964 units were available. If we take the difference between the produced "Panthers" and their losses, then the remainder is 2781 units. There was, as already mentioned, 1964 units. At the same time, Panther tanks were not transferred to German satellites. Where did 817 units go?

With tanks Pz. Kpfw. IV is exactly the same picture. Produced by February 1, 1945 of these machines, according to Muller-Gillebrandt, 8428 units, lost - 6151, the difference is 2277 units, there were 1517 units on February 1, 1945. No more than 300 machines of this type were transferred to the allies. Thus, up to 460 cars are unaccounted for, having disappeared to who knows where.

Tanks Pz. Kpfw. III. Produced - 5681 units, lost by February 1, 1945 - 4808 units, the difference - 873 units, there were 534 tanks on the same date. No more than 100 units were transferred to the satellites, so it is not known where about 250 tanks evaporated from the account.

In total, more than 1,700 tanks "Royal Tiger", "Panther", Pz. Kpfw. IV and Pz. Kpfw. III.

Paradoxically, to date, none of the attempts to deal with the irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht in technology has not been successful. No one was able to decompose in detail by months and years what real irretrievable losses the Panzerwaffe suffered. And all because of the peculiar methodology of "accounting" for the loss of military equipment in the German Wehrmacht.

In the same way, in the Luftwaffe, the existing methodology for accounting for losses made it possible for a long time to list in the “repair” column those aircraft that were shot down, but crashed on their territory. Sometimes even a shattered plane that crashed at the location of German troops was not immediately included in the lists of irretrievable losses, but was considered damaged. All this led to the fact that in the squadrons of the Luftwaffe up to 30-40%, and even more, the equipment was constantly listed as not combat-ready, smoothly moving from the category of damaged to the category to be written off.

One example: when in July 1943 on the southern front Kursk Bulge pilot A. Gorovets shot down 9 Ju-87 dive bombers in one battle, the Soviet infantry examined the Junkers crash sites and reported detailed data on the downed aircraft: tactical and serial numbers, data on the dead crew members, etc. However, the Luftwaffe acknowledged the loss of only two dive bombers that day. How could this happen? The answer is simple: by the evening of the day of the air battle, the territory where the Luftwaffe bombers had fallen was occupied by German troops. And the downed planes were in the territory controlled by the Germans. And of the nine bombers, only two scattered in the air, the rest fell, but retained relative integrity, although they were mangled. And the Luftwaffe with a calm soul attributed the downed aircraft to the number of only received combat damage. Surprisingly, this is a real fact.

And in general, considering the issue of losses of Wehrmacht equipment, it must be borne in mind that a lot of money was made on the repair of equipment. And when it came to the financial interests of the financial and industrial oligarchy, the entire repressive apparatus of the Third Reich stood at attention before it. The interests of industrial corporations and banks were guarded sacredly. Moreover, most of the Nazi bosses had their own selfish interests in this.

It is necessary to note one more specific point. Contrary to popular belief about the pedantry, accuracy and scrupulousness of the Germans, the Nazi elite was well aware that a complete and accurate accounting of losses could become a weapon against them. After all, there is always a possibility that information about the true extent of the losses will fall into the hands of the enemy and be used in a propaganda war against the Reich. Therefore, in Nazi Germany they turned a blind eye to the confusion in accounting for losses. At first there was a calculation that the winners were not judged, then it became a deliberate policy in order not to give the winners, in the event of the complete defeat of the Third Reich, arguments for exposing the scale of the disaster to the German people. In addition, it cannot be ruled out that at the final stage of the war, a special erasure of archives was carried out in order not to give the winners additional arguments in accusing the leaders of the Nazi regime of crimes not only against other peoples, but also against their own, German. After all, the death of several million young men in a senseless massacre for the sake of implementing crazy ideas about world domination is a very strong argument for the prosecution.

Therefore, the true scale of Germany's human losses during the Second World War is still waiting for its scrupulous researchers, and then very curious facts may be revealed to them. But on the condition that these will be conscientious historians, and not all kinds of corned beef, milk, Svanidze, Afanasyev, Gavriilpopov and Sokolov. Paradoxically, the commission to counter the falsification of history will have more work to do inside Russia than outside it.

Who fought in numbers, and who fought with skill. The monstrous truth about the losses of the USSR in World War II Sokolov Boris Vadimovich

The ratio of irretrievable losses of the Soviet Union and Germany in World War II

