YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → The Fallen of World War II

The Fallen of World War II — Transcript

by Neil Halloran · 2,302 words · 402 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:04the average lifespan of an American is
0:0680 years and an 80-year-old today was 10
0:10when World War II ended four when it
0:14began a soldier who saw battle would
0:17have to be in his late 80s at least
0:19today generals political leaders the
0:22decision makers of the war few are still
0:25with us and over the past few decades
0:28we've seen authors and filmm makers rush
0:31to capture stories from survivors before
0:33this connection of memory is
0:42lost this project is not about
0:45individual War Stories and it's not
0:47about
0:48survivors we're going to tally up the
0:50tens of millions of people whose lives
0:52are cut short by the war and see how
0:55these numbers stack up to other Wars in
0:57history including Trends in recent
0:59conflicts
1:03[Music]
1:07we'll be counting soldiers and civilians
1:10separately each of these figures
1:12represents 1,000 people who
1:14died civilians were of all walks of
1:19life whereas military deaths were almost
1:22entirely men the average age was about
1:2623 in most battles for every 1,000
1:29soldiers killed there are more than a
1:30thousand who were injured the word
1:33casualty can be confusing because in
1:34military speak it often includes both
1:36deaths and injuries and anything else
1:38that takes a soldier out of service here
1:40we're just counting the deaths and we'll
1:43begin with American
1:46[Music]
1:54soldiers over 400,000 died
2:01most of the deaths occurred in the
2:02European theater fighting the
2:04Nazis and about a quarter were in the
2:06Pacific fighting the
2:09Japanese when you put them on the
2:11timeline you see that casualties were
2:13the heaviest at the end of the war The
2:16War Began on September 1st
2:181939 but the US wasn't willing to join
2:20the fight until Pearl Harbor 2 years
2:24in the deaths increased drastically on
2:27dday when the Allies invaded Normandy
2:31one of the most tragic moments of the
2:32war was on D-Day at Omaha Beach where
2:352500 Americans
2:39fell so about the same number of US
2:42soldiers died on this single Beach
2:43Landing as the entire 13 years of the
2:46recent war in
2:51Afghanistan the bloodiest battle in the
2:53Pacific was okanawa which lasted 82 days
2:56during which 12,500 Americans died
3:03about 5,000 of these deaths were at Sea
3:05from kamakazi
3:06[Music]
3:10attacks now let's look at some other
3:12countries starting with
3:17Europe Germany started World War II when
3:20it invaded Poland Poland ultimately lost
3:24200,000 soldiers in the
3:26war most died after the invasion while
3:28the country was occupied by Germany in
3:30the Soviet
3:35Union Germany meanwhile lost just 16,000
3:38in the invasion of
3:40Poland the Nazis went on to invade and
3:42Conquer other countries including
3:44Denmark Belgium the Netherlands France
3:46Greece and
3:47Yugoslavia France surrendered but after
3:50losing 92,000 soldiers in the Battle of
3:53France over 200,000 ultimately fell
3:56which includes deaths in P camps French
3:58colonies and other fights
4:01Yugoslavia suffered almost half a
4:03million military deaths the initial
4:05Invasion brought relatively few
4:06casualties on both sides but the deaths
4:09mounted under Nazi occupation due to
4:11Guerilla fighting civil conflict and
4:12mass
4:16executions the Nazi invasions were Swift
4:19with relatively few German losses even
4:21the Nazi commanders expressed surprise
4:23at their
4:25success and then we have the United
4:27Kingdom in the United States who are not
4:29invaded but took the fight to the Nazis
4:31Britain lost about the same number of
4:33soldiers as the US which includes the
4:35British colonies Germany lost about half
4:38a million soldiers fighting the US and
4:39Britain in what is known as the Western
4:41Front which took place in France and
4:44[Music]
4:50Belgium but most Nazi soldiers died in
4:53the Eastern
4:54Front Germany's unsuccessful invasion of
4:57the Soviet Union the numbers are
5:01staggering the most famous battle of the
5:03Eastern front and perhaps the turning
5:05point of the European war was Stalingrad
5:08the German 6th Army successfully took
5:10Stalingrad but then got surrounded by
5:12the Soviets and cut off from food and
5:14ammunition half a million Nazis would
5:17ultimately die in
5:18Stalingrad another 100,000 were taken
5:21prisoner of which 6,000 would ever
5:25return PWS had a low survival rate
5:27throughout World War III and it was
5:29particularly Grim in the East when you
5:32include these PS roughly the same number
5:34of Germans died in Stalingrad as all the
5:36Western Front fighting against France
5:38the UK and the
5:40US and though Stalingrad was a victory
5:43for the Soviets they suffered almost
5:45twice as many losses as
5:47[Music]
5:53Germany the Soviet Union would
5:55eventually defeat the once Unstoppable
5:57German Army killing 2.3 millon million
5:59Nazi
6:04soldiers but winning the war came at a
6:07costume
6:14[Music]
