WW2 casualties in today's perspective

Why the hell didn't Germany figure, we'll....we tried boys... wasn't meant to be, before they lost 6 million people?

ra1n man wrote:

Why were both the axis and allies OK with suffering losses in the tens of millions?

Could you even imagine if today 500,000 American soldiers died over a couple years? What about 5-10 million? What about if Japan started killing 10,000 Chinese evey day?

After a few thousand losses, we'd be like "Dude , wtf? We surrender...this is insane." And with good reason...

WWI Alone killed something in the high 10 million people (I don't know the exact number)

WWII was much higher, over 60 million I think.

Whatever the amount is too much. It's not that the Axis and allies were ok with it. It was and it is the nature of war: Good and bad people end up dead. Victory was measured by the amount of pain you were able to inflict (both infrastructure and human life) Tragic, people's lives treated no better than pawns on a giant chess table.

So much for being an "intelligent, civilized" species huh?

If your 60 million figure is correct, Soviets lost almost half of all WW2 deaths. Soviet military personnel killed, app. 8.5 million. Soviet citizens killed, app. 19 million, total, app. 27.5 million

How did Stalin keep Soviets from turning against him?

almost 1/2 were ... wrote:

How did Stalin keep Soviets from turning against him?

Stalin had already purged anyone in his circle who might turn on him. Plus the Russians overall had the choice of misery under Stalin or death under Hitler. Hard to go looking to complain to Uncle Joe when your house is burning and the Nazis are raping and murdering your family. Time to jump into a T-34 and get your land back.

The European powers had built global empires over the previous centuries when Germany and Japan were a collection of feudal states. By the time they arrived at the bargaining table there was no room left. So they went to work building lethal war machines to force the issue. Technology and propaganda mind control coupled together turned a cold shower (for the allied powers) into a infernal bloodbath.

It's been estimated that 32 million military & civilian deaths occurred in the Pacific campaign alone. The Battle of Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the campaign with most every Japanese soldier fighting to the death. And many civilians took up arms and fought to the death or committed suicide. The population of the island was almost completely decimated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War

https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/japanese-mass-suicides

ra1n man wrote:

Why were both the axis and allies OK with suffering losses in the tens of millions?

Could you even imagine if today 500,000 American soldiers died over a couple years? What about 5-10 million? What about if Japan started killing 10,000 Chinese evey day?

After a few thousand losses, we'd be like "Dude , wtf? We surrender...this is insane." And with good reason...

Read accounts of what the Battle of Verdun was like (WWI). Then follow up with Battles of Ypres and Battle of the Somme. It will definitely make you believe people just lost their minds, and that those fellows fighting were a different breed of people than we have today. Can't imagine being in a trench, seeing a platoon go out, get mowed down, then your commander says "your turn."

I don't agree with the German's attaching America and Britain but I wish they beat the Russians in 1941/42 and then made a deal with Britain to stop fighting before the US went to Europe/North Africa to fight. It would have been epic to see Stalin captured and put in a zoo or something. He was crazy and he caused so many millions of deaths outside of WW2 alone. The USSR caused so much carnage even after WW2 and now we have crazy Putin. I'm tempted to go to the Kremlin and tell them what I think. If Germany started Operation Barbarossa a few months earlier and didn't go so easy when they reached Smolensk they could of destroyed Moscow before the freezing winter stopped them in 1941. There would be so much less carnage and we wouldn't have Putin right now.

I'm just thinking that people back then were much more in the "flight or fight" response mode. People now of all the major countries have enjoyed complete peace for their entire life, and they don't want to lose it.

Also, you are scared of the unknown. Back then, the psychopathic leaders played their power games as usual and as they do today. However, people were pretty unaware of what other countries were like. So they were afraid and more easily propagandized.

Life was just tougher in general, and once people made it to a decent stock in life they were not going to give it up. Whereas today we all take a basic sustainance as a given in life. We've never been through true hardship on a large scale.

I am afraid of a country like China, because they have been propaganized so much that they attach their country/history/people and their way of life into "One China"... which is a recipe for a populous willing to wage wars for the oligarchy.

I could not see a modern US populous willing to give up 1 million casualties.

Banana Bread wrote:

I don't agree with the German's attaching America and Britain but I wish they beat the Russians in 1941/42 and then made a deal with Britain to stop fighting before the US went to Europe/North Africa to fight. It would have been epic to see Stalin captured and put in a zoo or something. He was crazy and he caused so many millions of deaths outside of WW2 alone. The USSR caused so much carnage even after WW2 and now we have crazy Putin. I'm tempted to go to the Kremlin and tell them what I think. If Germany started Operation Barbarossa a few months earlier and didn't go so easy when they reached Smolensk they could of destroyed Moscow before the freezing winter stopped them in 1941. There would be so much less carnage and we wouldn't have Putin right now.

