Quite a lot has been written about the role of Poland in World War II, both in Russia and abroad. And I have no desire to once again go over well-known facts, glue colorful labels, appoint “lambs and goats” by my will.

I would not even write this article, but I was really struck by the statements of some Polish politicians and public figures recently. And the reaction to these statements of "our" experts of the most different dignity and level of education was especially indignant.

I will not open America for you if I say that Poland is currently taking an extremely hostile position towards Russia. And they want NATO battalions on their territory, and anti-missiles, and "resist Russian aggression."

• Why and why?
• Because Russia is about to invade Polish territory with its entire army, as it has happened more than once.
• And what gives you reason to believe that Russia is hatching some kind of aggressive plans against Poland? What has Russia really done?

I will not list all the arguments broadcast and will immediately put aside (for a while. This is a topic for a separate serious conversation) pearls about the attack on poor peace-loving Georgia and about the ongoing war with Ukraine, since we are talking about Poland. This is where the Second World War appears in our discussion. Not the whole war in general, but what the USSR (and hence Russia) did badly to Poland on the eve of this war and after it ended.

The Polish and generally consolidated Western position looks, in general, like this:

• after the First World War, Poland freed itself from the occupation by the terrible Russian Empire and began to build its own European, and therefore peaceful, state. And, here the USSR attacked the young Polish state insidiously. They also remember Lenin's slogans about the world revolution, and Tukhachevsky, and Budyonny. But it so happened that the Polish army was able to repel this unprovoked aggression from the USSR. But the fact of aggression was;
• Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The USSR concluded an agreement with Nazi Germany and, together with this very Germany, attacked, again, peaceful Poland. Poland, most likely, would have fought off the Nazis, but it could not resist a couple of such bloodthirsty and powerful invaders. And the USSR still chopped off a decent piece of Polish territory. Again the fact of aggression;
• near Katyn, Polish prisoners of war were brutally shot. The Polish people and the entire West cannot forget such an unprecedented atrocity. And this proves the aggressiveness of Russia;
• in 1944, Stalin stopped the advance of Soviet troops on Warsaw and, thereby, doomed Polish patriots and civilians to death. The uprising was suppressed and the blame for the death of the Poles lies entirely with the USSR, and therefore with modern Russia. They could have helped, but deliberately did not help;
• after the end of World War II, hundreds of thousands of Poles ended up in the dungeons of the NKVD, tens of thousands were shot. What was their fault? They simply did not want to live under socialism. And that's it!!! If the USSR had been a peace-loving liberating state, then after the end of the war it would have withdrawn its troops from the territory of Poland. And the troops remained - 45 years of terrible Soviet occupation. Doesn't this prove the aggressiveness of the Russians?

I will not go over other evidence that Poland has reason to be afraid of modern Russia. Enough of these. In general, "the collection is chosen with taste." It's been chosen.

Remember, at the beginning of this article, I wrote that I was outraged by the reaction to these accusations of "our" experts? I would also understand if patriotic, but mostly poorly educated, modern teenagers expressed their opinion in talk shows and political programs on TV. People with higher education speak out. Moreover - gentlemen with academic degrees and considerable positions. I will say a very strange thing - many of them claim that they are historians by education and their current profession. Just luminaries with whom you can not argue - they know everything!

And how do they parry accusations of primordial Russian aggressiveness?

• It was still under Soviet rule, i.e. it was a long time ago, but today Russia is completely different;
• For Katyn, we have already asked for forgiveness;
• Poland planned to attack the USSR together with Germany, which means that our fault is, as it were, half of the fault;
• They could not attack Warsaw because there was no military possibility, and if there was a possibility, they would definitely help. And we're sorry;
• After 1945, they did not leave because the Polish people themselves wanted it that way. And in general, these were the times of the USSR and Stalin made decisions, and we are not responsible for this ... And again we are very sorry. If this happened today, we would definitely leave.

Do you like this kind of argument? I don't really. You definitely need to apologize. But first it would be nice to understand what we are called to apologize for.

History is not at all a collection of some events torn from the general flow and separated from each other in time. And our "Western partners" can clearly see a well-thought-out entertaining game in a single event that took place.

Do you remember how, on one of the TV shows, Michael Bohm, already widely known in Russia, proved the aggressiveness of the Russians?

• Let's not remember the reasons, but Russian troops ended up on the territory of Georgia (the events of 2008 in South Ossetia and Abkhazia), and this fact proves Russia's aggressiveness. Everything! If you find yourself in a foreign territory, it means the aggressors.

Here are some great arguments. You can't take a word out of a song, as they say. Especially if the song has only one single word. However, I don't like such songs, for the simple reason that I imagine the song differently - there are a lot of completely non-random words.

With such, it seems to me, an understandable desire to collect all the words, all the actual circumstances, without any political correctness and distortion of facts, I decided to figure out what Poland was like in World War II. Most impartial. In any case, I will try to keep it that way.

Why did I focus my attention on the Second World War? Do you remember what happened on September 1, 1939?

I have always wondered who and why marked the start of the Second World War with this date? However, this is a separate and very interesting story.

Poland after World War I

In order not to be like our "Western partners" and not to pull out convenient facts, I decided to start my research from the moment the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed.

After the end of the First World War, Poland miraculously found itself in the ranks of the winners. Why miraculously? The country did not participate in the war as a state for the simple reason that there was no such country. It is a fact.

Okay, suppose that she got the laurels of the winner for the reason that a certain amount of Polish lands were part of the Russian Empire and a certain number of Poles took part in the war on the side of the Entente. However, no less number of Poles fought on the side of the enemy.

On January 26, 1919, Jozef Pilsudski became the head of the Polish state. Let's leave aside his rich anti-Russian pre-war past, but in August 1914 it was this pan who led the archery detachments as part of the Austro-German army. And he not only formally led, but actually led these detachments to the territory of the Kingdom of Poland and participated in the war on the side of the Triple Alliance. I can guess how and why a recreated Poland was named the winner. Even then, Anti-Russia was needed. But that's just my guess.

For a while, let's leave aside aggressive Russia, which voluntarily abandoned the original Polish lands that were part of the Russian Empire, and turn our eyes to the western borders of the new Commonwealth. And in the west, Poland had an appetite - from the defeated Germany they wanted to get East Pomerania, Upper Silesia, Danzig, and ... much more.

The League of Nations tried to settle disputed territorial issues through negotiations and a plebiscite, but the negotiations were unsuccessful, the plebiscite was lost by the Poles, and then the peace-loving panate decided to annex the desired territories by force. I assume you know how it all ended up. If you suddenly don’t know, the Germans were very offended in the end, but the winners, for the time being, are not judged.

In the same period, Poland also had territorial claims against Czechoslovakia - it really wanted to get a good piece of Cieszyn Silesia (an area with developed industry and large deposits of coking coal). The negotiations ended in armed conflict. Here, in fairness, it should be said that the Czechs were the first to take up arms, whom such a “fair” division simply offended.

It was in the west, where some courtesy had to be observed. And in the east, the Polish army captured the Lithuanian Vilnius, continued the offensive and reached the Minsk-Kyiv line. This is a fact, but for some reason it was “forgotten”. Yes, on May 7, 1920, Polish troops took Kyiv. Iron fact, which is difficult to dispute. And on June 5 of the same year, the 1st Cavalry Army, without any declaration of war (treacherously), attacked the peace-loving Polish troops that occupied half of Ukraine and half of Belarus. The armies of Budyonny and Tukhachevsky reached almost the walls of Warsaw ... And then a catastrophe happened for the Red Army, with a huge number of dead and prisoners.

