In Soviet Union there was such term as fatherless generation

One of my great-grandfather went missing in Stalingrad, and the another one went through Stalingrad and the Japanese front. We in Russia say that there is not a single family in which no one died during the WW2. That is why our generation must live in peace and prevent the past from repeating itself. P.S. From Russia with love.

The Soviet union pretty much lost an entire generation to the war

Greets from Russia. My grandfather has survived WW2. Yes, I heard some stories. About escape from German captivity, losing his friends, sniper fights in a woods, blowing up an German train. But one story I remember the most. When he laid on the ground with badly injured leg, watched february cold sky, and think that this his last minutes. I still not sure how it feels like. But luckily, he was found by nurse, and in the end he was saved. Man, I miss him.

The USSR losses are the most heartbreaking of this video. How it just keeps going and going up out of the screen chokes me up each time. The worst part is they suffered casualties from both sides.

My Filipino great grandfather fought in WWII and his small mountain camp was mistakenly bombarded by the Americans. He received a purple heart and my grandfather told me he always laughed telling his story of being bombarded by his own allies. Anyway, we all aspire to even have half the courage of those who fought in this war. RIP

It’s so damn hard not to get overwhelmed with emotion when seeing that photo of the German Soldier taking aim at that Mother holding her child, it’s absolutely horrid.

If the question is, 'how were the Nazis defeated', then the answer is 'The Red Army'. Their sacrifice is almost impossible to overstate.

When I watched the video myself for the first time, that one part, where he said that, ‘winning the war comes at a price’ and I saw the Soviet Unions count, my heart sank...

I’m sorry I never knew the death that Russian took on, I knew they played a big part in the west but those number are insane. Thank you for this video, had tears in my eyes the entire time

Hi from Russia. Almost every family member mostly man was in WW2. My grand grandfather and his brothers. My family steal have a mails from him. It’s heartbreaking. I steal remember story’s what my another grand grandfather told me.

80% of German army was fighting on the Eastern Front, that's why the numbers were so huge compared to other fronts.

Well now you know why "The Soviets helped the Allies" on your Oversimplified video bothered me a bit. The Soviet Union WON the European theater and the Allies HELPED. They recieved quite some help in form of american equipment, but talking about the millitary victory, the Soviets did the heavywork.

If anyone wonders how anyone can be some evil, read “ordinary men”.

Man finally he reacts to this been waiting for while

My grandfather fought in ww2 and drove a Sherman something he did was he took huge bullets and hid them places for his wife to find. What a mad lad.

Now you know why the Russians/ Soviets laugh when we say the UK and the US won the war. It’s almost unimaginable how many people they lost to defeat Germany, not just soldiers but also civilians. Sad to even think about.

after this, u will start to understand the Russians...thank you so much that u save us!!! From Germany with love!!!

My grandmother's brother served during the Winter war as a medic. He went missing about halfway through, never came back. Only when Finnish troops retook territory in the Continuation wars were his remains found at last, and later on his last act was recounted by his sarge to my grandma and her family. A couple men had been left injured between the lines, so he went out there crawling with a sled behind him - his last words to the sarge were "we gotta at least try to help our pals there." His remains were found under a lush and big spruce, with the military ID:s and clothes still on him - he must have crawled there to hide from the Russians. He lies now buried in a war heroes memorial cemetary in his home town. Around 2009, we found his war-time diaries, as well as those of my grandfather (who survived the wars). We had just gotten a printer and a PC, so for about a year my grandma read those diaries through (only she could read their hand writing with ease) and wrote them down on the PC in a Word file. Reading them, to this day, is truly like peering into our history - descriptions of how men had banter, the weather, the moments of action like taking out a tank with logs, sledgehammers and grenades. Those diaries are quite possibly the single most treasured heirlooms in our family, and their discovery had old relatives not heard of since 1980s contacting us once word got out, all wanting a copy. My grandpa, a distinguished vet who served as both an artilleryman and a medic iirc., passed away in 2004 - just 5 days short of turning 90 years old. Never smoked, drank or took substances. A long and venerated sports career in my home town, with prizes so many grandma doesn't have enough space to display them all. Up until his very last years doctors were amazed just howw good a condition he was compared to his peers. When he was buried, there were war veteran officials there - but more importantly, three of his war-time friends whose lives he had saved. Overall, I think over 100 people were there, if not 200 - in most funerals, there are about 30-40. That really hits me to this day, and even 17 years after his passing it's very much truthful to say that my grandfather is the one who forged the very core of my family, and his legacy is still a great part in holding it together. We must remember the sacrifices of those who took part in those wars and honour their legacy, lest we reduce their meaning to nothingness and betray all they were willing to fight and die for.

