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98-839: In the early times, it was inhabited by the ancient Baltic Yotvingian tribe. At various times, the city belonged to Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia , the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , the Russian Empire , the Second Polish Republic , the Byelorussian SSR , and the Republic of Belarus . In the 10th century, the area became part of the emerging Polish state under first ruler Mieszko I of Poland . Later,

196-639: A military alliance with the United Kingdom and with France , believing 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). Chamberlain and his supporters believed war could be avoided and hoped Germany would agree to leave

294-536: A "last minute" order in the summer of 1939, Poland bought 160 French Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 fighters and 111 English airplanes (100 light bombers Fairey Battle , 10 Hurricanes and 1 Supermarine Spitfire ; the sale of 150 Spitfires asked by the Polish government was rejected by the Air Ministry). Despite the fact that some of the airplanes had been shipped to Poland (the first transport of purchased aircraft on

392-531: A 'Bomber Brigade', 'Pursuit Brigade' and aircraft assigned to the various ground armies. The Polish fighters were older than their German counterparts; the PZL P.11 fighter—produced in the early 1930s—had a top speed of only 365 km/h (227 mph), far less than German bombers. To compensate, the pilots relied on its maneuverability and high diving speed. The Polish Air Force's decisions to strengthen its resources came too late, mostly due to budget limitations. As

490-574: 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" (see Jabłonków incident ). On 26 August, Hitler tried to dissuade the British and

588-649: A ban on land acquisition by ethnic Poles was introduced. Kobryn was occupied by Germany during World War I . Kobryń came under Polish control in February 1919, four months after the reestablishment of independent Poland . During the Polish–Soviet War it was the site of the victorious Battle of Kobryń in September 1920. Polish rule was confirmed under the terms of the Treaty of Riga in 1921 and Kobryń became

686-658: 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 with Germany 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

784-610: A group of Proto-Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the lower Vistula and southeast shore of the Baltic Sea and upper Daugava and Dnieper rivers, and which over time became differentiated into West and East Balts. In the fifth century CE, parts of the eastern Baltic coast began to be settled by the ancestors of the Western Balts, whereas the East Balts lived in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. In

882-666: A group of peoples inhabiting the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea who speak Baltic languages . Among the Baltic peoples are modern-day Lithuanians (including Samogitians ) and Latvians (including Latgalians ) — all East Balts — as well as the Old Prussians , Curonians , Sudovians , Skalvians , Yotvingians and Galindians — the West Balts — whose languages and cultures are now extinct. The Balts are descended from

980-504: A high frequency of the derived HERC2 allele which codes for light eye color and possess an increased frequency of the derived alleles for SLC45A2 and SLC24A5, coding for lighter skin color. Baltic hunter-gatherers still displayed a slightly larger amount of WHG ancestry than Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers (SHGs). WHG ancestry in the Baltic was particularly high among hunter-gatherers in Latvia and Lithuania. Unlike other parts of Europe,

1078-611: A line on the Pomeranian coast eastward to include or nearly include the present-day sites of Berlin , Warsaw , Kyiv , and Kursk , northward through Moscow to the River Berzha, westward in an irregular line to the coast of the Gulf of Riga , north of Riga . However, other scholars such as Endre Bojt (1999) reject the presumption that there ever was such a thing as a clear, single "Baltic Urheimat ": 'The references to

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1176-473: A number of conservative or archaic features, perhaps because the areas in which they are spoken are geographically consolidated and have low rates of immigration. Some of the major authorities on Balts, such as Kazimieras Būga , Max Vasmer , Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov , in conducting etymological studies of eastern European river names, were able to identify in certain regions names of specifically Baltic provenance, which most likely indicate where

1274-638: A realization of any pre-1933 Weimar plans to invade and partition Poland, annex Bohemia and Austria, and create satellite or puppet states economically subordinate to Germany. As part of this long-term policy, Hitler at first pursued a policy of rapprochement with Poland, trying to improve opinion in Germany, 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