Thus, we got to the first argument, allegedly proving the aggressiveness of Russia. It turns out that there were reasons for this military conflict, but for our "Western partners" again it does not matter who started it. It is all the more inconvenient for the respected Polish gentry to remember such trifles. Was there a fact of aggression?

And as a result of such "combinations" on all fronts, the territory of Poland grew with lands privatized from Germany, lands of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, lands already Lithuanian and good pieces of Russian land. As a result, only one single country did not suffer territorially from the Polish peacefulness (I mean immediate neighbors). Such joy fell to Romania. All other adjacent territories were very dissatisfied and had every reason to fear the Polish peacefulness. This is a fact - relations with all neighbors (with the exception of Romania) were quite tense until September 1, 1939.

What is especially interesting is the active assistance in the formation of the territories of the Commonwealth from England and, to a greater extent, France. Supported. The Polish appetite was very strictly supported.

I will not now discuss why they needed it ... Almost a hundred years have passed since then, and the situation is repeating itself in an amazing way. But now the Poles have another strong and wise friend who is ready to support ... But let's go back to the beginning of the twentieth century. On the Polish-Soviet border.

And the border was, as they liked to write in Soviet newspapers in those days, on fire. From Polish territory, both ideological fighters and outright bandits penetrated into the USSR, who were engaged in robberies and murders on Soviet territory. And after the actions they went under the protection of the Polish army. The USSR, on the other hand, did not want an armed conflict with Poland, since France and England could be involved in this conflict. They wiped themselves, sent notes and endured.

One could assume that the Poles fought not with the Russians, but with the bloody Soviet regime. Just like today, then they were afraid of the primordial Russian aggressiveness and delivered preemptive strikes.

However, relations did not develop with no less aggressive, presumably, Lithuanians. In 1923, because of Memel, in 1926, the war between Lithuania and Poland did not happen solely due to the tough intervention of the League of Nations, and on March 17, 1938, Poland generally demanded that Lithuania transfer the city of Vilnius in an ultimatum, within 48 hours. If not, war.

And then there was October 1938, when Germany bargained for the Czechoslovak Sudetenland in Munich. In Poland, they decided that it was a sin not to take advantage of such an opportunity and demanded from the Teszyn region sold by the allies of Czechoslovakia. The Polish government liked the new territorial acquisition so much that already on November 29 it demanded that part of the Czech Carpathians be transferred to them. But here the holiday did not happen at someone else's expense - the Slovaks got scared and ... asked for protection from Hitler.

I cannot blame the Slovaks - they knew how the Poles treat prisoners of war and national minorities in the newly acquired territories. The Slovaks decided that it was better to go under Hitler than under the pans.

And here is the time to recall the Polish-German relations in the described period.

To be continued

08 Aug 2016 Tags: 2407

Hitler's accomplices were people who led Poland between the two world wars.

Five years ago, on September 23, 2009, the Polish Sejm adopted a resolution in which it qualified the Liberation Campaign of the Red Army in 1939 as an aggression against Poland and officially accused the Soviet Union of unleashing World War II jointly with Nazi Germany.

The fact that, by September 17, the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was defeated by Germany and ceased its inglorious existence, and our country for the most part only regained the territories that belonged to it before the start of the First World War, was ignored by the initiators of the venture.

One does not have to be a prophet to predict that in connection with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus from Polish occupation, official Warsaw will again fight in anti-Soviet and anti-Russian hysteria.

But in fact, the accomplices of Adolf Hitler in unleashing the Second World War were the people who led Poland in the period between the two world wars. This article is devoted to the analysis of their activities.

The beginning of the struggle for Poland "from sea to sea"

As soon as in November 1918, Jozef Pilsudski was proclaimed the Head of the Polish state, the newly-minted government of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth announced elections to the Sejm "wherever there were Poles." At that time, the question of the borders of Poland, which had been absent from the political map of the world for more than a century, remained open.

Taking advantage of the chaos that reigned in Europe, which had barely finished fighting, the Poles began to push the boundaries of their recreated state in all directions.
This selfless impulse led to foreign policy conflicts and armed clashes with neighbors: with the Ukrainian People's Republic because of Lviv, Eastern Galicia, the Kholm region and Western Volyn, with Lithuania because of Vilnius and the Vilna region, with Czechoslovakia because of the Teshen region.

The Polish-Czechoslovak military-political conflict of 1919-1920 over Teschen Silesia was resolved by Great Britain and France not in favor of Warsaw, but this did not cool the ardor of the fighters for Poland "from sea to sea" (from the Baltic to the Black). In the north and west, they continued to clash with Germany, and in the east they fought with the RSFSR.

On December 30, 1918, Warsaw told Moscow that the offensive of the Red Army in Lithuania and Belarus was an aggressive act against Poland, imputing "the Polish government to respond in the most energetic way" and to protect the territories inhabited by the "Polish nation". The relatively small number of Poles among the local population did not bother Warsaw at all, and the opinion of other peoples did not interest her.

The Poles began the defense of these territories with the execution on January 2, 1919 of the mission of the Russian Red Cross. On February 16, the first clash of parts of the Polish and Red armies took place in the battle for the Belarusian town of Bereza Kartuzskaya. At the same time, the first 80 Red Army soldiers fell into Polish captivity. In total, until the beginning of 1922, more than 200 thousand natives of the former Russian Empire - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tatars, Bashkirs, Jews - were in Polish captivity. More than 80,000 of them died in the Polish death camps, which appeared long before Hitler came to power in Germany.

Since it is necessary to write about the tragedy of Polish captivity separately, we only note that neither about these 80 thousand who perished in Polish camps, nor about 600 thousand Soviet soldiers who died liberating Poland from Nazi occupation in 1944-1945, in the "civilized" European country prefer not to remember. The Poles are busy demolishing monuments to Soviet soldiers who saved their grandparents from the Nazi genocide. Therefore, Russia had no reason to arrange a nationwide cry for a group of Polish Russophobes who crashed near Smolensk.

In 1920, the Soviet-Polish war broke out. It ended with the Peace of Riga in 1921, according to which Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were under the heel of the invaders. The policy that the Polish "civilizers" pursued there should also be written separately. Let us only note that long before the Nazis began the practical implementation of the postulates of the "racial theory", Ukrainians and Belarusians in Poland were already "second-class" people.

Hitler's Polish Friends

Less than a year after the Nazis came to power in Germany, on January 26, 1934, the "Declaration on the peaceful settlement of disputes and the non-use of force between Poland and Germany" was signed in Berlin. By agreeing to this agreement, Berlin avoided guaranteeing the inviolability of the Polish-German border established after the end of the First World War.

"The parties declared peace and friendship, the customs war and mutual criticism in the press were curtailed. In Warsaw, this document was perceived as the basis of the country's security and a means of intensifying Poland's great-power aspirations. Germany managed to ensure that the issue of the border was passed over in silence, and the attempts of the USSR to explain to Poland that it was carried out, of course, were unsuccessful," writes historian Mikhail Meltyukhov.

In turn, the Polish historian Marek Kornat claims that Pilsudski and Polish Foreign Minister Jozef Beck "considered the agreement with Germany the greatest achievement of Polish diplomacy." It is noteworthy that after Germany left the League of Nations, its interests in this international organization were represented by Poland.

