WEBVTT 00:00:04.140 --> 00:00:07.960 The average life span of an American is eighty years, 00:00:08.140 --> 00:00:13.030 and an eighty year old today was ten when World War 2 ended; four when it began. 00:00:15.493 --> 00:00:19.253 A soldier who saw battle would have to be in his late eighties, at least, today. 00:00:20.589 --> 00:00:25.229 Generals, political leaders - the decision makers of the war: few are still with us. 00:00:27.353 --> 00:00:32.463 Over the past few decades, we've seen authors and filmmakers. 00:00:32.463 --> 00:00:36.668 rush to capture stories from survivors, before this connection of memory is lost. 00:00:43.860 --> 00:00:48.750 This project is not about individual war stories, and it's not about survivors. 00:00:49.574 --> 00:00:52.954 We are going to tally up the tens of millions of people 00:00:52.954 --> 00:00:55.744 whose lives were cut short by the war, 00:00:55.744 --> 00:00:59.044 and see how these numbers stack up to other wars in history, 00:00:59.044 --> 00:01:02.264 including trends in recent conflicts. 00:01:07.404 --> 00:01:11.094 We'll be counting soldiers and civilians separately. 00:01:11.366 --> 00:01:14.756 Each of these figures will represent 1000 people who died. 00:01:15.956 --> 00:01:19.536 Civilians were of all walks of life. 00:01:20.383 --> 00:01:24.793 Military deaths were almost entirely men - the average age was about 23. 00:01:27.631 --> 00:01:30.811 In most battles, for every 1000 soldiers killed, 00:01:30.811 --> 00:01:34.031 there were more than 1000 who were injured. 00:01:34.031 --> 00:01:37.498 The word casualty can be confusing because in military speak, it often includes both 00:01:37.498 --> 00:01:40.798 deaths and injuries, and any thing that takes a soldier out of service. 00:01:40.821 --> 00:01:45.221 Here we are just counting the deaths, and we'll begin with American soldiers. 00:01:55.978 --> 00:01:59.208 Over 400,000 died. 00:02:01.344 --> 00:02:05.344 Most of the deaths occurred in the European theater - fighting the Nazis - 00:02:06.073 --> 00:02:10.073 and about a quarter were in the Pacific, fighting the Japanese. 00:02:11.097 --> 00:02:14.207 When you put them on the timeline, you see that the casualties were heaviest 00:02:14.207 --> 00:02:16.957 at the end of the war. 00:02:16.957 --> 00:02:21.447 The war began on September 1, 1939, but the U.S. wasn't willing 00:02:21.447 --> 00:02:25.447 to join the fight until Pearl Harbor 2 years in. 00:02:26.305 --> 00:02:30.305 The deaths increased drastically on D-Day, when the allies invaded Normandy. 00:02:31.271 --> 00:02:35.271 One of the most tragic moments of the war was on D-Day at Omaha Beach, 00:02:35.271 --> 00:02:38.511 where 2,500 Americans fell. 00:02:40.386 --> 00:02:43.386 About the same number of U.S. soldiers died 00:02:43.386 --> 00:02:46.196 on this single beach landing as the entire 13 years 00:02:46.196 --> 00:02:49.056 of the recent US war in Afghanistan. 00:02:53.054 --> 00:02:57.054 The bloodiest battle in the Pacific was Okinawa, which lasted 82 days, 00:02:57.054 --> 00:03:01.054 during which 12,500 Americans died. 00:03:03.503 --> 00:03:07.503 About 5,000 of these deaths were at sea from Kamikaze attacks. 00:03:11.613 --> 00:03:15.613 Now let's look at some other countries, starting with Europe. 00:03:19.161 --> 00:03:23.161 Germany started World War 2 when it invaded Poland. 00:03:23.340 --> 00:03:27.340 Poland ultimately lost over 200,000 soldiers in the war, 00:03:27.726 --> 00:03:30.626 most died after the invasion 00:03:30.626 --> 00:03:34.626 while the country was occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union. 00:03:36.649 --> 00:03:40.649 Germany meanwhile lost just 16,000 in the invasion of Poland. 00:03:41.594 --> 00:03:44.944 The Nazis went on invade and conquer other countries including 00:03:44.944 --> 00:03:48.944 Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Greece, and Yugoslavia. 00:03:49.624 --> 00:03:53.624 France surrendered, but after losing 92,000 soldiers in the Battle of France. 