1372-710: A result of the Northern Crusades of the Middle Ages . Baltic peoples such as the Latvians , Lithuanians and Old Prussians had their distinct mythologies. The Lithuanians have close historic ties to Poland, and many of them are Roman Catholic . The Latvians have close historic ties to Northern Germany and Scandinavia , and many of them are irreligious. In recent times, the Baltic religion has been revived in Baltic neopaganism . The Balts are included in

1470-534: A seat of a powiat within the Polesie Voivodeship . After the war, crafts, small industry and trade developed again, and small factories were established. In 1923, the State Gymnasium was founded, which three years later received the name of Maria Rodziewiczówna , a Polish writer living nearby, who co-financed the construction of the school. During the 1939 Invasion of Poland , Kobryn was

1568-540: A week before the onset of war, Hitler delivered a speech to his military commanders at the Obersalzberg : The object of the war is … 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. With

1666-593: Is also known in Poland as the September campaign ( Polish : kampania wrześniowa ) or 1939 defensive war (Polish: wojna obronna 1939 roku ) and known in Germany as the Poland campaign ( German : Überfall auf Polen, Polenfeldzug ). German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west the morning after the Gleiwitz incident . Slovak military forces advanced alongside the Germans in northern Slovakia . As

1764-756: The Anti-Comintern Pact , forming a cooperative front against the Soviet Union . Poland would be granted territory 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; historically Hitler had already denounced

1862-655: The Corded Ware culture in the eastern Baltic in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age is accompanied by a significant infusion of steppe ancestry and EEF ancestry into the eastern Baltic gene pool. In the aftermath of the Corded Ware expansion, local hunter-gatherer ancestry experienced a resurgence. Haplogroup N reached the eastern Baltic only in the Late Bronze Age, probably with the speakers of

1960-533: The Galindae or Galindians towards the east, and later, East Balts towards the west. In the eighth century, Slavic tribes from the Volga regions appeared. By the 13th and 14th centuries, they reached the general area that the present-day Balts and Belarusians inhabit. Many other Eastern and Southern Balts either assimilated with other Balts, or Slavs in the fourth–seventh centuries and were gradually slavicized. In

2058-760: The Partitions of Poland of 1795, the town was annexed by Imperial Russia . Catherine II gave Kobryn to Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov for his war merits, especially for the suppression of the Polish Kościuszko Uprising . At Kobrin the first significant Russian victory over the French occurred during the French invasion of Russia . After the unsuccessful January Uprising anti-Polish repressions intensified: estates were confiscated, insurgents and landowners were deported to Siberia (see: sybirak ) and

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2156-700: The Reichsautobahn system, 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. The British were also wary of Germany's increasing strength and assertiveness threatening its balance of power strategy. On 31 March 1939, Poland formed

2254-606: The Romanian Bridgehead could be created. The Polish General Staff had not begun elaborating the "West" defence plan until 4 March 1939. It was assumed that the Polish Army, fighting in the initial phase of the war alone, would have to defend the western regions of the country. The plan of operations took into account the numerical and material superiority of the enemy and, also assumed the defensive character of Polish operations. The Polish intentions were defending

2352-725: The United Kingdom . On 3 September, based on their alliance agreements with Poland, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany; in the end their aid to Poland was very limited . France invaded a small part of Germany in the Saar Offensive , and the Polish army was effectively defeated even before the British Expeditionary Force could be transported to Europe, with the bulk of the BEF in France by

2450-526: The Uralic languages . Invasion of Poland German–Soviet–Slovak victory Baltic coast 4–10 September Northern Front Southern Front Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups The Invasion of Poland , also known as the September Campaign , Polish Campaign , and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939),

2548-673: The Wehrmacht advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the Germany–Poland border to more established defense lines 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

