World War II

Gardeners fend off starvation in Berlin, 1946.

I just looked up casualties in World War II on Wikipedia, and was surprised. Did you know that an estimated 62.4 million to 78.3 million people died due to the war? The greatest numbers of war related deaths were:

• The Soviet Union, 23,954,000, more than 14% of the population
• China, 10,000,000 to 20,000,000, 1.93 to 3.86% of the population
• The Third Reich, 6,756,700 to 8,456,700, 8.04 to 10.1% of the population
• Poland, 5,620,000 to 5,820,000, 16.1 to 16.7% of the population
• The Dutch East Indies, 3,030,000 to 4,030,000, 4.3 to 5.76% of the population
• Japan, 2,700,000, 3.78% of the population
• India, 1,587,000 to 2,587,000, 0.43 to 0.66% of the population
• French Indochina, 1,000,000 to 1,500,000, 4.07 to 6.1% of the population
• Yugoslavia, 1,027,000, 6.67% of the population
• The Philippines, 557,000 to 1,057,000, 3.48 to 6.6% of the population

Compare these numbers to those of the Western allies:

• France, 567,600, 1.35% of the population
• The United Kingdom, 449,800, 0.94% of the population
• The United States, 418,500, 0.32% of the population

While I tend to think of the war in terms of the Western allies, it was Eastern Europe and Asia that suffered most. Looking at death tolls in India, the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina and the Philippines it is not surprising that decolonization followed the war -- the colonies were certainly not protected by the metropolitan country.

Similarly, it is not surprising that China and the Soviet Union took a dim view of the Western allies after the war, especially as so much of the support for rebuilding went to Germany and Japan, the defeated enemies.