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178-793: The occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II (1939–1945) began with the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, and it was formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945. Throughout the entire course of the occupation, the territory of Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (USSR), both of which intended to eradicate Poland's culture and subjugate its people. In

356-476: A pervasive cult of personality around Adolf Hitler to influence public opinion. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Genocide , mass murder , and large-scale forced labour became hallmarks of the regime; the implementation of the regime's racial policies culminated in the Holocaust . After the initial success of German invasion of

534-776: A collection valued at over 50 million Reichsmarks. Despite the military defeat of the Polish Army in September 1939, the Polish government itself never surrendered, instead evacuating West, where it formed the Polish government in Exile . The government in exile was represented in the occupied Poland by the Government Delegation for Poland, headed by the Government Delegate for Poland . The main role of

712-488: A communist uprising. The Reichstag Fire Decree , imposed on 28 February 1933, rescinded most civil liberties, including rights of assembly and freedom of the press. The decree also allowed the police to detain people indefinitely without charges. The legislation was accompanied by a propaganda campaign that led to public support for the measure. Violent suppression of communists by the SA was undertaken nationwide and 4,000 members of

890-401: A concentrated effort to destroy Polish culture . To that end, numerous cultural and educational institutions were closed or destroyed, from schools and universities, through monuments and libraries, to laboratories and museums. Many employees of said institutions were arrested and executed as part of wider persecutions of the Polish intellectual elite. Schooling of Polish children was curtailed to

1068-528: A consequence of European-wide territorial rearrangements configured during the Tehran Conference of 1943 (see Western Betrayal ). Poland was compensated for this territorial loss with the pre-War German eastern territories , at the expense of losing its eastern regions. The Polish People's Republic regime described the territories as the " Recovered Territories ". The number of Poles in the Kresy in

1246-550: A day and with little compensation. The labourers, Jews, Poles and others, were employed in SS-owned enterprises (such as the German Armament Works, Deutsche Ausrustungswerke, DAW), but also in many private German firms – such as Messerschmitt , Junkers , Siemens , and IG Farben . Forced labourers were subject to harsh discriminatory measures. Announced on 8 March 1940 was the Polish decrees which were used as

1424-511: A few years of elementary education, as outlined by Himmler's May 1940 memorandum: "The sole goal of this schooling is to teach them simple arithmetic, nothing above the number 500; writing one's name; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans. ... I do not think that reading is desirable". The extermination of the Polish elites was the first stage of the Nazis' plan to destroy

1602-524: A legal basis for foreign labourers in Germany. The decrees required Poles to wear identifying purple P's on their clothing, made them subject to a curfew, and banned them from using public transportation as well as many German "cultural life" centres and "places of amusement" (this included churches and restaurants). Sexual relations between Germans and Poles were forbidden as Rassenschande (race defilement) under penalty of death. To keep them segregated from

1780-418: A month. The Soviets organized staged elections, the result of which was to become a legitimization of Soviet annexation of eastern Poland. Soviet authorities attempted to erase Polish history and culture, withdrew the Polish currency without exchanging ruble , collectivized agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property. Soviet authorities regarded service for

1958-464: A non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe . In alliance with Italy and other Axis powers , Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940 and threatened Great Britain. Racism , Nazi eugenics , anti-Slavism , and especially antisemitism were central ideological features of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by

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2136-657: A non-aggression pact with Poland. In March 1939, Hitler demanded the return of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor , a strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. The British announced they would come to the aid of Poland if it was attacked. Hitler, believing the British would not take action, ordered an invasion plan should be readied for September 1939. On 23 May, Hitler described to his generals his overall plan of not only seizing

2314-631: A note to Stalin from Lavrenty Beria , the members of the Soviet Politburo (including Stalin) signed an order to execute POWs, labeled "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries", kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus. This became known as the Katyn massacre , in all some 22,000 were executed. During Perestroika , former top ministers of Stalin such as Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov claimed that in Katyn, of

2492-475: A period of 30 years, approximately 12.5 million Germans would be resettled in the Slavic areas, including Poland; with some versions of the plan requiring the resettlement of at least 100 million Germans over a century. The Slavic inhabitants of those lands would be eliminated as the result of genocidal policies; and the survivors would be resettled further east, in less hospitable areas of Eurasia , beyond

2670-555: A plurality of the population in all territories annexed by the Soviet Union. By the end of the invasion, the Soviet Union had taken over 51.6% of the territory of Poland (about 201,000 square kilometres (78,000 sq mi)), with over 13,200,000 people. The ethnic composition of these areas was as follows: 38% Poles (~5.1 million people), 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians, and 0.6% Germans. There were also 336,000 refugees, mostly Jews (198,000), who fled from areas occupied by Germany. All territory invaded by

2848-474: A protectorate of France under the condition that its residents would later decide by referendum which country to join, and Poland became a separate nation and was given access to the sea by the creation of the Polish Corridor , which separated Prussia from the rest of Germany, while Danzig was made a free city . Germany regained control of the Saarland through a referendum held in 1935 and annexed Austria in

3026-428: A result of the occupation , half of whom were ethnic Poles and the other half of whom were Polish Jews . Over 90% of the deaths were non-military losses, because most civilians were deliberately targeted in various actions which were launched by the Germans and Soviets. Overall, during German occupation of pre-war Polish territory, 1939–1945, the Germans murdered 5,470,000–5,670,000 Poles, including 3,000,000 Jews in what

3204-414: A result, tens of thousands of people found "guilty" of being educated (members of the intelligentsia, from clergymen to government officials, doctors, teachers and journalists) or wealthy (landowners, business owners, and so on) were either executed on spot, sometimes in mass executions , or imprisoned, some destined for the concentration camps. Some of the mass executions were reprisal actions for actions of

3382-443: A result, the two governments never officially declared war on each other. The Soviets therefore did not classify Polish military prisoners as prisoners of war but as rebels against the new legal government of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia. The Soviets killed tens of thousands of Polish prisoners of war . Some, like General Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński , who was captured, interrogated and shot on 22 September, were executed during

3560-459: A second national anthem. Germany was still in a dire economic situation, as six million people were unemployed and the balance of trade deficit was daunting. Using deficit spending , public works projects were undertaken beginning in 1934, creating 1.7 million new jobs by the end of that year alone. Average wages began to rise. The SA leadership continued to apply pressure for greater political and military power. In response, Hitler used

3738-823: A special Germanization program. Polish women deported to Germany as forced labourers and who bore children were a common victim of this policy, with their infants regularly taken. If the child passed the battery of racial, physical and psychological tests, they were sent on to Germany for "Germanization". At least 4,454 children were given new German names, forbidden to use the Polish language, and reeducated in Nazi institutions. Few were ever reunited with their original families. Those deemed as unsuitable for Germanization for being "not Aryan enough" were sent to orphanages or even to concentration camps like Auschwitz, where many were murdered, often by intracardiac injections of phenol . For Polish forced laborers, in some cases if an examination of

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3916-772: A substantial minority of Germans, who lived mostly in the Sudetenland . Under pressure from separatist groups within the Sudeten German Party , the Czechoslovak government offered economic concessions to the region. Hitler decided not just to incorporate the Sudetenland into the Reich, but to destroy the country of Czechoslovakia entirely. The Nazis undertook a propaganda campaign to try to generate support for an invasion. Top German military leaders opposed

4094-626: A thousand people (out of a population of around 16,000) committed suicide in Demmin around 1 May 1945 as the 65th Army of 2nd Belorussian Front first broke into a distillery and then rampaged through the town, committing mass rapes, arbitrarily executing civilians, and setting fire to buildings. High numbers of suicides took place in many other locations, including Neubrandenburg (600 dead), Stolp in Pommern (1,000 dead), and Berlin, where at least 7,057 people committed suicide in 1945. Estimates of