Going for rapprochement with Berlin, the Poles counted on Germany's help in the conflict with Czechoslovakia over Teschen Silesia. Historian Stanislav Morozov drew attention to the fact that "two weeks before the signing of the Polish-German non-aggression pact, an anti-Czech campaign began, inspired by the Warsaw Foreign Ministry. In Poland, it manifested itself in numerous press publications accusing the Czech authorities of oppressing the Polish minority in the territory of Teschen Silesia In Czechoslovakia, this line was conducted by the consul in Moravian Ostrava Leon Malhomme ... "

After the death of Piłsudski in May 1935, power fell into the hands of his followers, who are commonly called Piłsudski. The key figures in the Polish leadership were Foreign Minister Jozef Beck and the future Supreme Commander of the Polish Army, Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly.

After that, the pro-German tilt in Warsaw's policy only intensified. In February 1937, Nazi No. 2, Hermann Goering, arrived in Poland. In a conversation with Rydz-Smigly, he stated that the threat to Poland and Germany is not only Bolshevism, but also Russia as such - regardless of whether there is a monarchist, liberal or any other system in it. Six months later, on August 31, 1937, the Polish General Staff repeated this idea in Directive No. 2304/2/37, emphasizing that the ultimate goal of Polish policy was "the destruction of all Russia."

As you can see, the goal was formulated two years before the start of World War II, the main culprits of which the Poles are trying to expose the USSR. And they are also indignant at the words of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vyacheslav Molotov, who in 1940 called Poland "the ugly brainchild of the Treaty of Versailles."

However, here we see double standards. After all, Molotov only paraphrased Pilsudski, who called Czechoslovakia an "artificially and ugly created state."

The role of the "Polish hyena" in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia

From the beginning of 1938, Berlin and Warsaw began to prepare an action to dismember Czechoslovakia, coordinating their actions with each other. The Sudeten German Party, controlled by Berlin, began to increase its activity in the Sudetenland, and Poland created the Union of Poles in Teschen. The cynicism and deceitfulness of the Pilsudschiks can be judged by the fact that, while engaged in subversive work on the territory of a neighboring state, they demanded that Prague stop the activities that it allegedly conducted against Poland!

The USSR was ready to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia, but in the absence of a common border, the consent of Poland or Romania was required for the passage of Soviet units to Czechoslovakia. Pilsudchiki, realizing that the fate of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic largely depended on them, informed Berlin on August 11 that they would not allow the Red Army through their territory and would advise Romania to do the same. Moreover, on September 8-11, the Poles carried out major maneuvers near the eastern border of the country, demonstrating their readiness to repulse the Soviet invasion - as real as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which false Western propaganda has been screaming about for the past six months.

In September 1938, when the preparations for the so-called "Munich Conference" were in full swing, Beck did everything possible to ensure that the representative of Poland was in Munich at the same table with the leaders of Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy. However, neither Hitler nor British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain saw the point in inviting the Poles to Munich. As Stanislav Morozov rightly noted, "the attitude of the Western powers towards the Poles has not changed: they did not want to see in Beck a representative of a great power."

So, contrary to their own will, the Poles were not among the participants in the Munich Agreement - one of the most shameful events of the twentieth century.

Offended and angry, Beck increased pressure on Prague. As a result, the demoralized leaders of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic surrendered, agreeing to transfer the Teshenskaya region to Poland.
Historian Valentina Maryina stated that "On October 2, Polish troops began to occupy the ultimatum-demanded Czechoslovak territories, which were of great economic importance for Poland: having expanded its territory by only 0.2%, it increased the capacity of its heavy industry by almost 50%. After that, Warsaw ultimatum demanded from the Prague government new territorial concessions, now in Slovakia, and got her way. In accordance with the intergovernmental agreement of December 1, 1938, Poland received a small territory (226 sq. Km) in northern Slovakia (Javorin on Orava)."

For these "feats" Poland received the nickname "Polish hyena" from Winston Churchill. Well said and fair...

Failed allies of the Third Reich

Literally from the first days of the existence of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, its leaders dreamed of Greater Poland "from sea to sea." The capture of the Teshenskaya region was perceived by the Pilsudchiks as the first step on this path. However, they hatched more ambitious plans. In the December 1938 report of the 2nd (intelligence) department of the main headquarters of the Polish Army, we read: "The dismemberment of Russia lies at the heart of Polish policy in the East ... The task is to prepare well in advance physically and spiritually ... The main goal is to weaken and defeat Russia" .

Knowing about Hitler's desire to attack the USSR, Warsaw hoped to join the aggressor. On January 26, 1939, in a conversation with German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop, Beck noted that "Poland claims Soviet Ukraine and access to the Black Sea."

But even here it became clear that Hitler did not consider Poland a great power. He gave the Poles the role of satellites, not allies. The Fuhrer began to seek Warsaw's consent to the entry of the free city of Danzig into the Third Reich and permission to build a "corridor in the corridor" - extraterritorial railways and highways through Polish lands between Germany and East Prussia.

Poland, which imagined itself to be a great power, refused. In early April 1939, Germany began to prepare for an invasion of Poland. The military-strategic position of the latter worsened after the destruction of the Czechoslovakia. After all, in addition to the Teschen region, Poland received German troops, who were now stationed on the former Polish-Czechoslovak border.

The fact that the position of Poland became the main reason for the disruption of the negotiations of the military missions of the USSR, Great Britain and France, which took place in Moscow in August 1939, is well known. Warsaw flatly refused to allow the Red Army into Polish territory, without which the USSR could not help the Poles repel the German attack. The reason for the refusal in a conversation with French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet was revealed by the Polish Ambassador to France Jozef Lukasiewicz. He said that Beck "will never allow Russian troops to occupy the territories that we took from them in 1921."

Thus, the Polish ambassador actually admitted that Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were occupied by the Poles in 1920 ...

Summing up the above, we state that the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth played a crucial role in unleashing the second "worldwide slaughter". And the fact that in the course of it Poland itself was attacked by Germany, and lost six million people, cannot change this conclusion.

The Battle of the Bzura on September 9-17 is a counterattack by Polish troops against the advancing German troops, the only relatively successful Polish operation in the 1939 campaign. The Germans lost 8 thousand people dead and 4 thousand prisoners, but managed to surround the bulk of the Polish troops. 180 thousand people were taken prisoner. Part broke through to Warsaw. 17 thousand Poles died in the battle.

17 September 1939, the Red Army entered Poland. The Polish units resisted. On October 31, 1939, losses in the Polish campaign were announced - 737 people were killed and 1,862 were wounded.

Country\Category	Killed	Wounded	Missing	prisoners	Total	tanks	Armored cars	Aircraft
Poland vs Germany	66 300-70 000	133 700		420-694 000	894 000	500		400
Poland vs USSR	6-7 000			240-250 000	257 000
Germany	10 572	30 322	3 409		44 303	674	319	230
USSR	737-2 500 (missing)	1 862			2 599-4 362		150	20
Outcome:	90 072	165 884	3 409	944 000	1 203 365	1 174	469	650

Poland lost in the 1939 campaign only 1,134,000 military personnel or 31.5 thousand people a day (excluding those killed by the Red Army). German losses were 20 times less than Polish ones, incl. almost 5 times less for the dead. Against the USSR, the Poles lost 92 of their fighter against one Soviet.

85 thousand Polish soldiers took refuge in neighboring countries. Three destroyers and two submarines of Poland left for the UK. By 1945, the Polish Navy had 15 ships and 4,000 men. The Poles participated in the Battle of the Atlantic and sank 12 ships and 41 vessels.

