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Lukashenko exaggerated Nazi losses in the opening days of the Great Patriotic War. Here's by how much
According to him more people died in Belarus alone than in two years of war in Europe.
In the early days of the war alone, Nazi forces lost more soldiers and officers in Belarus than they did in the previous two years of fighting in Europe, Alexander Lukashenko said during a speech at the parade marking the 80th anniversary of the victory. The Weekly Top Fake team examined how his version of history differs from the official account.
Alexander Lukashenko spoke about the bravery of the Belarusian people in their fight against the Nazi invaders during a ceremonial speech in Minsk on May 9, 2025. The video was published by the Telegram channel Pul Pervogo.
“At the Soviet border, the technically equipped and tactically seasoned fascist army stumbled. Near the approaches to Moscow, it got bogged down for years. In the early days alone, Nazi forces lost more soldiers and officers in Belarus than they did in two years of marching across all of Europe,” Lukashenko said.
The WTF team investigated whether German forces marching through Belarus toward Moscow in the summer of 1941 really lost more soldiers than they had during two years of war in Europe before that. According to records from the German operational command archive, between 1939 and the first half of 1941, the German army had taken control of most of Europe. During that time, more than 50,000 of its soldiers were killed. Over 150,000 were wounded or went missing. The highest losses came in France. During the fighting in Poland, 10,000 German soldiers were killed, and around 8,000 died in the campaigns in Greece and Norway.
After invading the Soviet Union, German forces crossed through Belarus in just one month. Across the entire Eastern Front in June 1941, the Wehrmacht lost at least 42,000 troops killed, wounded or missing. That's five times fewer than during Hitler’s two years of war in Europe. And that figure includes losses on the Baltic and Ukrainian fronts as well.
