The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities (111 page)

33.
Robert Conquest,
Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties (New York: Macmillan, 1968).

34.
Among other places you'll find estimates of 15 to 25 million: "Stalinism," in
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 11, p. 205; Brzezinski,
Out of Control; Courtois et al.,
Black Book of Communism, p. 4; John Heidenrich,
How to Prevent Genocide (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001), p. 7; Hochschild,
Unquiet Ghost, pp. xv, 138; Chirot, in
Modern Tyrants, p. 126, calls 20 million the lowest credible estimate and 40 million the highest.

Crazed Tyrants

1.
The median of seven published estimates. See
http://www.necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#Hitler
.

2.
Median of five estimates: Gabriel Jackson,
The Spanish Republic and the Civil War 1931–39 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 535 (200,000 executed by Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War and 200,000 after); Max Gallo,
Spain under Franco: A History (New York: Dutton, 1974), p. 67 (192,684 after); Hugh Thomas,
The Spanish Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), pp. 900–901 (75,000 during and 100,000 after); Ruiz, "Franco and the Spanish Civil War" (150,000 during and after); Stanley Payne,
The Franco Regime 1936–1975 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), p. 216 (35,021 during and 22,641 after).

3.
Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu,
In Search of Dracula (New York: Warner, 1972), p. 109, citing a 1475 report by the Bishop of Erlau.

4.
"Murad IV," in
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 19, p. 15.

5.
Londsdale Ragg,
Dante and His Italy (London: Methuen, 1907), p. 127.

6.
"Equatorial Guinea Accused,"
Washington Post, July 24, 1978; "Equatorial Guinea," in
Encarta; Charles Hickman Cutter,
Africa 2003 (Harper's Ferry, WV: Stryker-Post, 2003), p. 83.

7.
Mouctar Bah, "As Guinea Turns 50 Sekou Toure's Victims Want Recognition," Agence France Presse, October 1, 2008 (50,000).

8.
AP-Reuter, "Ex-Ruler Murdered 40,000, Chad Says,"
Toronto Star, May 21, 1992.

9.
Richard A. Haggerty, ed., "François Duvalier 1957–71," in
A Country Study: Haiti (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, research completed December 1989),
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/httoc.html
.

10.
Henri Troyat,
Ivan the Terrible (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1984), p. 238. Toward the end of his life, Ivan drew up lists of all of the victims he could remember and sent them to monasteries for prayers. One listed 3,148 people killed; another 3,750.

11.
Holger Jensen, "Old Style Dictator May Keep Power in Malawi,"
Denver Rocky Mountain News, May 17, 1994 ("the deaths of at least 18,000 people by torture, assassination or massacres of entire villages").

12.
This is my guess based on the statement of the Roman historian Suetonius that at the height of the treason trials, not a day passed without an execution and there were as many as twenty executions on some days.

Italo-Ethiopian War

1.
The Italian side suffered around 15,000 battle deaths, most of whom were African auxiliaries rather than Italians. In 1945 the Ethiopian government calculated the official death toll as 760,300 natives dead. Angelo Del Boca,
The Ethiopian War 1935–1941 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press,1965).

• Battle deaths: 275,000

• Hunger among refugees: 300,000

• Resistance fighters killed during occupation: 75,000

• Concentration camps: 35,000

• February 1937 massacre in Addis Ababa: 30,000 (most historians believe the death toll was only 3,000, so I subtracted the difference)

• Executions: 24,000

• Civilians killed by air force: 17,800

2.
Pankhurst, "History of Early Twentieth Century Ethiopia."

Spanish Civil War

1.
Hugh Thomas,
The Spanish Civil War (New York: Modern Library, 2001), pp. 900–901. This includes 200,000 combat deaths and 130,000 executions during the war. It doesn't include the 100,000 or so executed by Franco after the war. Most other recent estimates agree on the approximate total (with maybe 100,000 more or less), but differ widely on the specific cause of deaths. Earlier estimates had counted 1 million missing Spaniards presumed dead, but later investigation found that many of those had emigrated to escape the war.

2.
Murphy, "Lincoln Brigade Survivors Relive Wartime Exploits"; Orwell,
Homage to Catalonia; Ruiz, "Franco and the Spanish Civil War."

Second World War

1.
This is my own calculation (see
http://www.necrometrics.com/ww2stats.htm#ww2chart
). The most common estimate of the death toll of World War II is 50 million, which is found in John Haywood,
Atlas of World History (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997), p. 109; Keegan,
Second World War, p. 590; Charles Messenger,
The Chronological Atlas of World War Two (New York: Macmillan, 1989), p. 242; Geoffrey Barraclaugh, ed.,
The Times Concise Atlas of World History: Revised Edition (Maplewood, NJ: Hammond, 1991), p. 132; J. M. Roberts,
Twentieth Century (New York: Viking, 1999), p. 432; Urlanis,
Wars and Population, p. 292.