2646-622: The "North European" gene cluster together with the Germanic peoples , some Slavic groups (the Poles and Northern Russians ) and Baltic Finnic peoples . Saag et a. (2017) detected that the eastern Baltic in the Mesolithic was inhabited primarily by Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHGs). Their paternal haplogroups were mostly types of I2a and R1b , while their maternal haplogroups were mostly types of U5 , U4 and U2 . These people carried

2744-475: The 1,009 cars and trucks and 4,842 horses in the average German infantry division, the average Polish infantry division had 76 cars and trucks and 6,939 horses. The Polish Air Force ( Lotnictwo Wojskowe ) was at a severe disadvantage against the German Luftwaffe due to inferiority in numbers and the obsolescence of its fighter planes. However, contrary to German propaganda, it was not destroyed on

2842-749: The 12th and 13th centuries, internal struggles and invasions by Ruthenians and Poles , and later the expansion of the Teutonic Order , resulted in an almost complete annihilation of the Galindians, Curonians, and Yotvingians. Gradually, Old Prussians became Germanized or Lithuanized between the 15th and 17th centuries, especially after the Reformation in Prussia . The cultures of the Lithuanians and Latgalians/Latvians survived and became

2940-536: The Balts at various Urheimat locations across the centuries are often of doubtful authenticity, those concerning the Balts furthest to the West are the more trustworthy among them. (...) It is wise to group the particulars of Baltic history according to the interests that moved the pens of the authors of our sources.' The area of Baltic habitation shrank due to assimilation by other groups, and invasions. According to one of

3038-592: The Balts lived in prehistoric times. According to Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov , the eastern boundary of the Balts in the prehistoric times were the upper reaches of the Volga , Moskva , and Oka rivers, while the southern border was the Seym river . This information is summarized and synthesized by Marija Gimbutas in The Balts (1963) to obtain a likely proto-Baltic homeland. Its borders are approximately: from

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3136-570: The British merchant fleet and took part in wartime convoys . The September Campaign was devised by General Franz Halder , the chief of the general staff , and directed by General Walther von Brauchitsch the commander in chief of the German ground forces . It called for the start of hostilities before a declaration of war , and pursued a doctrine of mass encirclement and destruction of enemy forces. The infantry, far from completely mechanized but fitted with fast-moving artillery and logistic support,

3234-614: The Catholic church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. After 1518, Kobryn was ruled by Queen Bona Sforza , who contributed to its development and visited it several times. A seat of a powiat , in between 1589 and 1766 it was a royal city of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , located on Magdeburg Law . This allowed for a large number of Jews to settle in the area following the 16th century. The Jewish population in 1900

3332-458: The Corridor broke down, and months passed without diplomatic interaction between Germany and Poland. During this interim period, 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

3430-522: The French from interfering in the upcoming conflict, even pledging that the Wehrmacht forces would be made available to Britain's empire in the future. The negotiations convinced Hitler that there was little chance the Western Allies would declare war on Germany, and even if they did, because of the lack of "territorial guarantees" to Poland, they would be willing to negotiate a compromise favourable to Germany after its conquest of Poland. Meanwhile,

3528-428: The German puppet state of Slovakia meant that Poland's southern flank was also exposed. Hitler demanded that Poland be conquered in six weeks, but German planners thought that it would require three months. They intended to exploit their long border fully with the great enveloping manoeuver of Fall Weiss . German units were to invade Poland from three directions: All three assaults were to converge on Warsaw , and

3626-558: The Germans had seven Panzer divisions, with 2,009 tanks between them, using 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,

3724-498: The Germans, and these units, dispersed within the infantry, were unable to effectively engage the Germans. Experiences in the Polish–Soviet War shaped Polish Army organizational and operational doctrine. Unlike the trench warfare of World War I, the Polish–Soviet War was a conflict in which the cavalry 's mobility played a decisive role. Poland acknowledged the benefits of mobility but was unable to invest heavily in many of