00:03:54.024 --> 00:03:57.004 Over 200,000 ultimately fell, 00:03:57.004 --> 00:04:01.004 which includes deaths in POW camps, French colonies, and other fighting. 00:04:01.844 --> 00:04:05.284 Yugoslavia suffered almost half a million military deaths. 00:04:05.284 --> 00:04:08.384 The initial invasion brought relatively few casualties on both sides, 00:04:08.384 --> 00:04:11.064 but the deaths mounted under Nazi occupation 00:04:11.064 --> 00:04:15.064 due to gorilla fighting, civil conflict, and mass executions. 00:04:17.960 --> 00:04:21.960 The Nazi invasions were swift with relatively few German losses. 00:04:21.960 --> 00:04:25.960 Even the Nazi commanders expressed surprise at their success. 00:04:26.808 --> 00:04:30.048 And then we have United Kingdom and the United States, 00:04:30.048 --> 00:04:33.718 who were not invaded, but took the fight to the Germans. 00:04:33.910 --> 00:04:36.090 Britain lost about the same number of soldiers as the US, 00:04:36.090 --> 00:04:38.540 which includes the British colonies. 00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:41.540 Germany lost about half a million soldiers fighting the U.S. and Britain 00:04:41.540 --> 00:04:45.540 in what known as the Western front, which took place in France and Belgium. 00:04:51.843 --> 00:04:55.523 But most German soldiers died in the Eastern Front 00:04:55.523 --> 00:04:59.153 Germany's unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union. 00:04:59.153 --> 00:05:02.653 The numbers are staggering. 00:05:04.129 --> 00:05:07.109 The most famous battle of the Eastern Front, and perhaps THE turning point 00:05:07.109 --> 00:05:09.759 of the European war was Stalingrad. 00:05:09.759 --> 00:05:12.839 The German 6th Army successfully took Stalingrad, but then got surrounded 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:16.039 by the Soviets and cut off from food and ammunition. 00:05:16.049 --> 00:05:19.639 Half a million German soldiers would ultimately die in Stalingrad. 00:05:20.189 --> 00:05:24.189 Another 100,000 were taken prisoner, of which 6,000 would ever return. 00:05:26.403 --> 00:05:30.403 POWs had a low survival rate throughout WW2, and it was particular grim in East. 00:05:33.268 --> 00:05:37.268 When you include these POWs, roughly the same number of Germans died in 00:05:37.268 --> 00:05:41.268 Stalingrad as the all the Western front fighting France, the UK, and the US. 00:05:42.391 --> 00:05:45.481 Though Stalingrad was a victory for the Soviets, 00:05:45.481 --> 00:05:49.481 they suffered more losses than Germany. 00:05:54.867 --> 00:05:58.867 The Soviet Union would eventually defeat the once unstoppable German army, 00:05:58.867 --> 00:06:02.647 killing 2.3 million German soldiers. 00:06:05.062 --> 00:06:09.062 But winning the war came at a cost. 00:06:47.528 --> 00:06:53.224 8.7 million is the official tally by the Russian military, a hotly disputed number. 00:06:53.224 --> 00:06:56.915 Some studies have calculated as many as 14 million dead. 00:06:59.202 --> 00:07:02.706 To complete the count of European military deaths, 00:07:02.706 --> 00:07:06.546 we need to add German deaths from other fronts, including the North and Africa, 00:07:06.546 --> 00:07:09.576 as well as deaths from the other axis powers allied with Nazis - 00:07:09.586 --> 00:07:12.629 Hungary, Romania, and Italy. 00:07:14.838 --> 00:07:18.008 When you put these European military deaths on the timeline, 00:07:18.008 --> 00:07:21.141 it looks something like this. 00:07:21.141 --> 00:07:24.191 You can now interact with the chart to learn more. 00:07:24.191 --> 00:07:27.441 Pause the narration if you would like more time. 00:07:32.617 --> 00:07:36.617 Now we'll switch over to civilian deaths in Europe. 00:07:44.327 --> 00:07:48.327 6 Million Jewish people were killed in the holocaust. 00:07:50.652 --> 00:07:54.652 If you separate this by country you see about half, 2.7 million, were polish. 00:07:55.700 --> 00:07:59.700 700,000 were Soviets, Followed by Hungary and 17 other countries. 00:08:06.658 --> 00:08:09.638 Broken down another way, about half of the 6 million 00:08:09.638 --> 00:08:13.188 were killed in the concentration camps. 