1 00:00:04,140 --> 00:00:07,960 The average life span of an American is eighty years, 2 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. 3 00:00:15,493 --> 00:00:19,253 A soldier who saw battle would have to be in his late eighties, at least, today. 4 00:00:20,589 --> 00:00:25,229 Generals, political leaders - the decision makers of the war: few are still with us. 5 00:00:27,353 --> 00:00:32,463 Over the past few decades, we've seen authors and filmmakers. 6 00:00:32,463 --> 00:00:36,668 rush to capture stories from survivors, before this connection of memory is lost. 7 00:00:43,860 --> 00:00:48,750 This project is not about individual war stories, and it's not about survivors. 8 00:00:49,574 --> 00:00:52,954 We are going to tally up the tens of millions of people 9 00:00:52,954 --> 00:00:55,744 whose lives were cut short by the war, 10 00:00:55,744 --> 00:00:59,044 and see how these numbers stack up to other wars in history, 11 00:00:59,044 --> 00:01:02,264 including trends in recent conflicts. 12 00:01:07,404 --> 00:01:11,094 We'll be counting soldiers and civilians separately. 13 00:01:11,366 --> 00:01:14,756 Each of these figures will represent 1000 people who died. 14 00:01:15,956 --> 00:01:19,536 Civilians were of all walks of life. 15 00:01:20,383 --> 00:01:24,793 Military deaths were almost entirely men - the average age was about 23. 16 00:01:27,631 --> 00:01:30,811 In most battles, for every 1000 soldiers killed, 17 00:01:30,811 --> 00:01:34,031 there were more than 1000 who were injured. 18 00:01:34,031 --> 00:01:37,498 The word casualty can be confusing because in military speak, it often includes both 19 00:01:37,498 --> 00:01:40,798 deaths and injuries, and any thing that takes a soldier out of service. 20 00:01:40,821 --> 00:01:45,221 Here we are just counting the deaths, and we'll begin with American soldiers. 21 00:01:55,978 --> 00:01:59,208 Over 400,000 died. 22 00:02:01,344 --> 00:02:05,344 Most of the deaths occurred in the European theater - fighting the Nazis - 23 00:02:06,073 --> 00:02:10,073 and about a quarter were in the Pacific, fighting the Japanese. 24 00:02:11,097 --> 00:02:14,207 When you put them on the timeline, you see that the casualties were heaviest 25 00:02:14,207 --> 00:02:16,957 at the end of the war. 26 00:02:16,957 --> 00:02:21,447 The war began on September 1, 1939, but the U.S. wasn't willing 27 00:02:21,447 --> 00:02:25,447 to join the fight until Pearl Harbor 2 years in. 28 00:02:26,305 --> 00:02:30,305 The deaths increased drastically on D-Day, when the allies invaded Normandy. 29 00:02:31,271 --> 00:02:35,271 One of the most tragic moments of the war was on D-Day at Omaha Beach, 30 00:02:35,271 --> 00:02:38,511 where 2,500 Americans fell. 31 00:02:40,386 --> 00:02:43,386 About the same number of U.S. soldiers died 32 00:02:43,386 --> 00:02:46,196 on this single beach landing as the entire 13 years 33 00:02:46,196 --> 00:02:49,056 of the recent US war in Afghanistan. 34 00:02:53,054 --> 00:02:57,054 The bloodiest battle in the Pacific was Okinawa, which lasted 82 days, 35 00:02:57,054 --> 00:03:01,054 during which 12,500 Americans died. 36 00:03:03,503 --> 00:03:07,503 About 5,000 of these deaths were at sea from Kamikaze attacks. 37 00:03:11,613 --> 00:03:15,613 Now let's look at some other countries, starting with Europe. 38 00:03:19,161 --> 00:03:23,161 Germany started World War 2 when it invaded Poland. 39 00:03:23,340 --> 00:03:27,340 Poland ultimately lost over 200,000 soldiers in the war, 40 00:03:27,726 --> 00:03:30,626 most died after the invasion 41 00:03:30,626 --> 00:03:34,626 while the country was occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union. 42 00:03:36,649 --> 00:03:40,649 Germany meanwhile lost just 16,000 in the invasion of Poland. 43 00:03:41,594 --> 00:03:44,944 The Nazis went on invade and conquer other countries including 44 00:03:44,944 --> 00:03:48,944 Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Greece, and Yugoslavia. 45 00:03:49,624 --> 00:03:53,624 France surrendered, but after losing 92,000 soldiers in the Battle of France. 46 00:03:54,024 --> 00:03:57,004 Over 200,000 ultimately fell, 47 00:03:57,004 --> 00:04:01,004 which includes deaths in POW camps, French colonies, and other fighting. 