Invasion of Poland (1939)
2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: World War II
| Invasion of Poland (1939) | |||||||
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| Part of World War II | |||||||
 German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, shelling Westerplatte, September 1, 1939. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Poland |
 Nazi Germany Soviet Union Slovakia |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Edward Rydz-Śmigły |
Fedor von Bock (Army Group North), Gerd von Rundstedt (Army Group South), Mikhail Kovalev (Belorussian Front), Semyon Timoshenko (Ukrainian Front), Ferdinand Čatloš( Field Army Bernolák) |
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| Strength | |||||||
| Poland: 39 divisions, 16 brigades, 4,300 guns, 880 tanks, 400 aircraft Total: 950,000 |
Germany: 56 divisions, 4 brigades, 9,000 guns, 2,500 tanks, 2,315 aircraft Soviet Union: 33+ divisions, 11+ brigades, 4,959 guns, 4,736 tanks, 3,300 aircraft Slovakia: 3 divisions Total: 1,500,000 Germans, 800,000+ Soviets, 50,000 Slovaks Grand total: 2,350,000+ |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Poland: 66,000 dead, 133,700 wounded, 694,000 captured |
Germany: 16,343 dead, 27,280 wounded, 320 missing Soviet Union: 737 dead or missing, 1,125 wounded Slovakia: 18 dead, 46 wounded, 11 missing |
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The Invasion of Poland, 1939 (in Poland also "the September Campaign," "Kampania wrześniowa," and "the 1939 Defensive War," "Wojna obronna 1939 roku"; in Germany, "the Poland Campaign," "Polenfeldzug," codenamed " Fall Weiss," "Case White," by the German General Staff, and sometimes called "the Polish-German War of 1939"), which precipitated World War II, was carried out by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and a small German-allied Slovak contingent.
The invasion of Poland marked the start of World War II in Europe, as Poland's western allies, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, declared war on Germany on September 3, soon followed by France, South Africa and Canada, among others. The invasion began on September 1, 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and ended October 6, 1939, with Germany and the Soviet Union occupying the entirety of Poland. Although the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany soon after Germany attacked Poland, very little direct military aid was provided (see Phoney War and Western betrayal).
Following a German-staged "Polish attack" on August 31, 1939, on September 1, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Spread thin defending their long borders, the Polish armies were soon forced to withdraw eastward. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage. Polish forces then began a withdrawal southeast, following a plan that called for a long defense in the Romanian bridgehead area, where the Polish forces were to await an expected Allied counterattack and relief.
On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Red Army invaded the eastern regions of Poland in cooperation with Germany. The Soviets were carrying out their part of the secret appendix of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. Facing the second front, the Polish government decided the defense of the Romanian bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered the evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania. By October 1, Germany and the Soviet Union completely overran Poland, although the Polish government never surrendered. In addition, Poland's remaining land and air forces were evacuated to neighboring Romania and Hungary. Many of the exiles subsequently joined the recreated Polish Army in allied France, French-mandated Syria, and the United Kingdom.
In the aftermath of the September Campaign, a resistance movement was formed. Poland's fighting forces continued to contribute to Allied military operations throughout World War II. Germany captured the Soviet-occupied areas of Poland when it invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and lost the territory in 1944 to an advancing Red Army. Over the course of the war, Poland lost over 20% of its pre-war population under an occupation that marked the end of the Second Polish Republic.
Opposing forces
Germany
Germany had a substantial numerical advantage over Poland and had developed a significant military prior to the conflict. The Heer (army) had some 2,400 tanks organized into six panzer divisions, utilizing a new operational doctrine. It held that these divisions should act in coordination with other elements of the military, punching holes in the enemy line and isolating selected units, which would be encircled and destroyed. This would be followed up by less-mobile mechanized infantry and foot soldiers. The Luftwaffe (air force) provided both tactical and strategic air power, particularly dive bombers that disrupted lines of supply and communications. Together, the new methods were nicknamed Blitzkrieg (lightning war). Historian Basil Liddell Hart and A. J. P. Taylor conclude "Poland was a full demonstration of the Blitzkrieg theory."
Aircraft played a major role in the campaign. Bombers also attacked cities, causing huge losses amongst the civilian population through terror bombing. The Luftwaffe forces consisted of 1,180 fighter aircraft: 290 Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, 1,100 conventional bombers (mainly 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, all up to modern standards. A force of 2,315 aircraft were assigned to Weiss. Due to its prior participation in the Spanish Civil War, the Luftwaffe was probably the most experienced, best trained and well equipped air force in the world in 1939.
