ABSTRACT
The scale of the War was immense and it changed the whole world. Casualties are impossible to know precisely. Estimates vary between the limits of 40 and 50 million people. 1 About half these may have been civilians, including many women and children. A number that is unknown died in concentration camps without their deaths having any direct relation to the needs of the War. They included some six and a half million Jews. The scale on which the War was fought and the destruction wrought was greatest in the German-Soviet war and a large part of Russian territory suffered grievously at the hands of the S.S. It is still surprising that Russian losses were estimated at 20 million dead. Poland's losses proportionately to her population were higher at 6 million, of whom only 600,000 died in battle. The civil war in Yugoslavia and Greece made the losses of civilians there especially heavy. For Yugoslavia the figures are 1,200,000 civilians and 300,000 armed men; for Greece 140,000 civilians and 20,000 armed men. Belgium, Holland and Norway lost a few tens of thousands mostly in Nazi concentration camps. France estimated her loss as 400,000 civilians missing (deportees as well as air-raid victims) and 200,000 armed men killed. Britain estimated her loss as 62,000 civilians killed in air-raids and 326,000 armed men killed. The United States estimated her loss at 300,000 military casualties divided equally between Europe and Asia. On the other side, Italy had relatively small losses, estimated at 310,000 dead of whom about half were civilians. Germany lost over 4 million of whom 1 million were civilians killed in air-raids. China's losses were estimated at between 6 and 8 million and Japan's at 3 million, including 600,000 civilians.