48 00:04:01,844 --> 00:04:05,284 Yugoslavia suffered almost half a million military deaths. 49 00:04:05,284 --> 00:04:08,384 The initial invasion brought relatively few casualties on both sides, 50 00:04:08,384 --> 00:04:11,064 but the deaths mounted under Nazi occupation 51 00:04:11,064 --> 00:04:15,064 due to gorilla fighting, civil conflict, and mass executions. 52 00:04:17,959 --> 00:04:21,959 The Nazi invasions were swift with relatively few German losses. 53 00:04:21,959 --> 00:04:25,960 Even the Nazi commanders expressed surprise at their success. 54 00:04:26,808 --> 00:04:30,048 And then we have United Kingdom and the United States, 55 00:04:30,048 --> 00:04:33,718 who were not invaded, but took the fight to the Germans. 56 00:04:33,910 --> 00:04:36,090 Britain lost about the same number of soldiers as the US, 57 00:04:36,090 --> 00:04:38,540 which includes the British colonies. 58 00:04:38,540 --> 00:04:41,540 Germany lost about half a million soldiers fighting the U.S. and Britain 59 00:04:41,540 --> 00:04:45,540 in what known as the Western front, which took place in France and Belgium. 60 00:04:51,843 --> 00:04:55,523 But most German soldiers died in the Eastern Front 61 00:04:55,523 --> 00:04:59,153 Germany's unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union. 62 00:04:59,153 --> 00:05:02,653 The numbers are staggering. 63 00:05:04,129 --> 00:05:07,109 The most famous battle of the Eastern Front, and perhaps THE turning point 64 00:05:07,109 --> 00:05:09,759 of the European war was Stalingrad. 65 00:05:09,759 --> 00:05:12,839 The German 6th Army successfully took Stalingrad, but then got surrounded 66 00:05:12,839 --> 00:05:16,039 by the Soviets and cut off from food and ammunition. 67 00:05:16,049 --> 00:05:19,639 Half a million German soldiers would ultimately die in Stalingrad. 68 00:05:20,189 --> 00:05:24,189 Another 100,000 were taken prisoner, of which 6,000 would ever return. 69 00:05:26,403 --> 00:05:30,403 POWs had a low survival rate throughout WW2, and it was particular grim in East. 70 00:05:33,268 --> 00:05:37,268 When you include these POWs, roughly the same number of Germans died in 71 00:05:37,268 --> 00:05:41,268 Stalingrad as the all the Western front fighting France, the UK, and the US. 72 00:05:42,391 --> 00:05:45,481 Though Stalingrad was a victory for the Soviets, 73 00:05:45,481 --> 00:05:49,481 they suffered more losses than Germany. 74 00:05:54,867 --> 00:05:58,867 The Soviet Union would eventually defeat the once unstoppable German army, 75 00:05:58,867 --> 00:06:02,647 killing 2.3 million German soldiers. 76 00:06:05,062 --> 00:06:09,062 But winning the war came at a cost. 77 00:06:47,528 --> 00:06:53,224 8.7 million is the official tally by the Russian military, a hotly disputed number. 78 00:06:53,224 --> 00:06:56,915 Some studies have calculated as many as 14 million dead. 79 00:06:59,202 --> 00:07:02,706 To complete the count of European military deaths, 80 00:07:02,706 --> 00:07:06,546 we need to add German deaths from other fronts, including the North and Africa, 81 00:07:06,546 --> 00:07:09,576 as well as deaths from the other axis powers allied with Nazis - 82 00:07:09,586 --> 00:07:12,629 Hungary, Romania, and Italy. 83 00:07:14,838 --> 00:07:18,008 When you put these European military deaths on the timeline, 84 00:07:18,008 --> 00:07:21,141 it looks something like this. 85 00:07:21,141 --> 00:07:24,191 You can now interact with the chart to learn more. 86 00:07:24,191 --> 00:07:27,441 Pause the narration if you would like more time. 87 00:07:32,617 --> 00:07:36,617 Now we'll switch over to civilian deaths in Europe. 88 00:07:44,327 --> 00:07:48,327 6 Million Jewish people were killed in the holocaust. 89 00:07:50,652 --> 00:07:54,652 If you separate this by country you see about half, 2.7 million, were polish. 90 00:07:55,700 --> 00:07:59,700 700,000 were Soviets, Followed by Hungary and 17 other countries. 91 00:08:06,658 --> 00:08:09,638 Broken down another way, about half of the 6 million 92 00:08:09,638 --> 00:08:13,188 were killed in the concentration camps. 