World War II

On September 1, 1939, without formal declaration of war, Germany invaded Poland. Germany's pretext was that Polish troops had allegedly committed "provocations" along the German-Polish border, together with the dispute between Germany and Poland over German rights to the Free City of Danzig and to free passage between East Prussia and the rest of Germany through the Polish Corridor. Pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union, which invaded eastern Poland on September 17, 1939. Poland was completely occupied by German troops. The Polish armed forces resisted the German invasion, but their strategic position was hopeless since Poland was surrounded on three sides by Germany and German-controlled Czechoslovakia. The Poles believed that the invasion was intended from the beginning as a war of extermination. It was in Poland that the Germans first used the tactics of Blitzkrieg ("lightning war"): rapid advance of Panzer (armoured) divisions, dive bombing to break up troop concentrations, and aerial bombing of undefended cities to sap civilian morale. German forces were numerically and technologically superior to Polish armed forces. The Germans threw eighty-five percent of their armed forces at Poland. The United Kingdom and France honoured their pledge to Poland by declaring war on Germany, but no practical assistance was rendered. according to the French-Polish military accord that was signed in May 19, 1939, France will attack Germany if Poland will be attacked. Nine divisions (out of 102 that were ready to action) of the French army entered to the German area in Saarland, advanced to a depth of 8 kilometres and conquered about 20 abandoned villages, without any resistance. The Saar Offensive didn't cause incitement of even one German soldier from Poland to the west. When it looked like the Germans defeating Poland, and that soon they will be able to turn soldiers to the west again, the French General Staff ordered retreat, and in October 4 the French forces returned to the positions in which they were before the attack. With United Kingdom and France unable or unwilling to follow on their military commitment to Poland, the Soviet Union, having its own reasons to fear the German expansionism towards the East, made several offers to Poland, as earlier to Czechoslovakia, of an anti-German alliance. Such alliances would have likely been a meaningful deterrent to Hitler's expansionist plans since they were to be backed by the Soviet military might. But the Poles feared Stalin's communism nearly as much as they feared Hitler's Nazism, and during 1939 they had refused to agree to any arrangement which would allow Soviet troops to enter Poland. The Poles formed a government in exile, first in Paris and later in London, which was recognized by the Soviet Union. In April 1943, the Soviet Union broke relations with the Polish government in exile after the German military announced that they had discovered mass graves of murdered Polish army officers at Katyn, in the USSR. As the Soviets advanced through Poland in late 1944 the German administration collapsed. The Communist-controlled Committee of National Liberation , headed by Boleslaw Bierut, was installed by the Soviet Union in July in Lublin, the first major Polish city to be liberated from the Nazis, and began to take over the administration of the country as the Germans retreated. The government in exile in London had only one card to play, the forces of the AK (The Home Army). This was why the government in exile was determined that the AK would cooperate with the advancing Red Army on a tactical level, while Polish civil authorities from underground took power in Allied-controlled Polish territory to prevent possibility of Soviets taking control over Poland. The failure of the Warsaw Uprising marked the end of any real chance that Poland would escape post-war Communist rule, especially given the unwillingness of the Western Allies to risk conflict with Soviets over Poland. Soviets performed executions, deportations and arrests of the Home Army members that assisted them in fights against German army. Until 1946 there was a semblance of civil war in Poland, as communist forces created and supported by Soviets clashed with anti-communist resistance, and some of AK and NSZ (National Armed Forces) soldiers continued to fight well into 1956. In February 1945 Yalta Conference took place, which was the wartime meeting from February 4 to 11, 1945 between the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. The delegations were headed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, who was given supervision over Poland. His armed forces were in control of the country, and his agents, the Polish Communists, were in control of its administration. Stalin was determined that Poland's new government should be Communist, and therefore ultimately under his control. He had severed relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London in 1943 in the aftermath of the Katyn Massacre, but to appease Roosevelt and Churchill he agreed at Yalta that a coalition government would be formed. Stalin also agreed that Poland would receive a $10 billion reparation payment from Germany.