You might want to check out the game “this war of mine” which is about surviving in a war torn county as civilians. There is some specific story dlc like “father’s promise” and “the last broadcast” that would probably be worth checking out.

I was literally waiting until he will see USSR casualties to see his reaction.

8:12 My great-grandfather on my father's side is out there too. Lost a duel with a German sniper. My grandfather, dad's father, was helping his mother - the chief of a hospital, which was constantly relocated further and further towards Germany as the war went. He died on March 8th of this year, at the age of 92. My great-grandfather and my grandfather on my mother's side were both military pilots, both survived the war. Honestly, most of my relatives on my mother's side were all in some shape tied with aviation, except me and my uncle. I wanted to go there, wanted to be a pilot too but was turned down because of my heart problems, sadly I'm not destined to continue the family tradition :) From Russia with love, mate.

We really should show this to Aliens if they ever come to us to communicate

6:26 “a lot of people” me: *just wait mate*

I feel you bro, most people have trouble grasping the amount of people that are in stadiums watching football/icehockey games when it's filled to the brim. That amount of people isn't even SCRATCHING these numbers. It is absolutely staggering to think about. It truly is sad to think about and I truly hope we never try to bury the past because we must learn from it.

You should react to "Operation Downfall", the planned US invasion of Japan that wasn't used due to the Atomic Bombs, makes the scale of DDAY look small.

There’s similar to this for WW1 called “The loss of life in WW1 visualised” which is also a great one

My family was lucky during this time. My grandpa was only 11 so he couldn't participate, only had sisters and women weren't drafted and my great-grandpa was older than the draft requirement. But there are villages in Russia where you can still find a WW2 memorials standing with a list of people from that village who died in WW2. On many of them, you can see like a dozen people with the same second name. Those were fathers, sons, brothers, cousins. Can you imagine losing like 10 members of your closer family, people you know, in a few year period? Harsh times.

my grandfather was in in Leningrad during siege, he was around 15 y o, i think. he told me stories , how he and his friends was scouting the roofs after bombardments, searching for failed bombs to cower it with sand, if i remember correctly. onese bomb or artillery hit his house, and he was buried under debries for about 12 hours, he lost hearing on one side after that for rest of his life. my other grand grand father served as driver on so called "road of life", one and only supplie route of Leningrad during siege, laing on ice of Ladoga lake , during winter. when the siege was broken, he and his unit went all the way to Germany. my family album has a photo of him in the vicinity of Berlin.

And those were just the definitely confirmed deaths with the lowest possible number.

These deaths just never sink in to me because there’s just so much

"Part of our training is to go to the graveyards and memorials." That needs to be a thing in "all" militaries. Drive home just what it is your signing up for and just what it is your fighting for.

Russia’s numbers come from the massive amount of citizens who also fought. People who weren’t normal military ages (and sometimes genders) were conscripted to fight.

Theres a poem by Konstantin Simonov that is worth a read. It encapsulated how the soviets could sacrifice like this.

Мой дед прошел всю войну, воевал и под Сталинградом и под Курском, где был тяжело ранен, воевал на батарее реактивных миномётов. Я его видел только на фотографии, он умер ещё до моего рождения, военные раны сделали своё чёрное дело. Полностью согласен с предыдущим комментарием, даже в песне поётся "Нет в России семьи такой, где б не памятен был свой герой"

You can see why Russia is insulted, when our western leaders snub Russia for WW2 memorials...

When I first saw this video about WW2 I absolutely cried almost throughout the whole video. It’s just so sad what men can do to another fellow man. We have no world without them

I'm really glad he reads the comments and requests. Good lad!

I must tell you, i think he jinxed it considering the current events surrounding ukraine being invaded by russia possibly threatening nuclear war

Holy shit, was waiting for this

Thanks for the reaction. As a german, i have to point out that those mobile killing groups and the concentration camps were special units of SD and SS, not the regular army. They operated behind the front lines, where the normal soldiers couldnt see them. And they were brainwashed more than the regular soldier. There were high german army officials that tried to kill hitler with a bomb several times. But sadly, a stone tableleg was between hitler and the bomb, so he survived with injuries. The coup was stopped fast after that, and all were sentenced to death. My great-grandfather was evacuated ill by plane from stalingrad and survived. He became a cementary gardener. My great-grandmother and grand-uncle as a little boy were in dresden when they firebombed the wooden city center. The flames filled the entire sky above him, and the pavements/street asphalt was burning. Some estimations say over 100.000 died in dresden, because the city was full of refugees from east germany. He cant stay near fire since. He was a peace activist in socialist east germany fighting against the arms race until reunification. Their secret service did much to try and stop him, but he is still with us today.

its crazy how under-taught the soviet contribution to WW2 is, my granny was evacuated to Siberia when the nazis invaded, maybe 5 years later her family got a book which listed every single recorded death from the soviet army during the war, the book was over 1000 pages, she still has it

Love that you reacted to this. It puts alot into perspective that others don't.

