How Many People Died in World War II

82,400,000

About this number

Dates: July 7, 1937 - August 15, 1945

Duration: 2,961 days

Location: World

Nearly two decades after the end of World War I, lingering tensions erupted into World War II. A legitimately global conflict, WWII merged revived hostilities in Europe with an existing conflict in East Asia and expanded to involve more countries than any war before or since. World War II also resulted in the highest death toll of any war in history, due to its unprecedented scale, advances in military technology (including nuclear weapons), and the systematic genocide of more than 6 million Jews.

At a Glance

82,400,000

Total Deaths

36,279,117

Total Injuries

2,961 days

Duration

July 1937 - Aug. 1945

Date(s)

War

Type of Event

World

Location

Facts

World War I was originally known as “The Great War” or simply “The World War”, a testament to its unprecentended scale and massive death toll. Yet, World War II eclipsed its predecessor in nearly every measurable metric. WWII encompassed more countries, involved more armies and navies, spread across larger portion of the world’s land and sea, and resulted in more material damage—and far more deaths—than any war before or since.

Omaha Beach Landing Craft — Into the Jaws of Death: Troops from the U.S. 1st Infantry Division landing in Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944), photographed by Robert F. Sargent

HistoryDefined

Overall Death Toll:

24,490,226 Military Deaths
57,990,774 Civilian Deaths
WWII Deaths as % of Population: 3.72%
Modern Equivalent to 3.72% Deaths (May 2026 pop.): 308,722,012

Allied Deaths by Category:

48,027,594 Total
16,671,357 Military
31,322,244 Civilian
83,268,166 Total Casualties (Killed, Wounded, Missing, POW)

Axis Deaths by Category:

8,874,118 Total
7,810,440 Military
1,122,008 Civilian
29,116,280 Total Casualties (Killed, Wounded, Missing, POW)

Gates to Auschwitz II Birkenau — Auschwitz II-Birkenau was the Nazis' most prominent concentration and extermination camp. Approximately 1,000,000 Jews and thousands of other people were murdered there during the Holocaust.

HistoryDefined

Holocaust Deaths by Category:

5,750,000 Jews (Total)
2,700,000 Jews in Death Camps*
2,000,000 Jews in Einsatzgruppen Killings and Other Massacres
800,000 Jews in Ghettos and Concentration Camps*
250,000 Jews from Other Causes
196,000 Roma and Sinti
94,675 Disabled
15,000 Homosexuals
10,547,000 Slavs
228,000 Other Germans
5,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses
2,000 Blacks in Germany

Death camps (“Vernichtungslager” or “Todeslager” in German) and concentration camps (“Konzentrationslager”) were two different things. Concentration/work camps, such as Oranienburg and Dachau, were designed to house large numbers of prisoners who essentially served as slaves. The main causes of death in concentration camps were disease, exhaustion, or starvation.

By comparison, death camps—Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno (Kulmhof), Sobibor, Belzec, Treblinka, and (some sources) Majdanek—were smaller, exclusively located in German-occupied Poland, and built to house only a fraction of the arriving prisoners, as most were killed immediately upon arrival. Most prisoners in death camps were killed in gas chambers.

Deaths by Theater

13,523,250 Eastern Front
2,929,651 China
804,526 Pacific
776,175 Western Front
118,055 North Africa
307,520 Mediterranean
250,669 South East Asia
172,058 Balkans and Greece
154,217 Other

Figures have been extrapolated from per-year data.

Mushroom Cloud over Hiroshima — Mushroom cloud created by the detonation of the nuclear bomb 'Little Boy' over Hiroshima, Japan.

HistoryDefined

Timeline

Total Deaths

Date ↑	Deaths	Note
1937	692,604	Casualties are from the Sino-Japanese War, which evolved into the Pacific Theatre of WWII.
1938	249,126	Casualties are from the Sino-Japanese War, which evolved into the Pacific Theatre of WWII.
1939	362,348	Casualties from the Sino-Japanese War are supplemented by the first deaths in the West, due largely to Hitler's invasion of Poland.
1940	957,158	War spreads across Europe, with deaths mounting in France, Denmark, Norway, Britain, Greece, Italy, the Balkans, Northern and Eastern Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean.
1941	3,851,551	Russia enters the fray, resulting in the death of nearly 3 million Russian soldiers in a year. Also, the Pacific Theatre begins to expand.
1942	4,098,728	Combat in the Atlantic sees its deadliest year, the Eastern Front remains a Russia vs Germany meat grinder, and the Pacific Theatre swells to encompass additional countries such as the Philippines.
1943	3,123,082	Military deaths decrease year-on-year for the first time in the war.
1944	3,580,419	Losses mount for Germany along the Eastern Front, and casualties expand in the Pacific Theatre.
1945	2,121,939	Casualties in Europe diminish, though the war in the Pacific takes longer to subside.