The true size of Soviet Armed Forces casualties, including those who died in captivity, according to our estimate, may be 26.9 million people. This is approximately 10.3 times higher than the losses of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front (2.6 million dead). The Hungarian army, which fought on the side of Hitler, lost about 160 thousand killed and dead, including about 55 thousand who died in captivity. The losses of another ally of Germany, Finland, amounted to about 61 thousand killed and dead, including 403 people who died in Soviet captivity and about 1 thousand people died in battles against the Wehrmacht. The Romanian army lost about 165 thousand killed and dead in the battles against the Red Army, including 71,585 killed, 309,533 missing, 243,622 wounded and 54,612 dead in captivity. 217,385 Romanians and Moldavians returned from captivity. Thus, from among the missing, 37,536 people must be attributed to the dead. If we assume that approximately 10% of the wounded died, then the total losses of the Romanian army in battles with the Red Army will be about 188.1 thousand dead. In the battles against Germany and its allies, the Romanian army lost 21,735 killed, 58,443 missing and 90,344 wounded. Assuming that the mortality among the wounded was 10%, the number of deaths from wounds can be estimated at 9 thousand people. 36,621 Romanian soldiers and officers returned from German and Hungarian captivity. Thus, the total number of killed and died in captivity from among the missing Romanian military personnel can be estimated at 21,824 people. Thus, in the fight against Germany and Hungary, the Romanian army lost about 52.6 thousand dead. Italian army lost about 72 thousand people in battles against the Red Army, of which about 28 thousand died in Soviet captivity - more than half of the approximately 49 thousand prisoners. Finally, the Slovak army lost in battles against the Red Army and Soviet partisans 1.9 thousand dead, of which about 300 people died in captivity On the side of the USSR, the Bulgarian army fought against Germany, losing about 10 thousand dead. Two armies of the Polish Army, formed in the USSR, lost 27.5 thousand dead and missing, and the Czechoslovak corps, which also fought on the side of the Red Army, lost 4 thousand dead. The total losses on the Soviet side can be estimated at 27.1 million military personnel, and on the German side - at 2.9 million people, which gives a ratio of 9.1–9.3: 1. In the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, the ratio of losses killed and dead was 7.0: 1, not in favor of the Red Army (we estimate Soviet losses at 164.3 thousand people, and Finnish - at 23.5 thousand people) . It can be assumed that this ratio was about the same in 1941–1944. Then, in battles with the Finnish troops, the Red Army could lose up to 417 thousand killed and died from wounds. It should also be taken into account that the irretrievable losses of the Red Army in the war with Japan amounted to 12 thousand people. If we accept that in battles with the rest of the German allies, the losses of the Red Army were approximately equal to the losses of the enemy, then in these battles it could lose up to 284 thousand people. And in the battles against the Wehrmacht, the losses of the Red Army in the dead should have been about 22.2 million killed and died of wounds against about 2.1 million killed and died on the German side. This gives a loss ratio of 10.6:1.

According to Russian search engines, for one found corpse of a Wehrmacht soldier, on average, there are ten corpses of Red Army soldiers. This ratio is almost equal to our estimate of the ratio of the losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.

It is interesting to trace at least an approximate ratio of the losses of the parties over the years of the war. Using the ratio established above between the number of dead and injured in the battles of Soviet military personnel and based on the data given in the book by E.I. Smirnov, the number of dead Soviet soldiers by years can be distributed as follows: 1941 - 2.2 million, 1942 - 8 million, 1943 - 6.4 million, 1944 - 6.4 million, 1945 - 2.5 million It should also be taken into account that approximately 0.9 million Red Army soldiers who were listed as irretrievable losses, but later found themselves in the liberated territory and called up again, mainly fall on 1941-1942. Due to this, the loss of the dead in 1941, we reduce by 0.6 million, and in 1942 - by 0.3 million people (in proportion to the number of prisoners) and with the addition of prisoners we get the total irretrievable losses of the Red Army by years: 1941 - 5, 5 million, 1942 - 7.153 million, 1943 - 6.965 million, 1944 - 6.547 million, 1945 - 2.534 million. For comparison, let's take the irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht ground forces over the years, based on the data of B. Müller-Gillebrand. At the same time, we subtracted from the final figures the losses suffered outside the Eastern Front, tentatively spreading them over the years. The result is the following picture for the Eastern Front (in parentheses is the figure of the total irretrievable losses of ground forces for the year): 1941 (since June) - 301 thousand (307 thousand), 1942 - 519 thousand (538 thousand), 1943 - 668 thousand (793 thousand), 1944 (for this year, losses in December are taken equal to January) - 1129 thousand (1629 thousand), 1945 (before May 1) - 550 thousand (1250 thousand) . The ratio in all cases is obtained in favor of the Wehrmacht: 1941 - 18.1: 1, 1942 - 13.7: 1, 1943 - 10.4: 1, 1944 - 5.8: 1, 1945 - 4, 6:1. These ratios should be close to the true ratios of the irretrievable losses of the ground forces of the USSR and Germany on the Soviet-German front, since the losses of the ground army amounted to the lion's share of all Soviet military losses, and much larger than that of the Wehrmacht, and the German aviation and navy were the main irretrievable losses in during the war suffered outside the Eastern Front. As for the losses of the German allies in the East, the underestimation of which somewhat worsens the indicators of the Red Army, it should be taken into account that in the fight against them the Red Army suffered relatively much fewer losses than in the fight against the Wehrmacht, that the German allies did not actively act in all periods war and suffered the greatest loss of prisoners as part of the general capitulations (Romania and Hungary). In addition, the losses of the Polish, Czechoslovak, Romanian and Bulgarian units operating together with the Red Army were not taken into account on the Soviet side. So, in general, the ratios we have identified should be fairly objective. They show that the improvement in the ratio of irretrievable losses for the Red Army occurs only from 1944, when the Allies landed in the West and Lend-Lease assistance already gave the maximum effect in terms of both direct deliveries of weapons and equipment, and the deployment of Soviet military production. The Wehrmacht was forced to abandon reserves to the West and could not, as in 1943, unleash active operations in the East. In addition, there were heavy losses of experienced soldiers and officers. Nevertheless, until the end of the war, the ratio of losses remained unfavorable for the Red Army due to its inherent vices (temporality, contempt for human life, inept use of weapons and equipment, lack of continuity of experience due to huge losses and inept use of marching replacements, etc. ).

