Invasion of Poland
by Staff EditorTable of Contents
- The Holocaust in Poland
- Polish Resistance
- After the War
The invasion of Poland without warning by German forces on September 1, 1939 was the first domino to fall in the chain of events that would lead to World War II, the most devastating global conflict of the 20th century.
There was no formal declaration of war or valid justification for Germany’s actions, though it maintained that Poland had provoked the invasion by committing various acts of aggression along the border that linked the two countries. It also argued that it had rights over the Polish city of Danzig, which it was forced to give up in the crippling Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. A third claim was that Germany was eager to install a passageway between itself and East Prussia through the Polish Corridor.
Polish armed forces did their best to defend against Germany at the onset of the invasion but their attempts quickly proved futile in the face of the devastating German Blitzkreig. The fact that Germany surrounded Poland from three sides (including German-controlled Czechoslovakia) didn’t help either, nor did Poland’s antiquated military equipment and troops who were outnumbered nearly two to one by the Germans.
The surprise assault led many Poles to fear that it was intended not just to win the country for Germany but to exterminate them altogether. Rumors that German leader Adolf Hitler threatened instant death by firing squad on any Pole caught speaking out against the invasion only served to heighten their fears, as did his claim that he was determined to take Poland by systematically eliminating its men, women and children.
France and the U.K. instantly declared war on Germany but offered no immediate assistance to Poland. The Soviet Union offered its aid but Poles, fearful of Communism, declined. Within two weeks the city of Warsaw and much of the western countryside was surrounded and by September 17, under the treaties of the secret Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Red Army began moving in on the east.
With Warsaw all but bombed into submission by the end of September, a few resistance efforts tried to deflect the German advance to no avail. While never formally surrendering, Polish government officials retreated into neutral Romania, essentially giving Germany carte blanche over Polish territory, not that it hadn’t assumed that status in its initial assault.
Hitler issued separate decrees annexing parts of Poland lost in the 1918 Treaty of Versailles back to Germany in October. The Polish Corridor, West Prussia and Upper Silesia were taken back for Germany but many other territories that were seized were unconditionally Polish ones that Germany had even fewer rights over than the ones they took.
In the east and by virtue of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the USSR annexed all Polish territory east of the line created by the Pisa, Narew, Bug and San rivers. Poland was now a country divided between its two attackers and it seemed as though there was virtually nothing that could be done about it. Over 10 million Poles were now living in territories occupied by Germany and another 13.5 million, including Ukrainians, Byelorussians and Polish Jews were stuck under the thumb of the Soviet Union.
Those territories not annexed to either Germany or Russia were supervised under a General Government headed by prominent German lawyer and steadfast Nazi Hans Frank, who immediately oversaw the segregation of Polish Jews into separate ghettos in major cities like Warsaw, Krakow (the General Government’s capital) and Radom and began enforcing the forceful labor of Polish civilians toward the German war effort.
The population of the General Government was initially close to the 12 million mark but that number increased by nearly a million as Jews and other undesirables were expelled from the German-annexed zones and resettled in the General Government. The only measure taken to offset this population influx was Operation Tannenberg, the systematic extermination of Poles suspected of being in a position to resist the German takeover such as intellectuals, professors, lawyers and members of the elite, who were all rounded up and executed. Famine and disease also did their part to dwindle the population as well and nearly a million Poles were carted off in droves to work in German labor camps, where many suffered out their final days.
The plan called for non-Jewish Poles living in the General Government to gradually be downgraded to servant status to allow for German colonists to eventually move in. In order to achieve this, Poles were stripped of many of their rights and privileges including the right to education and the proliferation of their culture, as well as a halt to the rich artistic and scientific communities that had thrived in the country for centuries. Others were sent to labor camps in Poland where many of them met their tragic ends as well.
In all, more than three million non-Jewish Poles died as a result of the German occupation, translating into about 10% of the population of 1939. Add this to the three-plus million Polish Jews exterminated in the death camps and an extraordinary figure emerges that served to significantly mark the country and the culture. In all, Poland lost about 22% of its total population in the war, the most of any country in WWII.
Most non-Jewish Poles died from starvation or harsh conditions in forced labor camps rather than the systematic execution suffered by Jewish Poles in concentration camps. There were six extermination camps in Poland during the war including the notorious Auschwitz; all were intended for the exclusive purpose of killing Jews.
The Holocaust in Poland
Poland’s sizeable Jewish population was the first target of the German invasion of Poland; loathed by the Nazis, Jews were immediately singled out and persecuted. At first, they were stripped of their property, ordered to live in ghettos and forced to work in labor camps to support the German war effort. It wasn’t until 1942 that the ominous “Final Solution” was proposed and Germany began the systemized extermination of Jews, beginning with those living in the General Government. The six Polish concentration camps were set up and the mass murder of millions of Jews was begun. By the end of WWII, there were only an estimated 50,000 Polish Jews left from a onetime population of more than three million.
The role played by the Poles in the elimination of their Jewish brethren is still debated. It has been argued that there was an existing anti-Semitic sentiment in Poland even before the German army moved in, at times encouraged by the Catholic Church (Poland was an overwhelmingly Catholic country, despite its large concentration of Jews) and various political parties. Knowing this, it can be inferred that the Germans chose Poland in effect to exploit this existing anti-Semitic sentiment.
In fairness, most Poles were struggling for their own survival during the war and were not in a position to oppose the extermination of the Jews even if they had wanted to, though isolated cases of non-Jewish Poles risking their lives to save Jews have been uncovered.
Polish Resistance
Though the German army suppressed most resistance efforts before they ever even got off the ground, some did manage to, and went down in history for it. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was one such movement. Begun in April 1943 in the Jewish ghetto at Warsaw, it lasted a month before its perpetrators were defeated. Though Jewish leaders knew that the uprising would end in fatal failure, they preferred to die fighting rather than be taken to concentration camps.
As the Soviet army approached Warsaw in August of 1944, a second uprising was staged, this time to fend off the impending takeover of Communism in Poland. Organized by the Polish government-in-exile, a 63-day standoff led to the complete destruction of the city and the ruthless punishment of insurgents. Nearly 100,000 civilians were sent to labor camps, with an additional 60,000 sent to concentration camps.
After the War
Soviet leader Josef Stalin eventually did move into Poland, imposing a Communist government after the war. By then, the country was sufficiently battered and defeated that it hardly put up a fight.
General Government leader Hans Frank, who oversaw many, if not most of the atrocities committed in Poland during the war was captured by U.S. soldiers and became a defendant at the Nuremberg Trials. He was found guilty of war crimes and was sentenced to death by hanging on October 1, 1946.
