World War II was the most important armed conflict of the 20th century, and one of the most important in history. In September 1939, Adolf Hitler, leading Nazi Germany , declared war on the majority of European powers that joined forces to combat German fascism, supported by the United States.
Taking stock of the data that the conflict left us, it is one of the bloodiest wars and where there were more civilian and military casualties. In August 1945 , Germany signed the capitulations and the war came to an end, but the world would never be the same again.
60 million people dead
During the armed conflict that faced Germany, and its allies, Italy and Japan, as Axis powers, up to 60 million people died. At that time, it meant the death of 3% of the world’s population in 1939.
But to this data we should add the deaths derived from the conflict, such as the years of hunger and disease, both for the soldiers and for the civilian population. Adding these resulting deaths, it is estimated that more than 80 million people lost their lives in World War II.
According to statistics, Russia was the country with the lowest casualties, with almost 21 million deaths. This means that 80% of young people born in 1923 who were already 16 years old to go to war, died in the conflict.
Murdered Jews
Another of the most shocking data of the war was the purge of the Jewish community that Germany carried out during these years of war. It is estimated that there were some 71 concentration camps , with a presence in more than 20 countries.
During this time more than 6 million Jews lost their lives, and these would be the people registered. So the exact figure would be very difficult to know given the records of the time.
atomic bomb
One of the worst data that the Second World War left us was the use of all kinds of weapons never seen in previous armed conflicts. China was bombarded by Japan with biological weapons . In them they left a huge amount of fleas infected with the bubonic plague that caused the death of more than a hundred Chinese.
But it was the United States that used the deadliest military weaponry seen so far. The American army exploded two nuclear bombs in August 1945. The first was on Hiroshima on August 6, the second, three days later in the town of Nagasaki.
The two bombs killed about 200,000 people in seconds and injured more than 150,000.