93 00:08:13,188 --> 00:08:17,188 Over a million died in Auschwitz. Most were killed in the gas chambers. 94 00:08:17,214 --> 00:08:21,214 Others died from starvation, exhaustion, disease, and other forms of execution. 95 00:08:25,123 --> 00:08:29,123 The second most deadly camp was Treblinka, which was exclusively an extermination camp, 96 00:08:29,123 --> 00:08:32,342 set up to look like a train station. 97 00:08:33,683 --> 00:08:37,683 Mobile killing groups killed 1.4 million Jews. 98 00:08:41,096 --> 00:08:45,096 Like with the gas chambers, men were killed first to reduce the risk of revolt. 99 00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:09,960 The Holocaust also included non-Jewish deaths. 100 00:09:09,992 --> 00:09:13,992 Between 130,000 to 500,000 Roma, then called “Gypsies,” were killed. 101 00:09:13,992 --> 00:09:17,562 The numbers are disputed. 102 00:09:17,562 --> 00:09:20,902 About a quarter million people with disabilities were killed. 103 00:09:20,902 --> 00:09:24,152 Homosexuals, Catholics, and other groups were also exterminated, 104 00:09:24,152 --> 00:09:26,822 but their numbers were relatively small. 105 00:09:26,822 --> 00:09:30,032 Some historians say that other civilian deaths should go under the label Holocaust. 106 00:09:30,032 --> 00:09:34,032 Another 2 million non-Jewish Poles were killed under German occupation, 107 00:09:34,032 --> 00:09:38,032 some of which were sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. 108 00:09:38,032 --> 00:09:42,032 When you combine civilian and military deaths, over 16% the of total 109 00:09:42,032 --> 00:09:46,032 Polish population died in World War 2, the highest percentage of any country. 110 00:09:46,835 --> 00:09:50,835 But not the highest in total death count. Soviet Union again tops that list, 111 00:09:50,835 --> 00:09:54,385 losing at least as many civilians as it did soldiers. 112 00:09:54,385 --> 00:09:57,645 Somewhere between 10 and 20 million. 113 00:09:58,184 --> 00:10:01,364 A particularly dark event for the Soviet Union was the Siege of Leningrad, 114 00:10:01,364 --> 00:10:03,524 now Saint Petersburg. 115 00:10:03,524 --> 00:10:06,844 German forces surrounded Leningrad before civilians could be evacuated. 116 00:10:06,844 --> 00:10:10,844 Supplies, including food, were cut off for 2 and a half years. 117 00:10:12,700 --> 00:10:17,410 1.5 million people died as a result, mostly from starvation, mostly civilians. 118 00:10:21,545 --> 00:10:25,545 Stalin's cruelty towards his own people is partly responsible for these numbers. 119 00:10:25,545 --> 00:10:28,515 He often didn't allow civilians to evacuate from cities, 120 00:10:28,515 --> 00:10:32,155 thinking it would cause the soldiers protecting them to fight harder. 121 00:10:32,155 --> 00:10:36,155 About a million soviets died in Stalin's own labor camps called the Gulag. 122 00:10:37,021 --> 00:10:40,461 Just about every country suffered civilian losses, 123 00:10:40,461 --> 00:10:43,791 especially countries who were invaded. 124 00:10:43,791 --> 00:10:47,431 While many died as a result of so-called collateral damage, 125 00:10:47,431 --> 00:10:50,261 the biggest numbers occurred when it was no accident. 126 00:10:50,261 --> 00:10:53,801 Civilian were exterminated, purposefully fired upon or bombed, 127 00:10:53,801 --> 00:10:57,571 used a human shields, or intentionally deprived of food. 128 00:10:57,571 --> 00:11:01,281 The intentional killing of civilians was done by most warring parties, 129 00:11:01,281 --> 00:11:04,631 including the United Kingdom and the United Stated. 130 00:11:04,631 --> 00:11:08,861 The United Kingdom was spared of a land invasion, but still lost 60,000 civilians 131 00:11:08,861 --> 00:11:12,741 largely from German air raids, or blitzes, often directed at civilian populations. 132 00:11:13,433 --> 00:11:17,433 The UK did the same to German cities, at a much greater magnitude, 133 00:11:17,433 --> 00:11:21,163 causing about 10x the number of deaths. 134 00:11:21,163 --> 00:11:25,163 But most German civilian deaths came from the ground at the late stage of the war. 135 00:11:25,163 --> 00:11:29,163 When the Nazi regime collapsed, Germans living in occupied regions 136 00:11:29,163 --> 00:11:32,833 had to desperately flee from the advancing Soviet Army. 137 00:11:32,833 --> 00:11:36,833 Rapes were widespread, and death estimates range from 600,000 to 3 million. 