4272-635: A treaty with the USSR to formally cede these territories. The total population of the territories annexed by the USSR, not including the portion returned to Poland in 1945, had an estimated population of 10,653,000 according to the 1931 Polish census. In 1939 this had increased to about 11.6 million. The composition by language group was Ukrainian 37.1%, Polish 36.5%, Belarusian 15.1%, Yiddish 8.3%, Other 3%. Religious affiliation: Eastern Orthodox 31.6%, Roman Catholic 30.1%, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church 26.7%, Jewish 9.9%, Other 1.7%. From 1944 until 1952

4450-839: A war fought on two fronts. The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus , and west Ukraine . After the successful Battle of Smolensk in September 1941, Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to halt its advance to Moscow and temporarily divert its Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kyiv . This pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilise fresh reserves. The Moscow offensive, which resumed in October 1941, ended disastrously in December . On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor , Hawaii. Four days later, Germany declared war on

4628-515: A war of conquest to obtain more territory. The Saarland , which had been placed under League of Nations supervision for 15 years at the end of World War I, voted in January 1935 to become part of Germany. In March 1935, Hitler announced the creation of an air force, and that the Reichswehr would be increased to 550,000 men. Britain agreed to Germany building a naval fleet with the signing of

4806-456: Is forbidden to Poles, Jews, and dogs.", or Nur für Deutsche ("Only for Germans"), commonly found on many public utilities and places such as trams, parks, cafes, cinemas, theaters, and others. The Nazis kept an eye out for Polish children who possessed Nordic racial characteristics. An estimated total of 50,000 children, majority taken from orphanages and foster homes in the annexed lands, but some separated from their parents, were taken into

4984-584: The Autobahnen (motorways) and a massive secret rearmament program , forming the Wehrmacht (armed forces). The return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity. Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Germany seized Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, and demanded and received the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Germany signed

5162-466: The Schutzstaffel (SS) and Gestapo to purge the entire SA leadership. Hitler targeted SA Stabschef (Chief of Staff) Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders who—along with a number of Hitler's political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher )—were arrested and shot. Up to 200 people were killed from 30 June to 2 July 1934 in an event that became known as

5340-579: The Völkisch movement . The party, especially its paramilitary organisation Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), or Brownshirts, used physical violence to advance their political position, disrupting the meetings of rival organisations and attacking their members as well as Jewish people on the streets. Such far-right armed groups were common in Bavaria , and were tolerated by the sympathetic far-right state government of Gustav Ritter von Kahr . When

5518-541: The 6th Army could be supplied by air, but this turned out to be infeasible. Hitler's refusal to allow a retreat led to the deaths of 200,000 German and Romanian soldiers; of the 91,000 men who surrendered in the city on 31 January 1943, only 6,000 survivors returned to Germany after the war. Losses continued to mount after Stalingrad, leading to a sharp reduction in the popularity of the Nazi Party and deteriorating morale. Soviet forces continued to push westward after

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5696-745: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement on 18 June 1935. When the Italian invasion of Ethiopia led to only mild protests by the British and French governments, on 7 March 1936 Hitler used the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance as a pretext to order the army to march 3,000 troops into the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in violation of the Versailles Treaty. As the territory was part of Germany,

5874-634: The Anschluss of 1938. The Munich Agreement of 1938 gave Germany control of the Sudetenland, and they seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia six months later. Under threat of invasion by sea, Lithuania surrendered the Memel district in March 1939. Between 1939 and 1941, German forces invaded Poland , Denmark , Norway , France , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Belgium , Yugoslavia , Greece , and

6052-477: The Auschwitz (Oświęcim) and Majdanek concentration camps . By 1942, the number of new German arrivals in pre-war Poland had already reached two million. The Nazi plans also called for Poland's 3.3 million Jews to be exterminated ; the non-Jewish majority's extermination was planned for the long term and initiated through the mass murder of its political, religious, and intellectual elites at first, which

6230-575: The Battle of Berlin (16 April – 2 May 1945), Hitler and his staff lived in the underground Führerbunker while the Red Army approached. On 30 April, when Soviet troops were within two blocks of the Reich Chancellery , Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide . On 2 May, General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov . Hitler

6408-686: The Communist Party of Germany were arrested. On 23 March 1933, the Enabling Act , an amendment to the Weimar Constitution , passed in the Reichstag by a vote of 444 to 94. This amendment allowed Hitler and his cabinet to pass laws—even laws that violated the constitution—without the consent of the president or the Reichstag. As the bill required a two-thirds majority to pass, the Nazis used intimidation tactics as well as

6586-633: The German Empire (1871–1918) as the second. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended, partly because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles . The government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices, economic chaos, and food riots. When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along

6764-565: The Hague Convention , industrial firms in the Netherlands, France, and Belgium were put to work producing war materiel for Germany. The Nazis seized from the French thousands of locomotives and rolling stock, stockpiles of weapons, and raw materials such as copper, tin, oil, and nickel. Payments for occupation costs were levied upon France, Belgium, and Norway. Barriers to trade led to hoarding, black markets , and uncertainty about

6942-511: The League of Nations in October, claiming its disarmament clauses were unfair if they applied only to Germany. In a referendum held in November , 95 per cent of voters supported Germany's withdrawal. In 1934, Hitler told his military leaders that rearmament needed to be complete by 1942, as by then the German people would require more living space and resources, so Germany would have to start

7120-683: The Low Countries . They quickly conquered Luxembourg and the Netherlands and outmanoeuvred the Allies in Belgium , forcing the evacuation of many British and French troops at Dunkirk . France fell as well, surrendering to Germany on 22 June . The victory in France resulted in an upswing in Hitler's popularity and an upsurge in war fever in Germany. In violation of the provisions of

7298-543: The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia ) which brought about an estimated 100,000 deaths and an exodus of ethnic Poles from this territory. The Polish and Jewish language population of the regions in 1939 totaled about 6.7 million. During the war, an estimated 2 million persons perished (including 1.2 million Jews). These numbers are included with Polish war losses. 2 million (including 250,000 Jews) became refugees to Poland or

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7476-579: The Nazi euthanasia program . Political courts called Sondergerichte sentenced some 12,000 members of the German resistance to death, and civil courts sentenced an additional 40,000 Germans. Mass rapes of German women also took place. As a result of their defeat in World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine , Northern Schleswig , and Memel . The Saarland became

7654-472: The Netherlands combined). Early in the morning of August 24, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression pact, called the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact . Most notably, the pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, according to which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet " spheres of influence ". In

7832-722: The Night of the Long Knives . On 2 August 1934, Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the " Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich ", which stated that upon Hindenburg's death the office of Reich President would be abolished and its powers merged with those of Reich Chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Chancellor"), although eventually Reichskanzler

8010-607: The Polish Workers' Party (Polish Polska Partia Robotnicza or PPR), though significantly less numerous than the Home Army. In February 1942, when AK was formed, it numbered about 100,000 members. In the beginning of 1943, it had reached a strength of about 200,000. In the summer of 1944, when Operation Tempest begun AK reached its highest membership numbers. Estimates of AK membership in the first half of 1944 and summer that year vary, with about 400,000 being common. With

8188-474: The Polish language as their mother tongue, and most of the Polish native speakers were Roman Catholics . With regards to the remainder, 15% were Ukrainians, 8.5% Jews, 4.7% Belarusians, and 2.2% Germans. Germans intended to exploit the fact that the Second Polish Republic was an ethnically diverse territory, and their policy aimed to " divide and conquer " the ethnically diverse population of

