r/YouShouldKnow • u/Zestyclose-Salary518 • Mar 13 '26
Education YSK 3-4% of the world died in WWII
Why YSK: Understanding the scale of total destruction a major world war can have will help understand how modern wars can affect us.
~ 2.3 billion people existed in the world before
WWII and about 70-85 million people died during the war that statistic of deaths was over the period of 6 years and let me show you why it's so insane.
If it was 70-85 million people who died it's roughly 35,000-39,000 people a day and 1,600 people a hour. These are people just like me and you by the way the reason I decided to post this was to bring attention to the fact. We usually see news but I know most of us will disregard it or take it by a grain of salt because we aren't in the conflict, or it hasn't affected us at all but it's important we are extremely aware that at any moment and given time the ongoing wars our government gets involved in can impact us.
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u/UserNameNotHereSCAC Mar 13 '26
They don't call it the biggest conflict in human history for nothing. The scale of WWII is crazy. Hopefully nothing like it will ever happen again.
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u/DignityDWD Mar 13 '26
Hopefully...
Man, there shouldn't be a "Hopefully". It should be our duty to ensure it doesn't happen. There should be responsibility. Accountability. We're here now because we let it happen
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u/KingHenry13th Mar 14 '26
Who enforces it?
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u/justaprettyface Mar 15 '26
The UN was made to do this. It worked alright until Russia and the US decided to bring absolute fucktards into the mix
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u/Zealousideal-Bell-68 Mar 15 '26
Although in relative terms, it's only the 9th deadliest war if I recall correctly. The 30 years war was quite worse in that regard
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u/tankinthewild Mar 13 '26
About 1 in every 5 Poles died during the war. I recommend checking out the book Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder if anyone is interested in the region in general during this time period.
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u/unfaircrab2026 Mar 13 '26
Summary: don’t be in Ukraine or Poland from 1930-45
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u/PipsqueakPilot Mar 13 '26
"Ya know your neighbor that spent the last two centuries building their nation's ethos around being really really good at war? Yeaaah- they've decided they want to kill your entire ethnic group. Best of luck."
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u/Bituulzman Mar 13 '26
The global Jewish population is only just now reaching the numbers that it was estimated to be prior to WWII.
It’s hard to wrap your head around raw numbers and OP’s percentages and stats like yours really help to put it in perspective.
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u/hypnodrew Mar 13 '26
Irrelevant, but made me think of the wild as fuck fact that Ireland's population is still lower than it was before an Gorta Mór (Potato Famine if you're nasty) and the subsequent migration. That was 1845-52 btw.
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u/Lazy_Toe_5305 Mar 14 '26
Semi relevant why are people in Ireland so anti semetic? Genuine question
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u/Swagcopter0126 Mar 14 '26
If you mean why does Ireland tend to support Palestine it’s because they see a resemblance in their own struggle against a colonial power.
Don’t confuse anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
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u/Lazy_Toe_5305 Mar 14 '26
No, I meant what I asked. But when you reply like that it does kinda come off as overt anti semitism
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u/hypnodrew Mar 14 '26
Not a genuine question if it's built on a faulty premise, like "why do you kill people?" I can't answer that question because I don't agree with the premise.
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u/spucci Mar 13 '26
Can't let the Poles just have their moment eh?
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u/Bituulzman Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Their “moment”? WTF?
Added for context: half of those WWII deaths in Poland were Polish-Jewish people
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u/gonzo0815 Mar 13 '26
There are adding to the comment, not taking something away.
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u/wanderingrockdesigns Mar 13 '26
Tim Snyder is excellent. It became apparent how serious of a situation the US has gotten itself in when the history professors that teach about authoritarianism left the country. I watched his Yale Courses on YouTube about the history of Ukraine 4 years ago and have learned so much about what makes a country.
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u/DynamicHunter Mar 13 '26
Now show the number for military aged men. Recently in Ukraine and Russia that demographic’s life expectancy and death rates have skyrocketed. That leaves a huge missing generation
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u/Hazzawoof Mar 13 '26
My grandparents were orphaned in WWII. Both of them only survived with one sibling each. Between them they lost 4 parents and 9 siblings.