6:44[Music]
6:478.7 million is the official tally by the
6:50Russian military a hly disputed number
6:53some Studies have calculated as many as
6:5514 million
6:57dead to complete the count of European
7:00military deaths we need to add German
7:02deaths from other fronts including the
7:03North in
7:04Africa as well as deaths from other Axis
7:06Powers Allied of the Nazis Hungary
7:09Romania and
7:13Italy when you put these European
7:15military debts on the timeline it looks
7:17like this you can now interact with the
7:20chart to learn more pause the narration
7:22if you would like more time
7:32and now we switch to civilian deaths in
7:39[Music]
7:42Europe 6 million Jewish people were
7:45killed in the
7:49Holocaust if you separate this by
7:51country you see that about half 2.7
7:53million were polish 700,000 were Soviets
7:57followed by Hungary and 17 other
7:59countries
8:03[Music]
8:05r broken down another way about half of
8:07the 6 million were killed in the
8:09concentration
8:11camps over a million died in
8:14osht most were killed in the gas
8:16Chambers others died from starvation
8:18exhaustion disease and other forms of
8:21[Music]
8:23execution the second most deadly Camp
8:25was Tri blinka which was exclusively an
8:27extermination camp set up to look like a
8:29train
8:31station mobile killing groups killed 1.4
8:34million
8:35[Music]
8:39Jews like with the gas Chambers men were
8:42killed first to reduce the risk of
8:44revolt
8:59[Music]
9:05the Holocaust also includes non-jewish
9:07deaths between 130,000 to 500,000 Roma
9:11then called gypsies were killed the
9:13numbers are
9:15disputed about a quar million people
9:18with disabilities were killed
9:19homosexuals Catholics and other groups
9:21were also exterminated but their numbers
9:23were relatively small some historians
9:26say that other civilian deaths should go
9:27under the label of Holocaust about 2
9:30million non-jewish poles were killed
9:32under German occupation some of which
9:34were sent to the gas Chambers at owitz
9:36when you combine civilian and Military
9:38deaths over 16% of the total polish
9:41population died in World War II which is
9:43the highest percentage of any
9:45country but not the highest in total
9:47death count the Soviet Union again tops
9:49that list losing at least as many
9:51civilians as it did soldiers somewhere
9:54between 10 and 20 million a particularly
9:57dark moment for the Soviet Union was the
9:58sieg of Leningrad now St Petersburg
10:02German forces surrounded Leningrad
10:03before civilians could be evacuated
10:05supplies including food were cut off for
10:072 and 1/2
10:11years 1 and 1/2 million people died as a
10:14result mostly from starvation mostly
10:18civilians Stalin's cruelty towards his
10:21own people is partly responsible for
10:23these
10:24numbers he often didn't allow civilians
10:26to evacuate from cities thinking it
10:28would cause the soldiers protecting them
10:29to fight harder about a million Soviets
10:32died in Stalin's own labor camps called
10:34the
10:35gulock just about every country suffered
10:38civilian losses especially countries who
10:40were invaded while many died as a result
10:42of so-called collateral damage the
10:45biggest numbers occurred when it was no
10:47accident civilians were exterminated
10:49purposely fired upon or bombed used as
10:52human Shields or intentionally deprived
10:54of
10:55food the intentional killing of
10:57civilians was done by most Waring
10:58parties including the United Kingdom and
11:00the United States the United Kingdom was
11:03spared of a land Invasion but still lost
11:0560,000 civilians largely from German Air
11:08Raids or blitzes often directed at
11:10civilian population
11:11centers the UK did the same to German
11:14cities at a much greater magnitude
11:16causing about 10 times the number of
11:18deaths but most German civilian deaths
11:21came from the ground at the late stage
11:22of the war when the Nazi regime
11:25collapsed civilians living in occupied
11:27regions had to desperately flee from the
11:28advancing Soviet Army rapes were
11:31widespread and death estimates ranged
11:33from 600,000 to 3
11:37[Music]
11:40million let's step back and see where we
11:42are with the
11:44totals we just counted about 20 million
11:47civilian deaths in
11:49Europe if you add this to the European
11:51military deaths we already
11:53covered it brings us to over 40
11:58million then we have the Asian theater
12:01here we see the vast majority of
12:02military debts in Asia came from China
12:04and
12:06Japan on the civilian side about 6
12:09million deaths from China Indonesia
12:11Korea Indochina and the Philippines can
12:14be attributed to Japanese war crimes
12:15which are sometimes compared to the Nazi
12:17atrocities due to the sheer scale of the
12:20cruelty China had the second highest
12:23death count after the Soviet Union and
12:25like the Soviets the Chinese government
12:27demonstrated a stunning willingness to
12:29sacrifice its own people Chinese
12:31nationalists open the Dyke at the Yellow
12:33River hoping the flood would halt the
12:35Japanese Advance half a million Chinese