8366-783: The Polish–Ukrainian War and the Ukrainian–Soviet War . There were large groups of prewar Polish citizens, notably Jewish youth and, to a lesser extent, the Ukrainian peasants, who saw the Soviet power as an opportunity to start political or social activity outside their traditional ethnic or cultural groups. Their enthusiasm however faded with time as it became clear that the Soviet repressions were aimed at all groups equally, regardless of their political stance. British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore states that Soviet terror in

8544-522: The Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. The National Socialist German Workers' Party ( Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ), commonly known as the Nazi Party, was founded in 1920. It was the renamed successor of the German Workers' Party (DAP) formed one year earlier, and one of several far-right political parties then active. The Nazi Party platform included destruction of

8722-654: The Sikorski-Mayski Agreement ; but the Soviets broke them off again in 1943 after the Polish government demanded an independent examination of the recently discovered Katyn burial pits. The Soviets then lobbied the Western Allies to recognize the pro-Soviet Polish puppet government of Wanda Wasilewska in Moscow. On 28 September 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany had changed the secret terms of

8900-410: The Ural Mountains , such as Siberia . At the plan's fulfillment, no Slavs or Jews would remain in Central and Eastern Europe. Generalplan Ost , essentially a grand plan to commit ethnic cleansing, was divided into two parts, the Kleine Planung ("Small Plan"), covered actions which would be undertaken during the war, and the Grosse Planung ("Big Plan"), covered actions which would be undertaken after

9078-511: The Volyn massacre . In a top-secret memorandum, "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East", dated 25 May 1940, Heinrich Himmler , head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), wrote: "We need to divide the East's different ethnic groups up into as many parts and splinter groups as possible". Almost immediately after the invasion, Germans began forcibly conscripting laborers. Jews were drafted to repair war damage as early as October, with women and children 12 or older required to work; shifts could take half

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9256-414: The federal election of 1932 , the party was the largest in the Reichstag , holding 230 seats with 37.4 per cent of the popular vote. Although the Nazis won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority. Hitler refused to participate in a coalition government unless he was its leader. Under pressure from politicians, industrialists, and

9434-496: The massacre of Lwów professors . The Nazis also persecuted the Catholic Church in Poland and other, smaller religions. Nazi policy towards the Catholic Church was at its most severe in the territories it annexed to Greater Germany, where they set about systematically dismantling the Church – arresting its leaders, exiling its clergymen, closing its churches, monasteries and convents. Many clergymen and nuns were murdered or sent to concentration and labor camps. Already in 1939, 80% of

9612-435: The willing Polish citizens into four groups of people with ethnic Germanic heritage. Group One included so-called ethnic Germans who had taken an active part in the struggle for the Germanization of Poland. Group Two included those ethnic Germans who had not taken such an active part, but had "preserved" their German characteristics. Group Three included individuals of alleged German stock who had become "Polonized", but whom it

9790-557: The "securing" of German national interests. Nazi plunder included private and public art collections, artefacts, precious metals, books, and personal possessions. Hitler and Göring in particular were interested in acquiring looted art treasures from occupied Europe, the former planning to use the stolen art to fill the galleries of the planned Führermuseum (Leader's Museum), and the latter for his personal collection. Göring, having stripped almost all of occupied Poland of its artworks within six months of Germany's invasion, ultimately grew

9968-465: The 22,000 Polish officers, roughly 3,000 were killed by the NKVD in 1940, while others were later executed by Nazis. During 1939–1941 1.45 million of the people inhabiting the region were deported by the Soviet regime, of whom 63.1% were Poles, and 7.4% were Jews. Previously it was believed that about one million Polish citizens died at the hands of the Soviets, however recently Polish historians, based mostly on queries in Soviet archives, estimate

10146-407: The Allied bombing campaign became even more devastating. By targeting oil refineries and factories, they crippled the German war effort by late 1944. On 6 June 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces established a front in France with the D-Day landings in Normandy . On 20 July 1944 , Hitler survived an assassination attempt. He ordered brutal reprisals, resulting in 7,000 arrests and

10324-476: The Allies was reluctantly reached at the Yalta Conference where the Soviets would annex the entirety of their Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact portion of Eastern Poland but would grant Poland part of Eastern Germany in return. These agreements were then confirmed and consolidated at the Potsdam Conference . Thereafter, eastern Poland was annexed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic . The Western Allies were unaware of

10502-693: The Augsburg Confession in Poland , Juliusz Bursche . In the territories annexed to Nazi Germany, in particular with regards to the westernmost incorporated territories—the so-called Wartheland — the Nazis aimed for a complete "Germanization", i.e. full cultural, political, economic and social assimilation. The Polish language was forbidden to be taught even in elementary schools; landmarks from streets to cities were renamed en masse ( Łódź became Litzmannstadt, and so on). All manner of Polish enterprises, up to small shops, were taken over, with prior owners rarely compensated. Signs posted in public places prohibited non-Germans from entering these places warning: "Entrance

10680-484: The Belarusian population of Poland. The Soviet Union cited a "need to protect" the Ukrainian and Belarusian majority populations in these regions as a reason justifying the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland (including Western Ukraine and Belarus), carried out in the wake of Poland's dismemberment under the Nazi invasion with Warsaw being besieged and with Poland's government being in the process of evacuation. Consequently, many Ukrainians , Belarusians and Jews welcomed

10858-405: The British and French governments did not feel that attempting to enforce the treaty was worth the risk of war. In the one-party election held on 29 March, the Nazis received 98.9 per cent support. In 1936, Hitler signed an Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan and a non-aggression agreement with Mussolini, who was soon referring to a "Rome-Berlin Axis". Hitler sent military supplies and assistance to

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11036-421: The Catholic clergy of the Warthegau region had been deported to concentration camps. Primate of Poland, Cardinal August Hlond , submitted an official account of the persecutions of the Polish Church to the Vatican. In his final observations for Pope Pius XII , Hlond wrote: "Hitlerism aims at the systematic and total destruction of the Catholic Church in the... territories of Poland which have been incorporated into

11214-405: The General-Government area. Hundreds of thousands of Poles were deported to Germany for forced labour in industry and agriculture, where many thousands died. Poles were also conscripted for labour in Poland, and were held in labour camps all over the country, again with a high death rate. There was a general shortage of food, fuel for heating and medical supplies, and there was a high death rate among

11392-573: The German National People's Party – their former coalition partners – which then disbanded on 29 June. The remaining major political parties followed suit. On 14 July 1933 Germany became a one-party state with the passage of the Law Against the Formation of Parties , decreeing the Nazi Party to be the sole legal party in Germany. The founding of new parties was also made illegal, and all remaining political parties which had not already been dissolved were banned. Further elections in November 1933 , 1936 , and 1938 were Nazi-controlled, with only members of

11570-425: The German army, the Polish prime minister from London flew to Moscow along with Churchill in an attempt to prevent the Soviet annexation of Poland in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed by the Soviet Union. He offered a smaller section of land, but Stalin declined, telling him that he would allow the exiled government to participate in the Polish Committee of National Liberation . An agreement between

11748-627: The German invasion and occupation of Polish territory, at least 1.5 million Polish citizens, including teenagers, became labourers in Germany, few by choice. Historian Jan Gross estimates that "no more than 15 per cent" of Polish workers volunteered to go to work in Germany. A total of 2.3 million Polish citizens, including 300,000 POWs, were deported to Germany as forced laborers. They tended to have to work longer hours for lower wages than their German counterparts. A network of Nazi concentration camps were established on German-controlled territories, many of them in occupied Poland, including one of

11926-439: The German invasion of the Soviet Union, the expulsions slowed down, as more and more trains were diverted for military logistics, rather than being made available for population transfers. Nonetheless, in late 1942 and 1943, large-scale expulsions also took place in the General Government, affecting at least 110,000 Poles in the Zamość – Lublin region. Tens of thousands of the expelled, with no place to go, were simply imprisoned in