138 00:11:41,943 --> 00:11:45,943 Let's step back and see where we are with the totals. 139 00:11:46,837 --> 00:11:50,837 We just counted about 20 million civilian deaths in Europe. 140 00:11:50,837 --> 00:11:54,837 If you add this to the the European military deaths that we already covered, 141 00:11:54,837 --> 00:11:58,497 it brings us to over 40 million. 142 00:12:00,026 --> 00:12:03,036 Then we have the Asian Theater. 143 00:12:03,036 --> 00:12:06,356 Here we see that the vast majority of military deaths in Asia 144 00:12:06,356 --> 00:12:09,396 came from China and Japan. 145 00:12:09,396 --> 00:12:12,936 On the civilian side, about 6 million deaths from China, Indonesia, Korea, 146 00:12:12,936 --> 00:12:16,646 Indochina, and the Philippines can be attributed to Japanese war crimes, 147 00:12:16,646 --> 00:12:19,926 which are sometimes compared to the Nazi atrocities, 148 00:12:19,926 --> 00:12:23,246 due to the sheer scale of the cruelty. 149 00:12:23,246 --> 00:12:26,616 China had the second highest death count after the Soviet Union. 150 00:12:26,616 --> 00:12:30,066 And like the Soviets, the Chinese government demonstrated a stunning 151 00:12:30,066 --> 00:12:33,266 willingness to sacrifice its own people. 152 00:12:33,266 --> 00:12:36,416 Chinese Nationalists opened the dikes of the yellow river 153 00:12:36,416 --> 00:12:39,036 hoping the flood would halt the Japanese advance. 154 00:12:39,036 --> 00:12:42,176 Half a million Chinese civilians, or more, were killed. 155 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. 156 00:12:49,492 --> 00:12:53,492 But the invasion of China only cost Japan 200,000 soldiers. 157 00:12:53,492 --> 00:12:57,492 Most were killed fighting the US, China and other allies in the Pacific War. 158 00:12:59,890 --> 00:13:03,520 A significant portion of Japanese civilians deaths were caused by 159 00:13:03,520 --> 00:13:06,810 American firebombing and the two nuclear attacks. 160 00:13:06,810 --> 00:13:10,430 Contrary to official U.S. statements, these airstrikes were directed at 161 00:13:10,430 --> 00:13:14,130 civilian populations,not military targets. 162 00:13:14,130 --> 00:13:17,610 When you add all the deaths outside of Europe, 163 00:13:17,610 --> 00:13:21,220 it brings us a grand total of 70 million for the war - give or take, 164 00:13:21,220 --> 00:13:25,220 depending on who's counting, and what civilian deaths get included. 165 00:13:26,782 --> 00:13:30,782 More people died in World War 2 than in any other war in history. 166 00:13:30,782 --> 00:13:34,782 For comparison, here are 20 or so of the very worst wars and atrocities 167 00:13:34,782 --> 00:13:38,782 we have on record. Some of these are more of atrocities than wars, 168 00:13:38,782 --> 00:13:42,782 but we've seen how that distinction can get blurry. 169 00:13:42,782 --> 00:13:46,782 Some of these spanned across centuries. World War 2 has the highest body count, 170 00:13:46,782 --> 00:13:50,782 and it all happened in just 6 years. 171 00:13:52,856 --> 00:13:55,946 The world's population has grown significantly 172 00:13:55,946 --> 00:13:58,936 since the earliest atrocities on this list. 173 00:13:58,936 --> 00:14:02,516 If we want to compare them in terms what percentage of the world died, 174 00:14:02,516 --> 00:14:04,906 we can adjust the chart like this. 175 00:14:04,906 --> 00:14:08,906 This rough approximation tells us that there may have been more devastating wars 176 00:14:08,906 --> 00:14:12,396 before WW2, proportionally speaking. 177 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. 178 00:14:29,932 --> 00:14:33,932 But the data shows something quite extraordinary has been happening. 179 00:14:36,969 --> 00:14:40,599 In 1989 John Gaddis coined the phrase the Long Peace, 180 00:14:40,599 --> 00:14:44,599 to identify the absence of conflict between the nuclear powers during the cold war. 181 00:14:45,290 --> 00:14:49,290 25 year later, the cold war is over, and the term still being used, 182 00:14:50,355 --> 00:14:54,355 although its meaning may have shifted. 