3822-882: The Jews, were executed on October 15, 1942 together with a number of Jews from the Brześć ghetto. In 1944, the town was captured by the Red Army . Since 1991, it is a part of the Republic of Belarus . Among the historical monuments of the city are the Catholic Church of the Dormition, Baroque Monastery of the Transfiguration, a park founded by Antoni Tyzenhauz in 1768, the Orthodox church of St. Alexander Nevsky,

3920-416: The Polish Army by about 1/3. Germany had a substantial numeric advantage over Poland and had developed a significant military before the conflict. The Heer (army) had 3,472 tanks in its inventory, of which 2,859 were with the Field Army and 408 with the Replacement Army . 453 tanks were assigned into four light divisions, while another 225 tanks were in detached regiments and companies. Most notably,

4018-485: The Polish Army during the invasion of 1939 was the 7TP light tank. It was the first tank in the world to be equipped with a diesel engine and 360° Gundlach periscope . The 7TP was significantly better armed than its most common opponents, the German Panzer I and II , but only 140 tanks were produced between 1935 and the outbreak of the war. Poland had also a few relatively modern imported designs, such as 50 Renault R35 tanks and 38 Vickers E tanks. The Polish Navy

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4116-415: 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

4214-433: The Polish problem by military means" through the Case White scenario. In May, 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

4312-407: The Polish-German border and lacked compact defence lines and good defence positions along disadvantageous terrain. That strategy also left supply lines poorly protected. One-third of Poland's forces were massed in or near the Polish Corridor, making them vulnerable to a double envelopment from East Prussia and the west. Another third was concentrated in the north-central part of the country, between

4410-442: The September Campaign, not all of those aircraft were mobilized. By 1 September, out of about 120 heavy bombers PZL.37s produced, only 36 PZL.37s were deployed, the rest being mostly in training units. All those aircraft were of indigenous Polish design, with the bombers being more modern than the fighters, according to the Ludomił Rayski air force expansion plan, which relied on a strong bomber force. The Polish Air Force consisted of

4508-450: The Soviets agreed to divide Eastern Europe, including Poland, into two spheres of influence ; the western one-third of the country was to go to Germany and the eastern two-thirds to the Soviet Union. The German assault was originally scheduled to begin at 4:00 a.m. on 26 August. However, on 25 August, the Polish-British Common Defence Pact was signed as an annex to the Franco-Polish alliance. In this accord, Britain committed itself to

4606-426: The administration of the newly established General Government . The Soviet Union incorporated its newly acquired areas into its constituent Byelorussian 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

4704-509: The ancestors of the populations of the modern-day countries of Latvia and Lithuania . Old Prussian was closely related to the other extinct Western Baltic languages , Curonian , Galindian and Sudovian . It is more distantly related to the surviving Eastern Baltic languages , Lithuanian and Latvian . Compare the Prussian word seme ( zemē ), Latvian zeme , the Lithuanian žemė ( land in English). The Balts originally practiced Baltic religion . They were gradually Christianized as

4802-415: The area was part of the Kievan Rus' and the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia . Kobryn was first mentioned in 1287. In the early 14th century the town formed part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , after the Union of Krewo (1385) in the Polish–Lithuanian Union . It became the capital of a feudal principality within the Polish–Lithuanian realm, existing from 1387 to 1518. In 1500, princess Anna Kobryńska founded

4900-404: The armed forces time to complete its mobilization and execute a general counteroffensive with the support of the Western Allies . In case of a failure to defend most of the territory, the army was to retreat to the south-east of the country, where the rough terrain, the Stryj and Dniestr rivers, valleys, hills and swamps would provide natural lines of defence against the German advance, and

4998-399: The battle scene of the Battle of Kobryń between the Polish 60th Infantry Division of Colonel Adam Epler and the German 19th Panzer Corps of General Heinz Guderian . After three days of fighting, the Poles withdrew southwards and the Germans entered the town, which they three days later handed over to the Soviets in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . On 14 November 1939, Kobryn