12104-414: The German population, they were often housed in segregated barracks behind barbed wire. Nonetheless, many Polish women were sexually enslaved in German camp and military brothels . Labor shortages in the German war economy became critical especially after German defeat in the battle of Stalingrad in 1942–1943. This led to the increased use of prisoners as forced labourers in German industries. Following

12282-411: The German state in the Nazi era are "Nazi Germany" and the "Third Reich", which Hitler and the Nazis also referred to as the "Thousand-Year Reich" ( Tausendjähriges Reich ). The latter, a translation of the Nazi propaganda term Drittes Reich , was first used in Das Dritte Reich , a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck . The book counted the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the first Reich and

12460-416: The Germans. They were aided by some regular German army units and "self-defense" forces composed of members of the German minority in Poland, the Volksdeutsche . The Nazi regime 's policy of murdering or suppressing the ethnic Polish elites was known as Operation Tannenberg . This included not only those resisting actively, but also those simply capable of doing so by the virtue of their social status . As

12638-512: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. They moved Lithuania into the Soviet sphere of influence and shifted the border in Poland to the east, giving Germany more territory. By this arrangement, often described as a fourth partition of Poland , the Soviet Union secured almost all Polish territory east of the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Western Bug and San. This amounted to about 200,000 square kilometres of land, inhabited by 13.5 million Polish citizens. The Red Army had originally sowed confusion among

12816-676: The Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War , which began in July 1936. The German Condor Legion included a range of aircraft and their crews, as well as a tank contingent. The aircraft of the Legion destroyed the city of Guernica in 1937. The Nationalists were victorious in 1939 and became an informal ally of Nazi Germany. In February 1938, Hitler emphasised to Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg

12994-421: The Nazi regime attempted to destroy Polish culture. As part of that policy, the Nazis confiscated Polish national heritage assets and much private property. Acting on the legal decrees of 19 October and 16 December ( Verordnung über die Beschlagnahme Kunstgegeständen im Generalgouvernement ), several German agencies began the process of looting Polish museums and other collections, ostensibly considered necessary for

13172-739: The Nazis to be the " master race ", the purest branch of the Aryan race. Jews , Romani people , Slavs , homosexuals , liberals , socialists , communists , other political opponents, Jehovah's Witnesses , Freemasons , those who refused to work , and other "undesirables" were imprisoned, deported , or murdered. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed and leaders imprisoned. Education focused on racial biology , population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed . Nazi Propaganda Ministry disseminated films, antisemitic canards , and organized mass rallies; fostering

13350-653: The North, Finland , Estonia and Latvia were assigned to the Soviet sphere. Poland was to be partitioned in the event of its "political rearrangement"—the areas east of the Narev , Vistula and San Rivers going to the Soviet Union while Germany would occupy the west. Initially annexed by Poland in a series of wars between 1918 and 1921 (primarily the Polish-Soviet War ), these territories had mixed urban national populations with Poles and Ukrainians being

13528-473: The Party and a small number of independents elected. All civilian organisations had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathisers or party members, and either merged with the Nazi Party or faced dissolution. The Nazi government declared a "Day of National Labor" for May Day 1933, and invited many trade union delegates to Berlin for celebrations. The day after, SA stormtroopers demolished union offices around

13706-468: The Polish Corridor but greatly expanding German territory eastward at the expense of Poland. He expected this time they would be met by force. The Germans reaffirmed their alliance with Italy and signed non-aggression pacts with Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia whilst trade links were formalised with Romania, Norway, and Sweden. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop arranged in negotiations with

13884-651: The Polish nation and its culture. The disappearance of the Poles' leadership was seen as necessary to the establishment of the Germans as the Poles' sole leaders. Proscription lists ( Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen ), prepared before the war started, identified more than 61,000 members of the Polish elite and intelligentsia leaders who were deemed unfriendly to Germany. Already during the 1939 German invasion, dedicated units of SS and police (the Einsatzgruppen ) were tasked with arresting or outright killing of those resisting

14062-414: The Polish population as a result. Finally, thousands of Poles were killed as reprisals for resistance attacks on German forces or for other reasons. In all, about three million Poles died as a result of the German occupation, more than 10% of the pre-war population. When this is added to the three million Polish Jews who were killed as a matter of policy by the Germans, Poland lost about 22% of its population,

14240-567: The Polish resistance, with German officials adhering to the collective guilt principle and holding entire communities responsible for the actions of unidentified perpetrators. One of the most infamous German operations was the Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion ( AB-Aktion in short, German for Special Pacification ), a German campaign during World War II aimed at Polish leaders and the intelligentsia, including many university professors, teachers and priests. In

14418-414: The Polish territories annexed by the Soviets were attached to the enlarged General Government. The end of the war saw the USSR occupy all of Poland and most of eastern Germany. The Soviets gained recognition of their pre-1941 annexations of Polish territory; as compensation, substantial portions of eastern Germany were ceded to Poland, whose borders were significantly shifted westwards . For months prior to

14596-451: The RAF in what became known as the Battle of Britain , and by the end of October, Hitler realised that air superiority would not be achieved. He permanently postponed the invasion, a plan which the commanders of the German army had never taken entirely seriously. Several historians, including Andrew Gordon , believe the primary reason for the failure of the invasion plan was the superiority of

14774-672: The Red Army was annexed to the Soviet Union (after a rigged election ), and split between the Belarusian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR , with the exception of the Wilno area taken from Poland, which was transferred to sovereign Lithuania for several months and subsequently annexed by the Soviet Union in the form of the Lithuanian SSR on 3 August 1940. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, most of

14952-604: The Reich...". The smaller Evangelical churches of Poland also suffered. The entirety of the Protestant clergy of the Cieszyn region of Silesia were arrested and deported to concentration camps at Mauthausen, Buchenwald , Dachau and Oranienburg. Protestant clergy leaders who perished in those purges included charity activist Karol Kulisz , theology professor Edmund Bursche , and Bishop of the Evangelical Church of

15130-833: The Royal Navy, not the actions of the RAF. In February 1941, the German Afrika Korps arrived in Libya to aid the Italians in the North African Campaign . On 6 April, Germany launched an invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece . All of Yugoslavia and parts of Greece were subsequently divided between Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Bulgaria. On 22 June 1941, contravening the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, about 3.8 million Axis troops attacked

15308-433: The September 28 German–Soviet Frontier Treaty , most of whose contents were kept secret. Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization . Passportization and residence registration of the population in the newly acquired territories began. Inhabitants of Kresy , on whom Soviet citizenship was imposed in November 1939, had to return documents issued by "former Poland" and obtain new citizenship of

15486-585: The Soviet Union . Germany annexed parts of northern Yugoslavia in April 1941, while Mussolini ceded Trieste , South Tyrol , and Istria to Germany in 1943. Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union These annexed territories were subsequently incorporated into the Lithuanian , Byelorussian , and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republics and remained within the Soviet Union in 1945 as

15664-664: The Soviet Union a non-aggression pact, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , signed in August 1939. The treaty also contained secret protocols dividing Poland and the Baltic states into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Germany's wartime foreign policy involved the creation of allied governments controlled directly or indirectly from Berlin. They intended to obtain soldiers from allies such as Italy and Hungary and workers and food supplies from allies such as Vichy France . Hungary

15842-573: The Soviet Union attacked from the east on 17 September. Reinhard Heydrich , chief of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), ordered on 21 September that Polish Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links. Initially the intention was to deport them further east, or possibly to Madagascar . Using lists prepared in advance , some 65,000 Polish intelligentsia, noblemen, clergy, and teachers were murdered by

