September 1, 1939

Saturday, September 1st, 2012

On September 1, 1939, 1.8 million German troops invaded Poland on three fronts — East Prussia in the north, Germany in the west, and Slovakia in the south:

They had 2600 tanks against the Polish 180, and over 2000 aircraft against the Polish 420. Their “Blitzkrieg” tactics, coupled with their bombing of defenceless towns and refugees, had never been seen before and, at first, caught the Poles off-guard. By September 14th. Warsaw was surrounded. At this stage the poles reacted, holding off the Germans at Kutno and regrouping behind the Wisla (Vistula) and Bzura rivers. Although Britain and France declared war on September 3rd. the Poles received no help — yet it had been agreed that the Poles should fight a defensive campaign for only 2 weeks during which time the Allies could get their forces together and attack from the west.

There are many “myths” that surround the September Campaign; the fictional Polish cavalry charges against German tanks (actually reported by the Italian press and used as propaganda by the Germans), the alleged destruction of the Polish Air Force on the ground, or claims that Polish armour failed to achieve any success against the invaders. In reality, and despite the fact that Poland was only just beginning to modernise her armed forces and had been forced (by Britain and France) to delay mobilisation (which they claimed might be interpreted as aggressive behaviour) so that, at the time of invasion, only about one-third of her total potential manpower was mobilised, Polish forces ensured that the September campaign was no “walk-over”. The Wehrmacht had so under-rated Polish anti-tank capabilities (the Polish-designed anti-tank gun was one of the best in the world at that time) that they had gone into action with white “balkankreuz”, or crosses, prominently displayed in eight locations; these crosses made excellent aiming points for Polish gun-sights and forced the Germans to radically rethink their national insignia, initially overpainting them in yellow and then, for their later campaigns, adopting the modified “balkankreuz” similar to that used by the Luftwaffe. The recently designed 7TP “czolg lekki”, or light tank, the first in the world to be designed with a diesel engine, proved to be superior to German tanks of the same class (the PzKpfw I and II) inflicting serious damage to the German forces, limited only by the fact that they were not used in concentrated groups. They were absorbed by the Germans into their own Panzer divisions at the end of the campaign.

On September 17th. Soviet forces invaded from the east. Warsaw surrendered 2 weeks later, the garrison on the Hel peninsula surrendered on October 2nd., and the Polesie Defence group, after fighting on two fronts against both German and Soviet forces, surrendered on October 5th. The Poles had held on for twice as long as had been expected and had done more damage to the Germans than the combined British and French forces were to do in 1940. The Germans lost 50,000 men, 697 planes and 993 tanks and armoured cars.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians managed to escape to France and Britain whilst many more went “underground”. A government-in-exile was formed with Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz as President and General Wladyslaw Sikorski as Prime Minister.

Under the German-Soviet pact Poland was divided; the Soviets took, and absorbed into the Soviet Union, the eastern half (Byelorussia and the West Ukraine), the Germans incorporated Pomerania, Posnania and Silesia into the Reich whilst the rest was designated as the General-Gouvernement (a colony ruled from Krakow by Hitler’s friend, Hans Frank).

In the Soviet zone 1.5 million Poles (including women and children) were transported to labour camps in Siberia and other areas. Many thousands of captured Polish officers were shot at several secret forest sites; the first to be discovered being Katyn, near Smolensk.

The more I learn about World War II the less sense it makes.

(Hat tip to David Foster.)

Comments

  1. Dave says:

    Indeed, the other thing that Poles contributed to the Allies was breaking the Enigma machine.

    Early British cryptologic success against Enigma was Polish success, just implemented with different procedures. The Poles accelerated the Allied COMINT program by at least a year, probably more.

  2. Etype says:

    The Germans attacked with 2600 tanks and 2000 airplanes? This article shows how you can make up pretty much anything you want about WWII. I imagine the writer is Polish and dreams of submitting a script to Spielberg or Tarintino.

    Also the Polish procured a enigma machine ‘before’ the war and had no idea what to do with it or how important it was. They contributed nothing to breaking the code, and only remembered the fact after. The smuggling of the enigma machine to Britain is considered by many to be fiction.

  3. Chas says:

    My understanding of WW2 was that two conflicts were inevitable: Germany vs. the USSR in Eastern Europe, and Japan versus all the European colonial powers and the US in the Pacific.

    Everything else — North Africa, France, Greece, Finland, you name it — was just a (deadly) sideshow.

