Countries with the most soldiers killed during World War II

In recent days, Donald Trump hasn't missed the opportunity to remind France that without the United States, German would be spoken in Paris. But did the United States sacrifice their soldiers to such an extent on the front lines? Here are the numbers.

Between civilian and military victims, it's difficult to give a precise number of people who died due to combat, bombings, deportations and executions during the global conflict from 1939 to 1945. However, the figure accepted by historians is a range between 40 and 60 million deaths during World War II! Among these, there are around 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, of which 3 million were of Polish origin! Poland suffered the worst civilian toll proportionally: nearly 16% of the population was decimated, approximately 5.5 million deaths out of the 35 million the country counted before the hostilities began. In absolute numbers, the most affected country was the USSR (Soviet Union including notably Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic states annexed in 1940, Transcaucasia, etc.)

On the military side

For the French, the war began in 1939 with the "Phoney War" defensive behind the Maginot Line in response to the Nazi troops' invasion of Poland on September 1. On September 17, USSR troops invaded eastern Poland as part of the agreement between Hitler and Stalin. The Soviet Union was then allied with Nazi Germany. In Belgium, it's called the War of 40-45 as Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands territories on May 10, 1940. In Denmark, it had already begun on April 9, 1940. Japan, forced to make "peace" with Russia, then an ally of Germany in Poland, despite the Japan-USSR conflict in 1939 in Mongolia, officially entered the war in 1940.

Despite the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the ongoing Sino-Japanese War since 1937, we can nonetheless set the date of Japan's engagement to September 1940 with the invasion of French Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). But everything accelerates on a global level with Hitler's betrayal by invading the USSR on June 22, 1941. Then, with the United States entering the war, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Human cost of the engaged armies

The commemorations of the end of the war allow us to remember the sacrifice of millions of young people on the military stage. There were between 22.5 and 25.5 million, including 5 million in captivity. Macron, Trump, Putin make sure to reference it. And in Russia, 9 May 1945 is more than symbolic considering the enormous human sacrifice (of the USSR it must be remembered, so not only Russians, there were also Ukrainians...). The surprise of the German operation Barbarossa in June 1941, with an army not at all prepared for this attack and a steamroller policy of the Red Army led by Stalin, without compassion for the soldiers, was devastating.

The figures (estimates)

· Number of Soviet soldiers killed: ~11,000,000 (including Russians, Ukrainians, etc.)

· Number of German soldiers killed: 5,500,000 (including Austrians and others enlisted)

· Number of Chinese soldiers killed: 3,000,000 to 4,000,000

· Number of Japanese soldiers killed: 2,120,000

· Number of Yugoslav soldiers killed: 446,000

· Number of American soldiers killed: 417,000

· Number of British soldiers killed: 380,000

· Number of Italian soldiers killed: 301,000

· Number of French soldiers killed: 217,000

· Number of Polish soldiers killed: 120,000

· Number of Canadian soldiers killed: 45,000

· Number of Australian soldiers killed: 40,000

Conclusion

The USSR undoubtedly paid the heaviest military toll with more than 50% of the losses on the front or after ill-treatment at the hands of the enemy. The Germans, Chinese, and Japanese lost respectively 12 times, 10 times, and 5 times more soldiers than the Americans, yet engaged both in Europe and in the Pacific. Overall, 2% of the soldiers killed were from the United States. The United Kingdom lost almost as many soldiers as the USA. Not counting civilian casualties. Smaller countries also paid dearly for the defence. Thus, 12,000 Belgian soldiers and 17,000 Dutch military lost their lives between 1940 and 1945. So many sacrifices and so many civilian victims in the different 'camps' of this human disaster, on a global level.

(MH with Olivier Duquesne – Sources: Wikipedia, Université de Reims, Le Figaro – Picture: © picture alliance / NurPhoto | Artur Widak)