16020-722: The Soviet Union in 1941, Nazi Germany attempted to implement the Generalplan Ost and Hunger Plan , as part of its war of extermination in Eastern Europe. The Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant Germany lost the initiative in 1943 and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the 1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. Germany

16198-778: The Soviet Union invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. See map . During the Interbellum period , the Second Polish Republic had carried out an oppressive programme of Polonization against its Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Jewish minorities. In a programme referred to as the Pacification of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia ,

16376-480: The Soviet Union, acting in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . Germany acquired 48.4% of the former Polish territory. Under the terms of two decrees by Hitler , with Stalin 's agreement (8 and 12 October 1939), large areas of western Poland were annexed by Germany . The size of these annexed territories was approximately 92,500 square kilometres (35,700 sq mi) with approximately 10.5 million inhabitants. The remaining block of territory, of about

16554-498: The Soviet Union. In addition to Hitler's stated purpose of acquiring Lebensraum , this large-scale offensive—codenamed Operation Barbarossa —was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers. The reaction among Germans was one of surprise and trepidation as many were concerned about how much longer the war would continue or suspected that Germany could not win

16732-432: The Soviet troops into the occupied territories. The total area, including the area given to Lithuania, was 201,015 square kilometres (77,612 sq mi), with a population of 13.299 million, of which 5.274 million were ethnic Poles and 1.109 million were Jews. An additional 138,000 ethnic Poles and 198,000 Jews fled the German occupied zone and became refugees in the Soviet occupied region. The borders were finalized in

16910-517: The USSR. According to the secret protocol, Lithuania would retrieve its historical capital Vilnius , subjugated during the inter-war period by Poland . The Polish–Soviet border, as of 1939, had been determined in 1921 at the Treaty of Riga peace talks, which followed the Polish–Soviet War . Under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland ,

17088-681: The USSR. The NKVD used the passportization system to carefully select people still living in Western Belarus and Western Ukraine . Those who did not receive the citizenship or refused to accept it (claiming that they were Polish citizens or not agreeing to enter Ukrainian or Belarusian nationality) were arrested or deported. In March 1940, the authorities also decided about the fate of refugees from western Poland, who from September 1939 were in Kresy. Deportation of this group of about 75–80 thousand people, consisting mainly of Jews (about 84%), finally began on June 29, 1940, and lasted for nearly

17266-545: The United States. Food was in short supply in the conquered areas of the Soviet Union and Poland, as the retreating armies had burned the crops in some areas, and much of the remainder was sent back to the Reich. In Germany, rations were cut in 1942. In his role as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan , Hermann Göring demanded increased shipments of grain from France and fish from Norway. The 1942 harvest

17444-562: The Weimar Republic, rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism , and anti- Bolshevism . They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews , who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. The Nazis proposed national and cultural renewal based upon

17622-455: The West, 1.5 million were in the territories returned to Poland in 1945 and 1.2 million remained in the USSR . Contemporary Russian historians also include the war losses of Poles and Jews from this region with Soviet war dead. At the end of World War II , the Soviet Union annexed most of the territory it had invaded in 1939. Soon after the Soviet re-entry to Poland in July 1944 in pursuit of

17800-441: The beginning of World War II in 1939, German newspapers and leaders had carried out a national and international propaganda campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Germans living in Poland. British ambassador Sir H. Kennard sent four statements in August 1939 to Viscount Halifax regarding Hitler's claims about the treatment Germans were receiving in Poland; he came to

17978-451: The blockade, imports into Germany declined by 80 per cent. To safeguard Swedish iron ore shipments to Germany, Hitler ordered the invasion of Denmark and Norway , which began on 9 April. Denmark fell after less than a day , while most of Norway followed by the end of the month. By early June, Germany occupied all of Norway . Against the advice of many of his senior military officers, in May 1940 Hitler ordered an attack on France and

18156-442: The buildings, belongings, and property of Ukrainians were destroyed and their inhabitants were often beaten and arrested. According to Ukrainian-Canadian historian, Orest Subtelny , these events constituted "collective punishment" meted out on thousands of "mostly innocent peasants" and resulted in the exacerbation of animosity between the Polish state and the Ukrainian minority. Similar oppressive actions were also carried out against

18334-520: The business community, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. This event is known as the Machtergreifung ("seizure of power"). On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set afire . Marinus van der Lubbe , a Dutch communist, was found guilty of starting the blaze. Hitler proclaimed that the arson marked the start of

18512-431: The campaign itself. On 24 September, the Soviets killed 42 staff and patients of a Polish military hospital in the village of Grabowiec , near Zamość. The Soviets also executed all the Polish officers they captured after the Battle of Szack , on 28 September. Over 20,000 Polish military personnel and civilians perished in the Katyn massacre . The Poles and the Soviets re-established diplomatic relations in 1941, following

18690-595: The capital, Berlin , ending World War II in Europe . After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator by merging the powers of the chancellery and presidency. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader). Power

18868-513: The churches. The Nazi regime abolished the symbols of the Weimar Republic—including the black, red, and gold tricolour flag —and adopted reworked symbolism. The previous imperial black, white, and red tricolour was restored as one of Germany's two official flags; the second was the swastika flag of the Nazi Party, which became the sole national flag in September 1935. The Party anthem " Horst-Wessel-Lied " ("Horst Wessel Song") became

19046-715: The civilian branch of the Underground State was to preserve the continuity of the Polish state as a whole, including its institutions. These institutions included the police, the courts , and schools . By the final years of the war, the civilian structure of the Underground State included an underground parliament, administration, judiciary ( courts and police ), secondary and higher-level education, and supported various cultural activities such as publishing of newspapers and books, underground theatres, lectures, exhibitions, concerts and safeguarded various works of art. It also dealt with providing social services , including to

19224-403: The clergy, but also noblemen and intellectuals. The Soviets also executed about 65,000 Poles. Soldiers of the Red Army and their officers behaved like conquerors, looting and stealing Polish treasures. When Stalin was told about it, he answered: "If there is no ill will, they [the soldiers] can be pardoned". The Soviet Union had ceased to recognize the Polish state at the start of the invasion. As

19402-600: The conclusion all the claims by Hitler and the Nazis were exaggerations or false claims. From the beginning, the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany was intended as fulfilment of the future plan of the German Reich described by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf as Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germans in Central and Eastern Europe. The goal of the occupation was to turn the former territory of Poland into ethnically German "living space", by deporting and exterminating

19580-556: The country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship . The Third Reich , meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800/962–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich , ended in May 1945, after only 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered

19758-551: The country; all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , passed in April, removed from their jobs all teachers, professors, judges, magistrates, and government officials who were Jewish or whose commitment to the party was suspect. This meant the only non-political institutions not under control of the Nazis were

19936-477: The course of the war, over two million of whom were ethnic Poles (the remainder being mostly Ukrainians and Belarusians ). The vast majority of those killed were civilians, mostly killed by the actions of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Aside from being sent to Nazi concentration camps, most ethnic Poles died through shelling and bombing campaigns, mass executions, forced starvation, revenge murder, ill health, and slave labour. Along with Auschwitz II-Birkenau ,

20114-623: The destitute Jewish population (through the council to Aid Jews, or Żegota ). Through the Directorate of Civil Resistance (1941–1943) the civil arm was also involved in lesser acts of resistance, such as minor sabotage , although in 1943 this department was merged with the Directorate of Covert Resistance , forming the Directorate of Underground Resistance , subordinate to the Armia Krajowa (AK) (Polish Home Army). In response to

20292-563: The electorate in a plebiscite . Most Germans were relieved that the conflicts and street fighting of the Weimar era had ended. They were deluged with propaganda orchestrated by Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels , who promised peace and plenty for all in a united, Marxist-free country without the constraints of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi Party obtained and legitimised power through its initial revolutionary activities, then through manipulation of legal mechanisms,

