September 17, 1939 – World War II: The Soviet Union joins Germany in the invasion of Poland
On September 17, 1939, the Soviet RedArmy consisting of 500,000 troops, 5,000 artillery pieces, 4,700 tanks, and 3,000planes invaded through Belarusand Ukraine into eastern Poland. Previously, the Soviet Union had signed anumber of bilateral treaties with Poland, including a non-aggressionpact. However, Soviet leader JosephStalin justified Soviet military action, stating thatsince by this time the Polish state had ceased to exist, the Soviet Union needed to intervene and tend to the welfare of ethnicUkrainians and Byelorussians in Polish territories. In fact, Soviet entry in the war was made sothat the Red Army could occupy Polish territories that had been allocated tothe Soviet Union under the Soviet-Germannon-aggression pact signed just one month earlier (August 1939). The Soviet invasion did not encounter anyserious resistance, as the eastern border was only weakly defended, and thePolish government, completely taken by surprise, initially did not know if theRussians had come as its friend or foe, and ordered its forces to standdown. A few small battles took place,but the Soviet forces, with their overwhelming size, advanced virtuallyunopposed across eastern Poland.
(Taken from Invasion of Poland – Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe: Vol. 6)
If the plight of Poland was not dire enough, its allies Britainand France had not carried out the military relief that was badly needed. On September 2, 1939, one day after theGermans attacked, Britainand France issued a jointultimatum to Germanyto withdraw within 12 hours, and after receiving no response, they declared warthe following day. The BritishCommonwealth countries Australiaand New Zealand alsodeclared war on Germany. However, no significant military actionfollowed: British ships blockaded the German coastline and British planesdropped propaganda leaflets over German cities; while the French launched alackluster offensive on the German Saar region on September 7, capturing anumber of towns and villages without meeting any resistance, and thenwithdrawing most of their forces after a week. In mid-October 1939 and after the Polish campaign, German forces recapturedall the areas occupied by the French, who retreated behind the MaginotLine. The failure of Britain and Franceto launch any significant military action (which likely could have changed thecourse of World War II) on Germany’sweak western border in 1939) in compliance with their treaty obligations to Poland,has been called the “Western Betrayal”.
By September 17, with Polish forcesdisintegrating, the Germans controlling large sections of western Poland, the Soviet Red Army rolling in from theeast, and the lack of substantial support from its western Allies, the Polishgovernment decided that further resistance was futile and rescinded theRomanian Bridgehead plan, and crossed into Romania. Some 120,000 Polish soldiers also crossed theborder and were interned by the Romanian Army. Poland did notofficially surrender to Germanyor the Soviet Union, and during World War II, a Polish government-in-exilefunctioned in the West, first in Franceand then Britain. A Polish army also was raised in the West insupport of the Allies, as well as in Russiaafter Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941.
Meanwhile in Poland, the remaining Polish unitscontinued to engage in desperate fighting. On September 20, at Tomaszow Lubelski, the Germans annihilated twoPolish armies, the Krakow and LublinArmies. On September 22, Lwow wastaken. In Warsaw, on September 28, the Polish defenderswho had withstood relentless German air and artillery attacks, and Germanground assaults, finally capitulated after a 20-day siege, with 140,000 Polishsoldiers captured. The next day, theModlin Fortress located north of the capital also fell after two weeks offighting. Isolated Polish pockets heldoff until as late as the first week of October 1939, which were overrun, endingthe six-week war.
AftermathOn September 28, 1939, as the war was winding down, Germanyand the Soviet Union, acting on Stalin’sproposal, agreed to make changes to their respective spheres of influence asset forth in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. In the revised treaty, Germanyrelinquished to the Soviet Union its claim to a sphere of influence on Lithuania in exchange for the Soviet Unionrelinquishing to Germany itssphere of influence to sections of central Poland,including Warsaw and Lublin. On October 8, 1939, Germanyannexed western Poland,including Danzig, the Polish Corridor, and Silesia,and established the German-run General Governorate in the rest of theGerman-assigned territory in Poland.
The Soviet Union also annexed its shareof Polish territories, partitioning them among its subordinate states Belarus, Ukraineand Lithuania,and implementing Sovietization policies in ethnic Polish-majority regions.
In German-controlled Poland, which wasextended to include all of Poland after German forces captured the Sovietsection of Poland in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa (the Germaninvasion of the Soviet Union) in June 1941, Nazi Germany implemented policiesaimed at achieving Lebensraum, where ethnic Germans would settle in the formerPolish territories which then would be completely Germanized politically,economically, socially, and culturally. As Lebensraum entailed displacing the native populations, Generalplan Ost (General Plan East) was initiated in a seriesof programs of depopulating, resettling, or otherwise eliminating the Polishpopulation from lands that were destined to become fully German. Central to Nazi doctrine was the concept ofGerman racial superiority, and that German ethnic purity was to be maintainedand not tainted by the blood of races which the Nazis classified as inferior (Untermensch, or sub-human), whichincluded Poles and other Slavic peoples, Jews, and Roma (gypsies), amongothers.
The colonization and full Germanizationof Polish territories were to be accomplished in stages over many years. But of more urgency to the Germans was thefate of Polish Jews, whose eradication was determined in January 1942 throughthe euphemistically called “Final Solution”. In the aftermath of the Polish campaign, German authorities segregatedthe three million Polish Jews, who were then forced into the hundreds of Jewishghettos quickly set up across Poland. In the ensuing period, Polish and other Jewsacross Europe were transported by train tospecially constructed labor, concentration, and extermination camps where themass executions ultimately were carried out. Aside from Jews, Slavs, and Roma, Nazi extermination policies alsotargeted the physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals, politicalopponents, communists, prisoners of war, resistance fighters, and other groups.
In Poland, as a result of the Germanoccupation, some six million Poles perished, or 20% of the totalpopulation. Of this number, threemillion were Jews, of whom 90% were killed.
