Emotional Brit Reacts to The Fallen of World War II..

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]How's it going ladies and gentlemen?

[00:00:01]Welcome on in. Hope you guys are doing absolutely stunning today cuz let me tell you something, you are smelling stunning. You really smell great. I can smell it from here. Today we're checking out a video called The Fallen of World War I. I'm very interested to jump into this and see what this one is about. I'm pretty sure it covers obviously all of the deaths of World War. It shows you just how many how many were killed from each country, from each continent, from everyone that was involved. It'll be really interesting to see this.

[00:00:27]Obviously not the typical video I do where I tend to put in a bit of humor, bit of comedic value, but I'm, you know, not doing that today. So, yeah, just learned about some history, but here we go. The average lifespan of an American is 80 years, and an 80-year-old today was 10 when World War II ended, four when it began.

[00:00:51]A soldier who saw battle would have to be in his late 80s, at least today.

[00:00:56]generals, political leaders, the decision makers of the war, few are still with us.

[00:01:02]>> That is absolutely mental. That is absolutely insane to think that there are still people alive that were in this war.

[00:01:08]>> And over the past few decades, we've seen that authors and filmmakers rush to capture stories from survivors before this connection of memory is lost.

[00:01:24]This project is not about individual war stories and it's not about survivors.

[00:01:31]We're going to tally up the tens of millions of people whose lives are cut short by the war and see how these numbers stack up to other wars in history, including trends in recent conflicts.

[00:01:48]We'll be counting soldiers and civilians separately.

[00:01:52]Each of these figures represents 1,000 people who died.

[00:01:57]Civilians were of all walks of life.

[00:02:01]Whereas military deaths were almost entirely men. The average age was about 23. Oh my gosh.

[00:02:08]>> In most battles, for every 1,000 soldiers killed, there are more than a thousand who were injured. The word casualty can be confusing because in military speak it often includes both deaths and injuries and anything else that takes a soldier out of service.

[00:02:21]Here we're just counting the deaths. And we'll begin with American soldiers.

[00:02:36]Over 400,000 died.

[00:02:42]Most of the deaths occurred in the European theater fighting the Nazis.

[00:02:48]>> 400,000.

[00:02:50]Oh my god, man. I I did not expect to get emotional. Oh my goodness.

[00:02:57]This may sound silly and I don't know whether it will or not, but watching these type of videos now, I feel like it's changed my what I'm about to say is it's true. I have such a different outlook on everything now. when he said, you know, the average death was a soldier of 23 years old. Because I'm a parent, I think about the pain that those parents must have had to endure when they find out that their their kid was killed. 400,000 400,000 deaths. That is absolutely insane. Oh, I'm a lie.

[00:03:27]That's really broke my heart, man. I knew it was going to be a lot, but I didn't realize it was that amount. One is obviously too many, but the scale of that number is wild. and about a quarter were in the Pacific fighting the Japanese.

[00:03:41]When you put them on the timeline, you see that casualties were the heaviest at the end of the war. The war began on September 1st, 1939.

[00:03:50]But the US wasn't willing to join the fight until Pearl Harbor, 2 years in.

[00:03:56]The deaths increased drastically on D-Day when the Allies invaded Normandy.

[00:04:01]One of the most tragic moments of the war was on D-Day at Omaha Beach where 2500 Americans fell.

[00:04:11]So about the same number of US soldiers died on this single beach landing as the entire 13 years of the recent war in Afghanistan.

[00:04:23]The bloodiest battle in the Pacific.

[00:04:24]>> Wait a minute. What? as the entire 13 years of the recent war in Afghan.

[00:04:33]So about the same number of US soldiers died on this single beach landing >> as the entire 13 years of the recent war in Afghanistan.

[00:04:45]>> That is insane.

[00:04:45]>> The bloodiest battle in the Pacific was Okinawa which lasted 82 days during which 12,500 Americans died.

[00:04:56]About 5,000 of these deaths were at sea from kamicazi attacks.

[00:05:04]Now, let's look at some other countries, starting with Europe.

[00:05:12]Germany started World War II when it invaded Poland. Poland ultimately lost 200,000 soldiers in the war.

[00:05:20]Most died after the invasion while the country was occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union.

[00:05:29]Germany, meanwhile, lost just 16,000 in the invasion of Poland.

[00:05:34]The Nazis went on to invade and conquer other countries, including Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Greece, and Yugoslavia.

[00:05:42]France surrendered, but after losing 92,000 soldiers in the Battle of France.