The Germans had NO chance of conquering the USSR, just as Japan had NO chance of defeating the U.S.. Tweaking their attack plan or execution is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic...the Nazis lost the war the moment they crossed the Bug River in 1941.

I think there are several factors that can explain the insanity of how murderous WWII was.

First, people were just used to death back then. The Spanish Flu out break in 1918 killed about 675k in the US. That is about 250k more than the total US casualties in WWII. A lot of very treatable diseases and illnesses were fatal in the 1930s. And the industrial revolution made the workplace a very deadly place to be. So, having a young 21 year old get mowed down in some obscure battle during WWII wasn't as big of a shock as it would be today.

Second, the 19th century was chock full of war. It is no coincidence that the combatants in WW2 were all imperial powers of the 19th century that engaged in nearly continuous military combat during the 19th century. When Europeans weren't fighting each other they were carrying out bloody imperial conquests or suppressing rebellions. In the 19th century, when the US wasn't at war with itself, it was at war with Indian tribes. It was pretty much understood by the early 20th century that war was a part of life and every male would be a soldier in combat at some point.

Third, while there was a significant anti war movement in the US and Europe, it was quickly overrun by state run propaganda and anti-sedition laws. Eugene Debs was jailed for giving anti-war speeches during WWI. In Germany or Russia, you would not last long if you protested against the war.

Fourth, and finally, the more bloody the war got, the more determined everyone was to win. No one wanted to be the one to surrender or negotiate a peace treaty when so many lives had already been lost. Everyone was all in during WWII, which is why it was so deadly.

Precious Roy wrote:

...

Fourth, and finally, the more bloody the war got, the more determined everyone was to win. No one wanted to be the one to surrender or negotiate a peace treaty when so many lives had already been lost. Everyone was all in during WWII, which is why it was so deadly.

I don't fully believe that everyone was "all-in" during WWII. Certainly France was never all-in, and it's pretty clear that Italy never really wanted to be there either. Once Germany took Poland in Sep '39, there was quite a lull before the rest of Europe got involved.

In WWI, all the major players were in and "throwing haymakers" in August 1914. Much more immediate and brutal start to the war.

As for why so many dead in WWII, the punishment on civilians was much, much higher than any other war. Obviously genocide was a large part of it, but so was constant aerial bombardment and the stealing of resources (Japan from China, Germany from Europe).

That's just like your OPINION man.

Banana Bread wrote:

I don't agree with the German's attaching America and Britain but I wish they beat the Russians in 1941/42 and then made a deal with Britain to stop fighting before the US went to Europe/North Africa to fight. It would have been epic to see Stalin captured and put in a zoo or something. He was crazy and he caused so many millions of deaths outside of WW2 alone. The USSR caused so much carnage even after WW2 and now we have crazy Putin. I'm tempted to go to the Kremlin and tell them what I think. If Germany started Operation Barbarossa a few months earlier and didn't go so easy when they reached Smolensk they could of destroyed Moscow before the freezing winter stopped them in 1941. There would be so much less carnage and we wouldn't have Putin right now.

Are you saying that you wish Hitler and his Nazi Germany was not defeated and that they kept all the territories they conquered up to 1941-42, like France, Neatherlands, Belgium, Poland, etc. etc.? That seems to be what you are saying, but it's so crazy that I want to make sure.

That's historically true - Germany was no match for the Soviet Union. The question has always been asked "what if" Germany did conquer Moscow in Operation Barborosa?

"But would the fall of Moscow have meant the defeat of the Soviet Union? Almost certainly not. In 1941 the Soviet Union endured the capture of numerous major cities, a huge percentage of crucial raw materials, and the loss of four million troops. Yet it still continued to fight. It had a vast and growing industrial base east of the Ural Mountains, well out of reach of German forces. And in Joseph Stalin it had one of the most ruthless leaders in world history—a man utterly unlikely to throw in the towel because of the loss of any city, no matter how prestigious."

"A scenario involving Moscow’s fall also ignores the arrival of 18 divisions of troops from Siberia—fresh, well-trained, and equipped for winter fighting. They had been guarding against a possible Japanese invasion, but a Soviet spy reliably informed Stalin that Japan would turn southward, toward the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines, thereby freeing them to come to the Moscow front. Historically, the arrival of these troops took the Germans by surprise, and an unexpected Soviet counteroffensive in early December 1941 produced a major military crisis. Surprised and disturbed, Hitler’s field commanders urged a temporary retreat in order to consolidate the German defenses. But Hitler refused, instead ordering that German troops continue to hold their ground. Historically they managed to do so. However, with German forces extended as far as Moscow and pinned to the city’s defense, this probably would not have been possible. Ironically, for the Germans, the seeming triumph of Moscow’s capture might well have brought early disaster."

