Victory Day commemorations revisit WWI and WWII death tolls

On May 8 2026, commentary pieces titled “El Día de la Victoria” reflected on the massive human loss of the First and Second World Wars. They cite conservative estimates of roughly nine million soldiers and seven million civilians killed in WWI, plus over 20 million wounded, and a total death toll of 45–70 million in WWII, with the Soviet Union bearing the heaviest loss at about 27 million.

The authors criticize the tendency to privilege American and British narratives of the wars, noting that the United States entered WWII only after Pearl Harbor and that Soviet forces bore the brunt of the fighting on the Eastern Front. The pieces also reference the 1960s‑70s U.S. TV series “Combat,” which dramatized an American squad fighting German troops in France, as part of the broader cultural memory of the conflicts.