World War II
Advanced Democracies (AD), Most Plausible Estimate (MPE): 4.5
Nondemocracies (ND), Most Plausible Estimate (MPE) (without expulsion of Germans): 45
Matthew White provides an overview of the number of innocent people killed in WWII by perpetrator nation. It is a useful starting point for any discussion on these numbers. He considers 46 million civilian deaths plus 4.2 million prisoners of war to be the most reasonable estimates. He estimates that up to 4 million civilians were killed by Britain and the US. This number includes the victims of terror bombing in Germany and Japan and the Bengal Famine, for which British policies were largely responsible. White discusses additional estimates for World War II on his website “necrometrics”.
This suggests that roughly 4 million innocent people were killed by advanced democracies during World War II, while roughly 46 million innocent people were killed by nondemocracies. According to White the Nazi regime killed about 24 million and Imperial Japan about 11 million civilians during WWII. The United States Holocaust Memorial presents basic data in an article called “Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecutions” in their online Holocaust Encyclopedia, in which they estimate that the Nazis killed roughly 17-18 million civilians. They emphasize that this is a very conservative estimate. Rudolph Rummel concludes in his book: “Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder” that “the Nazis murdered from 15,003,000 to 31,595,000 people” – “they likely annihilated 20,946,000 human beings”.
According to the Wikipedia-article “World War II casualties” roughly 70 to 85 million people were killed in WWII, 50 to 56 million soldiers and civilians killed directly and 19 to 28 million killed by famine and disease. Civilian deaths totaled 50 to 55 million, plus 5 million prisoners of war.
The main table in the Wikipedia-article called “Total deaths by country” and the footnotes allow a closer look at some important details. They list about 23.8 to 33.6 million “civilian deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity”. These numbers include civilian deaths due to the expulsion of Germans after the war. Like White I will count these deaths as a separate crime. So I subtract the number of 0.5 to 2 million civilian deaths from the total, which leaves us with around 23.3 to 31.6 million.
According to the footnotes to the Wikipedia-article “World War II casualties”, the Wikipedia-article “Allied war crimes during World War II” and White’s website a total of 0.9 to 1.6 million German, Austrian and Japanese civilians and prisoners of war were killed by the US, Britain and French liberation forces, mostly through terror bombing with conventional and nuclear weapons. According to these articles and additional Wikipedia-articles on allied bombing roughly 0.14 to 0.15 million civilians were killed by advanced democracies in France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Thailand. According to the Wikipedia-article: “List of maritime disasters in World War II” roughly 0.02 to 0.03 million civilians and prisoners of war were killed by the Western allies in unrestricted maritime warfare. Plausible estimates for the number of civilians directly killed by advanced democracies range from 1.05 to 1.75 million victims.
Once we subtract the numbers for civilians which were directly killed by advanced democracies from the total numbers – using only the Wikipedia-article “World War II casualties” -, we arrive at roughly 21.6 million to 30.5 million “civilian deaths due to military activity and crimes against humanity” by nondemocracies. Plausible estimates for the number of civilians which were directly killed by nondemocracies range from roughly 22 to 29 million civilians.
19 to 28 million civilians died in war-related famines and diseases. Wikipedia allows us to take a closer look. How many of the 8 to 9 million Soviet citizens who died from famine and disease should be counted as victims of German or Soviet democide? Up to one million were killed in the Siege of Leningrad. For the rest it is very hard to say. A footnote in the Wikipedia-article explains: “6.6 to 7.1 million deaths due to famine and disease including 4.1 million in German occupied USSR and 2.5 – 3.2 million deaths in area not occupied by Germany.” Many, if not most of the famine victims in the areas not occupied by Germany probably died as an unintended consequence of war destruction. I will count 4.5 to 8.9 million as victims of democide.
Equally uncertain is how many of the 5 to 10 million Chinese victims of famine and disease were victims of democide. I will count 3 to 9.6 million.
According to the Wikipedia-article “Vietnamese famine of 1945” 0.4 to 2 million people perished in the Great Vietnamese Famine of 1944 to 1945. It identifies natural disasters, Japanese rule and – to a much lesser extent – French rule before and during the war as its root causes. Geoffrey Gunn’s article called “The Great Vietnamese Famine of 1944-45 Revisited” in the Asia-Pacific Journal of January 2011 explains why most of these famine deaths were due to Japanese policies, but some were the result of French policies and indiscriminate bombing by the US. Rijuta Vallishayee and Tessa Delgo have written a book on the famine called “Rice and Revolution”, in which they show that the policies of Japan and Vichy France were the immediate and most important causes of the famine. But they also discuss how decades of French colonialism before the war laid the groundwork for famine conditions. I blame Japan and Vichy France for 0.4 to 1.8 million famine victims. Democratic France before the war and the US were responsible for 0.1 to 0.2 million victims.
Estimates for the number of famine victims under Japanese rule in Indonesia range from 2.4 to 4 million. Shigeru Sato’s study “Indonesia 1939-1942: Prelude to the Japanese Occupation” shows that severe war disruptions, bad weather conditions and Dutch colonial rule before the Japanese occupation were major contributing factors to the high number of victims from famine, malnutrition and disease. The Dutch even destroyed rice mills as a scorched earth tactic. But Sato does assign much more blame to Japanese rule. I will count 1.6 to 3.7 million famine victims of Japanese rule and 0.03 to 0.1 million victims of Dutch rule.