183 00:14:55,150 --> 00:14:59,150 European counties have not fought each other except for this 10 day war in 1956 184 00:14:59,150 --> 00:15:03,150 when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. 185 00:15:03,215 --> 00:15:07,215 When we look at European wars before WW2 it looks like this - 186 00:15:07,215 --> 00:15:11,215 they tend to be more frequent as you go back, though smaller in scale. 187 00:15:11,235 --> 00:15:15,235 And, the largest 44 economies of the world have not battled each other since WWII 188 00:15:16,411 --> 00:15:20,411 Rich countries have fought poorer countries, like U.S vs Iraq, 189 00:15:21,418 --> 00:15:24,818 but rich countries have not fought other rich countries. 190 00:15:24,818 --> 00:15:27,948 Such a period of peace between the so-called great powers 191 00:15:27,948 --> 00:15:31,358 hasn't been seen since the Roman Empire. 192 00:15:31,358 --> 00:15:34,608 Too many, peace is too strong of a word. 193 00:15:34,608 --> 00:15:37,858 Wars have occurred since World War 2, and they can be grouped 194 00:15:37,858 --> 00:15:40,258 into these 4 categories. 195 00:15:40,258 --> 00:15:43,298 We don't see colonial wars any more. 196 00:15:43,298 --> 00:15:46,288 We've already noted that interstate wars between rich counties have not occurred 197 00:15:46,288 --> 00:15:49,818 at all, and here we see wars involving smaller economies have tapered off. 198 00:15:49,818 --> 00:15:53,818 That leaves civil wars, of 2 types, with and without foreign intervention. 199 00:15:55,024 --> 00:15:58,804 This is what these battle deaths look like along side of WW2. 200 00:15:58,804 --> 00:16:02,804 More people died fighting in World War II than in all the wars since. 201 00:16:03,369 --> 00:16:06,789 And again we can't forget about world population 202 00:16:06,789 --> 00:16:09,779 which has almost tripled since World War II. 203 00:16:09,779 --> 00:16:13,269 If we scale these number to show deaths in proportion to world population - 204 00:16:13,269 --> 00:16:16,769 showing the likelihood that a person on earth dies in battle, 205 00:16:16,769 --> 00:16:20,149 the downward trend becomes even more pronounced. 206 00:16:20,149 --> 00:16:23,719 This isn't to infer anything about why this trend is occurring - 207 00:16:23,719 --> 00:16:26,809 that's a discussion for another day. 208 00:16:26,809 --> 00:16:30,289 You can now interact with this chart to explore what conflicts are behind the totals. 209 00:16:30,289 --> 00:16:34,019 Bear in mind that we're just looking at battle deaths here, not civilian deaths. 210 00:16:34,019 --> 00:16:36,449 But those too are in decline. 211 00:16:36,449 --> 00:16:40,449 Peace is a difficult thing to measure. It's a bit like counting the people 212 00:16:40,449 --> 00:16:44,109 who didn't die in wars that never happened. 213 00:16:44,109 --> 00:16:47,599 We give such importance to the word peace, 214 00:16:47,599 --> 00:16:50,979 but we don't tend to notice it when it occurs. 215 00:16:50,979 --> 00:16:54,979 Or report on it. Sometimes it takes reminding ourselves of how terrible war 216 00:16:54,979 --> 00:16:58,799 once was to see the peace that has been growing around us. 217 00:16:58,799 --> 00:17:02,799 Of course this trend may not continue. 218 00:17:02,799 --> 00:17:06,799 And it's not clear how looking at these charts can help us 219 00:17:06,799 --> 00:17:10,799 make the right decisions to ensure that it does. 220 00:17:11,779 --> 00:17:14,949 But the longer the long peace grows, 221 00:17:14,949 --> 00:17:17,969 the more significant it becomes. 222 00:17:17,969 --> 00:17:21,079 So if watching the news doesn't make us feel hopeful 223 00:17:21,079 --> 00:17:24,378 about where things are heading, 224 00:17:24,378 --> 00:17:28,378 watching the numbers might. 225 00:17:53,123 --> 00:17:57,123 If you would like to support this project, and encourage new episodes, 226 00:17:57,123 --> 00:18:00,643 please follow us using one of the options below, 227 00:18:00,643 --> 00:18:04,303 and consider paying the suggested ticket price for today's show. 228 00:18:04,303 --> 00:18:08,303 Thank you very much.