00:08:13.188 --> 00:08:17.188 Over a million died in Auschwitz. Most were killed in the gas chambers. 00:08:17.214 --> 00:08:21.214 Others died from starvation, exhaustion, disease, and other forms of execution. 00:08:25.123 --> 00:08:29.123 The second most deadly camp was Treblinka, which was exclusively an extermination camp, 00:08:29.123 --> 00:08:32.343 set up to look like a train station. 00:08:33.684 --> 00:08:37.684 Mobile killing groups killed 1.4 million Jews. 00:08:41.096 --> 00:08:45.096 Like with the gas chambers, men were killed first to reduce the risk of revolt. 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:09.960 The Holocaust also included non-Jewish deaths. 00:09:09.992 --> 00:09:13.992 Between 130,000 to 500,000 Roma, then called “Gypsies,” were killed. 00:09:13.992 --> 00:09:17.562 The numbers are disputed. 00:09:17.562 --> 00:09:20.902 About a quarter million people with disabilities were killed. 00:09:20.902 --> 00:09:24.152 Homosexuals, Catholics, and other groups were also exterminated, 00:09:24.152 --> 00:09:26.822 but their numbers were relatively small. 00:09:26.822 --> 00:09:30.032 Some historians say that other civilian deaths should go under the label Holocaust. 00:09:30.032 --> 00:09:34.032 Another 2 million non-Jewish Poles were killed under German occupation, 00:09:34.032 --> 00:09:38.032 some of which were sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. 00:09:38.032 --> 00:09:42.032 When you combine civilian and military deaths, over 16% the of total 00:09:42.032 --> 00:09:46.032 Polish population died in World War 2, the highest percentage of any country. 00:09:46.835 --> 00:09:50.835 But not the highest in total death count. Soviet Union again tops that list, 00:09:50.835 --> 00:09:54.385 losing at least as many civilians as it did soldiers. 00:09:54.385 --> 00:09:57.645 Somewhere between 10 and 20 million. 00:09:58.184 --> 00:10:01.364 A particularly dark event for the Soviet Union was the Siege of Leningrad, 00:10:01.364 --> 00:10:03.524 now Saint Petersburg. 00:10:03.524 --> 00:10:06.844 German forces surrounded Leningrad before civilians could be evacuated. 00:10:06.844 --> 00:10:10.844 Supplies, including food, were cut off for 2 and a half years. 00:10:12.700 --> 00:10:17.410 1.5 million people died as a result, mostly from starvation, mostly civilians. 00:10:21.545 --> 00:10:25.545 Stalin's cruelty towards his own people is partly responsible for these numbers. 00:10:25.545 --> 00:10:28.515 He often didn't allow civilians to evacuate from cities, 00:10:28.515 --> 00:10:32.155 thinking it would cause the soldiers protecting them to fight harder. 00:10:32.155 --> 00:10:36.155 About a million soviets died in Stalin's own labor camps called the Gulag. 00:10:37.021 --> 00:10:40.461 Just about every country suffered civilian losses, 00:10:40.461 --> 00:10:43.791 especially countries who were invaded. 00:10:43.791 --> 00:10:47.431 While many died as a result of so-called collateral damage, 00:10:47.431 --> 00:10:50.261 the biggest numbers occurred when it was no accident. 00:10:50.261 --> 00:10:53.801 Civilian were exterminated, purposefully fired upon or bombed, 00:10:53.801 --> 00:10:57.571 used a human shields, or intentionally deprived of food. 00:10:57.571 --> 00:11:01.281 The intentional killing of civilians was done by most warring parties, 00:11:01.281 --> 00:11:04.631 including the United Kingdom and the United Stated. 00:11:04.631 --> 00:11:08.861 The United Kingdom was spared of a land invasion, but still lost 60,000 civilians 00:11:08.861 --> 00:11:12.741 largely from German air raids, or blitzes, often directed at civilian populations. 00:11:13.433 --> 00:11:17.433 The UK did the same to German cities, at a much greater magnitude, 00:11:17.433 --> 00:11:21.163 causing about 10x the number of deaths. 00:11:21.163 --> 00:11:25.163 But most German civilian deaths came from the ground at the late stage of the war. 00:11:25.163 --> 00:11:29.163 When the Nazi regime collapsed, Germans living in occupied regions 00:11:29.163 --> 00:11:32.833 had to desperately flee from the advancing Soviet Army. 00:11:32.833 --> 00:11:36.833 Rapes were widespread, and death estimates range from 600,000 to 3 million. 