Data shown include military and merchant deaths only and exclude civilian deaths. Some casualty figures span across years, so have been spread as evenly as possible. Data include deaths from disease and starvation (to military personnel), as well as DOW (died of wounds) deaths. Yearly totals have been calculated by compiling data from multiple sources. Combined yearly totals fall short of current estimates of total military deaths, which is to be expected due to incomplete reporting.

Note: Data shown in line graph include military and merchant deaths only and exclude civilians deaths. Some casualty figures span across years, so have been spread as evenly as possible. Data include deaths from disease and starvation (to military personnel), as well as DOW (died of wounds) deaths. Yearly totals have been calculated by compiling data from multiple sources. Combined yearly totals fall short of current estimates of total military deaths, which is to be expected due to incomplete reporting (particularly precise day-of-death dates) from some sources.

Many people in Europe and the Americas view Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 01, 1939 as the start of World War II. However, most Asians point to the second Sino-Japanese War, which began on July 7, 1937 and merged with the later combat in Europe, as the true start date. Finally, a small subset of historians point out that the geopolitical conditions that led to World War II were a direct reuslt of World War I, so it could be argued that the second World War technically began “simmering” the day the first World War ended.

233.9K deaths

1939

Early Axis Victories in Europe

Nazi Germany's early war campaigns in Poland, Scandinavia, France, the Low Countries, Yugoslavia and Greece resulted in quick victories with relatively few military deaths. These victories grew Nazi territorial ambitions and fuelled a perception of an unstoppable German army, as well as putting millions of Jewish people, Romani and other persecuted minorities under Nazi administration.

1.1M deaths

June 1941

Operation Barbarossa

(Deaths are minimum estimate.) Operation Barbarossa was the full scale Axis invasion of the Soviet Union across the entire 1,800 mile land border between territory controlled by the two countries. Involving nearly 11 million people, it was the largest military offensive in recorded history and would expand the scale of the war to a previously unseen scale.

117.4K deaths

1941

Japanese Expansion in the Pacific

(Deaths are minimum estimate and exclude the China campaign.) The growing stalemate in China prompted Japan to begin its expansion in the Pacific, aiming to expand its 'sphere of influence' across South East Asia, Indonesia and Oceania. This string of offensives culminated in the declaration of war on the United Kingdom, United States and their allies, and was only slowed by major allied victories at Guadalcanal and Midway.

3M deaths

1942

Battle of Stalingrad

(Deaths are minimum estimate.) The Battle of Stalingrad is widely attributed by historians as the most lethal battle in human history. Across 1942-1943, the USSR and Germany ground each other to dust over the ruins of the city on the Volga, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the German 6th Army and turning the tide of the war on the Eastern Front.

247.5K deaths

1943

West European Landings

(Deaths are minimum estimate.) The Allied landings in Italy and Normandy re-opened the Western Front of the Second World War, aiming to drive German forces from countries occupied in 1940. The opening of a second front was crucial in splitting German forces and would be instrumental in shaping the political and diplomatic landscape of post-war Europe.

181.1K deaths

Apr. 1945

Fall of Berlin

The Fall of Berlin was the final battle in Europe during the Second World War. Soviet forces encircled the city and, in evocative scenes, raised the flag of the USSR over the Reichstag. During the campaign, Adolf Hitler and many of the Nazi leadership took their own lives.

