Slovakian tasavallan hyökkäys Puolaan tapahtui 1.–16. syyskuuta 1939 osana Saksan aloittamaa Puolan offensiivia. Slovakialaisia joukkoja komensi Slovakian tasavallan puolustusministeri kenraali Ferdinand Čatloš.
Hyökkäyksen jälkeen Slovakia sai itselleen alueet, jotka se oli joutunut luovuttamaan Puolalle vuonna 1920. Alueet palautettiin Puolalle vasta 20. toukokuuta 1945.
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Puolan offensiivi, Puolan taistelu, taistelu Puolasta, Puolan valtaus, Saksan–Puolan sota 1939 tai Puolan sotaretki, saksalaiselta koodinimeltään Fall Weiß (’Tapaus valkoinen’) oli toisen maailmansodan aloittanut Saksan hyökkäys Puolaan 1. syyskuuta 1939.
Yhdistynyt kuningaskunta ja Ranska julistivat sen jälkeen Saksalle sodan Puolalle antamiensa turvatakuiden mukaan.
Neuvostoliitto puolestaan hyökkäsi Puolaan 17. syyskuuta 1939 ja miehitti sen itäosat oman ilmoituksensa mukaan slaaveja suojellakseen.
Puola oli uskonut pystyvänsä selviämään lukumääräisesti suuren armeijansa turvin Saksan hyökkäyksestä aluksi paljolti omin voimin, kunnes Britannia ja Ranska ehtisivät avuksi. Teknisesti ja taktisesti Puolan asevoimat kuitenkin osoittautui vanhentuneeksi Saksan armeijaan verrattuna.
Ranska olisi kyennyt hyökkäämään Siegfrid-linjalle, mutta se tyytyi tekemään vain yhden hyökkäyksen Saarlandiin kiellolla edetä Siegfried-linjan lähelle.
Näin ollen Ranska ei tosiasiassa keventänyt Puolaan kohdistunutta painetta, vaan mahdollisti Saksan tehokkaan hyökkäyksen jatkamisen Puolassa. Britannialla puolestaan ei ollut merkittävää määrää maavoimia Puolaan lähetettäväksi, joten Puola käytännössä joutui taistelemaan Britannian ja Ranskan turvallisuustakuusta ja sodanjulistuksesta huolimatta yksin.
Pian tämän jälkeen Saksan armeija vyöryi rajan yli. Adolf Hitler puhui aamulla radiossa: ”Viime yönä puolalaiset vakinaisten maavoimien sotilaat ensimmäisen kerran tulittivat aluettamme. Kello 5.45 me aloimme vastata tuleen, ja tästä lähtien pommeihin vastataan pommeilla.” Sota oli syttynyt.
Ranskalaiset sotilasasiantuntijat olivat saarrostusvaaran vuoksi suositelleet, etteivät puolalaiset edes yrittäisi puolustaa Puolan käytävää. Puolalaiset kuitenkin yrittivät puolustaa myös sitä. Puolan käytävän menettäminen merkitsi meriyhteyden katkeamista Isoon-Britanniaan.
Puolalaisilla oli 24 divisioonaa sijoitettuna ympäri rajaa. Puolalaisten joukot olivat kuitenkin riittämättömät turvaamaan koko rajaa, eivätkä puolalaiset sotilaskomentajat suostuneet vetäytymään sisälle maahan. Heidän ilmavoimansa tuhottiin sodan ensimmäisinä päivinä. Panssarituki puuttui täysin. Ilmaylivoimansa vuoksi Saksa kykeni salamasotaan: pitkälle meneviin syöksypommituksiin sekä panssarikiilojen iskuihin syvälle puolustajan asemiin.
Wehrmacht nujersi nopeasti rajan pinnassa olleet puolalaiset eivätkä vahvistuksetkaan kyenneet pysäyttämään saksalaisia. Hyökkäyksen johdosta Iso-Britannia ja Ranska, jotka olivat taanneet Puolan itsenäisyyden, julistivat sodan Saksalle 3. syyskuuta 1939.
Ne eivät kuitenkaan tehneet riittäviä sotilaallisia toimia Puolan hyväksi.