00:11:41.943 --> 00:11:45.943 Let's step back and see where we are with the totals. 00:11:46.837 --> 00:11:50.837 We just counted about 20 million civilian deaths in Europe. 00:11:50.837 --> 00:11:54.837 If you add this to the the European military deaths that we already covered, 00:11:54.837 --> 00:11:58.497 it brings us to over 40 million. 00:12:00.026 --> 00:12:03.036 Then we have the Asian Theater. 00:12:03.036 --> 00:12:06.356 Here we see that the vast majority of military deaths in Asia 00:12:06.356 --> 00:12:09.396 came from China and Japan. 00:12:09.396 --> 00:12:12.936 On the civilian side, about 6 million deaths from China, Indonesia, Korea, 00:12:12.936 --> 00:12:16.646 Indochina, and the Philippines can be attributed to Japanese war crimes, 00:12:16.646 --> 00:12:19.926 which are sometimes compared to the Nazi atrocities, 00:12:19.926 --> 00:12:23.246 due to the sheer scale of the cruelty. 00:12:23.246 --> 00:12:26.616 China had the second highest death count after the Soviet Union. 00:12:26.616 --> 00:12:30.066 And like the Soviets, the Chinese government demonstrated a stunning 00:12:30.066 --> 00:12:33.266 willingness to sacrifice its own people. 00:12:33.266 --> 00:12:36.416 Chinese Nationalists opened the dikes of the yellow river 00:12:36.416 --> 00:12:39.036 hoping the flood would halt the Japanese advance. 00:12:39.036 --> 00:12:42.176 Half a million Chinese civilians, or more, were killed. 00:12:42.176 --> 00:12:46.176 Which is 2 or 3 times the number who died in all countries in the 2004 Asian tsunamis. 00:12:49.492 --> 00:12:53.492 But the invasion of China only cost Japan 200,000 soldiers. 00:12:53.492 --> 00:12:57.492 Most were killed fighting the US, China and other allies in the Pacific War. 00:12:59.890 --> 00:13:03.520 A significant portion of Japanese civilians deaths were caused by 00:13:03.520 --> 00:13:06.810 American firebombing and the two nuclear attacks. 00:13:06.810 --> 00:13:10.430 Contrary to official U.S. statements, these airstrikes were directed at 00:13:10.430 --> 00:13:14.130 civilian populations,not military targets. 00:13:14.130 --> 00:13:17.610 When you add all the deaths outside of Europe, 00:13:17.610 --> 00:13:21.220 it brings us a grand total of 70 million for the war - give or take, 00:13:21.220 --> 00:13:25.220 depending on who's counting, and what civilian deaths get included. 00:13:26.782 --> 00:13:30.782 More people died in World War 2 than in any other war in history. 00:13:30.782 --> 00:13:34.782 For comparison, here are 20 or so of the very worst wars and atrocities 00:13:34.782 --> 00:13:38.782 we have on record. Some of these are more of atrocities than wars, 00:13:38.782 --> 00:13:42.782 but we've seen how that distinction can get blurry. 00:13:42.782 --> 00:13:46.782 Some of these spanned across centuries. World War 2 has the highest body count, 00:13:46.782 --> 00:13:50.782 and it all happened in just 6 years. 00:13:52.856 --> 00:13:55.946 The world's population has grown significantly 00:13:55.946 --> 00:13:58.936 since the earliest atrocities on this list. 00:13:58.936 --> 00:14:02.516 If we want to compare them in terms what percentage of the world died, 00:14:02.516 --> 00:14:04.906 we can adjust the chart like this. 00:14:04.906 --> 00:14:08.906 This rough approximation tells us that there may have been more devastating wars 00:14:08.906 --> 00:14:12.396 before WW2, proportionally speaking. 00:14:24.431 --> 00:14:28.431 When we turn to post-war conflicts, it's hard to say anything that isn't controversial. 00:14:29.932 --> 00:14:33.932 But the data shows something quite extraordinary has been happening. 00:14:36.969 --> 00:14:40.599 In 1989 John Gaddis coined the phrase the Long Peace, 00:14:40.599 --> 00:14:44.599 to identify the absence of conflict between the nuclear powers during the cold war. 00:14:45.290 --> 00:14:49.290 25 year later, the cold war is over, and the term still being used, 00:14:50.355 --> 00:14:54.355 although its meaning may have shifted. 