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5096-773: The building of the pre-war Polish Maria Rodziewiczówna State Gymnasium, the building of the pre-war town hall and the Catholic cemetery, where the family of the Polish national poet Adam Mickiewicz is buried. Balts This is an accepted version of this page Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Balts or Baltic peoples ( Lithuanian : baltai , Latvian : balti ) are

5194-420: 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: on the night of 25–26 August,

5292-523: The development of industry, especially in the armaments industry in ethnically Polish areas. Moreover, Poland had to deal with damage caused by World War I . This resulted in the need to build a defense industry from scratch. Between 1936 and 1939, Poland invested heavily in the newly created Central Industrial Region . Preparations for a defensive war with Germany were ongoing for many years, but most plans assumed fighting would not begin before 1942. To raise funds for industrial development, Poland sold much of

5390-473: The early 20th century, either "Latvian" or "Lithuanian" could be used to mean the entire language family. The Balts or Baltic peoples, defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages , a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the lower Vistula and southeast shore of the Baltic Sea and upper Daugava and Dnieper rivers. The Baltic languages, especially Lithuanian, retain

5488-508: The end of September. On 17 September, the Soviet Red Army invaded Eastern Poland , the territory beyond the Curzon Line that fell into the Soviet " sphere of influence " according to the secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact; this 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

5586-407: The expectation that the Western Allies would honor their treaty obligations and quickly start an offensive of their own, the French and the British expected the war to develop into trench warfare, much like World War I. The Polish government was not notified of the strategy and based all of its defence plans on promises of quick relief by the Western Allies. Polish forces were stretched thinly along

5684-462: The expensive, unproven inventions since then. In spite of this, Polish cavalry brigades were used as mobile mounted infantry and had some successes against both German infantry and cavalry. An average Polish infantry division consisted of 16,492 soldiers and was equipped with 326 light and medium machine guns, 132 heavy machine guns, 92 anti-tank rifles and several dozen light, medium, heavy, anti-tank and anti-airplane field artillery. Contrary to

5782-430: The first millennium CE, large migrations of the Balts occurred. By the 13th and 14th centuries, the East Balts shrank to the general area that the present-day Balts and Belarusians inhabit. Baltic languages belong to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages . One of the features of Baltic languages is the number of conservative or archaic features retained. Medieval German chronicler Adam of Bremen in

5880-475: The ground—in fact it was successfully dispersed before the conflict started and not a single one of its combat planes was destroyed on the ground in the first days of the conflict. In the era of fast progress in aviation the Polish Air Force lacked modern fighters, vastly due to the cancellation of many advanced projects, such as the PZL.38 Wilk and a delay in the introduction of a completely new modern Polish fighter PZL.50 Jastrząb . However, its pilots were among

5978-411: The hunter-gatherers of the eastern Baltic do not appear to have mixed much with Early European Farmers (EEFs) arriving from Anatolia . During the Neolithic , increasing admixture from Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs) is detected. The paternal haplogroups of EHGs was mostly types of R1a , while their maternal haplogroups appears to have been almost exclusively types of U5, U4, and U2. The rise of

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6076-422: The hypothesised Dniepr Balts , were living in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Germanic peoples lived to the west of the Baltic homelands; by the first century AD, the Goths had stabilized their kingdom from the mouth of the Vistula, south to Dacia . As Roman domination collapsed in the first half of the first millennium CE in Northern and Eastern Europe, large migrations of the Balts occurred — first,

6174-486: The increased number of overflights by high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and cross-border troop movements signaled that war was imminent. On 29 August, prompted by the British, Germany issued one last diplomatic offer, with Fall Weiss yet to be rescheduled. That evening, the German government responded in a communication that it aimed not only for the restoration of Danzig but also the Polish Corridor (which had not previously been part of Hitler's demands) in addition to

6272-462: The invasion to commence soon afterwards. On 29 August, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Józef Beck ordered military mobilization , but under the pressure from Great Britain and France, the mobilization was cancelled. When the final mobilization started, it added to the confusion. On 30 August, the Polish Navy sent its destroyer flotilla to Britain, executing the Peking Plan . On the same day, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły announced