A particularly unfavorable ratio of casualties for the Red Army was in the period from December 1941 to April 1942, when the Red Army carried out its first large-scale counter-offensive. For example, the 323rd Rifle Division of the 10th Army of the Western Front alone lost 4,138 people in three days of fighting, from December 17 to 19, 1941, including 1,696 dead and missing. This gives an average daily loss rate of 1346 people, including 565 irretrievable losses. The entire German Eastern Army, numbering more than 150 divisions, for the period from December 11 to December 31, 1941 inclusive, had an average daily loss rate only slightly higher. On the day the Germans lost 2658 people, including only 686 - irretrievably.

It's just amazing! One of our divisions lost as much as 150 German ones. Even if we assume that not all German formations were in combat every day during the last three weeks of December 1941, even if we assume that the losses of the 323rd rifle division in three-day battles were for some reason uniquely large, the difference is too striking and cannot be explained by statistical errors. Here we must talk about the social errors, the fundamental vices of the Soviet method of warfare.

By the way, according to the testimony of the former commander of the 10th Army, Marshal F.I. Golikov, and in the previous days the 323rd division suffered heavy losses, and, despite the fact that the Soviet troops were advancing, the losses were dominated by the missing, most of whom, most likely, were killed. So, in the battles for December 11, during its turn to the south towards the city of Epifan and locality Lupishki, the 323rd division lost 78 people killed, 153 wounded and up to 200 missing. And on December 17–19, the 323rd division, together with other divisions of the 10th Army, successfully, by Soviet standards, attacked the German defensive line on the Upa River. And by the next frontier, the Plava River, the 323rd Division was not yet the most battered of the divisions of the 10th Army, which were fully equipped before the start of the Moscow counteroffensive. In the 323rd division, 7613 people remained, while in the neighboring 326th - only 6238 people. Like many other divisions that participated in the counteroffensive, the 323rd and 326th divisions were just formed and entered the battle for the first time. The lack of experience and internal cohesion of the units led to heavy losses. Nevertheless, on the night of December 19-20, two divisions took Plavsk, breaking through the enemy line. At the same time, the Germans allegedly lost more than 200 people only killed. In fact, taking into account the fact that at that moment most of the German divisions were operating in the Moscow direction, and Plavsk was defended by only one regiment, the losses of the latter could not exceed several dozen killed. The commander of the 323rd division, Colonel Ivan Alekseevich Gartsev, was considered a completely successful divisional commander and on November 17, 1942 he became a major general, in 1943 he commanded the 53rd rifle corps, successfully ended the war, having been awarded the commander's order of Kutuzov 1st degree, and died peacefully in 1961.

Let us compare the above monthly data on the irretrievable losses of the Red Army for 1942 with the monthly data on the losses of the German land army, calculated from the diary of the Chief of the General Staff of the German Land Army, General F. Halder. It should be noted here that the Soviet data include not only losses in ground forces ah, but also the loss of aviation and navy. In addition, the irretrievable losses on the Soviet side include not only those killed and missing, but also those who died from wounds. In the data given by Halder, only the losses in killed and missing are included, relating only to the ground forces, without the Luftwaffe and the fleet. This circumstance makes the loss ratio more favorable for the German side than it actually was. Indeed, taking into account the fact that in the Wehrmacht the ratio of the wounded and killed was closer to the classical one - 3: 1, and in the Red Army - closer to the unconventional ratio - 1: 1, and also taking into account that the death rate in German hospitals was much higher, than in the Soviet ones, since the latter received much fewer seriously wounded, the category of those who died from wounds accounted for a much larger share in the irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht than the Red Army. Also, the proportion of aviation and navy losses was relatively higher for the Wehrmacht than for the Red Army, due to the extremely large losses of the Soviet ground forces. In addition, we do not take into account the losses of the Italian, Hungarian and Romanian armies allied with the Wehrmacht, which also makes the loss ratio more favorable for Germany. However, all these factors can overestimate this indicator by no more than 20-25% and are not able to distort the general trend.

According to F. Halder's diary entries, from December 31, 1941 to January 31, 1942, German losses on the Eastern Front amounted to 87,082, including 18,074 killed and 7,175 missing. The irretrievable losses of the Red Army (killed and missing) in January 1942 amounted to 628 thousand people, which gives a loss ratio of 24.9:1. Between January 31 and February 28, 1942, German losses in the East amounted to 87,651 people, including 18,776 killed and 4,355 missing. Soviet losses in February reached 523 thousand people and turned out to be 22.6 times more than German irretrievable losses.

In the period from March 1 to March 31, 1942, German losses on the Eastern Front amounted to 102,194 people, including 12,808 killed and 5,217 missing. Soviet losses in March 1942 amounted to 625 thousand dead and missing. This gives us a record ratio of 34.7:1. In April, when the offensive began to fade, but the losses of prisoners of the Soviet troops were still quite small, German losses amounted to 60,005 people, including 12,690 killed and 2,573 missing. Soviet losses this month amounted to 435 thousand dead and missing. The ratio is 28.5:1.