[00:05:47]Over 200,000 ultimately fell, which includes deaths in P camps, French colonies, and other fighting.

[00:05:54]Yugoslavia suffered almost half a million military deaths.

[00:05:57]>> Jesus.

[00:05:58]>> The initial invasion brought relatively few casualties on both sides. But the deaths mounted under Nazi occupation due to guerrilla fighting, civil conflict, and mass executions.

[00:06:10]The Nazi invasions were swift with relatively few German losses. Even the Nazi commanders expressed surprise at their success.

[00:06:19]And then we have the United Kingdom and the United States who were not invaded but took the fight to the Nazis. Britain lost about the same number of soldiers as the US which includes the British colonies. Germany lost about half a million soldiers fighting the US and Britain in what is known as the Western Front which took place in France and Belgium.

[00:06:38]>> This really hurts my heart, man.

[00:06:43]It really does.

[00:06:44]>> But most Nazi soldiers died in the Eastern Front.

[00:06:48]Germany's unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union.

[00:06:52]>> Guys, do any of you have family um that were in the war that you've had any stories told to you by them firsthand? Maybe even any like any pictures or something like that. I am always very interested in in World of War stuff and always I don't like to say I like looking back because it's it's the word I could use. I uh I'm not too sure what word I should use. My brain ain't working. I think you know what I mean though. very intrigued, interested to uh just to see it all. Um, so if you guys have anything, you know, you would ever like to share. I don't know, maybe it was off off a grandfather or something like that. I I'd uh I'd appreciate seeing them. My my grandfather was also in the World War II. He's got a couple of medals and stuff that I would uh I'll maybe get someday and I'll I'll I'll show you guys for a future video if if if you wanted.

[00:07:37]Um I'll put my email on screen if you ever wanted to send stuff over, but only send stuff over. I might do a video on them depending on how much I would get.

[00:07:44]Um, so only send stuff or maybe you know put in the email, look, don't be putting this on a video just for your eyes only something. But yeah, >> the numbers are staggering.

[00:07:54]The most famous battle of the Eastern Front and perhaps the turning point of the European war was Stalingrad. The German sixth army successfully took Stalingrad, but then got surrounded by the Soviets and cut off from food and ammunition. Half a million Nazis would ultimately die in Stalingrad. Another 100,000 are taken prisoner, of which 6,000 would ever return. This >> might be a stupid question, but where did all where what do we do with all these bodies, man? I'm going to go ahead and guess that they probably probably just burnt them. They probably just burnt them. That is an insane image I'm looking at right now. This gun is called a PPSH 40, I think, something like that. PS had a low survival rate throughout World War II. And it was particularly grim in the east. When you include these PS, roughly the same number of Germans died in Stalingrad as all the Western Front fighting against France, the UK, and the US.

[00:08:51]And though Stalingrad was a victory for the Soviets, they suffered almost twice as many losses as Germany. Jesus.

[00:09:04]The Soviet Union would eventually defeat the once unstoppable German army, killing 2.3 million Nazi soldiers.

[00:09:13]>> Oh my god.

[00:09:15]>> But winning the war came at a cost.

[00:09:18]>> 2.3 million.

[00:09:21]Holy flip.

[00:09:36]Damn, that was a lot of people 8.7 7 million is the official tally by the Russian military, a hotly disputed number. Some studies have calculated as many as 14 million dead.

[00:10:08]>> To complete the count of Europe, >> 8.7 million >> European military deaths.

[00:10:14]>> My god, >> we need to add German deaths from other fronts including the north and Africa as well as deaths from other axis powers allied to the Nazis, Hungary, Romania, and Italy.

[00:10:28]When you put these European military depths on the timeline, it looks like this. You can now interact with the chart to learn more. Pause the narration if you'd like more time.

[00:10:37]>> Oh, wow. Surely there couldn't have been that many civilian deaths, was there?

[00:10:43]>> I never I've never seen any sort of chart that counted civilian deaths or >> 6 million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust.

[00:10:52]>> Damn.

[00:10:54]If you separate this by country, you see that about half, 2.7 million were Polish. 700,000 were Soviets, followed by Hungary, and seven >> I have heard of that one.

[00:11:03]>> Other countries, >> Holocaust.

[00:11:10]>> Broken down another way, about half of the 6 million were killed in the concentration camps.

[00:11:16]>> What the hell is that?

[00:11:17]>> Over a million died in Ashwitz.

[00:11:19]>> Most were killed in the gas chambers.