00:14:55.150 --> 00:14:59.150 European counties have not fought each other except for this 10 day war in 1956 00:14:59.150 --> 00:15:03.150 when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. 00:15:03.215 --> 00:15:07.215 When we look at European wars before WW2 it looks like this - 00:15:07.215 --> 00:15:11.215 they tend to be more frequent as you go back, though smaller in scale. 00:15:11.235 --> 00:15:15.235 And, the largest 44 economies of the world have not battled each other since WWII 00:15:16.411 --> 00:15:20.411 Rich countries have fought poorer countries, like U.S vs Iraq, 00:15:21.418 --> 00:15:24.818 but rich countries have not fought other rich countries. 00:15:24.818 --> 00:15:27.948 Such a period of peace between the so-called great powers 00:15:27.948 --> 00:15:31.358 hasn't been seen since the Roman Empire. 00:15:31.358 --> 00:15:34.608 Too many, peace is too strong of a word. 00:15:34.608 --> 00:15:37.858 Wars have occurred since World War 2, and they can be grouped 00:15:37.858 --> 00:15:40.258 into these 4 categories. 00:15:40.258 --> 00:15:43.298 We don't see colonial wars any more. 00:15:43.298 --> 00:15:46.288 We've already noted that interstate wars between rich counties have not occurred 00:15:46.288 --> 00:15:49.818 at all, and here we see wars involving smaller economies have tapered off. 00:15:49.818 --> 00:15:53.818 That leaves civil wars, of 2 types, with and without foreign intervention. 00:15:55.024 --> 00:15:58.804 This is what these battle deaths look like along side of WW2. 00:15:58.804 --> 00:16:02.804 More people died fighting in World War II than in all the wars since. 00:16:03.369 --> 00:16:06.789 And again we can't forget about world population 00:16:06.789 --> 00:16:09.779 which has almost tripled since World War II. 00:16:09.779 --> 00:16:13.269 If we scale these number to show deaths in proportion to world population - 00:16:13.269 --> 00:16:16.769 showing the likelihood that a person on earth dies in battle, 00:16:16.769 --> 00:16:20.149 the downward trend becomes even more pronounced. 00:16:20.149 --> 00:16:23.719 This isn't to infer anything about why this trend is occurring - 00:16:23.719 --> 00:16:26.809 that's a discussion for another day. 00:16:26.809 --> 00:16:30.289 You can now interact with this chart to explore what conflicts are behind the totals. 00:16:30.289 --> 00:16:34.019 Bear in mind that we're just looking at battle deaths here, not civilian deaths. 00:16:34.019 --> 00:16:36.449 But those too are in decline. 00:16:36.449 --> 00:16:40.449 Peace is a difficult thing to measure. It's a bit like counting the people 00:16:40.449 --> 00:16:44.109 who didn't die in wars that never happened. 00:16:44.109 --> 00:16:47.599 We give such importance to the word peace, 00:16:47.599 --> 00:16:50.979 but we don't tend to notice it when it occurs. 00:16:50.979 --> 00:16:54.979 Or report on it. Sometimes it takes reminding ourselves of how terrible war 00:16:54.979 --> 00:16:58.799 once was to see the peace that has been growing around us. 00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:02.799 Of course this trend may not continue. 00:17:02.799 --> 00:17:06.799 And it's not clear how looking at these charts can help us 00:17:06.799 --> 00:17:10.799 make the right decisions to ensure that it does. 00:17:11.779 --> 00:17:14.949 But the longer the long peace grows, 00:17:14.949 --> 00:17:17.969 the more significant it becomes. 00:17:17.969 --> 00:17:21.079 So if watching the news doesn't make us feel hopeful 00:17:21.079 --> 00:17:24.379 about where things are heading, 00:17:24.379 --> 00:17:28.379 watching the numbers might. 00:17:53.123 --> 00:17:57.123 If you would like to support this project, and encourage new episodes, 00:17:57.123 --> 00:18:00.643 please follow us using one of the options below, 00:18:00.643 --> 00:18:04.303 and consider paying the suggested ticket price for today's show. 00:18:04.303 --> 00:18:08.303 Thank you very much.