Genuinely one of my favorite videos on the internet. I feel like everyone should be shown this video at least once so they can actually get a sense of just how large World War 2 was, and how destructive it was. What our past generations went through. You just don't get the full picture just by reading a number.

“This is gonna break my heart”, the video was just getting started and I was already getting a little emotional seconds before you said that 😂 I have such a great appreciation and respect for those who fought, served, and sacrificed.

every time i see this video, or at least seeing someone react to it, it blows my mind that ALL of this actually happened. like obviously yes i know it happened, but we only see videos, pictures, graphs, etc. about this event but to actually think about it.... man... gotta be grateful about the times we live in right now

Every time he says the average age is 23, it hits me so hard. Boys and girls practically. Dying as pawns on a chessboard.

I luckily had my Gran(great grandmother technically but we called her Gran) who has now passed but she told me some great stories about what she was doing during ww2 and hearing her talk about them is what gave me such love and appreciation towards history.

eastory has a fantastic videos series animated showing all the troop movements on the eastern front in ww2, he animates all the division moving including the tanks, the division markings can be a bit difficult to understand, but it gives you a much better idea of the scale of the war on the eastern front. he covers it by each year the first video is called Eastern Front of WWII animated: 1941. I imagine you have a good understanding of what divisions and cores are, so i imagine you would have a much better understanding of the video then I did, I just know the basics of divisions

I've Never been so fast

My great grandfather was a B-17 ball turret gunner and a POW after he was shot down by flak. He was later liberated by General Pattons tank crews. In one of those tanks was my other grandfather who was one of the tankers to liberate the camp. Before the camp was liberated my great grandfather Field (the Ball turret gunner) was in the camps labor yard and witnessed Allied P-47s level through the camp above the trees. The next day the tanks came through to find that all of the Nazi soldiers were gone and had fled. But both were at the same place and same time and had no idea.

I have been waiting for this reaction since the day I started following this channel. Finally it has happened.

My Great Grandfather was a USMC Raider in the Pacific fighting the Japanese at Peleliu island and Okinawa. He lived to be 97

Remember he said British colonies were included, so Canada, Australia, New Zealand are all included in the death total.

Damn i remember this being requested soooo long ago. Happy to see that your doing it now

Been waiting for you to react to this for so long.

It was a hard video for me to watch as well. Great reaction man

My great grandfather was part of an American bomber crew during WW2 he survived but later died to some back related disease, although I forget what it was called.

Ww2 has always fascinated me. Watching so many people die through history gives me a little comfort knowing I will go through it

I love the og video, ive shown it to a lot of people cos of how well it puts everything into perspective, for me this was especially the case with deaths in stalingrad. Glad you got to see it too.

"Everyone has a story that they tell without speaking, question is, are you listening?"

Hello, very good video! Makes you think a lot... Greetings from Austria

my great-grandfather fought in WW2 at the begining for germany cause im german but the cruelty got to him quite quickly so he deserted to australia helping refugees im a proud of the decicion he made to help the right people. A WW2 SA combatknife to this day remains in our family...its a knife he took from an SA soldier he killed to protect innocent civilians. this knife he took should be a reminder to us that showing courage and makeing the right decicions to stand up for those who cant on theyr own from this day forward is an important part of our family. im proud to be part of this family and proud to tell that even back in those dark times, even if it was rare to see, kindness still existed

omg i was wanting him for him to react to this today

It's very nice to see the reaction to the video, which I also recommended, there is another video that shows the horrors of war, it is called Battle of Moscow 1941 - Nazi Germany vs Soviet Union. These are archival footage of that time, a very revealing video.

Was just thinking yesterday how long it would be until you reacted to this 🤣

The thing that I love about this video the most is.. I just watched a video showing how many million people died in WW2, but the man who made the video still managed to make me smile at the end. The ending of the video is amazing.