Obligatory FUCK RUSSIA (they were in Eastern Poland).
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u/CTS99 Mar 13 '26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU This video visualizes the Numbers pretty well, it's almost incomprehensible for us to understand how many people really died
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u/Cron414 Mar 14 '26
This should be the first reply. This video helps put the enormity of this conflict into a perspective most people have never had. A very important watch for anyone trying to understand WWII.
It brings tears to my eyes when it reveals the total Soviet deaths. It’s unimaginable in todays world. Pray nothing like this ever happens again.
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u/CTS99 Mar 14 '26
Yeah, this ~40s silent scroll up do the Soviet deaths is insane... then you realize this was just the military casualties
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u/BigfootEatsBabys Mar 13 '26
So about 1 in 25 people died during ww2. So crazy
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u/bannedforL1fe Mar 13 '26
Some of the worlds best people had to go and die. Their possible contributions to the world cannot even be comprehended.
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u/HooptyDooDooMeister Mar 13 '26
On a smaller scale, this is how I view one part of 9/11 that people don't really talk about.
HDTV had burgeoning technology being developed in the twin towers. There were major setbacks to TV/satellite tech due to the amount of very talented people we lost in those attacks.
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u/Seicair Mar 14 '26
Huh. I always thought the WTC was all financial stuff, didn’t realize there were research facilities there.
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u/HooptyDooDooMeister Mar 14 '26
Not to be confused with research and development per se, the North Tower served as a critical operational testing and implementation hub for digital television (DTV) and high-definition broadcasting.
By the late 1990s, it was the central site for the early rollout of digital television in New York City, which was the essential precursor to high-definition TV.
In 1999, the antenna was upgraded to accommodate digital television broadcasts in a major industry-wide push toward high-definition standards assisting major networks (ABC, NBC, etc.) with their first digital and high-definition signals.
6 engineers died in the 2001 attacks. When the first plane struck the North Tower, these men stayed at their posts to call their respective master control rooms, alerting colleagues to the signal disruption and attempting to keep the broadcasts on the air as long as possible. Their loss was a significant blow to the engineering community, as they were the primary experts managing the city's modern digital infrastructure.
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u/Seicair Mar 14 '26
That makes sense, thanks for explaining. You’re right, that is a mostly unknown facet of the 9/11 tragedy.
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u/Kharon_the_ferryman Mar 13 '26
This is always my thoughts on war. Imagine all the hard strong men and women that died in wars, all the bloodlines or future kids just erased, and all the innovations, ideas, and inventions they could have gone on to create. However we are left with the cowards, sickly, old, and cretin politicians surviving or staying out of the war. It's like the dregs get left and reproduce...
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u/RoadsideCampion Mar 13 '26
You should care before it starts to affect you too, the people who are already dying have lives just as valuable as yours
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u/TazmaniannDevil Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Further disturbing stats:
Ally to Axis population ratio: 2:1
Current NATO to CSTO + China alone: 1:2
Casualty rate in modern war is Civ: 90% Mil: 10%
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u/VisibleVersus Mar 13 '26
specifically for WW2, casualty rate in war estimated at 2:1 (Civilian: Military)
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u/Outsider_4 Mar 13 '26
Casualty rate in WW2 was, either in Europe or Entirety (I'm really sorry, I don't remember exactly), roughly 70-30 Civ-Mil
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u/Snoo63 Mar 16 '26
When does it stop being war, and start being a terroristic massacring? Is it just when it's a non-state actor doing the killing of civilians?
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u/tbodillia Mar 13 '26
About a third of the dead were Russian. Russia lost 12% of it's 1941 pre invasion population.
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u/mongooser Mar 13 '26
That’s what happens when you send soldiers to war without weapons.
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u/kuburas Mar 13 '26
Its what happens when you're fighting a war that you quite literally cannot afford to lose.
They got so desperate because if eastern front failed we'd all be speaking german today.
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Mar 13 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
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u/Zestyclose-Salary518 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Actually I relooked at this and yes from disease and famine which were classified as natural deaths this is included overall as the statistic based off this source
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u/SketchTeno Mar 13 '26
If they where, We are quickly approaching 100% death rate for all humans who were alive during ww2. Just a few decades left.