9. syyskuuta Puola aloitti kymmenen divisioonan voimin vastahyökkäyksensä kenraali Tadeuz Kutrzebanin johdolla. Hyökkäys yli Bzurajoen Saksan 10. armeijaa vastaan on puolalaisten onnistunein koko sodan aikana. Kutnon taistelussa saavutettu menestys jäi kuitenkin lyhytaikaiseksi.
16. syyskuuta mennessä Varsova oli piiritetty, ja puolalaiset pitävät siellä pintansa 27. syyskuuta asti. Lvovin länsipuolella Saksan 14. armeija juuttui kiinni taisteluun, kun taas muualla saksalaisten eteneminen on voimakasta. Seuraavana päivänä puna-armeija aloitti hyökkäyksensä Puolaan. Se kohtasi vähäistä vastarintaa, sillä Puolan joukot taistelivat saksalaisia vastaan. Puolalle muodostettiin pakolaishallitus. Myös Puolan armeija tajusi tilanteen toivottomuuden ja viimeiset taistelevat yksiköt antautuivat 30. syyskuuta 1939. Miehitysvyöhykkeitä erotti Bugjoki.
Suurin osa Puolan laivastosta pakeni Isoon-Britanniaan jatkaakseen taistelua myöhemmin. Samoin tuhannet sotilaat etsivät tiensä länsiliittoutuneiden alueille Romanian ja Itämeren kautta. Ison-Britannian joukoissa taistelleet puolalaiset osallistuivat myöhemmin lukuisiin Ison-Britannian operaatioihin Saksaa vastaan.
Valtauksen jälkeen:
Bochnian verilöyly oli yksi lukuisista joukkomurhista valloitetussa Puolassa.
Adolf Hitlerin ja Josif Stalinin joukot pitivät yhteisen voitonparaatin 25. syyskuuta 1939 Puolan Brest-Litovskissa Puolan vaaltaamisen kunniaksi.
28. syyskuuta sovittiin miehitysalueiden jaosta, ja rajalinja noudatti pääosin jo vuonna 1919 Puolan itärajaksi ehdotettua Curzonin linjaa.
Puolan pakolaishallitus kokoontui ensin Pariisiin ja siirtyi myöhemmin Lontooseen. Saksa perusti Puolaan hirmuhallinnon, jonka aikana murhattiin miljoonia puolalaisia siviilejä ja juutalaisia. Työkuntoiset miehet pakotettiin pakkotyöhön huonoihin oloihin ilman palkkaa. Aluksi juutalaiset pakotettiin ghettoihin. Lopullisen ratkaisun hahmottuessa suurimmat tuhoamisleirit perustettiin Puolaan.
Ne sotilaat, jotka olivat päässeet pakoon Puolasta taistelivat Saksaa vastaan liittoutuneiden joukoissa. Sodan loppuvaiheissa puna-armeijan alaisuudessa palveli noin 200 000 puolalaista. Puolalaisia sotilaita ja yksiköitä osallistui useisiin merkittäviin taisteluihin toisessa maailmansodassa, kuten Monte Cassinon taisteluun ja operaatio Market Gardeniin.
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Saksalaiset hyökkäsivät Neuvostoliittoon 22. kesäkuuta 1941 ja valtasivat koko Puolan itselleen nopeasti. Puolalainen vastarintaliike pysyi aktiivisena koko miehityksen ajan, huolimatta miehittäjän julmista kostoista. Vuonna 1943 Saksan sotaretki saavutti käännekohtansa Stalingradin ja Kurskin taisteluissa. Puna-armeija alkoi vallata menetettyjä alueita ja elokuussa 1944 se läheni Varsovaa. Lontoossa ollut pakolaishallitus kutsui varsovalaisia aseisiin saksalaisia vastaan.
Pakolaishallituksen aikeena oli ehtiä vallata Varsova ennen puna-armeijaa.
Teko soisi paremman mahdollisuuden Puolan itsenäisyyteen pelkän miehittäjän vaihdoksen sijasta. Stalin ymmärsi tämän ja komensi 20 kilometrin päässä olevat joukkonsa seisahtamaan.lähde? Näin saksalaiset saivat aikaa kaupungin takaisin valtaamiseen ja raakaan kostoon.
Ärsyttääkseen neuvostoliittolaisia saksalaiset kohtelivat aseista riisuttuja kapinallisia sotavankisäädösten mukaan, mutta siviileille he kostivat julmemmin.