Poland
Between 1936 and 1939, Poland invested heavily in industrialization in the 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 the modern equipment it produced. In 1936, a National Defence Fund was set up collect funds necessary for strengthening the Polish Armed forces. The Polish Army had approximately a million soldiers, but less than half of them were mobilized by September 1. Latecomers sustained significant casualties when public transport became targets of the Luftwaffe. The Polish military had fewer armoured forces than the Germans, and these units, dispersed within the infantry, were unable to effectively engage the enemy.
Experiences in the Polish-Soviet War shaped Polish Army organisational and operational doctrine. Unlike the trench warfare of the First World War, 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 unwilling to invest heavily in many of the expensive, unproven inventions since then. In spite of this, Polish cavalry brigades were used as a mobile mounted infantry and had some successes against both German infantry and cavalry.
The Polish Air Force (Lotnictwo Wojskowe) was at a severe disadvantage against the German Luftwaffe, although it was not destroyed on the ground early on, as is commonly believed. The Polish Air Force lacked modern fighter aircraft, but its pilots were among the world's best trained, as proven a year later in the Battle of Britain, in which the Poles played a major part.
Overall, the Germans enjoyed numerical and qualitative aircraft superiority. Poland had only about 600 modern aircraft. The Polish Air Force had roughly 185 PZL P.11 and some 95 PZL P.7 fighters, 175 PZL.23 Karaś B, 35 Karaś A, and by September, over 100 PZL.37 Łoś were produced. There were also over a thousand obsolete transport, reconnaissance and training aircraft. However, for the September Campaign, only some 70% of those aircraft were mobilised. Only 36 PZL.37 Łoś bombers were deployed. All those aircraft were of indigenous Polish design, with the bombers being more modern than fighters, according to the Ludomil Rayski air force expansion plan, which relied on a strong bomber force. The Polish fighters were a generation older than their German counterparts. The Polish PZL P.11 fighter, produced in the early 1930s, was capable of only 365 km/h (approximately 220 mi/hr), far less than German bombers; to compensate, the pilots relied on its maneuvrability and high diving speed.
The Polish Navy was a small fleet comprising of destroyers, submarines and smaller support vessels. Most Polish surface units followed Operation Peking, leaving Polish ports on August 20 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 the British merchant fleet and took part in wartime convoys.
The tank force consisted of two armoured brigades, four independent tank battalions and some 30 companies of TKS tankettes attached to infantry divisions and cavalry brigades.
Soviet Union
Slovakia
Order of battle
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Order of battle of Poland:
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Order of battle of invading forces:
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Prelude to the campaign
The Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, took power in Germany in 1933. At first, Hitler pursued a policy of rapprochement with Poland, culminating in the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934. Early foreign policy worked to maneuver Poland into the Anti-Comintern Pact, forming a cooperative front against the Soviet Union. Germany sought to grab Soviet territory, acquire Lebensraum and expand Großdeutschland. Poland would be granted territory of its own, to its northeast, 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 and Polish independence would eventually be threatened altogether.
In addition to Soviet territory, the Nazis were also interested in establishing a new border with Poland because the German exclave of East Prussia returned to its former status as an exclave which it enjoyed in 1657-1772 as part of Brandenburg by being separated from the rest of the Reich by the " Polish Corridor". Many Germans also wanted to incorporate the Free City of Danzig into Germany. While Danzig had a predominantly German population, the Corridor constituted land long disputed by Poland and Germany. After the Treaty of Versailles, Poland acquired the Corridor, which was part of territory taken by Prussia in Partitions of Poland. Hitler sought to reverse this trend and made an appeal to German nationalism, promising to "liberate" the German minority still in the Corridor, as well as Danzig, since the port city was under the control of the League of Nations.
Poland participated in the partition of Czechoslovakia that followed the Munich Agreement, although they were not part of the agreement. It coerced Czechoslovakia to surrender the city of Český Těšín by issuing an ultimatum to that effect on September 30, which was accepted by Czechoslovakia on October 1.
