<P> World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history in absolute terms of total casualties . Over 60 million people were killed, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population (est . 2.3 billion). Statistics of military wounded are available for the major combatants . The tables below give a detailed country - by - country count of human losses . World War II fatality statistics vary, with estimates of total deaths ranging from 50 million to more than 80 million . The higher figure of over 80 million includes deaths from war - related disease and famine . Civilians killed totalled 50 to 55 million, including 19 to 28 million from war - related disease and famine . Military deaths from all causes totalled 21 to 25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war . Statistics on the number of military wounded are included whenever available . </P> <P> Recent historical scholarship has shed new light on the topic of Second World War casualties . Research in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union has caused a revision of estimates of Soviet WW2 fatalities . According to Russian government figures, USSR losses within postwar borders now stand at 26.6 million including 8.5 million due to war related famine and disease . In August 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated Poland's dead at between 5.6 and 5.8 million . Historian Rüdiger Overmans of the Military History Research Office (Germany) published a study in 2000 that estimated the German military dead and missing at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders, in Austria, and in east - central Europe . The People's Republic of China puts its war dead at 20 million, while the Japanese government puts its casualties due to the war at 3.1 million . </P>

What percentage of the population was killed in ww2