The Polish brigade was sent to Norway in the spring of 1940. Three Polish divisions took part in the battle for France, suffering serious losses.

In May-June 1940, Polish pilots shot down 52 German aircraft and 21 more along with the French, losing 9 pilots. 151 Polish pilots took part in the Battle of England (August 8-October 31, 1940), the Poles shot down 203 aircraft. In total, the Poles shot down 900 aircraft during the war, including 621 aircraft in 1940-1945.

In Libya, the Polish Carpathian Brigade, which defended Tobruk in 1941, lost 200 killed and 429 wounded.

On October 12-13, 1943, during the Smolensk operation, the Polish division named after Kosciuszko entered the battle for Lenino. The Polish division lost 30% of its strength: 510 killed, 1,776 wounded and 776 missing (600 of whom deserted). The Germans in the battle for Lenino, in which 3 more Soviet divisions took part, lost 1,500 people killed and wounded.

In May 1944, the Polish corps took part in breaking through the German defenses in Italy. In a few days, the Poles lost 72 officers and 788 lower ranks killed, 204 officers and 2,618 lower ranks wounded, a total of 3,682 people. In June 1944, the Allies took Rome, and the Poles were sent to Ancona, a port on the Adriatic Sea, which fell on July 18, 1944. In the attack on Ancona and the battle for it, the Poles lost 150 officers and 2,000 lower ranks. The Poles were taken to the rear to rest, giving reinforcements - 4,111 people, of which 856 people had previously served in the German army. On August 19, 1944, the offensive began on the Gothic Line - the German front in Northern Italy. The Poles took Pesaro and on September 2, 1944 were withdrawn to the rear. In October 1944, the Poles returned to the front and took Forli, Mussolini's homeland. These fights were worth II Polish corps 226 officers and 3,257 lower ranks killed and wounded. In total, 50 thousand Poles fought in Italy.

In August 1944, a Polish tank division entered the battle in France. From August 1 to August 22, 1944, the division lost 10% of its composition in battle: 325 people were killed and 1116 people were wounded or missing. The Poles participated in the encirclement and defeat of a large German group at Falaise. Having lost 50,000 killed and 200,000 captured, Germany also lost France. In September 1944, the Polish Airborne Brigade took part in Operation Market Garden, an attempt to capture bridges over the Rhine and bypass the German defense line in the West. The Poles lost 49 killed, 159 wounded and 173 missing, or 23% of the officers and 22% of the lower ranks. Then the Poles fought in Holland and ended the war in northern Germany.

The Poles launched active activities in occupied Poland. 300 thousand people fought underground, of which 34 thousand people died by July 1944.

In August 1944 the Soviet army approached Warsaw. The offensive in July-August 1944 supported 100,000 Poles fighting in formations organized by the USSR. The Polish resistance raised an uprising and liberated part of the city. German losses on the first day amounted to 500 men. The Soviet command sought to use the Polish formations in order to cross the Vistula and provide assistance to the rebels. On September 13-14, 1944, the 1st Polish division started a battle on the bridgehead, street fighting began, but the losses reached 3,400 people killed and wounded. Secular troops failed to gain a foothold and the Germans crushed the Warsaw Uprising in October 1944.

In 1945, the bulk of the Polish troops - 300 thousand people in two armies - fought alongside the Soviet army. January-February 1945 was marked by attacks by Soviet and Polish troops on the Pomeranian Wall - the German defense line near the Baltic coast. In early March 1945, the Polish divisions of General Poplavsky attacked Kolberg on the Baltic coast, defended by separate units of the Wehrmacht and the militia. The fighting went on until March 17, 1945, when the Germans evacuated. The Poles lost 4,004 people, including 1,266 killed, the Germans lost a total of 2,300 people. After the war, the city will become part of Poland under the name Kolobrzeg. The battles in Pomorie cost the Poles 8.2 thousand people: 5.4 thousand killed and 2.8 thousand missing.

In April-May 1945, 180 thousand people in two Polish armies took part in the Berlin operation. In Berlin itself, the Poles captured 2.5 thousand people. Losses in it - 11 thousand people: 7.2 thousand dead and 3.8 thousand missing.

Losses of the Polish military in World War II sweat to the theaters of operations

Campaign	Killed	Wounded	Total
Poland 1939	77 000	133 700	210 700
Norway and France 1940	1 400	4 500	5 900
Africa 1941	200		200
Soviet-German front 1943-1945	24 707		24 707
Italian Front 1944-1945	2 640		2 640
Western Front 1944-1945	1 160	3 500	4 600
Total	107-115 000	141 700	257 000

The partisans lost 60-80 thousand people, including 40 thousand people during the Warsaw Uprising. 250,000 Poles died in captivity. Thus, 425-450 thousand Poles "in uniform" died in World War II.

Sources:

The eagle unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War / Halik Kochanski. - First Harvard University Press edition, 2012 - pages 73-74 , 80, 84, 216, 224, 382, 418, 475-477, 484, 493, 518 -

Erlikhman V. V. Loss of population in the XX century. - Moscow, Russian panorama, 2004 - page 60,

A very interesting article about Poland and the beginning of World War II in the middle of the last century. Thanks to the authors

Poland at that time was a rather strange state formation, rather roughly sewn together after the First World War from the fragments of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires with the addition of what she managed to grab herself in the Civil War and immediately after it (Vilna region - 1922) , and even - the Teshin region, seized on the occasion in 1938 during the division of Czechoslovakia.

The population of Poland within the borders of 1939 was 35.1 million people before the war. Of these, there were actually 23.4 million Poles, 7.1 million Belarusians and Ukrainians, 3.5 million Jews, 0.7 million Germans, 0.1 million Lithuanians, 0.12 million Czechs, well and about 80 thousand others.

Ethnic map of Poland

National minorities in pre-war Poland were treated, to put it mildly, not very much, considering Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Germans, Czechs as the fifth column of neighboring states, I’m not even talking about the Poles’ love for Jews.
From an economic point of view, pre-war Poland was also by no means among the leaders.

But the leaders of the fifth largest country in Europe and the sixth largest in terms of population in Europe sincerely considered their state to be one of the great powers, and, of course, they tried to pursue a corresponding policy - a great power.

Polish poster from 1938

Polish Army at the pre-war parade

It seemed that geography itself suggests only two policy options - either to improve relations with at least one of its two strong neighbors, or to try to create a coalition of small countries to resist these terrible monsters.
It cannot be said that the Polish rulers did not try it. But the trouble was that, upon its appearance, the newborn state pushed its elbows so painfully that it managed to rob everyone, I repeat once again, all of its neighbors. The Soviet Union has “Eastern Kresy”, Lithuania has the Vilna region, Germany has Pomerania, and Czechoslovakia has Zaolzie.