6370-401: The invasion was to divide Polish territory at the end of the operation; Poland was to cease to exist as a country and all Poles ("inferior people") were to be exterminated. The Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty . The invasion

6468-429: The latter part of the 11th century AD was the first writer to use the term "Baltic" in reference to the sea of that name . Before him various ancient places names, such as Balcia, were used in reference to a supposed island in the Baltic Sea. Adam, a speaker of German, connected Balt- with belt , a word with which he was familiar. In Germanic languages there was some form of the toponym East Sea until after about

6566-446: The main Polish army was to be encircled and destroyed west of the Vistula . Fall Weiss was initiated on 1 September 1939 and was the first operation of Second World War in Europe . The Polish determination to deploy forces directly at the German-Polish border, prompted by the Polish-British Common Defence Pact, shaped the country's defence plan, " Plan West ". Poland's most valuable natural resources, industry and population were along

6664-424: The military exiles who escaped Poland joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West , an armed force loyal to the Polish government-in-exile . On 30 January 1933, the National Socialist German Workers' Party , under its leader Adolf Hitler , came to power in Germany . While some dissident elements within the Weimar Republic had long sought to annex territories belonging to Poland, it was Hitler's own idea and not

6762-469: The mobilization of Polish troops. However, he was pressured into revoking the order by the French, who apparently still hoped for a diplomatic settlement, failing to realize that the Germans were fully mobilized and concentrated at the Polish border. During the night of 31 August, the Gleiwitz incident , a false flag attack on the radio station, was staged near the border city of Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia by German units posing as Polish troops, as part of

6860-400: The modern equipment it produced. In 1936, a National Defence Fund was set up to collect funds necessary for strengthening the Polish Armed forces. The Polish Army had approximately a million soldiers, but not all were mobilized by 1 September. Latecomers sustained significant casualties when public transport became targets of the Luftwaffe . The Polish military had fewer armored forces than

6958-708: The new methods were nicknamed " Blitzkrieg " (lightning war). While historian Basil Liddell Hart claimed "Poland was a full demonstration of the Blitzkrieg theory", some other historians disagree. Aircraft played a major role in the campaign. Bombers also attacked cities, causing huge losses amongst the civilian population through terror bombing and strafing. 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. In total, Germany had close to 4,000 aircraft, most of them modern. A force of 2,315 aircraft

7056-489: The nominally independent Free City. Hitler sought to use this as casus belli , a reason for war, reverse the post-1918 territorial losses, and on many occasions had appealed 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 ( Verteidigungskrieg ) since Hitler proclaimed that Poland had attacked Germany and that "Germans in Poland are persecuted with

7154-428: The requested Polish representative had failed to arrive by midnight. When Polish Ambassador Lipski went to see Ribbentrop later on 31 August to indicate that Poland was favorably disposed to negotiations, he announced that he did not have the full power to sign, and Ribbentrop dismissed him. It was then broadcast that Poland had rejected Germany's offer, and negotiations with Poland came to an end. Hitler issued orders for

7252-408: The requirement for an immediate arrival of a Polish representative with full signing powers as an unacceptable ultimatum . On the night of 30/31 August, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop read a 16-point German proposal to ambassador Nevile Henderson . When the ambassador requested a copy of the proposals for transmission to the Polish government, Ribbentrop refused, on the grounds that

7350-671: The rest of Poland alone. German hegemony over Central Europe was also at stake. In private, Hitler said in May that Danzig was not the important issue to him, but the creation of Lebensraum for Germany. With tensions mounting, Germany turned to aggressive diplomacy. On 28 April 1939, Hitler unilaterally withdrew from both the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935. Talks over Danzig and

7448-574: The rest of the Reich. The Polish Corridor constituted land long disputed by Poland and Germany, and was inhabited by a Polish majority. The Corridor had become a part of Poland after the Treaty of Versailles . Many Germans also wanted the urban port city of Danzig and its environs (comprising the Free City of Danzig) to be reincorporated into Germany. Danzig city had a German majority, and had been separated from Germany after Versailles and made into