In May 1942, the Red Army suffered heavy losses in prisoners as a result of its unsuccessful offensive near Kharkov and the successful German offensive on the Kerch Peninsula, its losses amounted to 433 thousand people. This figure is likely to be significantly underestimated. After all, the Germans alone captured almost 400 thousand prisoners in May, and compared to April, when there were almost no prisoners, the losses even decreased by 13 thousand people - while the index of those killed in battles fell by only three points. The losses of the German ground forces can only be calculated for the period from May 1 to June 10, 1942. They totaled 100,599, including 21,157 killed and 4,212 missing. To establish the ratio of irretrievable losses, a third of the losses in June must be added to the Soviet losses in May. Soviet losses for this month amounted to 519 thousand people. Most likely, they are overestimated due to the inclusion of underestimated May losses in the June parts. Therefore, the total figure of losses for May and the first ten days of June at 606 thousand dead and missing seems close to reality. The deadweight loss ratio is 23.9:1, not fundamentally different from the indicators of several previous months.

During the period from 10 to 30 June, the losses of the German ground forces in the East amounted to 64,013 people, including 11,079 killed and 2,270 missing. The ratio of deadweight losses for the second and third decades of June is 25.9:1.

In July 1942, the German land army in the East lost 96,341 men, including 17,782 killed and 3,290 missing. Soviet losses in July 1942 amounted to only 330 thousand people, and, most likely, they are somewhat underestimated. But this underestimation is largely compensated by the more significant losses of the German allies who participated in the general offensive in the south that began at the end of June. The deadweight ratio turns out to be 15.7:1. This already means a significant improvement in this indicator for the Red Army. The German offensive turned out to be less catastrophic for the Red Army in terms of casualties than its own offensive in the winter and spring of 1942.

But the real turning point in the ratio of irretrievable losses occurred in August 1942, when German troops advanced on Stalingrad and the Caucasus, and Soviet troops in the Rzhev region. Soviet losses in prisoners were significant, and there certainly was an underestimation of Soviet irretrievable losses, but most likely it was no more than in July. In August 1942, the German army in the East lost 160,294 men, including 31,713 killed and 7,443 missing. Soviet losses this month amounted to 385 thousand dead and missing. The ratio is 9.8:1, i.e., an order of magnitude better for the Red Army than in the winter or spring of 1942. Even taking into account the likely underestimation of Soviet losses in August, the change in the ratio of losses looks significant. Moreover, the likely underestimation of Soviet losses was offset by a significant increase in the losses of the German allies - Romanian, Hungarian and Italian troops, who actively participated in the summer-autumn offensive. The loss ratio is improving not so much due to the reduction in Soviet losses (although this, in all likelihood, took place), but due to a significant increase in German losses. It is no coincidence that it was in August 1942 that Hitler, according to W. Schellenberg, for the first time allowed the possibility that Germany would lose the war, and in September the loud resignations of the Chief of the General Staff of the Land Army F. Halder and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army Group A operating in the Caucasus Field Marshal V. List. Hitler began to realize that there was no way out of the impasse into which the German offensive in the Caucasus and Stalingrad was increasingly entering, and that the growing losses would soon enough lead the Wehrmacht to exhaustion, but he could not do anything.

Halder's diary allows us to calculate the losses of the ground forces only for the first ten days of September. They totaled 48,198, including 9,558 killed and 3,637 missing. Soviet losses in September amounted to 473 thousand dead and missing. These losses not only do not seem to underestimate, but, on the contrary, rather underestimate the true size of Soviet losses in September by including earlier unrecorded losses, since in this month the index of those killed in battles fell from 130 to 109 compared to August. A third of 473 thousand . is 157.7 thousand. The ratio of Soviet and German irretrievable losses in the first decade of September 1942 turns out to be 11.95: 1, which proves that the August trend of improving the ratio of losses continued into September, especially taking into account the overestimation of Soviet losses in this month .

In the further course of the war, the irretrievable losses of the German land army, with rare exceptions, only grew. The number of Soviet prisoners of war sharply decreased in 1943, while the German troops this year for the first time suffered significant losses of prisoners on the Eastern Front as a result of the Stalingrad disaster. Soviet losses in killed after 1942 also experienced an upward trend, but the absolute value of the increase in killed was significantly less than the amount by which the average monthly number of Soviet prisoners decreased. According to the dynamics of the casualty rate, the maximum losses in killed and dead from wounds were noted in July, August and September 1943, during the Battle of Kursk and the crossing of the Dnieper (the index of casualties in battles in these months is 143, 172 and 139, respectively). The next peak of the Red Army's losses in killed and dead from wounds falls on July, August and September 1944 (132, 140 and 130). The only peak of casualties in 1941-1942 falls on August 1942 (130). There were some months when the ratio of deadweight losses was almost as unfavorable for the Soviet side as in the first half of 1942, for example, during the Battle of Kursk, but in most months of 1943-1945 this ratio was already significantly better for the Red Army than in 1941-1942.

A significant, by Soviet standards, improvement in the ratio of irretrievable losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht and its allies, which began in August 1942 and continued until the end of the war, was due to several factors. Firstly, Soviet middle and senior commanders, starting with regimental commanders, gained some combat experience and began to fight a little more competently, adopting a number of tactics from the Germans. At a lower command level, as well as among ordinary fighters, there was no significant improvement in the quality of combat operations, because due to huge losses, a large turnover of personnel remained. The improvement in the relative quality of Soviet tanks and aircraft also played a role, as well as an increase in the level of training of pilots and tankers, although in terms of the level of training they were still inferior to the Germans even at the end of the war.

