We can’t know for sure how many people died directly in military
conflict or as a result of war related tragedies caused by famine,
disease and deliberate extermination. But the total figure is thought
to be between 60-80 million.
By way of comparison, this is around 4 times more than the number that lost their lives in the First World War (estimates between 15 - 22 million).
Looking
at the first pie chart, it makes you wonder who the real winners
were.
It is very clear from this chart that the Soviets paid a very high price.
Calculating the human cost is a complicated issue. There is good coverage of this on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Is it fair to say that all this death & suffering was due to the political ambitions of a handful of men?
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