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u/sneakin_rican Mar 13 '26
If you don’t think the citizenry of certain large well-armed nations would happily sacrifice 3-4% of the world for the promise of abundance you are kidding yourself. People just don’t care that much.
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u/d1rty_j0ker Mar 13 '26
Lest we forget. If only our world leaders saw this as clearly as they should. It feels like we’re once again standing at the doorstep of another global conflict. We have no beef with each other. Live and let live
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u/JrSoftDev Mar 13 '26
It's important to notice that WW3 would likely have an even higher %. Many areas in the World lost resilience - including environmental - and became completely dependent on the mechanisms deployed during the "peaceful decades", which includes "just in time" logistics. In 6 years of an "all out" war we would see 1 billion + deaths.
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u/thehappyhobo Mar 13 '26
I remember a Dan Carlin episode about Hiroshima where he illustrated brilliantly how detached modern casual conversations are about the rights and wrongs of dropping the bomb. Truman was at the end of war where 100,000s and millions of people could die in weeks. 50,000 and a chance to an avoid an amphibious assault on Japan - not as heavy as decision as it would be today.
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u/BaconJakin Mar 13 '26
Anti-history take, all records show the Japanese were going to surrender regardless of a ground invasion before they were nuked. Their sole condition was that they’d get to keep the Emperor’s traditional role in-tact. The US wanted to show off their new toy, but wanted to do so on a civilian population instead of on a recorded warning. Why? Sure, it took a while to build those bombs, but we had two. I recommend reading more about the history behind these decisions before justifying the slaughter of 200,000 civilians.
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u/SeaBass1690 Mar 14 '26
Most historians, including both Japanese and American, disagree with you. Make no mistake, the Japanese high command were well aware they would lose the war by the summer of ‘45, but the supreme war council still very much intended to fight a decisive battle on the Japanese home islands to force better surrender terms. Numerous military preparations were being made for Operation Ketsugō, a desperate plan for the islands’ defense. The IJN was all but destroyed but they still had millions of troops willing to fight to the death. Any surrender terms they had discussed at that point would have been completely unacceptable to the allies, like self disarmament, no occupation etc.
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u/AcherontiaPhlegethon Mar 13 '26
Patently false statement. Japan had no plans to surrender, and in fact still did not surrender after both bombs had fallen until the Hirohito forced the hand of the generals. There was a common phrase at the time that was roughly "The Glorious Death of One Hundred Million", the literal actual plan was to die to the last, as was what happened in the Pacific theatre, a war of attrition to beat the US's capacity to stomach death. That's why thousands of Japanese soldiers would die over tiny inconsequential islands, they could never hope to beat the US manufacturing capacity in the 40s. Before the bombs, women and children in mainland Japan were being trained to fight with spears for the purpose, the projected death toll of an invasion was expected to exceed 1 million just for the US, and likely matched or more for the Japanese.
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u/jackofslayers Mar 13 '26
Also 50% of all the Jews in the world.
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u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Mar 13 '26
Historians estimate that between 250,000 and 500,000 Romani people were killed by Nazis and their collaborators during WWII, representing around 50% of the estimated European Romani population at the time.
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u/V__ Mar 14 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
nb: i have deleted this post and or comment
DM me if you need to know what it said
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u/Smooth_Teacher_457 Mar 13 '26
Does this include the millions of Indians who were starved to death by the British, but we're not actively fighting?
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u/SeemedReasonableThen Mar 13 '26
Yes, it does the 2-3 million Indians who starved to death or died by related diseases.
More than half the total deaths were USSR andd Republic of China.
Poland had the highest percentage of population killed, followed by Lithuania and USSR
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/World_War_II_Casualties.svg
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u/John_cCmndhd Mar 13 '26
Probably. Wikipedia has an estimate of 60-75 million deaths, which includes 2-3 million famine deaths in India. Since OPs numbers are slightly higher, they probably include these as well
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u/gusgusfl Mar 14 '26
Are you counting Japan’s atrocities with the raping of nanking? I’ve heard they can’t even get a fair count so it ranges from like 1million-100million
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u/DingoPoutine Mar 13 '26
With resource scarcity coming down the road, this may just be the plan
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u/yinsotheakuma Mar 13 '26
I don't know if you're one of those folks who reads the news, but these people have no plan. They're just doddering bubble babies.