But an even greater role than the growth of the combat capability of the Red Army in the defeat of Germany on the Eastern Front was played by the decline in the combat capability of the Wehrmacht. Due to the ever-increasing irretrievable losses, the proportion of experienced soldiers and officers decreased. Due to the need to replace increasing losses, the level of training of pilots and tankers decreased by the end of the war, although it remained higher than that of their Soviet opponents. This drop in the level of training could not even compensate for the growth in the quality of military equipment. But more importantly, starting in November 1942, after the Allied landings in North Africa, Germany had to send more and more aircraft, and then ground forces, to fight against the Western Allies. Germany had to make greater use of its weaker allies. The defeat by the Red Army of large Italian, Romanian and Hungarian troops in late 1942 - early 1943 and in the second half of 1944 - early 1945 significantly improved the ratio of irretrievable losses in favor of the Soviet side and significantly increased the numerical advantage of the Red Army over the Wehrmacht. Another turning point here occurred after the Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944. It was from July 1944 that there was a sharp increase in the irretrievable losses of the German army, primarily prisoners. In June, the irretrievable losses of the ground forces amounted to 58 thousand people, and in July - 369 thousand and remained at such a high level until the end of the war. This is due to the fact that Germany was forced to withdraw significant forces of the ground forces and the Luftwaffe from the Eastern Front, due to which the Soviet numerical superiority in men increased to seven or even to eight times, which made it impossible for any effective defense.

Explaining the enormous Soviet casualties, German generals usually point to the neglect of the lives of soldiers by the high command, the poor tactical training of the middle and lower command personnel, the stereotyped methods used during the offensive, the inability of both commanders and soldiers to make independent decisions. Such statements could be considered a simple attempt to belittle the dignity of the enemy, who nevertheless won the war, if not for numerous similar testimonies from the Soviet side. So, Zhores Medvedev recalls the battles near Novorossiysk in 1943: “The Germans near Novorossiysk had two lines of defense, perfectly fortified to a depth of about 3 km. It was believed that artillery preparation was very effective, but it seems to me that the Germans quickly adapted to it. Noticing that the equipment was concentrating and powerful shooting began, they went to the second line, leaving only a few machine gunners on the front line. They left and, with the same interest as we, observed all this noise and smoke. Then we were ordered to go forward. We walked, got blown up by mines and occupied the trenches - already almost empty, only two or three corpses were lying there. Then the order was given - to attack the second line. It was then that up to 80% of the attackers died - after all, the Germans were sitting in well-fortified structures and shot all of us almost at close range. The American diplomat A. Harriman conveys Stalin’s words that “in the Soviet Army one must have more courage to retreat than to advance” and comments on it this way: “This phrase of Stalin clearly shows that he was aware of the state of affairs in the army. We were shocked, but we understood that this forced the Red Army to fight ... Our military, who consulted with the Germans after the war, told me that the most destructive thing in the Russian offensive was its mass character. The Russians came wave after wave. The Germans literally mowed them down, but as a result of such pressure, one wave broke through.

And here is the testimony of the battles in December 1943 in Belarus of the former platoon commander V. Dyatlov: “A chain of people in civilian clothes with huge “sidors” behind their backs passed by, in the course of the message.” "Slavs, who are you, where are you from?" I asked. - "We are from the Oryol region, replenishment." - "What kind of replenishment, when in civilian clothes and without rifles?" - "Yes, they said that you will receive in battle ..."

The artillery strike on the enemy lasted five minutes. 36 guns of the artillery regiment "hollowed out" the front line of the Germans. From the discharges of shells, visibility became even worse ...

And here is the attack. The chain rose, writhing like a black, curved snake. Behind her is the second. And those black snakes writhing and moving were so absurd, so unnatural on the gray-white earth! Black on snow is a perfect target. And the German "watered" these chains with dense lead. Many firing points came to life. Large-caliber machine guns fired from the second line of the trench. The chains are stuck. The battalion commander yelled: “Forward, your mother! Forward!.. In battle! Forward! I'll shoot!" But it was impossible to get up. Try to tear yourself off the ground under artillery, machine-gun and automatic fire...

The commanders still managed to raise the "black" village infantry several times. But all in vain. The enemy fire was so dense that, after running a couple of steps, people fell as if they had been cut down. We, the gunners, also could not reliably help - there was no visibility, the Germans camouflaged the firing points well, and, most likely, the main machine-gun fire was fired from bunkers, and therefore the firing of our guns did not give the desired results.

The same memoirist very vividly describes the reconnaissance in force, so praised by many memoirists from among the marshals and generals, carried out by a battalion of penalists: “Two divisions of our regiment participated in a ten-minute fire raid - and that’s it. There was silence for a few seconds after the fire. Then the battalion commander jumped out of the trench onto the parapet: “Guys, ah! For the Motherland! For Stalin! Behind me! Hooray!" The penitentiaries slowly crawled out of the trench and, as if waiting for the last, throwing their rifles at the ready, ran. A groan or a cry with a drawn-out "ah-ah-ah" shimmered from left to right and again to the left, now fading, now intensifying. We also jumped out of the trench and ran forward. The Germans threw a series of red rockets towards the attackers and immediately opened a powerful mortar and artillery fire. The chains lay down, and we also lay down - a little behind in the longitudinal furrow. I couldn't raise my head. How to detect and to whom to detect enemy targets in this hell? His artillery hit from covered positions and far from the flanks. They also beat heavy guns. Several tanks fired at direct fire, their blank shells whining overhead...