425K deaths

1942

Strategic Bombing of Japan

Beginning in 1942, the Allied campaign of aerial bombardment of the Japanese home islands gradually became an increasingly central part of war strategy that sought to induce Japanese surrender. These campaigns grew in scale as Allied forces crept closer to Tokyo, culiminating in huge indiscriminate incendiary bombings and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Detailed as it is, the above timeline could actually have included several more defining moments of World War II:

The launch of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which began on July 7, 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident near Beijing and led to Japan invading China. Many historians consider this the true start of World War II.
Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 01, 1939. This event was the first of a quick sequence of German invasions into neighboring countries and launched Europe into war.
The Battle of Kursk, which took place July-August of 1943 and which historians consider the largest battle in the history of warfare. One prominent estimate states German forces totaled approximately 777,000 men (438,000 of whom were combat soldiers), 2,451 tanks and assault guns, and 7,417 guns and mortars. The Russians countered with 1,910,000 men (1,426,000 combat soldiers), 4,869 tanks, and 259 SPGs (self-propelled guns).
The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The bombing was the deadliest attack by a foreign country on US soil until the 9/11 attacks on September 11, 2001, and the United States declared war on Japan the next day.

Map

Combat in World War II spread nearly all the way around the globe. The heaviest casualties occurred in Europe, where the Axis fought the Allies on multiple fronts and even neutral countries often had to contend with occupying forces, food scarcity, and other wartime complications. Europe’s conflict also spilled over into Northern Africa, West Asia, and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, an existing war between China and Japan expanded into WWII’s vast Pacific Theater, which encompassed much of East Asia, the South Pacific, and Oceania, including Australia. Naval conflicts sprawled across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Finally, two battles occurred within the United States: Japan’s now-infamous bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the Battle of Attu, in which Japanese and American forces clashed on Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

Note: The WWII-era countries Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR have dissolved into smaller constituent countries since WWII, and data determining which WWII soldiers were from which modern-day countries is unavailable. For the purposes of the map below, all USSR deaths have been assigned to Russia and data for Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia have been divided among their descendant countries based upon each country’s current population. Finally, map does not include 6,877 deaths attributed to the collective label “British Colonies”.

Death Totals by Country

Deaths

50K

250K

500K

7.5M

15M

30M

Page: Countries Involved in World War Two (WWII)

Categorization of Deaths (How)

Cause of Death

Note: Totals shown above exclude civilian deaths and pertain to military deaths in the United States, China, and USSR only, as totals from many countries are unavailable due to incomplete and/or inconsistent reporting in the historical record (Germany), state secrecy (Great Britain), or other factors. Some data categories have been estimated. For example, data for USSR deaths combined non-battle and disease deaths into a single value, which has been split 50/50 between the two categories. If shown, totals from additional countries or which included civilian deaths would yield different proportions and/or causes of death.

Russian deaths greatly outnumbered those of China and the United States. In addition to more than 5 million battlefield deaths, another 3.3 million Russians died as POWs and nearly 4.5 million more were counted as missing and presumed killed. In addition to the deaths shown, more than 25 million soldiers from the US, USSR, and China received non-fatal wounds.

Categorization of Deaths (Who)

Who Died

Group	Deaths ↓
Allied Civilians	31,322,244
Allied Military	16,671,357
Axis Military	7,810,440
Axis Civilians	1,122,008

World War II resulted in a greater loss of life than any other war in history, and deaths were not confined to military personnel. In fact, twice as many civilians died as did soldiers. The Allies ultimately emerged victorious, but at great cost. When both military and civilian deaths are counted, Allied countries lost roughly five times as many people as the Axis. Germany lost 5.4 million lives, but China lost more than twice as many (approximately 12 million) and the USSR lost almost exactly five times as many (more than 27 million).

Military

Although the Allied forces lost two lives for every Axis soldier they killed, the Allied armies also had roughly twice the manpower of the Axis armies, which enabled the Allies to continue fighting amid the high casualties.

Civilian

WWII's wide-ranging combat caught millions of civilians in the middle. Causes of civilian death included genocide, massacres and executions, military actions such as bombings and ground assaults, starvation, and disease.

How Does This Compare

Similar Events Data

Rank	Event	Deaths ↓	Dates	Category
1	World War II	82,400,000	1937-1945	War
2	Mongol Invasions	40,000,000	1206-1368	War
3	Spanish Influenza	39,000,000	1918	Disease
4	COVID-19 Pandemic	35,200,000	2020-2023	Disease
5	First World War	22,000,000	1914-1918	War
6	French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars	7,000,000	1789-1815	War
7	American Civil War	698,000	1861-1865	War

World War II holds the dubious distinction of being the deadliest war in history in terms of the total number of deaths, which the best available estimates place at 84-82 million people. Wars such as the American Civil War or China’s Taiping Rebellion may have resulted in higher human losses in certain countries, but World War II killed more people overall than any war before or since.

