International situation of
Poland before WWII and the
September Campain of 1939
PROF. RADOSŁAW DOMKE
Hitler's rise to power
 At the very beginning, Germany made no claims.
 Over time, Hitler began to talk more and more boldly about revising the
Treaty of Versailles.
 Already in Mein Kampf he wrote about the living space for Germans in the
East.
 Poland began to be called the bastard of the Treaty of Versailles.
German revisionism
Annexation of Zaolzie (in propaganda
„regained territories” for the first time)
Demands towards Poland
 After several years of neutrality in mutual relations in 1934-1938, the Third
Reich tightened its policy towards Poland
 In October 1938, three demands were made:
 Extraterritorial highway and railway line, Annexation of the Free City of
Gdańsk to the Reich, Poland's accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact.
 All demands were rejected by Poland.
Polish-Hungarian border (III 1939)
Speech by Józef Beck on May 5, 1939
 “Peace is a precious and desirable thing. Our generation, bloodied in
wars, certainly deserves a period of peace. But peace, like almost all
things in this world, has its price, high but measurable. We in Poland do not
know the concept of peace at any cost. There is only one thing in the lives
of people, nations and countries that is priceless. That thing is honor.”
Ribbentrop-Molotov Treaty
 On August 23, 1939, a pact was signed in Moscow which included a secret
protocol dividing Central Europe into two spheres of influence: German
and Soviet.
 Both sides wanted time to be able to secretly arm themselves
 In this way, Hitler gained a hidden ally
 The USSR pledged to go to war against Poland within two weeks of its
outbreak
 The German-Soviet agreement was de facto another partition of Poland
 On September 28, another German-Soviet pact took place, correcting the
common border.
 This sanctioned the actual division of Poland between these two countries,
which had already taken place
Gwarancje brytyjskie i mobilizacja
armii
 On August 25, 1939, in London, the governments of Poland and Great
Britain signed an alliance agreement. It did not save Poland in September
1939, but it forced Hitler into war with Great Britain - something he wanted
to avoid at all costs. The arrangement was a development of the earlier
British guarantees of March 1939.
Fallweiss
 On August 25, 1939, in London, the governments of Poland and Great
Britain signed an alliance agreement. It did not save Poland in September
1939, but it forced Hitler into war with Great Britain - something he wanted
to avoid at all costs.
 The plan was to quickly conquer Poland using blitzkrieg
 It was assumed that Poland would be conquered within 1-2 weeks
Gliwice provocation
 The provocation took place on Thursday, August 31, 1939, at 8 p.m.
Attackers posing as Silesian insurgents were allowed into the building of
the Gliwice radio station, located 10 km from the border with Poland.
Earlier, on a personal telephone order from Heinrich Himmler, the radio
station's security was removed and two policemen were sent there, one of
whom let the attackers into the facility, and the other was arrested along
with the radio station crew to make sure they did not act rashly.
German attack
The balance of forces
Battle for the borders
The nature of war 1939
 Germany's aggression against Poland was an extremely brutal war
campaign in which war crimes were an everyday occurrence. The
Wehrmacht - the army of National Socialist Germany - waged a war in
violation of international conventions and with complete contempt for the
enemy.
 Residents of Gdynia arrested by the Germans in the first days of the
occupation. Between September 14 and 30, 1939, a large-scale
"purification operation" (German: Säuberungsaktion) was carried out in
Gdynia, as a result of which nearly 2,500 people were arrested. Many of
them were later murdered in Piaśnica or the Stutthof concentration camp.
Sztutowo (Stutthof)
Maps of Poland's defensive war in
1939
Bitwa nad Bzurą
Soviet attack
Defense of Warsaw
Capitulation (6 X 1939)
 On October 6, the battle of Kock, the last battle of the September
campaign, ended. The act of surrender was signed by General Franciszek
Kleberg
Poland's defensive war of 1939 as a
national symbol
 Westerplatte
 defense of the Gdańsk post office
 defense of Hel Peninsula
 defense of Warsaw
 „The 4th partition of Poland”
 betrayal of allies
 The myth of the long defensive war
What if…?
The end