Penal boxes lay in front of the German trench in an open field and in small bushes, and the German “threshed” this field, plowing the earth, and the bushes, and the bodies of people ... Only seven people left us with a battalion of fines, and there were all together - 306 ".

By the way, there was no attack in this area.

We have a story about such senseless and bloody attacks in the memoirs and letters of German soldiers and junior officers. One unnamed witness describes the attack of units of the 37th Soviet army of A.A. Vlasov to the height occupied by the Germans near Kyiv in August 1941, and his description in detail coincides with the story of the Soviet officer given above. Here and useless artillery preparation past the German positions, and an attack in thick waves, dying under German machine guns, and an unknown commander, unsuccessfully trying to raise his people and dying from a German bullet. Similar attacks on a not very important height continued for three days in a row. The German soldiers were most struck by the fact that when the whole wave perished, single soldiers still continued to run forward (the Germans were incapable of such senseless actions). These failed attacks nevertheless exhausted the Germans physically. And, as the German soldier recalls, he and his comrades were most shocked and depressed by the methodicalness and scale of these attacks: “If the Soviets can afford to spend so many people trying to eliminate such insignificant results of our advance, then how often and how many people they will attack if the object is really very important? (The German author could not imagine that otherwise the Red Army simply did not know how to attack and could not.)

And in a letter from a German soldier home during the retreat from Kursk in the second half of 1943, it is described, as in the quoted letter of V. Dyatlov, an attack by almost unarmed and non-equipped reinforcements from the newly liberated territories (the same Oryol region), in which the vast majority died participants (according to an eyewitness, even women were among those called). The prisoners said that the authorities suspected the inhabitants of collaborating with the occupying authorities, and mobilization served as a form of punishment for them. And in the same letter, an attack by Soviet penalists through a German minefield to blow up mines at the cost of their own lives is described (the story of Marshal G.K. Zhukov about similar practice D. Eisenhower cites the Soviet troops in his memoirs). And again, the German soldier was most struck by the obedience of the mobilized and the penalized. Captured penalists, "with rare exceptions, never complained about such treatment." they said that life is hard and that "you have to pay for mistakes". Such submissiveness of the Soviet soldiers clearly shows that the Soviet regime brought up not only commanders capable of issuing such inhuman orders, but also soldiers capable of carrying out such orders unquestioningly.

There is evidence of the inability of the Red Army to fight otherwise than at the cost of very large bloodshed. Soviet military leaders high rank. So, Marshal A.I. Eremenko characterizes the features of the “art of war” of the famous (deservedly?) “Marshal of Victory” G.K. Zhukova: “It should be said that Zhukovskoe operational art- this is superiority in strength by 5-6 times, otherwise he will not get down to business, he does not know how to fight not in quantity and builds his career on blood. By the way, in another case, the same A.I. Eremenko conveyed his impression of getting to know the memoirs of the German generals in this way: “The question naturally arises, why did the Hitlerite“ heroes ”,“ defeating ”our squad together, and five together a whole platoon, failed to complete the tasks in the first period of the war, when the undeniable numerical and technical superiority was on their side? It turns out that the irony here is ostentatious, because A.I. Yeremenko actually knew very well that the German military leaders did not exaggerate the balance of power in favor of the Red Army. After all, G.K. Zhukov led the main operations in the main directions and had an overwhelming superiority of forces and means. Another thing is that other Soviet generals and marshals were hardly able to fight otherwise than G.K. Zhukov, and A.I. Eremenko was no exception here.

We also note that the huge irretrievable losses of the Red Army did not allow, to the same extent as in the Wehrmacht, and even more so in the armies of the Western allies, to retain experienced soldiers and junior commanders, which reduced adhesion and stamina of units and did not allow replenishment fighters to learn combat experience from veterans , which further increased the losses. Such an unfavorable ratio of irretrievable losses for the USSR was the result of a fundamental flaw in the communist totalitarian system, which deprived people of the ability to independently make decisions and act, taught everyone, including the military, to act according to a template, to avoid even reasonable risk and, more than the enemy, to be afraid of responsibility before their higher authorities.

As the former intelligence officer E.I. Malashenko, who rose to the rank of lieutenant general after the war, even at the very end of the war, Soviet troops often acted very inefficiently: “A few hours before the onset of our division on March 10, a reconnaissance group ... captured a prisoner. He showed that the main forces of his regiment were withdrawn 8-10 km in depth ... By telephone, I reported this information to the division commander, who - to the commander. The divisional commander gave us his car to deliver the prisoner to the army headquarters. Approaching the command post, we heard the rumble of the artillery preparation that had begun. Unfortunately, it was carried out on unoccupied positions. Thousands of shells delivered with great difficulty through the Carpathians (this happened on the 4th Ukrainian Front. - B.S.), turned out to be wasted. The surviving enemy with stubborn resistance stopped the advance of our troops. The same author gives a comparative assessment of the fighting qualities of German and Soviet soldiers and officers - not in favor of the Red Army: “German soldiers and officers fought well. The rank and file was well trained, skillfully acted on the offensive and in defense. Well-trained non-commissioned officers played a more prominent role in combat than our sergeants, many of whom were almost no different from privates. Enemy infantry constantly fired intensely, acted persistently and swiftly on the offensive, stubbornly defended and carried out quick counterattacks, usually supported by artillery fire, and sometimes by air strikes. The tankers also aggressively attacked, fired on the move and from short stops, skillfully maneuvered and conducted reconnaissance. In case of failure, they quickly concentrated their efforts in another direction, often striking at the junctions and flanks of our units. Artillery promptly opened fire and sometimes conducted it very accurately. She had plenty of ammunition. German officers they skillfully organized the battle and controlled the actions of their subunits and units, skillfully used the terrain, and timely maneuvered in a favorable direction. With the threat of encirclement or defeat, German units and subunits made an organized retreat in depth, usually to occupy a new line. Soldiers and officers of the enemy were intimidated by rumors of reprisals against prisoners, they rarely surrendered without a fight ...