20470-529: The end of 1939 in an attempt to destroy Poland's identity as a nation. Soviet forces advanced into Finland in the Winter War , and German forces saw action at sea. But little other activity occurred until May, so the period became known as the " Phoney War ". From the start of the war, a British blockade on shipments to Germany affected its economy. Germany was particularly dependent on foreign supplies of oil, coal, and grain. Thanks to trade embargoes and

20648-602: The establishment of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which stripped them of their basic rights. The Nazis would take from the Jews their wealth, their right to intermarry with non-Jews, and their right to occupy many fields of labour (such as law, medicine, or education). Eventually the Nazis declared the Jews as undesirable to remain among German citizens and society. As early as February 1933, Hitler announced that rearmament must begin, albeit clandestinely at first, as to do so

20826-402: The ethnic composition of these areas: 38% Poles (ca. 5.1 million people), 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians and 0.6% Germans. There were also 336,000 refugees from areas occupied by Germany, most of them Jews (198,000). Areas occupied by the USSR were annexed to Soviet territory, with the exception of the Wilno area, which was transferred to Lithuania, although it

21004-473: The execution of more than 4,900 people. The failed Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive on the western front, and Soviet forces entered Germany on 27 January. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat and his insistence that the war be fought to the last man led to unnecessary death and destruction in the war's closing months. Through his Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack , Hitler ordered that anyone who

21182-446: The existence of Poland's sovereignty , people , and the culture and aimed to destroy them. Before Operation Barbarossa, Germany and the Soviet Union coordinated their Poland-related policies, most visibly in the four Gestapo–NKVD conferences , where the occupiers discussed their plans to deal with the Polish resistance movement . Around six million Polish citizens—nearly 21.4% of Poland's population—died between 1939 and 1945 as

21360-600: The existence of the secret clause dividing Poland between Hitler and Stalin already in 1939 along the Curzon Line . Some parts of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939 with an area of 21,275 square kilometres (8,214 sq mi) and 1.5 million inhabitants near Białystok and Przemyśl were returned to postwar Poland. On August 16, 1945 the Communist-dominated Provisional Government of National Unity signed

21538-1020: The failed German offensive at the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. By the end of 1943, the Germans had lost most of their eastern territorial gains. In Egypt, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel 's Afrika Korps were defeated by British forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in October 1942. The Allies landed in Sicily in July 1943 and were on the Italian peninsula by September. Meanwhile, American and British bomber fleets based in Britain began operations against Germany . Many sorties were intentionally given civilian targets in an effort to destroy German morale. The bombing of aircraft factories as well as Peenemünde Army Research Center , where V-1 and V-2 rockets were being developed and produced, were also deemed particularly important. German aircraft production could not keep pace with losses, and without air cover

21716-642: The first gassing experiment in September 1941. According to Polish historian Franciszek Piper , approximately 140,000–150,000 Poles went through Auschwitz, with about half of them perishing there due to executions, medical experiments, or due to starvation and disease. About 100,000 Poles were imprisoned in Majdanek camp, with similar fatality rate. About 30,000 Poles died at Mauthausen , 20,000 at Sachsenhausen and Gross-Rosen each, 17,000 at Neuengamme and Ravensbrueck each, 10,000 at Dachau , and tens of thousands perished in other camps and prisons. Following

21894-557: The former territory of Poland. Those plans began to be implemented almost immediately after German troops took control of Poland. As early as October 1939, many Poles were expelled from the annexed lands in order to make room for German colonizers. Only those Poles who had been selected for Germanization, approximately 1.7 million including thousands of children who had been taken from their parents, were permitted to remain, and if they resisted it, they were to be sent to concentration camps, because "German blood must not be utilized in

22072-668: The future. Food supplies were precarious; production dropped in most of Europe. Famine was experienced in many occupied countries. Hitler's peace overtures to the new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were rejected in July 1940. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder had advised Hitler in June that air superiority was a pre-condition for a successful invasion of Britain , so Hitler ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal Air Force (RAF) airbases and radar stations, as well as nightly air raids on British cities, including London , Plymouth , and Coventry . The German Luftwaffe failed to defeat

22250-650: The ghettos with Poles living on the "Aryan Side" and the Jews living on the "Jewish Side", despite the risk of death many Poles risked their lives by forging "Aryan Papers" for Jews to make them appear as non-Jewish Poles so they could live on the Aryan side and avoid Nazi persecution. Another law implemented by the Germans was that Poles were forbidden from buying from Jewish shops in which, if they did, they were subject to execution. Jewish children were also distributed among safe houses and church networks. Jewish children were often placed in church orphanages and convents. Some three million gentile Polish citizens perished during

22428-549: The highest proportion of any European country in World War II. Poland had a large Jewish population, and according to Davies, more Jews were both killed and rescued in Poland, than in any other nation, the rescue figure usually being put at between 100,000 and 150,000. Thousands of Poles have been honoured as Righteous Among the Nations – constituting the largest national contingent. When AK Home Army Intelligence discovered

22606-696: The imminent arrival of the Soviet army, the AK launched the Warsaw Uprising against the German army on 1 August 1944. The uprising, receiving little assistance from the nearby Soviet forces, eventually failed, significantly reducing the Home Army's power and position. About 200,000 Poles, most of them civilians, lost their lives in the Uprising. The Polish civilian population suffered under German occupation in many ways. Large numbers were expelled from land intended for German colonisation, and forced to resettle in

22784-580: The interest of a foreign nation". By the end of 1940, at least 325,000 Poles from annexed lands were forced to abandon most of their property and forcibly resettled in the General Government district. There were numerous fatalities among the very young and very old, many of whom either perished en route or perished in makeshift transit camps such as those in the towns of Potulice , Smukal , and Toruń . The expulsions continued in 1941, with another 45,000 Poles forced to move eastwards, but following

22962-533: The interest of a foreign nation," and such people were sent to concentration camps. Persons ineligible for the List were classified as stateless, and all Poles from the occupied territory, that is from the Government General of Poland, as distinct from the incorporated territory, were classified as non-protected. According to the 1931 Polish census , out of a prewar population of 35 million, 66% spoke

23140-458: The invasion of Poland in 1939, most of the approximately 3.5 million Polish Jews were rounded up and put into newly established ghettos by Nazi Germany. The ghetto system was unsustainable, as by the end of 1941 the Jews had no savings left to pay the SS for food deliveries and no chance to earn their own keep. At 20 January 1942 Wannsee Conference , held near Berlin, new plans were outlined for

23318-452: The largest and most infamous, Auschwitz (Oświęcim). Those camps were officially designed as labor camps, and many displayed the motto Arbeit macht frei ("Work brings freedom"). Only high-ranking officials knew that one of the purposes of some of the camps, known as extermination camps (or death camps), was mass murder of the undesirable minorities; officially the prisoners were used in enterprises such as production of synthetic rubber , as

23496-519: The locals by claiming that they were arriving to save Poland from the Nazis. Their advance surprised Polish communities and their leaders, who had not been advised how to respond to a Bolshevik invasion. Polish and Jewish citizens may at first have preferred a Soviet regime to a German one, but the Soviets soon proved as hostile and destructive towards the Polish people and their culture as the Nazis. They began confiscating, nationalising and redistributing all private and state-owned Polish property. During

23674-435: The main six extermination camps in occupied Poland were used predominantly to exterminate Jews. Stutthof concentration camp was used for mass extermination of Poles. A number of civilian labour camps ( Gemeinschaftslager ) for Poles ( Polenlager ) were established inside Polish territory. Many Poles died in German camps. The first non-German prisoners at Auschwitz were Poles who were the majority of inmates there until 1942 when