Arvioista riippuen 150 000–300 000 kuoli, 90 000 lähetettiin työleireille Saksaan ja 60 000 keskitysleireille murhattavaksi. Lopuksi saksalaiset pommikoneet tuhosivat systemaattisesti lähes koko kaupungin.
Kun taistelu oli ohi, Neuvostoliitto valtasi Varsovan ja koko Puolan. Stalin perusti maahan kommunistisen nukkehallituksen.
Viimeiset puolalaiset vastarintaliikkeen jäsenet taistelivat uusia miehittäjiä vastaan vielä 1950-luvulla.
Viimeiset puolalaiset vastarintaliikkeen jäsenet taistelivat uusia miehittäjiä vastaan vielä 1950-luvulla.
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The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War (Polish: Kampania wrześniowa or Wojna obronna 1939 roku) in Poland and the Poland Campaign (German: Polenfeldzug) or Fall Weiß (Case White) in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe.
The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, while the Soviet invasion commenced on 17 September following the Molotov-Tōgō agreement which terminated the Russian and Japanese hostilities (Nomonhan incident) in the east on 16 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland.
The morning after the Gleiwitz incident, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. As the Germans advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the Polish–German border to more established lines of defence to the east. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited expected support and relief from France and the United Kingdom.
Those two countries had pacts with Poland and had declared war on Germany on 3 September, though in the end their aid to Poland in the September campaign was very limited.
The Soviet Red Army's invasion of Eastern Poland on 17 September, in accordance with a secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, rendered the Polish plan of defence obsolete. Facing a second front, the Polish government concluded the defence of the Romanian Bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered an emergency evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania.
On 6 October, following the Polish defeat at the Battle of Kock, German and Soviet forces gained full control over Poland. The success of the invasion marked the end of the Second Polish Republic, though Poland never formally surrendered.
On 8 October, after an initial period of military administration, Germany directly annexed western Poland and the former Free City of Danzig and placed the remaining block of territory under the administration of the newly established General Government. The Soviet Union incorporated its newly acquired areas into its constituent Belarusian and Ukrainian republics, and immediately started a campaign of sovietization.
In the aftermath of the invasion, a collective of underground resistance organizations formed the Polish Underground State within the territory of the former Polish state. Many of the military exiles that managed to escape Poland subsequently joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West, an armed force loyal to the Polish government in exile.
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In 1933, the National-Socialist German Workers' Party, under its leader Adolf Hitler, came to power in Germany. As early as the autumn of 1933 Hitler envisioned annexing such territories as Bohemia, Western Poland, and Austria to Germany and creation of satellite or puppet states without economies or policies of their own.
As part of this long-term policy, Hitler at first pursued a policy of rapprochement with Poland, trying to improve German–Polish relations, culminating in the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934. Earlier, Hitler's foreign policy worked to weaken ties between Poland and France, and attempted to manoeuvre Poland into the Anti-Comintern Pact, forming a cooperative front against the Soviet Union.
Poland would be granted territory of its own, to its northeast in Ukraine and Belarus, if it agreed to wage war against the Soviet Union, but the concessions the Poles were expected to make meant that their homeland would become largely dependent on Germany, functioning as little more than a client state. The Poles feared that their independence would eventually be threatened altogether.
To provoke war with Poland in order to gain Lebensraum, the Nazis used as a pretext a claim to the Free City of Danzig and Polish territory that separated the German exclave of East Prussia from the rest of the Reich. The so-called Polish Corridor constituted land long disputed by Poland and Germany, and inhabited by a Polish majority. The Corridor became a part of Poland after the Treaty of Versailles. Many Germans also wanted the city of Danzig and its environs (together the Free City of Danzig) to be reincorporated into Germany. Danzig was a port city with a German majority.
It had been separated from Germany after Versailles and made into a nominally independent Free City of Danzig. Hitler sought to use this as a reason for war, reverse these territorial losses, and on many occasions made an appeal to German nationalism, promising to "liberate" the German minority still in the Corridor, as well as Danzig.
The invasion was referred to by Germany as the 1939 Defensive War since Hitler proclaimed that Poland had attacked Germany and that "Germans in Poland are persecuted with a bloody terror and are driven from their homes. The series of border violations, which are unbearable to a great power, prove that the Poles no longer are willing to respect the German frontier."