Our infantry was trained weaker than the German. However, she fought bravely. Of course, there were cases of panic and premature withdrawal, especially at the beginning of the war. The infantry was greatly helped by artillery, the most effective was the Katyusha fire in repelling enemy counterattacks and striking at areas where troops were concentrated and concentrated. However, artillery in the initial period of the war had few shells. It must be admitted that the tank units in the attacks did not always act skillfully. At the same time, in the operational depth during the development of the offensive, they showed themselves brilliantly.

Even then, some Soviet generals recognized the prohibitively large losses of the Soviet armed forces in the Great Patriotic War, although this was by no means safe. For example, Lieutenant General S.A. Kalinin, who previously commanded the army, and then was engaged in the preparation of reserves, had the imprudence to write in his diary that Supreme High Command"does not care about the preservation of human reserves and allows large losses in individual operations." This, along with others, "anti-Soviet" statement cost the general a sentence of 25 years in the camps. And another military leader - Major General of Aviation A.A. Turzhansky - in 1942 he received only 12 years in the camps for a completely fair opinion about the reports of the Sovinformburo, which "are intended only to calm the masses and do not correspond to reality, since they downplay our losses and exaggerate the losses of the enemy."

Interestingly, the ratio of irretrievable losses between Russian and German troops in the First World War was approximately the same as in the Great Patriotic War. world war . This follows from a study conducted by S.G. Nelipovich. In the second half of 1916, the troops of the Russian Northern and Western fronts lost 54 thousand killed and 42.35 thousand missing. The German troops operating on these fronts and the few Austro-Hungarian divisions fighting on the Western Front lost 7,700 killed and 6,100 missing. This gives a ratio of 7.0:1 for both killed and missing. On the Southwestern Front, Russian losses amounted to 202.8 thousand killed. The Austrian troops operating against him lost 55.1 thousand killed, and the German troops - 21.2 thousand killed. The ratio of losses turns out to be very indicative, especially considering that in the second half of 1916, Germany had far from the best on the Eastern Front, mostly secondary divisions. If we assume that the ratio of Russian and German losses here was the same as on the other two fronts, then from the composition of the Russian Southwestern Front, approximately 148.4 thousand soldiers and officers were killed in battles against the Germans, and approximately 54.4 thousand - in battles against the Austro-Hungarian troops. Thus, with the Austrians, the ratio of losses killed was even slightly in our favor - 1.01: 1, and the Austrians lost significantly more prisoners than the Russians - 377.8 thousand missing against 152.7 thousand among the Russians throughout the South -Western Front, including in battles against German troops. If we extend these coefficients to the entire war as a whole, the ratio between the total losses of Russia and its opponents killed and died from wounds, diseases and in captivity can be estimated as 1.9:1. This calculation is made as follows. German losses on the Eastern Front of the First World War amounted, including losses on the Romanian front, to 173.8 thousand killed and 143.3 thousand missing. In total, according to official data, there were 177.1 thousand prisoners of war in Russia, of which more than 101 thousand people were repatriated by the end of 1918. Until the spring of 1918, 15.5 thousand people died in captivity. Perhaps some of the German prisoners repatriated later or died. The official Russian figure of German prisoners is probably overestimated due to subjects of the German Empire interned in Russia. In any case, almost all the missing German soldiers on the Eastern Front can be attributed to prisoners. If we assume that during the entire war there were on average seven Russian soldiers per dead German soldier, the total losses of Russia in the fight against Germany can be estimated at 1217 thousand people. killed. The losses of the Austro-Hungarian army on the Russian front in 1914-1918 amounted to 311.7 thousand killed. Losses of Austro-Hungarian missing reached 1194.1 thousand people, which is less than Russian data on the number of Austro-Hungarian prisoners - 1750 thousand. The excess was probably formed due to civilian prisoners in Galicia and Bukovina, as well as double counting in reports. As in the case of Germany, in the case of Austria-Hungary, one can be sure that almost all those missing on the Russian front are prisoners of war. Then, spreading the proportion between Russian and Austrian killed, which we established for the second half of 1916, for the entire period of the First World War, Russian losses killed in the fight against the Austro-Hungarian troops can be estimated at 308.6 thousand people. Losses of Turkey in the First World War by those killed by B.Ts. Urlanis is estimated at 250 thousand people, of which, in his opinion, probably up to 150 thousand people fall on the Caucasian front. However, this figure is questionable. The fact is that the same B.Ts. Urlanis cites data that 65 thousand Turks were in Russian captivity, and 110 thousand in British captivity. It can be assumed that the real combat activity on the Middle East (including the Thessaloniki front) and the Caucasian theaters of military operations differed in the same proportion, given that since the beginning of 1917 there were no active hostilities on the Caucasian front. Then the number of Turkish soldiers killed in the fighting against the Caucasian front, as well as against the Russian troops in Galicia and Romania, can be estimated at 93 thousand people. The losses of the Russian army in the fight against Turkey are unknown. Considering that the Turkish troops were significantly inferior to the Russians in terms of combat readiness, the losses of the Russian Caucasian Front can be estimated at half the Turkish losses - at 46.5 thousand killed. The losses of the Turks in the fight against the Anglo-French troops can be estimated at 157 thousand killed. Of these, about half died at the Dardanelles, where Turkish troops lost 74.6 thousand people, British troops, including New Zealanders, Australians, Indians and Canadians, 33.0 thousand killed, and French troops - about 10 thousand killed. This gives a ratio of 1.7:1, close to that which we assumed for the losses of the Turkish and Russian armies.