2.
Sherree Owens Zalam,
Adolf Hitler. A Psychological Interpretation of His Views on Architecture, Art and Music (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990), p. 138; Leni Yahil et al.,
The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 45.

3.
Number of Soviets killed in action: Erickson,
Barbarossa, table 12.4. Number of Soviets captured: Keegan,
Second World War, p. 191; Charles Messenger,
The Chronological Atlas of World War Two (New York: Macmillan, 1989), p. 64.

4.
Gilbert,
History of the Twentieth Century, vol. 2, p. 398.

5.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum,
Historical Atlas of the Holocaust, p. 74.

6.
Ibid., p. 67.

7.
Mazower,
Dark Continent, p. 168.

8.
Ibid., p. 154.

9.
Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd R. Ueberschär,
Hitler's War in the East, 1941–1945: A Critical Assessment (New York: Berghahn Books, 2002), pp. 214–215; Hobsbawm,
Age of Extremes, p. 43.

10.
Overy,
Russia's War, p. 175.

11.
This is my own estimate of the number killed at Stalingrad. Red Army records show that around 480,000 Soviets were killed in the battle (Erickson,
Barbarossa, table 12.4; Beevor,
Stalingrad, p. 394; Overy,
Russia's War, p. 212). In addition, it is commonly estimated that around 150,000 Germans of the Sixth Army were killed within the pocket. Hoyt (
199 Days, pp. 161, 166) indicates that over 9,700 Germans were killed during the weeks of street fighting before the Soviet encirclement. Romanian losses run from 120,000 to 160,000 of all types, so a quarter of the mid-point would give us 35,000 killed. The Italians lost 85,000 to 130,000, so a quarter of the mid-point would give us 27,000 killed. Hungarian losses were comparable to the losses of Italians and Romanians, so let's estimate 30,000 killed. It's hard to say how many Germans were killed outside the pocket, but as a pure guess, let's say at least 10,000. Adding it all up and rounding it off gives us 750,000.

As for the civilian death toll, Yevgenia Borisova ("Stalingrad Civilians Were Not Counted,"
Moscow Times
, February 4, 2003) estimates that around 350,000 civilians disappeared from Stalingrad during the battle. The article offers five explanations for what may have happened to them: succumbed to starvation and cold, killed by the bombing and shelling, evacuated during the battle, sent to Germany as slave laborers, or managed to flee on their own. If we assign equal probabilities to each of these five possible fates, then the number who succumbed or were killed would be two-fifths of the total, or some 140,000.

12.
Salisbury,
900 Days, p. 516 (1.3 million to 1.5 million); Glantz,
Siege of Leningrad 1941–44, p. 7 (1.6 million to 2.0 million).

13.
Ibid., pp. 474–475; Michael Jones,
Leningrad: State of Siege (New York: Basic Books, 2008), pp. 214–219.

14.
Overy,
Russia's War, p. 112. The number of military deaths at Leningrad are unknown but Glantz (
Siege of Leningrad 1941–44, p. 179) reports that the Soviets recorded that 1,017,881 soldiers were lost irrevocably (that is, killed, captured, missing).

15.
Overy (
Russia's War, p. 212) estimates 253,000 Soviet dead at Kursk. Both Clodfelter (
Warfare and Armed Conflicts, vol. 2, p. 827) and John Erickson (
The Road to Berlin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 112) estimate 70,000 Germans dead.

16.
Overy,
Russia's War, p. 117.

17.
Mazower,
Dark Continent, p. 155.

18.
Smith,
Holocaust and Other Genocides, p. 16.

19.
Donald L. Niewyk, "Holocaust: The Genocide of the Jews," in Samuel Totten et al., eds.,
Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 128–129.

20.
Smith,
Holocaust and Other Genocides, pp. 36–37.

21.
Donald L. Niewyk, "Holocaust: The Genocide of the Jews," in Samuel Totten et al., eds.,
Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 131–132.

22.
Ian Hancock, "Responses to the Romani Holocaust," in Alan S. Rosenbaum, ed.,
Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 39–64.

23.
Gilbert,
History of the Twentieth Century, vol. 2, p. 527.

24.
Keay,
India, p. 504.

25.
Johann Hari, "The Two Churchills,"
New York Times, August 12, 2010.

26.
Jeffrey Alan Lockwood,
Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 115.

27.
"June 6, 1944: UK's Last Day as a Superpower," BBC, June 3, 2009.

28.
Overy,
Russia's War, p. 246.

29.
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965).

30.
Mazower,
Dark Continent, p. 217.

31.
Martin Sorge,
The Other Price of Hitler's War (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), citing Cornelius Ryan,
The Last Battle (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966).