World War II is also notable for the way in which many of its deaths occurred. The Nazis’ systematic genocide of the Jewish people (and other non-Jewish “untermenschen” such as the Romani and Slavic people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, LGBTQ individuals, and Russian POWs) killed at least 8 million people, most of whom were either gassed or starved before being dumped in mass graves.

Near the end of the war, the US used nuclear weapons on another country for the first—and to date, the only—time in history, detonating atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These two attacks killed approximately 240,000 people either immediately from the initial blast and firestorm or due to radiation sickness over the following 4 months.

Similar Events

35,200,000

0.43x smaller

COVID-19 Pandemic

One of the most sobering statistics about World War II is that as harrowing as modern pandemics such as COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu were, they killed only about 1/20th as many people as WWII.

22,000,000

0.27x smaller

First World War

World War I was the largest global conflict up until the advent of WWII.

Page: World War II Casualties by Country

Methodology

Data for this page have been compiled from a wide range of reliable, well-researched and widely accepted sources. However, due to imperfect reporting of deaths and injuries during the war and various additional factors, even the best available data are often incomplete and inconsistent with one another.

The data shown are presented with a focus upon preserving the integrity of the original source data. As such, any apparent shortcomings in the data or inconsistencies between data from one source and another have also been preserved.

Start and End Dates of World War II

The true start date of World War II is surprisingly debatable, with opinions determined largely by one’s geographical location.

In Europe and the Americas, it is widely held that WWII began with Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939. However, many historians, as well as most Asians, maintain that WWII actually began on July 7th, 1937, when soldiers from Japan and China engaged in what Westerners call the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. This three-day skirmish triggered the Second Sino-Japanese War, which expanded to become the Pacific Theater of WWII.

Most historians agree that the end date was August 15, 1945, also known as V-J (Victory over Japan) day. Technically, however, Japan accepted terms of surrender the previous day, August 14, and the war didn’t officially end until September 2, 1945, the day Japan signed formal surrender documents.

Therefore, if counting from Marco-Polo to VJ Day, the war lasted 2961 days. If counting from Hitler’s invasion of Poland to VJ Day, the duration drops to 2175 days.

Total Death Toll

A wide range of estimated WWII deaths exists:

84,609,000 - Rummel
82,400,000 - Boris Sokolov
75,000,000 - Commonwealth War Graves Commission
71,000,000 - Zbigniew Brzezinski
60,000,000 - Anthony Beevor
60,000,000 - National WW2 Museum
65,600,000 - Necrometrics
50,000,000 - Urlanis
50,000,000 - Keegan

Most experts currently accept the higher estimates, such as those from Rummel and Sokolov. Lower estimates (50-60 million) usually date from before the archives of the USSR became more accessible around 1991. Estimates of civilian losses, particularly in China and the USSR, remain prone to uncertainty. Many scholars believe the USSR data is now much more accurate, but significant uncertainty still exists regarding the number of Chinese civilians who died.

Total Wounded

Current estimates are almost certainly too low. Killed:wounded ratios normally fall between 1:2 and 1:5, and most academics place World War II near the 1:2 end of the range, which would result in approximately 170,000,000 wounded, a number far lower than the estimate shown. However, records regarding the true number of wounded are scarce. The estimate shown is compiled from the best available actual data. Note too that this estimate includes only military wounded, as records of non-fatal civilian injuries are largely unavailable.

The Jewish Holocaust and Wider Genocide

While the Jewish genocide is generally referred to as the Holocaust, the historical record indicates the Nazis included several additional groups in their genocidal activities, including the Romani people, Slavs, the disabled, LGBTQ+ individuals, blacks, and followers of the Christian denomination Jehova’s Witnesses.

The genocide of the Romani people during WWII is sometimes included in the Holocaust, but is gradually being recognized as a related-but-separate genocide. Ian Hancock is the main proponent of the use of the term “porajmos”, which is a Kalderashi Roma term for “destruction”, similar to “shoa” in Hebrew. However, in some Roma dialects, this word is considered vugar or unclean. Other terms include “pharrajimos” (Hungarian Roma), “samudaripen” (Yugoslav Romani), “Kali Traš” (Ruska Roma) and “Berša Bibahtale”. In English, the term “Roma Genocide” is also used.