The total losses of the Russian army killed in the First World War can be estimated at 1601 thousand people, and the losses of its opponents - at 607 thousand people, or 2.6 times less. For comparison, let's determine the ratio of losses killed on the Western Front of the First World War, where the German troops fought with the British, French and Belgian. Here, Germany lost 590.9 thousand people killed before August 1, 1918. For the last 3 months and 11 days of the war, the German loss of life can be estimated at about one quarter of the previous 12 months of the war, given that in November there was almost no fighting. German losses in the period August 1, 1917 to July 31, 1918, according to the official sanitary report, amounted to 181.8 thousand killed. With this loss in mind, recent months war can be estimated at 45.5 thousand people, and all the losses of Germany killed on the Western Front - at 636.4 thousand people. The losses of the French ground forces killed and died of wounds in the First World War amounted to 1104.9 thousand people. If we subtract from this number 232 thousand dead from wounds, the loss of those killed can be estimated at 873 thousand people. Probably about 850,000 were killed on the Western Front. English troops in France and Flanders lost 381 thousand people killed. The total loss of killed British dominions amounted to 119 thousand people. Of these, at least 90 thousand died on the Western Front. Belgium lost 13.7 thousand people killed. American troops lost 37 thousand people killed. The total losses of the allies killed in the West are approximately 1,372 thousand people, and Germany - 636 thousand people. The loss ratio turns out to be 2.2:1, which turns out to be three times more favorable for the Entente than the ratio between Russia and Germany.

The extremely unfavorable ratio of Russian losses to Germany is equalized by the losses of the German allies. To get the total irretrievable losses of Russia in the First World War, it is necessary to add to the losses killed the losses of those who died from wounds, died from diseases and died in captivity - respectively 240 thousand, 160 thousand (together with victims of suicide and accidents) and 190 thousand. human. Then the total irretrievable losses of the Russian army can be estimated at 2.2 million people. The total number of Russian prisoners is estimated at 2.6 million people. About 15.5 thousand German and at least 50 thousand Austro-Hungarian soldiers, as well as about 10 thousand Turks, died in Russian captivity. Total number deaths from wounds in the German army is estimated at 320 thousand people. Given that the Eastern Front accounts for about 21.5% of all German soldiers killed, Germany's losses in the fight against Russia who died from wounds can be estimated at 69 thousand people. The number of deaths from diseases and accidents in the German army is determined at 166 thousand people. Of these, up to 36 thousand people may fall on the Russian front. The Austrians lost 170 thousand people who died from wounds and 120 thousand people who died from diseases. Since the Russian front accounts for 51.2% of all losses of Austria-Hungary (4273.9 thousand people out of 8349.2 thousand), the number of those who died from wounds and died from diseases related to the Russian front can be estimated at 87 thousand, respectively. and 61 thousand people. The Turks lost 68,000 dead from wounds and 467,000 from disease. Of these, the Russian front accounts for 25,000 and 173,000, respectively. The total irretrievable losses of Russia's opponents in the First World War amounted to about 1133.5 thousand people. The ratio of total deadweight losses turns out to be 1.9:1. It becomes even more favorable for the Russian side than the ratio of dead only, due to the significant mortality from disease in the Turkish army.

The ratio of losses in the First World War was much more favorable for the Russian army than in the Second World War, only due to the fact that in 1914-1918, not German, but much less combat-ready Austro-Hungarian troops fought on the Russian front.

Such an unfavorable for Russia (USSR) ratio of losses in the two world wars in relation to the losses of the German troops is explained primarily by the general economic and cultural backwardness of Russia in comparison with Germany and with the Western allies. In the case of the Second World War, the situation was aggravated due to the peculiarities of Stalinist totalitarianism, which destroyed the army as an effective instrument of warfare. Stalin failed, as he urged, to overcome the ten-year lag behind the leading capitalist countries, which he defined as 50-100 years. On the other hand, he completely remained in line with the late imperial tradition, preferring to win not with skill, but with great bloodshed, since he saw a potential threat to the regime in creating a highly professional army.

Losses of the Japanese merchant fleet from American submarines in World War II

APPENDIX 3 Successes of the French Navy in World War II Notes:* - Success achieved with Allied ships or aircraft.