Polish "Vickers E" enters the Czechoslovak Zaolzie, October 1938

With Hungary, too, there were no territorial disputes. Even with Slovakia, which was formed only in March 1939, they managed to quarrel, trying to chop off a piece from it, because of which Slovakia turned out to be the only power besides Germany that declared war on Poland on September 1 and sent 2 divisions to the front. Maybe Romania did not get it, but the Polish-Romanian border was somewhere on the outskirts. To give something to improve relations - well, it’s somehow completely un-Polish.
And if your strength is not enough, naturally, you need to turn for support to those who, after the First World War, helped create this “political news” - the Polish Republic.
But the pre-war policy of both France and Great Britain showed that these countries did not want to get involved in a new war, and they wanted to be sorted out in the east of Europe themselves, without interfering in any way. The attitude of Western politicians towards the Soviet state was, how to put it more precisely, very nervous, and many of them saw in sweet dreams how someone would attack it. And then there is such a chance that the Germans will climb further east, or ours, without agreeing with the Fuhrer in advance, will rush to defend Western Belarus and Ukraine, who really dreamed of liberation from the Polish occupation. Well, as often happens in such cases, two armies moving towards each other will not be able to stop and fight.
This means that Western Europe will be able to remain at peace for some time, watching their restless eastern neighbors fight.
Although our future allies gave guarantees to Poland, and even confirmed that 15 days after the aggression of any power, they would valiantly defend Poland. And after all, what is interesting is that they fully fulfilled their promise, actually standing on the German-French border, and standing there until May 10, 1940, until the Germans got tired of it and they themselves went on the offensive.
Thundering solid armor of medals
The French went on a furious campaign.
Comrade Stalin was waiting for them for 17 days,
And the evil Frenchman does not go to Berlin.
But that's in the future. In the meantime, the task of the Polish leadership was to figure out how to protect the territory themselves from possible aggression from the west. I must say that pre-war Polish intelligence was at a fairly high level, for example, it was she who revealed the secret of the famous German Enigma cipher machine. This secret, along with Polish codebreakers and mathematicians, then went to the British. Intelligence was able to timely reveal the grouping of the Germans and even determine their strategic plan with sufficiently high accuracy. Therefore, already on March 23, 1939, covert mobilization began in Poland.
It just didn't help either. The length of the Polish-German border was then almost 1,900 km, and the desire of Polish politicians to protect everything smeared the Polish Army, which was already almost twice inferior to the German troops (on September 1, against 53 German divisions, the Poles managed to deploy 26 infantry divisions and 15 brigades - 3 mountain infantry , 11 cavalry and one armored motorized, or a total of 34 conditional divisions) along the entire future front.
The Germans, on the contrary, having concentrated 37 infantry, 4 light infantry, 1 mountain rifle, 6 tank and 5 motorized divisions and a cavalry brigade near the Polish border by September 1, on the contrary, created compact strike groups, achieving overwhelming superiority in the directions of the main strikes.
Yes, and the military equipment of that, as it was then called in our press "landowner-bourgeois pansky" Poland, fully reflected the degree of development of the state. Some of the really advanced developments for that time were in single copies, and the rest were pretty well-worn weapons left over from the First World War.
Of the 887 light tanks and tankettes listed in August (Poland had no others), about 200 pieces were of some combat value - 34 "six-ton ​​Vickers", 118 (or 134, here in different sources differently) of their Polish twin 7TP and 54 French Renault with Hotchkisses in 1935. Everything else was very old and fit only for police operations or display in museums.

Light tank 7TP release 1937

Here it is worth saying that in the second half of the thirties there was a qualitative revolution in tank building. Due to the anti-tank guns that appeared in the infantry, which were inconspicuous, small and could move around the battlefield on their wheels, all tanks built according to previous projects and having armor protection only from machine guns and infantry bullets suddenly turned out to be obsolete.
Designers and engineers from all leading countries set to work. As a result, slow, extremely inconvenient for their crews and clumsy, but well-armored French freaks appeared, although more convenient, but poorly armed and equally slow British Matildas and much more advanced Germans - Pz.Kpfw. III and Pz.Kpfw. IV. Well, our T-34 and KV.
The situation with aviation was no better for the Poles. 32 really new and very successful "Moose" (twin-engine bomber PZL P-37 "Los", 1938) were lost against the background of obsolete and took the brunt of about 120 "Karas" (light bomber PZL P-23 "Karas" 1934 with a maximum speed of 320 km / h, 112 aircraft died in battles) and 117 PZL P-11 - fighters developed in 1931-34 with a maximum speed of 375 km / h and two 7.7 mm machine guns - of which 100 aircraft died.

twin-engine bomber Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze PZL P-37 "Los"

Fighter Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze PZL P-11C

The speed of the then German "Dor" and "Emil" - Messerschmitt Bf109D and Bf109E fighters - was 570 km / h, and each of them was armed with a pair of cannons and machine guns.
True, it is worth saying that the Wehrmacht in 1939 could not particularly boast of the latest developments. There were only 300 new tanks (T-3 and T-4), and the T-1 and T-2, which constituted the main force of the German tank divisions, were pretty outdated by 1939. Rescued Czech "Prague" ("Skoda" LT vz.35 and LT vz.38 "Praha"), which the Germans got a lot.
But 54 not very successful "Frenchmen" (in the "Renault-35" and "Hotchkiss-35" there are only 2 crew members and the turret must simultaneously load and direct the cannon, shoot from it and the machine gun, observe the battlefield and command the tank) with anti-ballistic booking against 300 German - still not enough.

Light infantry escort tank Renault R 35

But the most important thing for any army is how it is led, and the troops were led in a typical Polish way, communication with the armies, corps and formations was constantly lost almost immediately after the start of the war, and the military and political elite were primarily concerned with their own salvation, and not leadership troops. How the Poles managed to resist here and there for a month under such conditions is a mystery of national character.

It is also a mystery how, in preparing for the war, the Polish leadership did not bother about how they, in fact, are going to lead. No, the command posts were equipped, of course, and the furniture was beautiful, but at the beginning of the war, the Polish General Staff had only two radio stations and several telephones at its disposal to communicate with the troops. Moreover, one radio station, which could hardly fit on ten trucks, was very large and very unreliable, and its transmitter was destroyed during an air raid on the second day of the war, while the second receiver was in the office of the Polish commander-in-chief, Marshal Rydz-Smigly, where it was not accepted to enter without a report

Marshal of Poland, Supreme Commander of the Polish Army Edward Rydz-Śmigly (1886 - 1941)

But something needs to be done, and the dashing plan “Zakhud” (“West” was invented in Polish, the plan “Vskhud” (East) was being prepared for the USSR, the military in all countries are not too inventive) according to which the Polish Army had to, stubbornly defending the entire western and southern borders, to carry out an offensive against East Prussia, for which to deploy 39 infantry divisions and 26 border, cavalry, mountain infantry and armored mechanized brigades.

Polish infantry on the defensive. September 1939

It was possible to deploy, as mentioned above, 26 divisions and 15 brigades. To strike at East Prussia, the operational groups Narev, Vyshkow and the Modlin army were assembled, a total of 4 divisions and 4 cavalry brigades, 2 more divisions were under deployment. The "Help" army was concentrated in the "Polish corridor" - 5 divisions and 1 cavalry brigade. Part of the forces of this army was intended to capture Danzig, 95% of the population of which were Germans. In the Berlin direction - the army "Poznan" - 4 divisions and 2 cavalry brigades, the borders with Silesia and Slovakia were covered by the armies "Lodz" (5 divisions, 2 cavalry brigades), "Krakow" (5 divisions, cavalry, motorized armor and mountain infantry brigades and border guards) and "Karpaty" (2 mountain infantry brigades). In the rear, south of Warsaw, the Prussian army was deployed (before the start of the war, they managed to assemble 3 divisions and a cavalry brigade there).
The plan of the Germans, which they called "Weiss" (white), was simple and effective - preempting organized mobilization with a sudden invasion, concentric attacks from the north - from Pomerania and the south - from Silesia in the general direction of Warsaw with two shock groups, named without much fanfare by army groups " North" and "South" to surround and destroy the Polish troops located west of the Vistula-Narew line.
With the advance of mobilization, it did not work out very well, but in the directions of the main attacks the Germans managed to achieve overwhelming superiority in forces and means, which, of course, affected the overall result.