In fact, Germany was ill-prepared to start a world-war. General Ludwig Beck, who was Chief of the German General Staff in 1938, felt that Germany needed more time to rearm before starting such a war. In his assessment, the earliest date Germany could risk a war was 1940, and any war started in 1938 would be a "premature war" that Germany would lose.

Of course, Hitler didn't listen and fired Beck, who was later involved and implicated in the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944 (Operation Valkyrie). He was arrested and allowed to shoot himself to avoid torture by the Gestapo.

you don't know wrote:

YMMV wrote:

The Germans had NO chance of conquering the USSR, just as Japan had NO chance of defeating the U.S.. Tweaking their attack plan or execution is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic...the Nazis lost the war the moment they crossed the Bug River in 1941.

That's just like your OPINION man.

And the OPINION of anyone familiar with the resources and economics of the era. Which you clearly are NOT.

Hitler's own strategic advisors in the Wehrmacht told him in June of '41 that if they did not take the Caucasus oilfields by the end of September, the war was lost. Moscow didn't matter in the least from a strategic standpoint. They didn't come close to their most important objective. Declaring war on the U.S. in December of '41 put the nail in the proverbial coffin.

In less than a year the Wehrmacht was reduced from 162 to 58 divisions, and were running dry of petrol. Stalingrad was just the inevitable crushing blow.

But that is just my OPINION, man.

The First World War killed about 15 million people. The Second World War killed, depending upon the estimate, between 45 and 60 million. The scale of both conflicts are difficult to fathom from today's perspective. Americans in particular have to work hard to understand the scale of death because the devastation was, compared with families from places where the conflict raged, attenuated. (That is not to make light of the great American loss of life and the devastation on their families in each war.) More American soldiers died in France in World War One from influenza than in battle. One-fifth of Americans who died in WWII came in a single battle--the Battle of the Bulge. Those of us who come from European nations see the wars as one continuous war. The great war never really ended if you are from Eastern Europe, for example.

The size of the armies in both wars dwarfs the standing armies of today. This is the primary reason for the staggering loss of life. Great Britain and France lost more men in the First World War than the Second. The first day of the Battle of the Somme, for example--July 1 1916--killed perhaps twenty times as many as the first day of D-Day in 1944. The size of the armies and the poor tactics had much to do with this.

The reason the casualties in the Second World War are greater still than the First World War have to do with two factors--1, the greater scale of the second war; and, 2, the fact that civilians were targeted on a scale never previously known in human conflict.

The death toll in current wars is of course terrible. Every death is a tragedy. Today we kill more civilians than combatants. This is largely a result of politics and technology. Nations can send drones to carry out military objectives and not bear much grief for the result, especially if there are mistakes. Fewer telegrams have to be sent to grieving mothers because those on the receiving end of the drone are not constituents.

When engaged in total warfare with the fate of the free world at stake you don't really have to option to punt and say we'll get em next time.

Essentially the 19th century imperialism led to WWI which led to WWII with hundreds of years of death and destruction culminating in the atomic bomb.

In WW2 Germany was trying to expand their empire to take more land to support their growing country. To get that extra land to help Germans they had to kill off the people in there. They killed millions of Polish people, and killed 6 million jews so that the true Germans could have success instead of the jews. They killed millions of Gypsies and Russians for these same reasons, to allow for the Germans to have all their resources and have success.

The japanese were doing the same, killing off millions of Chinese civilians to make room for Japanese expansion.

This is why we didn't just stop. If nothing was done, Germany and Japan would just keep expanding, and expanding, and expanding. Eventually they would gain so much strength they would take over the whole world, killing everyone off that wasn't either German or Japanese. I'd be curious what would happen once it was just those two countries that had any power, would they start fighting each other? If Germany had control of mainland Europe for over a decade to allow for their children to become military age they would have recovered from their losses to take the continent and be stronger than ever.

YMMV wrote:

you don't know wrote:

That's just like your OPINION man.

And the OPINION of anyone familiar with the resources and economics of the era. Which you clearly are NOT.

Hitler's own strategic advisors in the Wehrmacht told him in June of '41 that if they did not take the Caucasus oilfields by the end of September, the war was lost. Moscow didn't matter in the least from a strategic standpoint. They didn't come close to their most important objective. Declaring war on the U.S. in December of '41 put the nail in the proverbial coffin.

In less than a year the Wehrmacht was reduced from 162 to 58 divisions, and were running dry of petrol. Stalingrad was just the inevitable crushing blow.

But that is just my OPINION, man.

All I said was that you shared your opinion - and you know it is true. You don't know me, so when you say I'm not familiar with the resources you talk BS. The way you replied proves something about you is not quite right.