Poland participated in the partition of Czechoslovakia that followed the Munich Agreement, although they were not part of the agreement. It coerced Czechoslovakia to surrender the region of Český Těšín by issuing an ultimatum to that effect on 30 September 1938, which was accepted by Czechoslovakia on 1 October.
It should be noted that this region had a clear Polish majority and had been annexed to Czechoslovakia by force two decades prior.
By 1937, Germany began to increase its demands for Danzig, while proposing that a roadway be built in order to connect East Prussia with Germany proper, running through the Polish Corridor. Poland rejected this proposal, fearing that after accepting these demands, it would become increasingly subject to the will of Germany and eventually lose its independence as the Czechs had. Polish leaders also distrusted Hitler. Furthermore, Germany's collaboration with anti-Polish Ukrainian nationalists from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which was seen as an effort to isolate and weaken Poland, weakened Hitler's credibility from the Polish point of view.
The British were also aware of the situation between Germany and Poland. On 31 March 1939 the Anglo-Polish military alliance was formed by the UK and France, ensuring that Polish independence and territorial integrity would be defended with their support if it were to be threatened by Germany. On the other hand, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, still hoped to strike a deal with Hitler regarding Danzig (and possibly the Polish Corridor), and Hitler hoped for the same. Chamberlain and his supporters believed war could be avoided and hoped Germany would agree to leave the rest of Poland alone. German hegemony over Central Europe was also at stake. In private Hitler revealed in May that Danzig was not the real issue to him, but pursuit of Lebensraum for Germany.
With tensions mounting, Germany turned to aggressive diplomacy as well. On 28 April 1939, it unilaterally withdrew from both the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 and the London Naval Agreement of 1935. Talks over Danzig and the Corridor broke down and months passed without diplomatic interaction between Germany and Poland. During this interim, the Germans learned that France and Britain had failed to secure an alliance with the Soviet Union against Germany, and that the Soviet Union was interested in an alliance with Germany against Poland. Hitler had already issued orders to prepare for a possible "solution of the Polish problem by military means"—a Case White scenario.
In May 1939, in a statement to his generals while they were in the midst of planning the invasion of Poland, Hitler made it clear that the invasion would not come without resistance as it had in Czechoslovakia:
With minor exceptions German national unification has been achieved. Further successes cannot be achieved without bloodshed. Poland will always be on the side of our adversaries... Danzig is not the objective. It is a matter of expanding our living space in the east, of making our food supply secure, and solving the problem of the Baltic states. To provide sufficient food you must have sparsely settled areas. There is therefore no question of sparing Poland, and the decision remains to attack Poland at the first opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of Czechoslovakia. There will be fighting.
Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Behind him stand German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.
Vyacheslav Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a German–Soviet non-aggression pact.
On August 22, just over a week before the onset of war, Hitler delivered a speech to his military commanders at the Obersalzberg:
The object of the war is ... to physically to destroy the enemy. That is why I have prepared, for the moment only in the East, my 'Death's Head' formations with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need.
However, with the surprise signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August, the result of secret Nazi-Soviet talks held in Moscow, Germany neutralized the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and war became imminent. In fact, the Soviets agreed to aid Germany in the event of France or the UK going to war with Germany over Poland and, in a secret protocol of the pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed to divide Eastern Europe, including Poland, into two spheres of influence; the western ⅓ of the country was to go to Germany and the eastern ⅔ to the Soviet Union.
The German assault was originally scheduled to begin at 04:00 on 26 August. However, on 25 August, the Polish-British Common Defense Pact was signed as an annex to the Franco-Polish Military Alliance. In this accord, Britain committed itself to the defence of Poland, guaranteeing to preserve Polish independence. At the same time, the British and the Poles were hinting to Berlin that they were willing to resume discussions—not at all how Hitler hoped to frame the conflict. Thus, he wavered and postponed his attack until 1 September, managing to in effect halt the entire invasion "in mid-leap".
However, there was one exception: in the night of 25–6 August, a German sabotage group which had not heard anything about a delay of the invasion made an attack on the Jablunkov Pass and Mosty railway station in Silesia. On the morning of 26 August, this group was repelled by Polish troops.