23852-410: The most numerous ethnic groups, with significant minorities of Belarusians and Jews . Much of this rural territory had its own significant local non-Polish majority (Ukrainians in the south and Belarusians in the north). Lithuania , adjacent to East Prussia , would be in the German sphere of influence, although a second secret protocol agreed in September 1939 assigned the majority of Lithuania to

24030-478: The need for Germany to secure its frontiers. Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite regarding Austrian independence for 13 March, but Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg on 11 March demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian Nazi Party or face an invasion. German troops entered Austria the next day, to be greeted with enthusiasm by the populace. The Republic of Czechoslovakia was home to

24208-490: The non-German population, or relegating it to the status of slave laborers. The goal of the German state under Nazi leadership during the war was the complete destruction of the Polish people and nation. The fate of the Polish people, as well as the fate of many other Slavs , was outlined in the genocidal Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East) and the closely related Generalsiedlungsplan (General Plan for Settlement). Over

24386-651: The number of deaths at about 350,000 people deported in 1939–1945. Andrzej Paczkowski puts the number of Polish deaths at 90–100,000 of the 1.0 million persons deported and 30,000 executed by the Soviets. The Vilnius Region , annexed by Poland in 1920, was transferred to Lithuania on the basis of Lithuania-Soviet Union agreement . Other northern territories were attached to Belastok Region , Hrodna Region , Navahrudak Region (soon renamed to Baranavichy Region ), Pinsk Region and Vileyka (later Maladzyechna) Region in Byelorussian SSR . The territories to

24564-676: The occupation, Poles formed one of the largest underground movements in Europe. Resistance to the Nazi German occupation began almost at once. The Armia Krajowa, loyal to the Polish government in exile in London and a military arm of the Polish Underground State, was formed from a number of smaller groups in 1942. There was also the Armia Ludowa (AL) (Polish People's Army), backed by the Soviet Union and controlled by

24742-626: The occupied Polish territory, to prevent any unified resistance from forming. One of the attempts to divide the Polish nation was a creation of a new ethnicity called " Goralenvolk ". Some minorities, like Kashubians , were forcefully enrolled into the Deutsche Volksliste, as a measure to compensate for the losses in the Wehrmacht (unlike Poles, Deutsche Volksliste members were eligible for military conscription). In addition, Germans encouraged Ukrainians and Poles to kill each other during

24920-413: The occupied eastern Polish lands was as cruel and tragic as the Nazis' in the west. Soviet authorities brutally treated those who might oppose their rule, deporting by 10 November 1940 around 10% of total population of Kresy, with 30% of those deported dead by 1941. They arrested and imprisoned about 500,000 Poles during 1939–1941, including former officials, officers, and natural "enemies of the people" like

25098-430: The parents suggested that the child might not be " racially valuable ", the mother was forced to have an abortion . Infants who did not pass muster would be removed to a state orphanage ( Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätte ), where many were murdered through calculated malnourishment, neglect, and unhygienic conditions. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the occupation of Poland by German forces,

25276-497: The plan, as Germany was not yet ready for war. The crisis led to war preparations by Britain, Czechoslovakia, and France (Czechoslovakia's ally). Attempting to avoid war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arranged a series of meetings, the result of which was the Munich Agreement , signed on 29 September 1938. The Czechoslovak government was forced to accept the Sudetenland's annexation into Germany. Chamberlain

25454-407: The population of the territories that came under the control of Germany, in contrast the areas annexed by the Soviet Union contained a diverse array of peoples, the population being split into bilingual provinces, some of which had large ethnic Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities, many of whom welcomed the Soviets due in part to communist agitation by Soviet emissaries. Nonetheless Poles still comprised

25632-484: The population. Poles were deported in large numbers to work as forced labour in Germany: eventually about a million were deported, and many died in Germany. By the end of the initial invasion of Poland (the "Polish Defensive War"), the Soviet Union took over 52.1% of Poland's territory (~200,000 km), with over 13,700,000 people. The estimates vary; Prof. Elżbieta Trela-Mazur gives the following numbers in regards to

25810-478: The pre-war Polish state as a "crime against revolution" and "counter-revolutionary activity", and subsequently started arresting large numbers of Polish citizens. During the initial Soviet invasion of Poland, between 230,000 to 450,000 Poles were taken as prisoner, some of whom were executed . NKVD officers conducted lengthy interrogations of the prisoners in camps that were, in effect, a selection process to determine who would be killed. On March 5, 1940, pursuant to

25988-407: The provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to keep several Social Democratic deputies from attending, and the Communists had already been banned. The Enabling Act would subsequently serve as the legal foundation for the dictatorship the Nazis established. On 10 May, the government seized the assets of the Social Democrats, and they were banned on 22 June. On 21 June, the SA raided the offices of

26166-410: The same size and inhabited by about 11.5 million, was placed under a German administration called the General Government (in German: Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete ), with its capital at Kraków . A German lawyer and prominent Nazi, Hans Frank , was appointed Governor-General of this occupied area on 12 October 1939. Most of the administration outside strictly local level

26344-405: The service of a foreign nation. After Germany lost the war, the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials and Poland's Supreme National Tribunal concluded that the aim of German policies in Poland – the extermination of Poles and Jews – had "all the characteristics of genocide in the biological meaning of this term." The German People's List ( Deutsche Volksliste ) classified

26522-410: The south were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR : Drohobych Oblast , Lviv Oblast , Rivne Oblast , Stanislav (later known as Ivano-Frankivsk) Oblast , Ternopil Oblast and Volyn Oblast . These areas were conquered by Nazi Germany in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa . The Nazis divided them up as follows: During 1943–1944 ethnic cleansing operations took place in Ukraine (commonly known as

26700-426: The spring and summer of 1940, more than 30,000 Poles were arrested by the German authorities of German-occupied Poland. Several thousands were executed outside Warsaw, in the Kampinos forest near Palmiry , and inside the city at the Pawiak prison. Most of the remainder were sent to various German concentration camps . Mass arrests and shootings of Polish intellectuals and academics included Sonderaktion Krakau and

26878-460: The stock market in the United States crashed in 1929 , the effect in Germany was dire. Millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the Nazis prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to strengthen the economy and provide jobs. Many voters decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and improving Germany's international reputation. After

27056-436: The summer-autumn of 1941, the lands which were annexed by the Soviets were overrun by Germany in the course of the initially successful German attack on the USSR (" Operation Barbarossa "). After a few years of fighting, the Red Army drove the German forces out of the USSR and crossed into Poland from the rest of Central and Eastern Europe . Sociologist Tadeusz Piotrowski argues that both occupying powers were hostile to

27234-416: The systematic killing of the Jews began. The first killing by poison gas at Auschwitz involved 300 Poles and 700 Soviet prisoners of war . Many Poles and other Central and Eastern Europeans were also sent to concentration camps in Germany: over 35,000 to Dachau, 33,000 to the camp for women at Ravensbrück , 30,000 to Mauthausen and 20,000 to Sachsenhausen. The population in the General Government's territory

27412-529: The total German war dead range from 5.5 to 6.9 million persons. A study by German historian Rüdiger Overmans puts the number of German military dead and missing at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders. Richard Overy estimated in 2014 that about 353,000 civilians were killed in Allied air raids. Other civilian deaths include 300,000 Germans (including Jews) who were victims of Nazi political, racial, and religious persecution and 200,000 who were murdered in

27590-482: The total genocide of the Jews, known as the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question ". The extermination program was codenamed Operation Reinhard . Three secret extermination camps set up specifically for Operation Reinhard; Treblinka , Belzec and Sobibor . In addition to the Reinhard camps, mass killing facilities such as gas chambers using Zyklon B were added to the Majdanek concentration camp in March 1942 and at Auschwitz and Chełmno . Nazi Germany engaged in