In 1938, Germany began to increase its demands for Danzig, while proposing that a roadway be built in order to connect East Prussia with Germany proper, running through the Polish Corridor. Poland rejected this proposal, fearing that after accepting these demands, it would become increasingly subject to the will of Germany and eventually lose its independence as the Czechs had. The Poles also distrusted Hitler and his intentions. At the same time, Germany's collaboration with anti-Polish Ukrainian nationalists from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists further weakened German credibility in Polish eyes, which was seen as an effort to isolate and weaken Poland. The British were also aware of this. On March 30, Poland was backed by a guarantee from Britain and France, though neither country was willing to pledge military support in Poland's defense. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, still hoped to strike a deal with Hitler regarding Danzig (and possibly the Polish Corridor), and Hitler hoped for the same. By again resorting to appeasement, Chamberlain and his supporters believed war could be avoided and hoped Germany would agree to leave the rest of Poland alone. German hegemony over Central Europe was also at stake.
With tensions mounting, Germany turned to aggressive diplomacy. On April 28, 1939, it unilaterally withdrew from both the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 and the London Naval Agreement of 1935. In early 1939, Hitler had already issued orders to prepare for a possible "solution of the Polish problem by military means." Another crucial step towards war was the surprise signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, the denouement of secret Nazi-Soviet talks held in Moscow, which capitalized on France and Britain's own failure to secure an alliance with the Soviet Union. As a result, Germany neutralized the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed to divide Eastern Europe, including Poland, into two spheres of influence; the western 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 04:00 on August 26. However, on August 25, the Polish-British Common Defence Pact was signed as an annex to the Franco-Polish Military Alliance. In this accord, Britain committed itself to the defence of Poland, guaranteeing to preserve Polish independence. At the same time, the British and the Poles were hinting to Berlin that they were willing to resume discussions - not at all how Hitler hoped to frame the conflict. Thus, he wavered and postponed his attack until September 1, managing to halt the entire invasion "in mid-leap", with the exception of a few units that were out of communication, towards the south (the Nazi press announced that fanatical Slovakians were behind a cross border raid).
On August 26, Hitler tried to dissuade the British and 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. In any case, 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, the number of increased overflights by high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and cross border troop movements signalled that war was imminent.
On August 29, prompted by the British, Germany issued one last diplomatic offer, with Case White yet to be rescheduled. At midnight on August 29, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop handed British Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson the list of terms which would allegedly ensure peace in regards to Poland. Danzig was to be returned to Germany ( Gdynia would remain with Poland), and there was to be a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor, based on residency in 1919, within the year. An exchange of minority populations between the two countries was proposed. A Polish plenipotentiary, with full powers, was to arrive in Berlin and accept these terms by noon the next day. The British Cabinet viewed the terms as "reasonable", except the demand for the urgent plenipotentiary, a form of an ultimatum. When Polish Ambassador Lipski went to see Ribbentrop on August 30, 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.
On August 30, the Polish Navy sent its destroyer flotilla to Britain, executing Operation Peking. On the same day, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły announced 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 August 31, the Gleiwitz incident (" Polish" attack on the radio station) was staged near the German border city of Gleiwitz, in Upper Silesia. On August 31, 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. Because of the prior stoppage, Poland managed to mobilise only 70% of its planned forces, and many units were still forming or moving to their designated frontline positions.
Details of the campaign
Plans
German plan
The German plan for what became known as the September Campaign was devised by General Franz Halder, chief of the general staff, and directed by General Walther von Brauchitsch, the commander in chief of the upcoming campaign. 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 - was to be supported by German tanks 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 pre-war armored idea (which an American journalist in 1939 dubbed Blitzkrieg), which was advocated by some generals, including Heinz Guderian, would have had the armor punching holes in the enemy's front and ranging deep into rear areas, but in actuality, the campaign in Poland would be fought along more traditional lines. This stemmed from conservatism on the part of the German high command, who mainly restricted the role of armor and mechanized forces to supporting the conventional infantry divisions.
Poland's terrain was well suited for mobile operations when the weather cooperated - the country had flat plains with long frontiers totalling almost 5,600 kilometres (3,500 mi), Poland's long border with Germany on the west and north (facing East Prussia) extended 2,000 kilometres (1,250 mi). Those had been lengthened by another 300 kilometres (180 mi) on the southern side in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement of 1938; the German incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia and creation of the German puppet state of Slovakia meant that Poland's southern flank was exposed.
German planners intended to fully exploit their long border with the great enveloping manoeuvre of Fall Weiss. German units were to invade Poland from three directions:
- A main attack over the western Polish border. This was to be carried out by Army Group South commanded by General Gerd von Rundstedt, attacking from German Silesia and from the Moravian and Slovak border: General Johannes Blaskowitz's 8th Army was to drive eastward against Łódź; General Wilhelm List's 14th Army was to push on toward Kraków and to turn the Poles' Carpathian flank; and General Walter von Reichenau's 10th Army, in the centre with Army Group South's armour, was to deliver the decisive blow with a northestward thrust into the heart of Poland.