7546-488: The right of Poland to independence in 1930, writing that Poles and Czechs were a "rabble not worth a penny more than the inhabitants of Sudan or India. How can they demand the rights of independent states?" The population of the Free City of Danzig was strongly in favour of annexation by Germany, as were many of the ethnic German inhabitants of the Polish territory that separated the German exclave of East Prussia from

7644-537: The safeguarding of the German minority in Poland. It said that they were willing to commence negotiations, but indicated that a Polish representative with the power to sign an agreement had to arrive in Berlin the next day while in the meantime it would draw up a set of proposals. The British Cabinet was pleased that negotiations had been agreed to but, mindful of how Emil Hácha had been forced to sign his country away under similar circumstances just months earlier, regarded

7742-477: The ship "Lassel" sailed from Liverpool on 28 August ), none of them would take part in combat. In late 1938, the Polish Air Force also ordered 300 advanced PZL.46 Sum light bombers, but due to a delay in starting mass production, none of them were delivered before 1 September. When in the spring of 1939 it turned out that there were problems with the implementation of the new PZL.50 Jastrząb fighter, it

7840-479: 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. On 22 August, just over

7938-625: 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 not to aid France or the UK in the event of their going to war with Germany over Poland and, in a secret protocol of the pact, the Germans and

8036-667: The theories which has gained considerable traction over the years, one of the western Baltic tribes, the Galindians , Galindae, or Goliad, migrated to the area around modern-day Moscow, Russia around the fourth century AD. Over time the Balts became differentiated into West and East Balts. In the fifth century AD parts of the eastern Baltic coast began to be settled by the ancestors of the Western Balts: Brus/Prūsa ("Old Prussians"), Sudovians / Jotvingians , Scalvians , Nadruvians , and Curonians . The East Balts, including

8134-517: The western border in Eastern Upper Silesia . Polish policy centred on their protection, especially since many politicians feared that if Poland retreated from the regions disputed by Germany, Britain and France would sign a separate peace treaty with Germany like the 1938 Munich Agreement and allow Germany to stay in those regions. The fact that none of Poland's allies had specifically guaranteed Polish borders or territorial integrity

8232-643: The western regions that were judged as indispensable for waging the war, taking advantage of the propitious conditions for counterattacks by reserve units and avoiding it from being smashed before the beginning of Franco-British operations in Western Europe. The operation plan had not been elaborated in detail and concerned only the first stage of operations. The British and the French estimated that Poland would be able to defend itself for two to three months, and Poland estimated it could do so for at least six months. While Poland drafted its estimates based upon

8330-474: The wider Operation Himmler . On 31 August, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. However, partly because of the earlier stoppage, Poland finally managed to mobilize only about 70% of its planned forces (only about 900,000 of 1,350,000 soldiers planned to mobilize in first order), and because of that many units were still forming or moving to their designated frontline positions. The late mobilization reduced combat capability of

8428-480: The world's best trained, as proven a year later in the Battle of Britain , in which the Poles played a notable part. Overall, the Germans enjoyed numerical and qualitative aircraft superiority. Poland had only about 600 aircraft, of which only PZL.37 Łoś heavy bombers were modern and comparable to their German counterparts. The Polish Air Force had roughly 185 PZL P.11 and some 95 PZL P.7 fighters, 175 PZL.23 Karaś Bs, 35 Karaś as light bombers. However, for

8526-688: The year 1600, when maps in English began to label it as the Baltic Sea. By 1840, German nobles of the Governorate of Livonia adopted the term "Balts" to distinguish themselves from Germans of Germany. They spoke an exclusive dialect, Baltic German, which was regarded by many as the language of the Balts until 1919. In 1845, Georg Heinrich Ferdinand Nesselmann proposed a distinct language group for Latvian , Lithuanian , and Old Prussian , which he termed Baltic . The term became prevalent after Latvia and Lithuania gained independence in 1918. Up until