  4. Isegoria says:

    The numbers given pass the Wikipedia test:

    Germany had a substantial numeric advantage over Poland and had developed a significant military prior to the conflict. The Heer (army) had some 2,400 tanks organized into six panzer divisions, utilizing a new operational doctrine. It held that these divisions should act in coordination with other elements of the military, punching holes in the enemy line and isolating selected units, which would be encircled and destroyed. This would be followed up by less-mobile mechanized infantry and foot soldiers. The Luftwaffe (air force) provided both tactical and strategic air power, particularly dive bombers that disrupted lines of supply and communications. Together, the new methods were nicknamed “Blitzkrieg” (lightning war). Historian Basil Liddell Hart claimed “Poland was a full demonstration of the Blitzkrieg theory.”[33] Some other historians, however, disagree.[34]

    Aircraft played a major role in the campaign. Bombers also attacked cities, causing huge losses amongst the civilian population through terror bombing. The Luftwaffe forces consisted of 1,180 fighters, 290 Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, 1,100 conventional bombers (mainly Heinkel He 111s and Dornier Do 17s), and an assortment of 550 transport and 350 reconnaissance aircraft.[35][36] In total, Germany had close to 4,000 aircraft, most of them modern. A force of 2,315 aircraft was assigned to Weiss.[37] Due to its prior participation in the Spanish Civil War, the Luftwaffe was probably the most experienced, best trained and best equipped air force in the world in 1939.[38]

  5. Jadis says:

    “Also the Polish procured a enigma machine ‘before’ the war and had no idea what to do with it or how important it was. They contributed nothing to breaking the code, and only remembered the fact after. The smuggling of the enigma machine to Britain is considered by many to be fiction.”

    Too bad the facts are there to prove it otherwise. Polish mathematicians started working on German coding machines as soon as Enigma was presented at the trade exposition in 1932. Only Poland had the foresight and paid attention while the West was oblivious. In 1939 two Enigmas were presented by Poland; one to France (who ignored it, they were always more about pageantry than brains) and another one to Britain. Brits at least had sense to keep developing it, but they took all the glory for themselves.

  6. Dave says:

    Etype,

    Bletchley Park has a whole article dedicated to the subject of the Polish contribution.

    You make strong assertions without any evidence. Do some research.

  7. Anomaly UK says:

    The Poles succeeded in breaking Enigma messages by exploiting weaknesses in what we would call the keying protocol. Changes to the protocol eliminated those weaknesses, and the later Bombe method owed almost nothing directly to the earlier work. However, it was a “know-plaintext” attack and might never have been developed without the history of the Polish bomber, Banburismus and the other early work, and the masses of decrypted cyphertext they provided.

  8. Etype says:

    Oh, I see, so Wikipedia verifies the massively inflated tank, etc. and Bletchley Park illuminates this more modern understanding of Polish contributions to breaking the enigma cypher?

    For a period… there was some hope this massive bullshit fest would diminish, as more Military and Govn, personnel lifted the curtain on the complete and total control of public perception during this period. Obviously that hope was immature.

  9. Isegoria says:

    I’m perfectly willing to question a random Polish patriot on the Internet, or Wikipedia, or our own government, Etype, but you’re simply asserting that everyone but you is lying, and you’re not providing any evidence — or even any pointers to evidence. How are we supposed to react?

  10. Dearieme says:

    “Brits at least had sense to keep developing it, but they took all the glory for themselves.” On the contrary, they kept quiet about it for decades. When the secret was finally revealed, the essential Polish contribution was quickly hymned; even the French were given credit.

    You [Jadis] seem to be assuming that the British behaved as the Americans would have done in the same circumstances.

  11. Zimriel says:

    GCSE-educated Brit checking in here.

    We were not, as of the late 1980s, taught that the Enigma cracking was “glory” for the British. We were taught that brave Poles smuggled the basics to Britain and that prodigies like Alan Turing dealt with the rest.

    For us it wasn’t about glory; or, to the extent there was pride to be had in saving our own island, this “glory” was very much shared with the Poles – who did the actual dangerous work.

    You can ding us for not coming to Poland’s aid earlier; you can ding us for leaving Poland behind the Iron Curtain and making the whole pretext of our entry into WW2 a joke. (But for both, you should ding Roosevelt and the isolationist Republicans twice as hard, Yanks.)

    But you don’t get to ding us for not recognising the Polish contribution to the Enigma crack. We do recognise this. We are very grateful.

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