The Wikipedia-article for the “Bengal famine of 1943” cites estimates which range from 2.1 to 3.8 million deaths in Bengal alone. Arup Maharatna’s book “The Demography of Indian Famines” contains an in-depth discussion of the best estimates for the number of victims in his chapter on the Bengal famine of 1943. He concludes: “It seems that the volume of excess mortality during the 1943-44 Bengal famine was much closer to 2 million deaths than to 3 million”. Plausible estimates range from 2.1 to 3 million deaths. Madhusree Bukerjee convincingly shows in his fact-filled book “Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II” that British colonial rule was responsible for these excess deaths.
36,000-50,000 people in Rwanda-Urundi died in a famine, for which the Belgian colonial authorities were partially responsible. The colony was ruled by the Belgian government in exile, which I ranked as an advanced democracy.
Wikipedia also claims 0.3 to 0.6 million famine victims in Greece, 16,000 in the Netherlands and up to 0.34 million in the Philippines. The occupying nondemocratic powers were at least partially responsible for these famines. An Allied blockade worsened the famine in Greece. But I ignore this fact here. The Axis occupiers were clearly the main culprits.
Neither the Wikipedia-article nor White discuss the famine in Iran during World War II. In his magisterial book: “Iran Under Allied Occupation in World War II: The Bridge to Victory & a Land of Famine” economic historian Mohammad Gholi Majd claims that 3 to 4 million Iranians died in a famine and typhus epidemic for which the Anglo-Soviet invasion and occupation of the country were mostly responsible. It seems that Gholi’s book is the only in-depth study of this largely forgotten crime. Therefore I hesitate to accept his claims. But I do believe that plausible estimates for the numbers of famine victims which were killed by British and Soviet forces range from 0.3 to 0.4 million each.
Using these numbers I estimate that 2.55 to 3.75 million people were killed in famine crimes by advanced democracies. 10.5 to 25.4 million were killed in famine crimes by nondemocracies. We need to add these numbers to the civilians killed directly.
3.6 to 5.5 million civilians were killed by democratic frontrunners during World War II. I consider 4.5 million to be the most reasonable estimate.
32.5 to 54.4 million civilians were killed by nondemocracies. I consider 45 million to be the most reasonable estimate.
Advanced democracies killed about 9 percent of innocent victims. According to my analysis around 10.5 percent of the world’s population lived in advanced democracies during WWII. So nondemocracies were probably slightly overrepresented in WWII-atrocities. But we cannot even be sure about that. Democratic pioneers may even have killed at a higher rate in relation to their population sizes than nondemocracies in WWII. But it is unlikely.
It is important to remember that the Nazis won the last free and fair elections before they established a dictatorship in Germany. Of course I have counted Hitler’s regime as a dictatorship. But his election victories are a warning that even the worst of the worst can rise in a democratic system.
Most historians are convinced that the brutal conditions of the Versailles Treaty were one of the main reasons and perhaps the number one reason for Hitler’s rise to power. Nevertheless, I do not assign any blame for the Nazi atrocities to Western powers in this analysis.
Edwin Black convincingly shows in his fact-filled book called “Nazi Nexus: America’s Corporate Connections to Hitler’s Holocaust” that IBM, General Motors, Ford and other US companies supported the Nazi regime, its war machine and the Holocaust with up-to-date military vehicles, arms, logistics, bureaucratic infrastructure and propaganda. His evidence strongly suggests that the Nazis would not have been able to murder as many people as they did without the highly significant partnerships with these corporations. Nevertheless, I do not assign any of the blame for the Nazi atrocities to Western companies in this analysis.
We should also remember that the US and Britain supported Stalin’s regime. Even if we accept the necessity of this alliance, it gives them some responsibility for Soviet atrocities during World War II. Even more so, because they intentionally and successfully let the Red Army do most of the fighting. If the US and Britain would have had to bring the greatest sacrifice in the war, they surely would have killed more innocent civilians in the war. Matthew White writes in his book “Atrocities”: “The Soviets beat the Germans fair and square. They produced 96 percent of their own munitions and 66 percent of their own vehicles, while inflicting 80 percent of all German fatalities in the war. They had already turned the tide at Stalingrad at a time when Britain was stalemated and America was still mobilizing. It was a close call, and Western assistance tipped the balance, but the West needed Stalin more than Stalin needed the West. Without the Soviets, the Western allies would have had to face several million more Germans all by themselves”. So one could argue that we should put some of the blame of the atrocities committed by Soviet soldiers during the war on the US and Britain. I didn’t do this here. The Western Allies certainly bear a lot of responsibility for the fate of millions of Soviet civilians and prisoners of war which they forcefully repatriated to Stalin’s regime.
Finally, we should remember that Britain and France used many soldiers from their colonies as cannon fodder by sending them to the most dangerous frontlines. Many of these soldiers were promised independence for their countries after the war. But this promise was broken. One could argue that we should consider some of those who fell as victims of British and French colonial rule. I didn’t do this here either.