War victims

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Victims of war are people who have been affected by organized violence that occurs in the context of armed conflict . In social compensation law, this definition includes both persons who have suffered war damage ( war invalids ) and the survivors of persons who died as a result of such damage (war survivors), but not those who were themselves killed as a result of the direct action of the war , primarily statistically are recorded.

In psychotraumatology , war victims are also people whose further life is shaped by the consequences of armed conflict, for example displaced persons , refugees and war children .

Wars in the 20th century

Depending on the definition of “warlike act”, the number of wars in the 20th century is quantified differently. According to the usual concept of international and civil wars, 54 wars were recorded worldwide between 1900 and 1993. Based on an expanded definition, a number of 218 is only given for the period from 1945 to 2000.

War and civilian casualties in the 20th century

War invalids in Austria , 1951

Zbigniew Brzeziński , former security advisor to former US President Jimmy Carter, has estimated the number of war casualties for the 20th century at 187 million.

For the same period Charles S. Maier gave the number of 100 million victims (numbers in millions): 10, concentration and labor camps; 10, “Ethnic Cleansing”; 50, international conflicts; 10, civil wars; 7–8, civil victims of acts of war; 1.5, interethnic violence; 0.2, victim of terrorist violence.

It has been estimated that civilians are now nine times more likely to be killed in a war than members of the fighting armies. According to estimates by the International Committee of the Red Cross , the proportion of civilian casualties in total casualties rose over the 20th century from 5% in World War I to 90–95% in the wars that took place towards the end of the 20th century . Slightly different estimates give the ratio between civilian casualties and killed soldiers with 1 to 8 in the First World War and 8 to 1 at the end of the 20th century.

A group of war victims that has not yet received much attention are the war-traumatized children with long-term consequences that still burden the next generation.

There are also deviations in the number of victims for the latest armed conflicts. For Afghanistan (1980) about 2 million victims are expected; in Sudan 1.5 million; in Rwanda 800,000; in Angola 300,000; in Bosnia 230,000; in Guatemala 200,000; in Liberia 130,000; in Burundi 230,000; in Algeria 73,000; in the Iraq war (1991) 35,000. The proportion of civilian casualties in the above figures is estimated to be higher than 95%.

Protection of war victims

The Geneva Conventions were modified in 1949 to expand legal protection for the civilian population (see the provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 ). In 1977 protection was extended to include victims of non-international armed conflicts (see the provisions of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention of 1977 ).

In Germany, the state provision of war victims of the Second World War is regulated in the Federal Supply Act, which is carried out by the pension offices, in Austria by the War Victims Supply Act 1957 . In the Netherlands, the information and coordination body for war victims (ICODO; Informatie- en Coördinatie-Orgaan Dienstverlening Oorlogsgetroffene, Utrecht) was set up.

See also

literature

  • Giovanni De Luna: Il corpo del nemico ucciso. Violenza e morte nella guerra contemporanea , Einaudi, Torino 2006
  • Margarete Dörr: The war shaped us. How children experienced the Second World War , 2 volumes; Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007
  • Eric J. Hobsbawm, Age of extremes: the short twentieth century; 1914 - 1991 , London 1994 (German: The Age of Extremes: World History of the 20th Century , Hanser, Munich 1995)
  • Charles S. Maier : Il Ventesimo secolo è stato peggiore degli altri? Un bilancio storico alla fine del Novecento , in “Il Mulino”, XLVIII (1999). Published abridged in: "Eurisko", n.88 April 2000 - (PDF)
  • Peter Strutynsky: Nothing new under the sun? - The wars of the 21st century , lecture at an event of the Friedenswerkstatt Linz on October 25, 2001 . Abridged published in: "Forum Wissenschaft", issue 4/2001
  • Winterberg Yury and Sonya: "War children, accompanying book for the documentary series of the same name on ARD from March 16 to April 6, 2009," Rotbuch Verlag Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86789-071-7

Web links

Wiktionary: war victims  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Becker: Kriegsopfer Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon, accessed on September 22, 2019
  2. ↑ More war deaths than expected Wissenschaft.de , June 20, 2008
  3. ↑ Hartmut Radebold : Absent Fathers and War Childhood. Persistent consequences in psychoanalysis. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht Verlag Göttingen 2004, as well as childhoods during World War II. War experiences and their consequences from a psychohistorical perspective. Juventa-Verlag Weinheim / Munich 2006
  4. ^ G. De Luna, Il corpo del nemico ucciso , XVII.
  5. ↑ P. Strutynsky, Nothing new under the sun?
  6. ^ EJ Hobsbawm , Age of extremes .
  7. ↑ CS Maier, Il Ventesimo secolo è stato peggiore degli altri? .
  8. ↑ M. Fortmann, Guerre , in: Th. De Montbrial, J. Klein (ed.), Dictionnaire de stratégie , Paris 2000 ( quoted in G. De Luna, Il corpo del nemico ucciso , 229).
  9. ^ "Revue ICR", n. 789, May-June 1991, 327 ( quoted from G. De Luna, Il corpo del nemico ucciso , 229).
  10. ↑ Mary Kaldor , New and Old Wars , p. 18 (quoted from P. Strutynsky, Nothing new under the sun? ).
  11. ^ Association Kriegskinder eV. Kiel with further comments. [1]
  12. ↑ Chris Hedges , War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning , PublicAffairs, 2002 ( quoted from G. De Luna, Il corpo del nemico ucciso , 278)
  13. ↑ War Victims Welfare Act 1957 - KOVG. 1957 Federal Law Gazette No. 152/1957. RIS , accessed September 22, 2019