I used to have a neighbour who was German, who was from a town that's like right on the border with the Czech Republic. She was about 16 in 1945, and could hear the Russian artillery when she crossed the Elbe, a few days before the Red Army actually got boots on the ground there. It took her almost 50 years to track down the surviving members of her family.

Psychiatrists say that everyone has it in them to commit acts like in the Holocaust. But most of us aren't given the Opportunity (Thank God). Im sure when these German soldiers started their killing it made them lose sleep at night, they would have regular breakdowns. But as years went on they became used to it. And some even started to like it.

My grandfather was one of those who fought in Russia (German). He said that it was the worst battle of all in which he took part. The Russians fought the way others did not. He doesn't like to talk about it and he is still wary of the Russian people. Greetings from Germany. Forgive us.

my grandfather fought in the pacific and european theaters, I wish i had the chance to talk to him about it before he passed away.

My Great Uncle was in the Signal Corps of the 29th Infantry Division which landed on Omaha. Since he was in the Signal Corps, he was in the 3rd wave, so most of the beachhead was taken before he got there. His wave was there with the support troops and such, picking up the pieces, getting things organized. He only ever talked about it once. He talked about how the beach, and the water was just so red. As if someone had painted the sand. There was just so many dead and wounded, and you had to work fast, cause the waves would come up and drag people into the sea.

You should try watching videos from Memoirs of war. They document war stories from old veterans :)

Re the Soviets - this is why I find the Eastern war more interesting because the sheer level of brutality and death toll is so high to a point hardly anyone outside the East understands. I remember a statistic that if you were to form all the dead from the Red Army into Battalion formations (~200) like the modern V day parade, and have them march across Red Sq at the standard pace of 120steps/min non stop it would take 2-3 days.

My great-grandpa was Mike Ranney of the Band of Brothers. The books and the series have done a wonderful job of explaining the horror of WWII. But nothing will ever convey how haunted my grandma is when she talks about him telling her the real stories.

My Father is 95 years old and is doing great. He lives with me and my wife. He fought in the European theater against the Germans. He still has metal in him from a frag grenade. He won't talk about the war. I understand. I won't talk about my time in Afghanistan. I would like to video him from his draft notice until he saw action in the Battle of the Bulge. Guys like him are getting fewer and fewer!!!!Take care from a comrade in arms across the pond! Staff Sergeant Rick James U.S. Army (Ret.) 11 Bravo

once you dehumanise someone you can do literally anything to them as they're "beneath" you and that is what is scary. Because all humans are capable of that. You don't see them as people anymore you see them is "lower", "inferior" or "other". Also some of them had to be sociopaths too.

I am from Germany, and at least one of my great-grandfathers was among the casualties. My grandmother told me how he went away to war, and one day an officer rang on their door and informed his family that he would not return home. There are stories of somebody else in the family, but not one of my direct ancestors, who had to walk back home from a Soviet labour camp. It's safe to say that for a *lot* of reasons we are very much against war now. There are also some more pleasant stories from American and British soldiers being kind to the children that my grandparents were back then, but this is probably not the place for those.

This is some of the best data visualization I’ve seen, and data vis is something that matters a lot in my work (not so much making it as using and nothing like the talented work here). It’s so hard to make huge numbers like this sink in, humans just aren’t good at really comprehending numbers like that. The individual stories like he mentioned are easier to connect with but the way the totals are shown here has so much more weight than usual. Hard to get emotion from charts and graphs.

There are no family in post Soviet Union, who not suffered from WW2(for us war 1941-1945 called "Great Patriotic War"). Both of my grandfathers were there. One was in infantry and second was a pilot. Whole WW2 situation is terrific, but I hope that thanks to this video at least some of people will understand why do we celebrating May 9th. Personal for me - it's not a celebration day. This is memorial day for all, who not survived and suffered in this war on the Eastern front. Here is a short story about my grandfather Ivan(father's dad), who gave me most part of education. "Lt. Ivan Kostyukov, being a commander of a 2nd rifleman squad, during fulfillment of a command task “to take a height on a road to Leningrad”, took a command of company, when company commander and deputy company commander went out of service. Whole company was stuck under pressure fire during their movement. Realizing that "they’re 600 meters away from a waypoint" he gave a command to his light machine gunner “to suppress the enemy's machine gun fire 200-250 meters in front”. One of his light machine gunners was injured, the second one was killed In progress. Lt. Kostyukov took a light machine gun, suppressed the enemies’ firing point and destroyed up to 25 nazists. By these actions he provided an opportunity to keep going for the whole 1st battalion. On the same day, during the same battle Lt. Kostyukov with his company attacked the enemy fortified point and captured 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns and eliminated up to 40 nazists. In this battle Lt. Kostyukov eliminated 8 nazists by his own submachine gun. Lt. Kostyukov and his company faced heavy machine gun fire moving 300 meters forward attacking way. Lt. was injured by expansive machine gun round in a left shoulder. Despite that injury Lt. Kostyukov has stayed at the battlefield until he gave command role to indirect fire squad leader Lt. Diachenko, and was sent to the hospital by deputy regiment commander Maj. Ilyin." And my grandfather never told about this. For him it was all-personal. And May 9th was a day when he recalled his fallen comrades. Since then this day is more sacred.