27768-401: The true fate of transports leaving the Jewish Ghetto, the council to Aid Jews ( Zegota ) was established in late 1942, in cooperation with church groups. The organisation saved thousands. Emphasis was placed on protecting children, as it was nearly impossible to intervene directly against the heavily guarded transports. The Germans implemented several different laws to separate Poles and Jews in

27946-418: The two years following the annexation, they arrested approximately 100,000 Polish citizens and deported between 350,000 and 1,500,000, of whom between 150,000 and 1,000,000 died, mostly civilians. Nazi Germany Nazi Germany , officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich , was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled

28124-421: The use of police powers, and by taking control of the state and federal institutions. The first major Nazi concentration camp , initially for political prisoners, was opened at Dachau in 1933. Hundreds of camps of varying size and function were created by the end of the war. Beginning in April 1933, scores of measures defining the status of Jews and their rights were instituted. These measures culminated in

28302-431: The war drew to a close. Suicide rates in Germany increased, particularly in areas where the Red Army was advancing. Among soldiers and party personnel, suicide was often deemed an honourable and heroic alternative to surrender. First-hand accounts and propaganda about the uncivilised behaviour of the advancing Soviet troops caused panic among civilians on the Eastern Front, especially women, who feared being raped. More than

28480-521: The war was won. The plan envisaged that different percentages of the various conquered nations would undergo Germanization, be expelled and deported to the depths of Russia, and suffer other gruesome fates, including purposeful starvation and murder , the net effect of which would ensure that the conquered territories would take on an irrevocably German character. Over a longer period of time, only about 3–4 million Poles, all of whom were considered suitable for Germanization, would be allowed to reside in

28658-430: The year 1939 was around 5.274 million, but after ethnic cleansing in 1939-1945 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Ukrainian nationalist forces, Kresy consisted of approximately 1.8 million inhabitants. The post-World War II territory of Poland was slightly smaller than the pre-1939 land areas, shrinking by some 77,000 square kilometres (30,000 sq mi) (roughly equalling that of the territories of Belgium and

28836-426: Was soon attached to the USSR once Lithuania became a Soviet republic . Initially the Soviet occupation gained support among some members of the linguistic minorities who had chafed under the nationalist policies of the Second Polish Republic. Much of the Ukrainian population initially welcomed the unification with the Soviet Ukraine because twenty years earlier their attempt at self-determination failed during both

29014-437: Was a powerful ally, the relationship was distant, with little co-ordination or co-operation. For example, Germany refused to share their formula for synthetic oil from coal until late in the war. Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. Honouring their treaty obligations, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Poland fell quickly, as

29192-696: Was believed, could be won back to Germany. This group also included persons of non-German descent married to Germans or members of non-Polish groups who were considered desirable for their political attitude and racial characteristics. Group Four consisted of persons of German stock who had become politically merged with the Poles. After registration in the List, individuals from Groups One and Two automatically became German citizens. Those from Group Three acquired German citizenship subject to revocation. Those from Group Four received German citizenship through naturalization proceedings; resistance to Germanization constituted treason because "German blood must not be utilized in

29370-424: Was centralised in Hitler's person, and his word became the highest law. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power. In the midst of the Great Depression , the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending. Financed by deficit spending , the regime undertook extensive public works projects, including

29548-445: Was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, and capitulated on 8 May 1945. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure and additional war-related deaths in the closing months of the war. The Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials . Common English terms for

29726-435: Was described during the Nuremberg trials as a deliberate and systematic genocide. In August 2009, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated Poland's dead (including Polish Jews) at between 5.47 and 5.67 million (due to German actions) and 150,000 (due to Soviet), or around 5.62 and 5.82 million total. In September 1939, Poland was invaded and occupied by two powers: Nazi Germany and

29904-417: Was dropped. Germany was now a totalitarian state with Hitler at its head. As head of state, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The new law provided an altered loyalty oath for servicemen so that they affirmed loyalty to Hitler personally rather than the office of supreme commander or the state. On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 90 per cent of

30082-462: Was good, and food supplies remained adequate in Western Europe. Germany and Europe as a whole were almost totally dependent on foreign oil imports. In an attempt to resolve the shortage, in June 1942 Germany launched Fall Blau ("Case Blue"), an offensive against the Caucasian oilfields. The Red Army launched a counter-offensive on 19 November and encircled the Axis forces, who were trapped in Stalingrad on 23 November. Göring assured Hitler that

30260-473: Was greeted with cheers when he landed in London, saying the agreement brought "peace for our time". Austrian and Czech foreign exchange reserves were seized by the Nazis, as were stockpiles of raw materials such as metals and completed goods such as weaponry and aircraft, which were shipped to Germany. The Reichswerke Hermann Göring industrial conglomerate took control of steel and coal production facilities in both countries. In January 1934, Germany signed

30438-415: Was in violation of the Versailles Treaty. On 17 May 1933, Hitler gave a speech before the Reichstag outlining his desire for world peace and accepted an offer from American President Franklin D. Roosevelt for military disarmament, provided the other nations of Europe did the same. When the other European powers failed to accept this offer, Hitler pulled Germany out of the World Disarmament Conference and

30616-448: Was initially about 12 million in an area of 94,000 square kilometres (36,000 sq mi), but this increased as about 860,000 Poles and Jews were expelled from the German-annexed areas and "resettled" in the General Government. Offsetting this was the German campaign of extermination of the Polish intelligentsia and other elements thought likely to resist (e.g. Operation Tannenberg). From 1941, disease and hunger also began to reduce

30794-432: Was meant to make the formation of any organized top-down resistance more difficult. Further, the populace of occupied territories was to be relegated to the role of an unskilled labour-force for German-controlled industry and agriculture. This was in spite of racial theory that falsely regarded most Polish leaders as actually being of "German blood", and partly because of it, on the grounds that German blood must not be used in

30972-432: Was not prepared to fight should be court-martialed, and thousands of people were executed. In many areas, people surrendered to the approaching Allies in spite of exhortations of local leaders to continue to fight. Hitler ordered the destruction of transport, bridges, industries, and other infrastructure—a scorched earth decree—but Armaments Minister Albert Speer prevented this order from being fully carried out. During

31150-439: Was replaced by German officials. Non-German population on the occupied lands were subject to forced resettlement , Germanization , economic exploitation , and slow but progressive extermination. A small strip of land, about 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi) with 200,000 inhabitants that had been part of Czechoslovakia before 1938, was ceded by Germany to its ally, Slovakia . Poles comprised an overwhelming majority

31328-489: Was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide the next day after murdering their six children . Between 4 and 8 May 1945, most of the remaining German armed forces unconditionally surrendered. The German Instrument of Surrender was signed 8 May, marking the end of the Nazi regime and the end of World War II in Europe . Popular support for Hitler almost completely disappeared as

31506-449: Was the case of a plant owned by IG Farben, whose laborers came from Auschwitz III camp, or Monowitz . Laborers from concentration camps were literally worked to death. in what was known as extermination through labor . Auschwitz received the first contingent of 728 Poles on 14 June 1940, transferred from an overcrowded prison at Tarnów . Within a year the Polish inmate population was in thousands, and begun to be exterminated, including in

31684-502: Was the fourth nation to join the Axis, signing the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940. Bulgaria signed the pact on 17 November. German efforts to secure oil included negotiating a supply from their new ally, Romania , who signed the Pact on 23 November, alongside the Slovak Republic. By late 1942, there were 24 divisions from Romania on the Eastern Front, 10 from Italy, and 10 from Hungary. Germany assumed full control in France in 1942, Italy in 1943, and Hungary in 1944. Although Japan

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