- A second route of attack from northern Prussia. General Fedor von Bock commanded Army Group North, comprising General Georg von Küchler's 3rd Army, which was to strike southward from East Prussia, and General Günther von Kluge's 4th Army, which was to attack eastward across the base of the Polish Corridor.
- A tertiary attack by part of Army Group South's allied Slovak units from Slovakia.
- From within Poland, the German minority would assist by engaging in diversion and sabotage operations through Selbstschutz units prepared before the war.
All three assaults were to converge on Warsaw, while the main Polish army was to be encircled and destroyed west of the Vistula. Fall Weiss was initiated on September 1, 1939, and was the first operation of the Second World War in Europe.
Polish plan
The Polish defense plan, Zachód (West), was shaped by political determination to deploy forces directly at the German-Polish border, based upon London's promise to come to Warsaw's military aid in the event of invasion. Moreover, with the nation's most valuable natural resources, industry and highly populated regions near the western border ( Silesia region), Polish policy centered on their protection, especially since many politicians feared that if Poland were to retreat from the regions disputed by Germany (like the Polish Corridor, cause of the famous "Danzig or War" ultimatum), Britain and France would sign a separate peace treaty with Germany similar to the Munich Agreement of 1938. In addition, none of its allies had specifically guaranteed Polish borders or territorial integrity. On those grounds, Poland disregarded French advice to deploy the bulk of their forces behind the natural barriers of the wide Vistula and San rivers, even though some Polish generals supported it as a better strategy. The Zachód plan did allow the Polish armies to retreat inside the country, but it was supposed to be a slow retreat behind prepared positions near the rivers ( Narew, Vistula and San), giving the country time to finish its mobilisation, and was to be turned into a general counteroffensive when the Western Allies launched their own promised offensive.
The Polish Army's most pessimistic fall-back plan involved retreat behind the river San to the southeastern voivodships and their lengthy defence (the Romanian bridgehead plan). The British and French estimated that Poland should be able to defend that region for two to three months, while Poland estimated it could hold for at least six months. This Polish plan was based around the expectation that the Western Allies would keep their end of the signed alliance treaty and quickly start an offensive of their own. However, neither the French nor the British government made plans to attack Germany while the Polish campaign was being fought. In addition, they expected the war to develop into trench warfare much like World War I had, forcing the Germans to sign a peace treaty restoring Poland's borders. The Polish government, however, was not notified of this strategy and based all of its defence plans on promises of quick relief by their Western allies.
The plan to defend the borders contributed vastly to the Polish defeat. Polish forces were stretched thin on the very long border and, lacking compact defence lines and good defence positions along disadvantageous terrain, mechanized German forces often were able to encircle them. In addition, supply lines, were often poorly protected. Approximately one-third of Poland's forces were concentrated in or near the Polish Corridor (in northwestern Poland), where they were perilously exposed to a double envelopment — from East Prussia and the west combined and isolated in a pocket. In the south, facing the main avenues of a German advance, the Polish forces were thinly spread. At the same time, nearly another one-third of Poland's troops were massed in reserve in the north-central part of the country, between the major cities of Łódź and Warsaw, under commander in chief Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły. The Poles' forward concentration in general forfeited their chance of fighting a series of delaying actions, since their army, unlike some of Germany's, traveled largely on foot and was unable to retreat to their defensive positions in the rear or to man them before they were overrun by German mechanized columns.
The political decision to defend the border was not the Polish high command's only strategic mistake. Polish pre-war propaganda stated that any German invasion would be easily repelled, so that the eventual Polish defeats in the September Campaign came as a shock to many civilians, who were unprepared for such news and, with no training for such a disaster, panicked and retreated east, spreading chaos, lowering troop morale and making road transportation for Polish troops very difficult. The propaganda also had some negative consequences for the Polish troops, whose communications, disrupted by German mobile units operating in the rear and civilians blocking roads, were further thrown into chaos by bizarre reports from Polish radio stations and newspapers which often reported imaginary victories and other military operations. This led to some Polish troops being encircled or making a stand against overwhelming odds, when they thought they were actually counterattacking or would soon receive reinforcements from other victorious areas.
Phase 1: German invasion