Dislocation of troops on 09/01/1939

With such a balance of forces, the Poles could only be saved by mobility and coordination, which, for example, were shown in 1967 by the Israelis. But mobility, with the famous Polish off-roads, the absence of vehicles and the dominance of German aviation in the sky, could only be achieved if the troops were not scattered along an endless 1,900-kilometer front, but were concentrated in advance in a compact grouping. There is no point in talking about any coordination under the then Polish leadership, which valiantly drove closer to the neutral borders at the first shots.
The President, in his own person, saving the most important asset of Poland - its elite, left Warsaw on September 1. The government held on longer, it left only on the 5th.
The last order of the Commander-in-Chief followed on September 10. After that, the heroic marshal did not get in touch and soon showed up in Romania. On the night of September 7, he went from Warsaw to Brest, where in the event of a war with the USSR, according to the Vskhud plan, the headquarters should have been located. The headquarters turned out to be unequipped, it was not possible to properly establish communications with the troops, and the dashing Commander-in-Chief went on. On the 10th, the headquarters was moved to Vladimir-Volynsky, on the 13th - to Mlynov, and on September 15th - closer to the Romanian border, to Kolomyia, where the government and the president were already located. In some way, this dragonfly jumper reminds me of Winnie the Pooh saving his pots of honey seven times during the flood.
Things were going badly on the fronts.

The first success was achieved by the German 19th mechanized corps, which struck from Pomerania to the east. 2 mechanized, tank and two infantry divisions attached to it, having overcome the resistance of the Polish 9th division and the Pomeranian cavalry brigade, had already covered 90 kilometers by the evening of the first day, cutting the “Help” army. It was in this place, near Kroyantsy, that the most famous case of a collision of Polish cavalrymen in equestrian formation with German armored vehicles took place.

At 19.00, two squadrons (approximately 200 horsemen), led by the commander of the 18th regiment of the Pomeranian Lancers, attacked the German motorized infantry, which had laid bare to rest, with sabers. The German battalion, which did not take proper precautions, was taken by surprise and scattered across the field in a panic. The cavalry, overtaking the fleeing, chopped them with sabers. But armored cars appeared, and these squadrons were almost completely destroyed by machine-gun fire (26 killed, more than 50 seriously wounded). Colonel Mastalege was also killed.

Attack of the Polish Lancers

The well-known legends about dashing cavalry attacks with drafts drawn on tanks are an invention of the fast Heinz (Guderian), propagandists of the Goebbels department and post-war Polish romantics.

Polish lancers in a dashing attack on September 19 under Vulka Venglova chop noodles from inopportunely turned up, but very scary German tanks

In 1939, the Polish cavalry actually made at least six attacks in cavalry, but only two of them were marked by the presence of German armored vehicles (September 1 near Kroyanty) and tanks (September 19 near Wulka Venglova) on the battlefield, and in both episodes there was direct the target of the attacking lancers was not enemy armored vehicles.

Wielkopolska Cavalry Brigade near Bzura

On September 19, near Vulka Venglova, Colonel E. Godlevsky, commander of the 14th regiment of the Yazlovets uhlans, which was joined by a small unit of the 9th regiment of the Malopolska uhlans of the same Podolsk brigade from the Poznan army surrounded to the west of the Vistula, hoping for a surprise effect, made a decision break through with a cavalry attack through the positions of the resting German infantry to Warsaw. But it turned out to be motorized infantry of a tank division, and artillery and tanks were nearby. The Poles managed to break through the dense enemy fire, losing 105 people killed and 100 wounded (20% of the regiment's personnel at that time). A large number of lancers were taken prisoner. The entire attack lasted 18 minutes. The Germans lost 52 killed and 70 wounded.
By the way, many people laugh at the Polish enthusiasm for cavalry, but during this company, the cavalry brigades, due to their mobility in the conditions of the swampy-wooded Polish plain and better training and weapons than the infantry, turned out to be the most effective formations of the Polish Army. And they fought with the Germans for the most part on foot, using a horse as a vehicle.

Polish cavalry

In general, the Poles fought, where they managed to catch on, bravely, but they were poorly armed, they commanded them in such a way that there are simply no words. There is no need to talk about any centralized supply with German air supremacy and a mess in the headquarters. And the lack of a clear leadership of the troops rather quickly led to the fact that the initiative commanders subjugated everything they could reach, and acted according to their own understanding, not knowing either what his neighbor was doing, or the general situation, and not receiving orders. And if the order did reach, then there was no point or opportunity to carry it out due to the fact that the leadership, not receiving timely reports from the troops, had difficulty imagining the situation on the battlefield. Maybe it's very Polish, but that's not conducive to success.
Already on September 2, the “Help” army, which was guarding the “corridor” that became the reason for the conflict, was cut into two parts by oncoming attacks from Pomerania and East Prussia, moreover, the largest of them, the seaside, was in a double encirclement ring.
But a real disaster was brewing in the center, where on the second day of the war, German tankers managed to find the junction of the armies "Lodz" and "Krakow" and the 1st Panzer Division rushed forward through the "Czestochowa gap" uncovered by the troops, reaching the rear defensive line before those Polish units who were supposed to take it ...
Not many people understand what a tank breakthrough is. Here is the best, from my point of view, description of what happens to the defending army:
“The enemy has clarified to himself one obvious truth and is using it. People take up little space in the vast expanses of the earth. It would take a hundred million to build a solid wall of soldiers. This means that gaps between military units are inevitable. As a rule, they can be eliminated by the mobility of troops, but for enemy tanks a weakly motorized army is, as it were, immobile. So, the gap becomes a real gap for them. Hence the simple tactical rule: “A tank division acts like water. It exerts light pressure on the enemy's defenses and advances only where it meets no resistance." And the tanks put pressure on the line of defense. There are always gaps. Tanks always pass.
These tank raids, which we are powerless to prevent due to the lack of our own tanks, cause irreparable damage, although at first glance they cause only minor destruction (capture of local headquarters, breakage of telephone lines, burning of villages). Tanks play the role of chemicals that destroy not the body itself, but its nerves and lymph nodes. Where tanks swept like lightning, sweeping away everything in their path, any army, even if it seemed to have suffered almost no losses, had already ceased to be an army. She turned into separate clots. Instead of a single organism, only unrelated organs remained. And between these clusters - no matter how brave the soldiers were - the enemy advances unhindered. An army loses its combat effectiveness when it turns into a bunch of soldiers.”
This was written in 1940 by the pilot of the air group No. 2/33 of the long-range reconnaissance, the captain of the French army, Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