I was saying on the discord that he shouldn’t have watched this because it was far too depressing and might take a toll on his mentality. Props for actually doing it regardless

10:33 I highly recommend you watching Hitler Oversimplified, a bit of hindsight can always be useful

My grand-grandfather went missing in 1941 in battle for Moscow, another one survive and ended war in Warsaw. There is no family in post USSR wich wasn't touched by war. And some numbers tells that we lost almost 30 million of solders and civillians.

My great- grandfather was in the war from the german side and he always spoke of how he had to walk from Russia back to Germany with a bulletwound and grenade wounds in his leg, having to hide in the day because the russians and americans were out at that time. Stealing cars, sleeping in barns, eating next to nothing and being on edge the entire time.. and that’s just when the war was supposed to be over. Really gives you perspective, and it isn’t exactly something I would like to experience

Noti gang. What’s even more horrifying is that the allies only discovered concentration camps after the war right? So it was kept a secret from the world for so long

"How can you be so evil?" It's easy, it's just human nature.

On the interactive version the time of showing the seconds of the long peace acctually shows the exact time and date you are watching it to the second.

My mom's two brothers were in WW2 . One landed on Normandy and fought in most big battles in Europe till the end. The other was a sailor on a new ship that every time it left port to go into battle it had to retune because it broke down. So he never fought in any battles in WW2. But both returned at the end of the war.

Please do The attack of the dead men by simple history im begging you

6:12 Britain was way larger at that time

If you ever get the chance, go to visit a state veteran's home and sit with the guys there. I was lucky enough to work in such a facility for several years, and I got to meet some of the kindest, most humble, and most incredible people in the world - a whole lot whom were WWII and Korean era veterans. And I guarantee the guys there would love to talk with a Royal Marine veteran :)

I never met my grandfather but he fled from the Soviet Union after ww1 and fought for the United States in ww2 as a paratrooper. Sadly I’ve never was able to meet him since he and my grandmother on my moms side passed from cancer before I was born. But from what I heard that was he was a stubborn bad ass who’d anything to help anybody in need. My aunt is getting duplicate medals since we don’t have the ones he was awarded he ended up achieving 13 medals. Really wish I could’ve met em and listen to some crazy stories and learned Russian

"I don't understand how someone could be so evil" Just wait until you learn about Josef Mengele Aka The Angel of Death

Fitting that the man in charge of the country that took the most causalties is responsible for the quote "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."

Nice reaction! I really hope we can maintain the peace!

My great uncle was at Normandy. He died just before his 100th birthday just a few months ago. He had nightmares about the war until his death. There was one story he told, I will never forget. They were in the trenches and they were out of munitions. They were all going to die if they didn't get ammo. They asked for volunteers. My uncle and one other were the only ones to volunteer. They had to run through enemy lines while being shot at, retrieve munitions and return. He said they were so loaded down with munitions that one shot from enemy fire would have blown them to bits. They made it back and they fought their way out of the trenches. He was offered a medal for it.

Me and all the viewers waiting for rdr2 be like: ...

Russia's population continues to suffer from the decimation they went through in WW2 since all of the man who died didn't get a chance to have children and this trend keeps echoing every now and then. That is why Russia's population pretty much remains the same for a long, long time now and it probably will stay that way for decades to come. That is the cost they paid for winning the war.

My maternal grandfather fought in the Pacific durning the Second World War. He was there in Okinawa and lost so many of his friends and brothers and arms. He passed away in 2011 but I would remember the story’s he would tell me about his Army days.

Hey man, thanks for doing this. Great video reaction. I am fan of your channel. I like your videos. War sucks!!! A friend of mine who was a US Marine was killed in Iraq a few years ago and right now is nerve racking watching how things are disintegrating in Afghanjstan at this very moment and wondering whdee this is going to lead to!