8624-762: Was 6,738. In Kobryń was held the county Sejmik of the Mozyrz County during the Russian occupation of Mozyrz in 1659. In the years 1774–1784 a canal was built connecting the Mukhavets River with the Pina River , named the Royal Canal after Polish King Stanisław August Poniatowski , who opened it, and as a result a water route was created connecting the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea . After

8722-598: Was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany , the Slovak Republic , and the Soviet Union , which marked the beginning of World War II . The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the pact. One of the aims of

8820-639: Was a small fleet of destroyers , submarines and smaller support vessels. Most Polish surface units followed Operation Peking, leaving Polish ports on 20 August and escaping by way of the North Sea to join with the British Royal Navy . Submarine forces participated in Operation Worek , with the goal of engaging and damaging German shipping in the Baltic Sea , but they had much less success. In addition, many merchant marine ships joined

8918-536: Was accepted by Czechoslovakia on 1 October. This region had a Polish majority and had been disputed between Czechoslovakia and Poland in the aftermath of World War I. The Polish annexation of Slovak territory (several villages in the regions of Čadca , Orava and Spiš ) later served as the justification for the Slovak state to join the German invasion. By 1937, Germany began to increase its demands for Danzig, while proposing that an extraterritorial roadway, part of

9016-506: Was advocated by some generals, including Heinz Guderian , would have had the armour punching holes in the enemy's front and ranging deep into rear areas, but the campaign in Poland would be fought along more traditional lines. That stemmed from conservatism on the part of the German High Command, which mainly restricted the role of armour and mechanized forces to supporting the conventional infantry divisions. Poland's terrain

9114-474: Was another Polish concern. These reasons made the Polish government disregard French advice to deploy the bulk of its forces behind natural barriers, such as the Vistula and San Rivers, despite some Polish generals supporting the idea to be a better strategy. The West Plan allowed the Polish armies to retreat inside the country, but that was supposed to be a slow retreat behind prepared positions intended to give

9212-611: Was assigned to Weiss . Due to its earlier 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. Emerging in 1918 as an independent country after 123 years of the Partitions of Poland , the Second Polish Republic , when compared with countries such as United Kingdom or Germany, was a relatively indigent and mostly agricultural country. The partitioning powers did not invest in

9310-406: Was decided to temporarily implement the production of the fighter PZL P 11.G Kobuz. Nevertheless, due to the outbreak of the war, not one of the ordered 90 aircraft of this type were delivered to the army. The tank force consisted of two armored brigades, four independent tank battalions and some 30 companies of TKS tankettes attached to infantry divisions and cavalry brigades. A standard tank of

9408-633: Was incorporated into the Byelorussian SSR . From 23 June 1941 until 20 July 1944, Kobryn was occupied by Nazi Germany and administered as a part of the Generalbezirk Wolhynien-Podolien of Reichskommissariat Ukraine . During the latter period, the majority of Jewish inhabitants were first amassed in a ghetto and then murdered by the Nazis in their extermination camps. Two Polish priests, The Reverend Władysław Grobelny and Jan Wolski from Kobryń near Brześć, arrested for helping

9506-467: Was to be supported by Panzers and small numbers of truck-mounted infantry (the Schützen regiments, forerunners of the panzergrenadiers ) to assist the rapid movement of troops and concentrate on localized parts of the enemy front , eventually isolating segments of the enemy, surrounding, and destroying them. The prewar "armoured idea", which an American journalist in 1939 dubbed Blitzkrieg , which

9604-478: Was well suited for mobile operations when the weather co-operated; the country had flat plains , with long frontiers totalling almost 5,600 km (3,500 mi). Poland's long border with Germany on the west and north, facing East Prussia, extended 2,000 km (1,200 mi). It had been lengthened by another 300 km (190 mi) on the southern side in the aftermath of the 1938 Munich Agreement. The German incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia and creation of

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