German tanks T-1 (Light tank Pz.Kpfw. I) in Poland. 1939

And this is exactly what the Poles were to experience first in the 20th century. Having received a message that German tanks were already 40 km from Czestochowa, deep in the rear of his troops, on September 2, Commander-in-Chief Rydz-Smigla ordered the troops of the Lodz Army, which was defending in the central direction, to be withdrawn to the main line of defense.
It was decided to withdraw to the east and southeast beyond the line of the rivers Nida and Dunajec (100-170 km) and the Krakow army. Its open northern flank was bypassed by the 16th motorized corps, from the south, the 22nd motorized corps, which had broken through the covering troops on September 2, was moving towards Tarnow, and the 5th Panzer Division of the 14th Army captured Auschwitz (about 50 km from Krakow) and the army warehouses located there .
This made the defense of the central positions on the Warth pointless, but it was already impossible to fix something. It is easy to give an order, but to execute it, when the troops are slowly moving on foot under the blows of German air power along the famous Polish roads, is very difficult. The troops defending in the center simply could not retreat faster. The desire to protect everything played a bad joke - there were simply no reserves to plug all the holes, and those that were did not keep up with the rapidly changing situation and most of them were defeated on the march or during unloading, without having time to join the battle.
It can be stated that by the evening of the second day of the war, the border battle was won by the Germans. In the north, the “Help” army, which was in the “Polish corridor”, was cut and partially surrounded, a communication between Germany and East Prussia was established. In the south, the Krakow army, outflanked from two flanks, leaves Silesia, effectively eliminating the southern sector of the Polish front and exposing the southern flank of the main defensive position, which the central group had yet to reach.
The 3rd Army advancing from East Prussia, breaking on the third day the resistance of the Modlin army (two divisions and a cavalry brigade), which had been literally crushed by the Germans in these battles and had lost its combat capability, formed a thirty-kilometer gap in the Polish defense. The army commander, General Przedzimirsky, decided to withdraw the defeated troops beyond the Vistula and try to put them in order there.
The pre-war Polish operational plan was thwarted.
The command and political leadership of Poland could not offer anything else, and one could only hope that the allies would become ashamed, and they would still help.
But after all, the allies - for no reason at all for some Poles, they will not shed their blood, they need to prove that you are not a freeloader, but a partner. And this does not really reach the modern leaders of the “newly formed” states, let alone the politicians of the “Second Poland” and there is no need to speak. By that time, they were going “into exile” in order to heroically “lead” the Polish resistance from comfortable Parisian, and then London mansions.
The Polish army and the Poles themselves were not going to surrender yet, and although the retreat that had begun on almost the entire front affected the mood, the troops continued to fight.
Tired of marches, the central grouping, which managed to retreat to Warta by September 4, without having time to gain a foothold, was subjected to flank attacks. The Kresovaya Cavalry Brigade, which was covering the right flank, was knocked out of position and retreated from the line. The 10th Division held out longer, but was also defeated. On the southern flank, the German 1st Panzer Division disorganized the makeshift defenses and moved to Piotkow, in the rear of the main position. Both flanks were exposed.
On September 5, at 18.15, the chief of staff of the Lodz army reported: “The 10th Infantry Division has scattered, we are gathering it in Lutomirsk. Therefore, we leave the line Warta - Vindavka, which cannot be held ... The situation is difficult. This is the end".
The army began to withdraw what was left to Lodz. The battle on the main position, so, practically, and without starting, ended.
The main Polish reserve is the Prussian army (three divisions and a cavalry brigade), having found the Germans in Piotkow, in its rear, due to conflicting orders that sent its divisions in parts in different directions, and the panic that seized the troops simply disappeared into the thick of events without having any effect on their course.
With her disappearance, the last hope of the Polish command to seize the initiative disappeared.
All Polish troops entered the battle. They were crushed by German tanks, aviation and infantry. There were no more reserves. Hopes to gain a foothold on some lines for a long time were fading, the enemy's losses were not so great as to cause a crisis. The allies, not intending to move anywhere, valiantly stood on the Maginot Line.
In the evening, the Polish Commander-in-Chief sent directives to the troops on a general retreat along the entire front in a general direction to the southeast, to the borders of allied Romania and Hungary, which was favorable to the Poles. The Polish president, government and deputies also rushed there.
I have always been touched by the position of such politicians, who have brought the country to ruin and are rushing into exile to “lead” the underground struggle, in the hope that they will be allowed to steer one more time. And after all, there are those who want to transfer power to them again.

Polish propaganda sounded like a fanfare: "Polish air raid on Berlin", the Siegfried Line was broken in 7 places "...

But almost on September 5, the war was lost by the Poles. However, the Germans had yet to complete it.
First, the encircled part of the “Help” army was defeated. On September 5, Grudzienzh was taken, on the 6th - Bygdosch and Torun. 16 thousand Polish soldiers were taken prisoner and 100 guns were captured.

When the Germans entered Bygdoszcz (Bromberg) and Schulitz, it turned out that the Polish authorities had massacred the Polish citizens of German nationality who lived in these cities. With this, the Poles opened another sad page of World War II, the first to organize atrocities against the civilian population. Even on the eve of the defeat, the Polish Nazis proved incorrigible.

German residents of Bygdoszcz (Bromberg) - victims of the Polish genocide

There was no longer an organized Polish front in front of the 10th Army, which was striking through the Chenthov Gap. After leaving on September 6 to Tomausz-Mazowiecki, she received an order to break through to the Vistula line. Having discovered a concentration of significant forces of the Poles south of Radom (these were the retreating units of the Prussian and Lublin armies), the army, having regrouped its forces, with blows from its flanks of two motorized corps that met east of Radom on September 9, surrounded this grouping and destroyed it by September 12. 65 thousand people were taken prisoner, guns were captured 145. The 16th motorized corps, advancing to the north, without encountering resistance by September 8, reached the southern outskirts of Warsaw.
In the south, having passed Krakow, surrendered by the Poles without a fight, on September 5, the 14th Army reached Tarnow near the Dunajewiec River.
At the headquarters of Army Group South, the impression was that the Polish troops west of the Vistula were giving up the fight, and on September 7, all corps of the group received orders to pursue the Poles as quickly as possible. On the 11th, the 14th Army of this group crossed the San River at Yaroslav and advanced on its right flank to the upper reaches of the Dniester.
Covering the northern flank of the 10th Army, the 8th Army occupied Lodz and reached the Bzura River.

German infantry crossing the river Bzura

The 3rd Army, advancing from East Prussia to the south, overcame the resistance of the Polish troops opposing it, crossed the Narew River. Guderian rushed to Brest, and the Kempf group covered Warsaw from the east, capturing Sedlice on September 11.
Based in Pomerania, the 4th Army went to Modlin, surrounding Warsaw from the northeast.
It was a rout...

Poland. September 1939

His plan is to defend the western border of Poland and to carry out offensive operations in East Prussia.

The Modlin army (4 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades) was deployed on the border with East Prussia, as well as 2 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades in the Suwalki region. In the Polish corridor - the Pomorie army (6 infantry divisions).

Against Pomerania - the Lodz army (4 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades).

Against Silesia - the army "Krakow" (6 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry and 1 motorized brigades).

Behind the armies "Krakow" and "Lodz" - the army "Prussia" (6 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry brigade).

The southern border of Poland was to be defended by the Karpaty army (from reserve formations).

Reserves - 3 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry brigade - near the Vistula near Warsaw and Lublin.

In total, the Polish armed forces included 39 infantry divisions, 2 motorized brigades, 11 cavalry brigades, 3 mountain brigades.

fighting

Partition of Poland by the Soviet Union and Germany

However, Poland did not capitulate, its government and part of the armed forces continued their service in exile.

Polish Armed Forces in Exile

Polish units in France and Norway

Polish military units in France began to form after the signing of the Franco-Polish Protocol on September 21, 1939.

General Władysław Sikorski became the commander-in-chief of the Polish forces in France. At the end of 1939, the Polish 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions were formed.

In February 1940, a separate mountain rifle brigade was formed (commander - General Zygmunt Bohush-Shyshko). This brigade was included in the Anglo-French expeditionary forces, scheduled to be sent to Finland for the war against the USSR. However, on March 12, 1940, peace was concluded between Finland and the USSR, and the brigade was sent in early May 1940 as part of the Anglo-French expeditionary corps to Norway for the war against the Germans.