[00:11:21]Others died from starvation, exhaustion, disease, and other forms of execution.

[00:11:29]The second most deadly camp was Tribanka, which was exclusively an extermination camp set up to look like a train station.

[00:11:37]>> Mobile killing groups killed 1.4 million Jews.

[00:11:41]>> They set up a train to a camp to make it look like a train station. I'm going to probably guess they they told them they were going somewhere and then they would just execute them. That is Oh my god, man. That is Oh, look at this.

[00:11:57]>> Like with the gas chambers, men were killed first.

[00:12:00]>> Oh man, I don't like that we kid. Oh, [ __ ] I don't even like looking at that.

[00:12:17]Oh my god, man. That is [ __ ] The Holocaust also includes non-Jewish deaths. Between 130,000 to 500,000 Roma, then called gypsies, were killed. The numbers are disputed.

[00:12:35]About a/4 million people with disabilities were killed. Homosexuals, Catholics, and other groups were also exterminated, but their numbers are relatively small. Some historians say that other civilian deaths should go under the label of Holocaust. About 2 million non-Jewish Poles were killed under German occupation, some of which were sent to the gas chambers at Ashwitz. When you combine civilian and military deaths, over 16% of the total Polish populations died in World War II, which is the highest percentage of any country, but not the highest in total death count. The Soviet Union again tops that list, losing at least as many civilians as it did soldiers.

[00:13:11]>> That is insane.

[00:13:12]>> Somewhere between 10 and 20 million.

[00:13:14]A particularly dark moment for the Soviet Union was the siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. German forces surrounded Leningrad before civilians could be evacuated. Supplies, including food, were cut off for 2 and 1/2 years.

[00:13:30]1 and a half million people died as a result, mostly from starvation, mostly civilians.

[00:13:38]Stalin's cruelty towards his own people is partly responsible for these numbers.

[00:13:43]He often didn't allow civilians to evacuate from cities, thinking it would cause the soldiers protecting them to fight harder. About a million Soviets died in Stalin's own labor camps called the Gulak.

[00:13:54]This this is horren horrendous. This is horrible. This is um this is the first time I've really watched a video that's uh like this in depth. Um I've said this before, guys. I I tend to stay away from stuff that makes me sad, man. naturally, you know, but I do um I I do I get very interested about the whole world war, but seeing those numbers and seeing that little kid getting held by I'm assuming a parent. Oh my god, man. I I keep going back to because I'm a dad now. Kind of I don't want to say put myself in that position, but like imagining how they would have felt in that moment holding that little kid. Oh my god, that is a really really horrible time to be a human. Oh my god. I'm sorry guys, but I I I feel like I need to take a break. I'll be back. I'm going to take a break. I'm going to go to toilet or something. I'll be back. I'll be back.

[00:14:47]Okay, >> here we are with the totals.

[00:14:48]>> I'm back.

[00:14:49]>> We just counted about 20 million civilian deaths in Europe. If you add this to the European military deaths we already covered, it brings us to over 40 million.

[00:15:00]Then we have the Asian theater. Here we see the vast majority of military deaths in Asia came from China and Japan.

[00:15:08]>> How many have died?

[00:15:09]>> On the civilian side, about 6 million deaths from China, Indonesia, Korea, Indochina, and the Philippines can be attributed to Japanese war crimes, which are sometimes compared to the Nazi atrocities due to the sheer scale of the cruelty.

[00:15:23]China had the second highest death count after the Soviet Union. And like the Soviets, the Chinese government demonstrated a stunning willingness to sacrifice its own people.

[00:15:33]Chinese nationalists opened the dyke at the Yellow River, hoping the flood would halt the Japanese advance. Half a million Chinese civilians or more were killed, which is two or three times the number who died in all countries in the 2004 Asian tsunamis. What was the reason they killed civilians? What was what the hell is the reason? I don't I I don't understand why civilians were so many were killed. I I can almost I can understand why they might have been in a crossfire or something, you know? They they just, you know, it was they were maybe shot by accident or they were just in a bad position where war was happening. I don't get why so many civilians were purposely killed and executed. What the That's not the cursor. Get angry. What was the actual point? What the [ __ ] was that, Svin?

[00:16:19]>> But the invasion of China only cost Japan 200,000 soldiers. Most were killed fighting the US and allies in the Pacific War.

[00:16:30]A significant portion of Japanese civilian deaths were caused by American firebombing and the two nuclear attacks.