The German side described all this as an incident "caused by an insane individual".
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War (Polish: Kampania wrześniowa or Wojna obronna 1939 roku) in Poland and the Poland Campaign (German: Polenfeldzug) or Fall Weiß (Case White) in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe.
The morning after the Gleiwitz incident, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. As the Germans advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the Polish–German border to more established lines of defence to the east. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited expected support and relief from France and the United Kingdom.
The Soviet Red Army's invasion of Eastern Poland on 17 September, in accordance with a secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, rendered the Polish plan of defence obsolete. Facing a second front, the Polish government concluded the defence of the Romanian Bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered an emergency evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania.
On 8 October, after an initial period of military administration, Germany directly annexed western Poland and the former Free City of Danzig and placed the remaining block of territory under the administration of the newly established General Government. The Soviet Union incorporated its newly acquired areas into its constituent Belarusian and Ukrainian republics, and immediately started a campaign of sovietization.
In the aftermath of the invasion, a collective of underground resistance organizations formed the Polish Underground State within the territory of the former Polish state. Many of the military exiles that managed to escape Poland subsequently joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West, an armed force loyal to the Polish government in exile.
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Poland would be granted territory of its own, to its northeast in Ukraine and Belarus, if it agreed to wage war against the Soviet Union, but the concessions the Poles were expected to make meant that their homeland would become largely dependent on Germany, functioning as little more than a client state. The Poles feared that their independence would eventually be threatened altogether.
It had been separated from Germany after Versailles and made into a nominally independent Free City of Danzig. Hitler sought to use this as a reason for war, reverse these territorial losses, and on many occasions made an appeal to German nationalism, promising to "liberate" the German minority still in the Corridor, as well as Danzig.
The invasion was referred to by Germany as the 1939 Defensive War since Hitler proclaimed that Poland had attacked Germany and that "Germans in Poland are persecuted with a bloody terror and are driven from their homes. The series of border violations, which are unbearable to a great power, prove that the Poles no longer are willing to respect the German frontier."
It should be noted that this region had a clear Polish majority and had been annexed to Czechoslovakia by force two decades prior.
By 1937, Germany began to increase its demands for Danzig, while proposing that a roadway be built in order to connect East Prussia with Germany proper, running through the Polish Corridor. Poland rejected this proposal, fearing that after accepting these demands, it would become increasingly subject to the will of Germany and eventually lose its independence as the Czechs had. Polish leaders also distrusted Hitler. Furthermore, Germany's collaboration with anti-Polish Ukrainian nationalists from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which was seen as an effort to isolate and weaken Poland, weakened Hitler's credibility from the Polish point of view.
With minor exceptions German national unification has been achieved. Further successes cannot be achieved without bloodshed. Poland will always be on the side of our adversaries... Danzig is not the objective. It is a matter of expanding our living space in the east, of making our food supply secure, and solving the problem of the Baltic states. To provide sufficient food you must have sparsely settled areas. There is therefore no question of sparing Poland, and the decision remains to attack Poland at the first opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of Czechoslovakia. There will be fighting.
Vyacheslav Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a German–Soviet non-aggression pact.
On August 22, just over a week before the onset of war, Hitler delivered a speech to his military commanders at the Obersalzberg:
The object of the war is ... to physically to destroy the enemy. That is why I have prepared, for the moment only in the East, my 'Death's Head' formations with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need.
However, with the surprise signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August, the result of secret Nazi-Soviet talks held in Moscow, Germany neutralized the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and war became imminent. In fact, the Soviets agreed to aid Germany in the event of France or the UK going to war with Germany over Poland and, in a secret protocol of the pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed to divide Eastern Europe, including Poland, into two spheres of influence; the western ⅓ of the country was to go to Germany and the eastern ⅔ to the Soviet Union.
However, there was one exception: in the night of 25–6 August, a German sabotage group which had not heard anything about a delay of the invasion made an attack on the Jablunkov Pass and Mosty railway station in Silesia. On the morning of 26 August, this group was repelled by Polish troops.
The German side described all this as an incident "caused by an insane individual".
Excellent post! Great photos too!
VastaaPoistaThanks Rodger.
PoistaSo. However we both would say thanks to Wikitext, reasons this plog.