Talk:World War II casualties/Archives/2014/November

Worthwhile to distinguish between civilian death causes?
It seems to me something important might be missing from the categorization of the data. For instance it is difficult to dissern from the statistic given for Germany--1.1 million dead from military activity and crimes against humanity--how the civilians died. There seems to be an important distinction between those in Germany killed as a direct result of military activity (allied bombing, fighting on German soil, etc) and those killed by the German state in the perpetration of crimes against humanity (genocide).

Whether or not this distinction is important enough to change the article, I have no idea; However, it does seem that currently those who check the page because they are curious about either specific figure are out of luck. §


 * The answers to your inquiry are in the article, see the notes for the section the Third Reich and in the footnotes for Germany. Also see German casualties in World War II--Woogie10w (talk) 00:43, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough; however, most people who will be reading and using this article will not be academics. It seems that burying the categorical differences in German civilian casualties that may have been a result of allied and axis military activities and those who were killed by the German state in the intentional act of genocide or political violence is a tad bit (and by this I mean extremely) prohibitive to those seeking the information. For most of the non-academic audience, digging through footnotes is not something they are prepared to do, even more so if they have to follow an external link. God forbid the source isn't free and easily accessed on the Internet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.103.99.113 (talk) 17:11, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

War Crimes
Why are there only Japanese and German war crimes included? Wikirictor (talk) 13:13, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

UK civilian deaths - higher in WWI than in WWII?
That doesn't make much sense, but comparing this table with the one at World War I casualties suggests that UK civilian casualties in WWII were nearly 50% smaller than in WWI. Unless I am not familiar with some piece of history, like major famine in WWI, I'd expect this is an error: in WWII UK was the target of terror bombings and such; surely that should account for higher death rate among civilians than in WWI? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:05, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You seem to be looking in the "famine and disease" column in the WWI article - perhaps it includes the post-war influenza epidemic? W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:46, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The civilian death toll in the UK of 107,000 was caused by the U-boat blockade that disrupted trade in the war. The statistic was computed by comparing the total annual civilian deaths in 1912-13 to the period 1914-19. Total civilian deaths in 1914-19 were roughly 4.1 million, this was 292,000 greater than the prewar level including 183,000 influenza deaths, the excess deaths due to the war (excluding influenza deaths) was 107,000 civilians. This is about 2.5% higher than the prewar level. The source for this statistic is a demographic study published in an academic journal. Contact me by Email and I will be glad to provide a PDF of the section in the article in Metron- The International Review of Statistics. When one considers the fact that Europe depended on imports of food in 1914 this statistic makes sense. The poor in Europe suffered disproportionately because food prices were inflated because of the disruption of trade during the war--Woogie10w (talk) 11:32, 19 November 2014 (UTC)