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u/The_Lloyd_Dobler Mar 13 '26
YSK that right-wing, Russian influenced political parties and governments are dismantling the post WW2 institutions and alliances that arose from that devastation. They don’t want to revise, reform, strengthen, or modernize - they want them gone.
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u/emmynoether Mar 14 '26
75 million seems like a large number, but more than 100 million new humans were born in 2025. If 75 million people were to vanish right now, the world population will go back to what it was in ... mid 2025.
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u/mw4365 Mar 15 '26
Overpopulation of the planet, the upper elite of the upper elite caught in an insane pedo/human trafficking ring, society reaching insane new levels of stupidity and ignorance despite the tools most are given
Almost as if there’s a massive case for another great reset eh?
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u/AuraEnhancerVerse Mar 16 '26
Overpopulation of the planet
Most countries are complaining about low birth rates
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u/scalebirds Mar 13 '26
36% of all Jewish people died
From around 17 million prewar to 11 million after
In some places it was worse. 90% of the around 210,000 Jews in Lithuania were killed. From 210,000 people prewar to 20,000 alive after
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u/pthecarrotmaster Mar 13 '26
this and environmental district, and a big sexy recession to cap it all off. Then the robots can replace us
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u/exotics Mar 13 '26
And the human population has more than doubled since that time. In fact it’s more than doubled since I was born, 61 years ago.
Our population is skyrocketing. Not just because of birth rates but mostly because we are not dying as young.
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u/The_Wkwied Mar 13 '26
If you zoom out and look at the number of preventable, not-natural age related deaths during the 20th century (1900 through 1999), the number is sickening.
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u/RockyRockyRoads Mar 14 '26
I’d like to point out that the actually recent stability of no major world conflicts between superpowers is actually not normal. This era for the past 50 years of major superpowers not having hot wars is not the norm. Look at the 1700s-1800s constant warns between nation states going on somewhere in the world.
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u/Speedfreakz Mar 15 '26
Yugoslavia suffered one of the highest proportional death tolls in WWII, with estimated total war-related deaths around 1 million, or roughly 10.8% including demographic losses.
Total Deaths: While early government estimates claimed 1.7 million (10.8% of the population), modern, verified estimates generally place the actual war dead closer to 1 million.
Civilian vs. Military: A significant portion of the deaths were civilians—roughly 500,000–600,000—including widespread genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Roma.
Key Atrocities: Jasenovac Concentration Camp: The Ustaše (Croatian Axis puppet regime) killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Croat anti-fascists. Estimates for Serb victims by the Ustaše range between 300,000 and 350,000, with over 100,000 killed at Jasenovac alone.
Prior to that Serbia lost more than 20% of its population in ww1.
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u/rel1800 Mar 13 '26
They don’t mention that so many Russians died and they were in the lead for most deaths by a landslide. Also Russia fought 90% of the war against Germany then the US stepped in to finish it off.
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u/4gotOldU-name Mar 14 '26
So…. Why is it we should know?
Unsourced and basically an opinion post, designed for gathering information from replies people make because of what’s happening in the world today. And modern wars are completely different than what transpired in WWII and WWI.
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u/Dontmakemeboss Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
My Great Uncle (Mom’s side) and my Great Grandfather (Dad’s side)both died in WW 2. That both sides of my family were touched by that is insane to me and they fought for the United States, who lost way less people than other countries/militaries.
I often think about and am baffled by the destruction of WW 2 it truly should never happen again, but look around
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u/cecilmeyer Mar 14 '26
War should be illegal and declared a crime against all living beings and the planet.
I will see it oneday maybe not in this life but the one to come.
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u/sticky_spiderweb Mar 13 '26
This would equate to between 240,000,000 and 320,000,000 today.