Sources

Books

Alfred Vagts, Battle and Other Combatant Casualties in the Second World War, Journal of Politics, 7.3 (1945) 256-280
Anton Weiss-Wendt (ed.), A People Destroyed: New Research on the Roma Genocide, 1941-1945 (University of Nebraska Press, 2025)
Bastian Matteo Scianna, The Italian War on the Eastern Front, 1941–1943: Operations, Myths and Memories (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
Bogoljub Kočović, Žrtve Drugog svetskog rata u Jugoslaviji [World War II Victims in Yugoslavia], (Nase Delo, 1985) [in Serbian].
Boris Urlanis, Wars and Population (Progress Publishers, 1971)
Charles Rollings, Prisoner Of War: Voices from Behind the Wire in the Second World War (Ebury Press, 2008)
Chi Jingde, Historical Account of China's Investigation of Losses in the War of Resistance Against Japan (National History Museum, 1987) [In Chinese]
Clarence Lusane, Hitler's Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of European Blacks, Africans and African Americans During the Nazi Era (Routledge, 2003)
Douglas Porch, Defeat and Division France at War, 1939–1942 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Erlikman, Vadim, Poteri Narodonaseleniia v XX Veke: Spravochnik (Russkaia Panorama, 2004)
Franciszek Proch, Poland's Way of the Cross 1939-1945 (Polish Association of Former Political Prisoners of Nazi and Soviet Concentration Camps, 1992)
Giorgio Rochat, Le Guerre Italiane 1935-1943: Dall’impero d’Etiopia alla Disfatta (Et Storia, 2025)
John Costello, Terry Hughes, Battle fo the Atlantic (Harper Collins, 1977)
John Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (Pantheon Books, 1987)
John Ellis, The World War II Data Book: The Essential Facts and Figures for all the Combatants (Aurum Press, 1993)
John Keegan, The Second World War (Pimlico, 1997)
Mark Axworthy, Cornel Scafes, Cristian Craciunoiu, Third Axis Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941-1945 (Weidenfeld Military, 1995)
Michael Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures 1500-1999 (McFarland & Co Inc, 2002)
Petros Antaios et al. (eds.), The Black Book of the Occupation (Athen, 2006) [In Greek and German]
Leonard Wainstein, Some Allied and German Casualty Rates in the European Theater of Operations (Institute for Defense Analyses, 1973)
Richard Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (Penguin, 2001)
Richard Overy (ed.), The Oxford History of World War II (Oxford University Press, 2023)
Rudiger Overmans, Deutsche Militärische Verluste im zweitem Weltkrieg (Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 1999)
Sarah Paine, The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949 (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
Simon Webb, Secret Casualties of World War Two : Uncovering the Civilian Deaths from Friendly Fire (Pen & Sword History, 2020)
Edwin Hoyt, 199 Days: The Battle for Stalingrad (TOR, 1999)
Tamas Stark, Karl Molin, Hungary's Human Losses in World War II (Centre for Multiethnic Research Uppsala University, 1995)
Werner Gruhl, Imperial Japan's World War Two: 1931-1945 (Transaction Publishers, 2006)
Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota, Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami, (Institute of National Remembrance, 2009)
Wolgang Lutz, Sergei Scherbov, Andrei Volkov (eds.), Demographic Trends and Patterns in the Soviet Union Before 1991 (Routledge, 2002)

Articles

Boris Sokolov, 'How to Calculate Human Losses During the Second World War', The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 22.3 (2009) pp.437-458
Dana Glei, Silvia Bruzzone, Graziella Caselli, 'Effects of War Losses on Mortality Estimates for Italy: A First Attempt', Demographic Research, 13.15 (2005) 363-388
Michael Ellman and S. Maksudov, 'Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War', Europe-Asia Studies, 46.4 (1994) 671-680
Vladimir Žerjavić, 'Demografski i ratni gubici Hrvatske u Drugom svjetskom ratu i poraću' [Demographic and War Losses of Croatia in the World War Two and in the Postwar Period], Journal of Contemporary History, 27.3 (1995) 543–559.
Haipeng Zhang, 'The two starting points of World War II: a reexamination from a global perspective', Journal of Modern Chinese History, 10.1 (2016) 52-66

How Many People Died in World War II

At a Glance