[00:16:36]Contrary to official US statements, these air strikes were directed at civilian populations, not military targets.

[00:16:44]When you add all the deaths outside Europe, it brings us to a grand total of 70 million for the war, give or take, depending on who's counting and what civilian deaths get included.

[00:16:54]>> That's basically the entirety of the UK.

[00:16:56]More people died in World War II than in any other war in history.

[00:17:01]For comparison, here are 20 or so of the very worst wars and atrocities we have on record.

[00:17:08]Some of these are more of atrocities than wars, but we've seen how that distinction can get blurred.

[00:17:12]>> What the hell is the 30-year war?

[00:17:14]>> Some of these spanned across centuries.

[00:17:16]World War II had the highest body count, and it all happened in just 6 years.

[00:17:23]The world's population has grown significantly since the earliest atrocities on this list.

[00:17:28]If you want to compare them in terms of what percentage of the world died, we can adjust the chart to look like this.

[00:17:34]This rough approximation tells us there may have been more devastating wars before World War II, proportionally speaking.

[00:17:41]>> Jesus, that's wild.

[00:17:54]When we turn to post-war conflicts, it's hard to say anything that isn't controversial.

[00:18:00]But the data shows something quite extraordinary has been happening.

[00:18:07]In 1989, John Gatis coined the phrase the long piece to identify the absence of conflict between the nuclear powers during the cold war.

[00:18:16]25 years later, the Cold War is over and the term is still being used, although its meaning may have shifted.

[00:18:25]European countries have not fought each other, except for this 10-day war in 1956 when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. When we look at European wars before World War II, it looks like this.

[00:18:36]They tend to be more frequent as you go back, though smaller in scale.

[00:18:41]and the largest 44 economies of the world. This is probably battle of each other since World War II. Well, >> rich countries have fought >> When was this video up? Oh, 9 years ago.

[00:18:51]Okay, that makes sense.

[00:18:52]>> Poor countries like the US versus Iraq, but rich countries have not fought other rich countries. Such a period of peace between the so-called great powers hasn't been seen since the Roman Empire.

[00:19:02]>> Well, it's over now.

[00:19:05]>> To many, peace is too strong of a word.

[00:19:08]Wars have occurred since World War II, and they can be grouped into these four categories. We don't see colonial wars anymore. We've already noted that interstate wars between rich countries have not occurred at all. And here we see wars involving smaller economies have tapered off. That leaves civil wars of two types, with and without foreign intervention.

[00:19:28]And this is what these battle deaths look like alongside of World War II.

[00:19:32]More people died fighting in World War II than in all the wars since.

[00:19:37]And again, we can't forget about world population, which has almost tripled since World War II. If we scale these numbers to show deaths in proportion to world population, showing the likelihood that a person on Earth dies in battle, the downward trend becomes even more pronounced. Now, this isn't to infer anything about why this trend is occurring. That's a discussion for another day. You can now interact with this chart to explore what conflicts are behind the totals. Now, bear in mind, we're just looking at battle deaths here. Very well done. Oh my god, >> those two are in decline.

[00:20:07]>> Awesome. Really, really cool. Well, well done.

[00:20:09]>> Is a difficult thing to measure. It's a bit like counting the people who didn't die in wars that never happened.

[00:20:17]We give such importance to the word peace, but we don't tend to notice it when it occurs or report on it. True.

[00:20:26]>> Sometimes it takes reminding ourselves of how terrible war once was to see the peace that has been growing around us.

[00:20:32]Of course, this trend may not continue, and it's not clear how looking at these charts can help us make the right decisions to ensure that it does.

[00:20:45]>> But the longer the long piece grows, the more significant it becomes.

[00:20:51]So, if watching the news doesn't make us feel hopeful about where things are heading, >> bro, how far you going to zoom in here, man?

[00:20:56]>> Watching the numbers might.

[00:20:59]>> What an incredibly well done video.

[00:21:02]That insane.

[00:21:06]Insanely well done.

[00:21:13]Well done, N. Awesome.

[00:21:19]God, I didn't expect to uh you get upset like that, man. Um that is uh that I would usually end these videos by saying, you know, I like and subscribe.

[00:21:30]I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to. Like I said, that must have been a horrible time just for humanity in general. 70 million deaths. Oh my god.

[00:21:39]That is brutal. That is absolutely brutal. All right, guys. That was the fallen of World War II. I don't really know how to end this video. I will say I'll see you in the next one. Thanks for watching.

[00:21:50]See you.