12:38civilians or more were
12:40killed which is two or three times the
12:42number who died in all countries in the
12:442004 Asian
12:47tsunamis but the invasion of China only
12:50cost Japan 200,000 soldiers most were
12:53killed fighting the US and allies in the
12:54Pacific
12:55[Music]
12:58War significant portion of Japanese
13:00civilian deaths were caused by American
13:02firebombing and the two nuclear attacks
13:05contrary to official US statements these
13:07air strikes were directed at civilian
13:09populations not military
13:11targets when you add all the deaths
13:14outside Europe it brings us to a grand
13:16total of 70 million for the war give or
13:19take depending on who's counting and
13:20what civilian deaths get
13:24included more people died in World War
13:27II than in any other war in history
13:30for comparison here are 20 or so of the
13:33very worst wars and atrocities we have
13:34on
13:36record some of these are more of
13:38atrocities than Wars but we've seen how
13:40that distinction can get
13:41blurry some of these spanned across
13:44centuries World War II had the highest
13:46body count and it all happened in just 6
13:51years the world's population has grown
13:54significantly since the earliest
13:55atrocities on this
13:56list if you want to compare them in
13:58terms of what percentage of the world
14:00died we can adjust the chart to look
14:02like this this rough approximation tells
14:05us there may have been more devastating
14:06Wars before World War II proportionally
14:20[Music]
14:22speaking when we turn to post-war
14:25conflicts it's hard to say anything that
14:27isn't controversial
14:29but the data shows something quite
14:31extraordinary has been
14:35happening in 1989 John Gattis coined the
14:38phrase the long piece to identify the
14:40absence of conflict between the nuclear
14:42powers during the Cold
14:44War 25 years later the Cold War is Over
14:47and the term is still being used
14:50although its meaning may have
14:53shifted European countries have not
14:55fought each other except for this 10-day
14:57war in 1956 when the Soviet Union
15:00invaded
15:01Hungary when we look at European Wars
15:03before World War II it looks like this
15:05they tend to be more frequent as they go
15:07back though smaller in
15:09scale and the largest 44 economies of
15:12the world have not battled each other
15:14since World War II rich countries have
15:17fought poor countries like the US versus
15:20Iraq but rich countries have not fought
15:22other rich countries such a period of
15:24peace between the so-called great Powers
15:27hasn't been seen since the Roman Empire
15:31to many peace is too strong of a word
15:33Wars have occurred since World War II
15:36and they can be grouped into these four
15:38categories we don't see colonial wars
15:40anymore we've already noted that
15:42Interstate Wars between rich countries
15:44have not occurred at all and here we see
15:46wars involving smaller economies have
15:47tapered off that leaves Civil Wars of
15:50two types with and without foreign
15:53intervention and this is what these
15:55battle deaths look like alongside of
15:57World War II more people died fighting
15:59in World War II than in all the wars
16:02since and again we can't forget about
16:04world population which has almost
16:06tripled since World War II if we scale
16:08these numbers to show deaths in
16:10proportion to world population showing
16:12the likelihood that a person on Earth
16:13dies in battle the downward Trend
16:15becomes even more pronounced now this
16:18isn't to infer anything about why this
16:20trend is occurring that's a discussion
16:22for another
16:23day you can now interact with this chart
16:25to explore what conflicts are behind the
16:27totals now bear in mind we're just just
16:29looking at Battle deaths here not
16:30civilian deaths but those two are in
16:33Decline peace is a difficult thing to
16:37measure it's a bit like counting the
16:39people who didn't die in wars that never
16:42happened we give such importance to the
16:44word piece but we don't tend to notice
16:47it when it occurs or report on
16:51it sometimes it takes reminding
16:53ourselves of how terrible War once was
16:55to see the peace that has been growing
16:57around us
16:59of course this trend may not continue
17:02and it's not clear how looking at these
17:03charts can help us make the right
17:05decisions to ensure that it
17:10does but the longer the long piece grows
17:13the more significant it
17:16becomes so if watching the news doesn't
17:18make us feel hopeful about where things
17:19are
17:21heading watching the numbers might
17:29[Music]
17:51if You' like to support this project and
17:53encourage new episodes please follow us
17:56using one of the options below and
17:58consider paying the suggested ticket
17:59price for today's show thank you very
18:02much
18:03[Music]

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of The Fallen of World War II by Neil Halloran, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 2,302 words across 402 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.