Demographic Consequences of the Stalingrad Battle

Abstract

The first information about the losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht in the Battle of Stalingrad, the deaths of the civilian population of the Stalingrad region during the Nazi occupation were published back in the years of the Great Patriotic War. Later many authors investigated these questions. In the early 1990s, Soviet losses were calculated by a group of specialists of the General Staff under the leadership of Colonel General G. F. Krivosheev. However, there are alternative points of view on this issue. In general, the demographic consequences of the Battle of Stalingrad as a complex scientific problem have not been sufficiently studied. The authors of the article consider different types of losses, mention major military associations and units that took part in the fights for Stalingrad, as well as the number of soldiers in military units. The special attention is paid to the losses of civilian population. According to the most conservative estimates, the military losses of both parties in the Stalingrad battle amounted to at least 2–2.5 million people. The population of the Stalingrad region declined as a result of evacuation, hostilities and occupation by more than 0.5 million people, or nearly by a quarter. Mass losses led to significant deformations in the demographic structure of the population of the Stalingrad and neighboring regions. The number of working age men suffere the especially sharp decline. These deformations had determined the unfavorable trends in the demographic development of the region for many decades. In the introductory part of the paper E.F. Krinko describes the main types of losses and correlation of military forces by the beginning of the Stalingrad Battle. The conclusions made by the author summarize the overall research results. M. V. Medvedev reveals specific types of military and civilian losses suffered as a result of the Stalingrad Battle.