There, the Polish brigade successfully stormed the villages of Ankenes and Nyborg occupied by the Germans, the Germans were pushed back to the Swedish border. However, due to the advance of the Germans in France, the Allied forces, including the Poles, left Norway.

At a time when a separate mountain rifle brigade was sent to Norway, the Polish 1st Infantry Division (on May 3, 1940 renamed the 1st Grenadier Division), under the command of General Bronisław Dukh, was sent to the front in Lorraine. On June 16, the Polish division was almost surrounded by the Germans and received an order from the French command to retreat. On June 19, General Sikorsky ordered the division to retreat to the south of France or, if possible, to Switzerland. However, this order was difficult to fulfill, and therefore only 2 thousand Poles managed to reach the south of France, about a thousand left for Switzerland. The exact losses of the division are still unknown, but at least a thousand Poles were killed, and at least 3 thousand were wounded.

The Polish 2nd Infantry Division (renamed 2nd Rifle Division) under the command of General Prugar-Ketling also fought in Lorraine. On June 15 and 16, this division covered the retreat of the French 45th Corps to the Swiss border. The Poles crossed into Switzerland on 20 June and were interned there until the end of World War II.

In addition to the infantry, the Polish armed forces in France included the 10th Armored Cavalry Brigade under the command of General Stanisław Maczek. She was stationed at the front in Champagne. From June 13, the brigade covered the withdrawal of two French divisions. Then, on orders, the brigade retreated, but on June 17 it was surrounded. Having managed to break through the German lines, the brigade was then evacuated to Britain.

In addition to the aforementioned Polish units, several Polish anti-tank companies attached to French infantry divisions took part in the fighting in France.

The Polish 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions were in the process of formation in June 1940 and did not have time to take part in the battles. In total, at the end of June 1940, the Polish armed forces in France numbered about 85 thousand.

When the defeat of France became apparent, the commander-in-chief of the Polish forces decided to evacuate them to Britain. On June 18, 1940, General Sikorsky flew to England. At a meeting in London, he assured British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that the Polish troops were not going to surrender to the Germans and wanted to fight until complete victory. Churchill ordered the organization of the evacuation of Polish troops to Scotland.

While Sikorsky was in England, his deputy, General Sosnkovsky, asked the French General Denin to help the Poles evacuate. The Frenchman replied that "the Poles themselves need to hire ships for evacuation, and you have to pay for it in gold." He also suggested that the Polish troops surrender to the Germans, as did the French.

As a result, 17 thousand Polish soldiers and officers managed to evacuate to Britain.

Polish units in Syria, Egypt and Libya

In April 1940, the Polish Carpathian Rifle Brigade was formed in Syria under the command of Colonel Stanisław Kopanski (from Polish soldiers and officers who fled through Romania).

After the surrender of French troops in Syria to the Germans, the French command ordered the Poles to surrender to German captivity, but Colonel Kopansky did not obey this order and took the Polish brigade to British Palestine.

In October 1940, the brigade was redeployed to Egypt.

In October 1941, the Polish Carpathian Brigade was landed in the Libyan town of Tobruk, besieged by the Germans, to help the Australian 9th Infantry Division, which was defending there. In December 1941, the allied forces attacked the German and Italian troops, and on December 10 the siege of Tobruk was terminated. On December 14-17, 1941, the Polish brigade took part in the battle in the Gazala region (in Libya). Of the 5 thousand fighters, the Poles lost more than 600 killed and wounded.

Polish units in Britain

In August 1940, British Prime Minister Churchill signed the Polish-British military agreement, which allowed Polish troops to be stationed in Britain. The Polish armed forces in Britain received the same status as the troops of the countries of the British Commonwealth, and received the right to form new Polish units.

By the end of August 1940, the Polish ground forces in Britain consisted of 5 infantry brigades (3 of them were almost exclusively staffed by officers, due to a lack of privates).

On September 28, 1940, the Polish commander-in-chief, General Sikorsky, ordered the formation of the 1st Polish Corps.

In October 1941, the 4th Rifle Brigade was reorganized into the 1st Separate Parachute Brigade (under the command of Colonel Sosnovsky). In February 1942, the formation of the Polish 1st Panzer Division (under the command of General Maczek) began.

After the death of General Sikorsky in 1943, General Sosnowsky became the commander-in-chief of the Polish troops.

Polish units in the USSR (1941-1942)

In August 1942, the destroyer Schlensack supported the British landing at Dieppe with artillery fire.

The submarines "Falcon" and "Dzik" operated in the Mediterranean Sea and received the nickname "Terrible Twins".

Polish warships took part in supporting Allied landing operations in 1940 in Narvik, in 1942 in North Africa, in 1943 in Sicily and in Italy. They were also part of the protection of the Arctic convoys of the allies, which delivered weapons, food and other military materials to the USSR under the Lend-Lease program.

In total, Polish sailors sank several enemy warships (German and Italian), including 2 German submarines, shot down about 20 aircraft and sank about 40 transport ships.

About 400 (out of a total of about 4 thousand) Polish sailors died. Most of the survivors of World War II ended up living in the West.

Polish aviation abroad

After the September campaign of 1939, many Polish military pilots tried to move to France. During the defense of France, Polish pilots shot down about 50 German aircraft, 13 Poles pilots died.

Then the Polish pilots crossed over to Britain, where 2 Polish squadrons were formed as part of the British Air Force (302nd and 303rd, the Poles also served in other British squadrons). The Battle of Britain (July-October 1940) involved 145 Polish fighter pilots who shot down 201 enemy aircraft.

In total, the AK partisan detachments, operating since 1943, took part in more than 170 combat clashes with the Germans, destroying over a thousand Germans. Also, AK was actively engaged in intelligence activities (including in the interests of the Western allies). AK activists were engaged in sabotage and sabotage, they organized the collapse of 732 trains, destroyed about 4.3 thousand cars, blew up 40 railway bridges, carried out about 25 thousand acts of sabotage at military factories and released prisoners from 16 prisons. Achievements include:

• collection of data on the location of factories for the production of gasoline (Operation "Synthesis");
• collection of data on the development of V-1 and V-2 missiles and their testing at the Peenemünde training ground;
• the murder of a number of high-ranking functionaries of the German occupation administration (in particular, they killed SS Brigadeführer Franz Kuchera).

In 1942-1943, the units of the Ludova Guard conducted more than 1400 operations (including 237 battles), they destroyed 71 German officers, 1355 gendarmes and policemen, 328 German agents; as a result of sabotage on the railways, they derailed 116 freight and 11 passenger trains, destroyed 9 long sections of railways and suspended traffic for 3137 hours; destroyed and put out of action 132 motor vehicles and 23 locomobiles; destroyed and burned 13 bridges, 36 railway stations, 19 post offices, 292 volost administrations, 11 factories and industrial enterprises, 4 fuel depots with fuel and oil products, 9 livestock branding points, as well as a number of other objects.

During 1944, units of the People's Army conducted 904 combat operations (including 120 major battles); destroyed 79 highway and railway bridges and 55 railway stations, organized the collapse of 322 echelons; destroyed over 19 thousand Nazis, 24 tanks, 191 vehicles, 3 aircraft, 465 locomotives and 4000 wagons.

Polish army in the USSR (1943-1945)

In May 1943, at the initiative of the "Union of Polish Patriots" and with the support of the Soviet government, the formation of new Polish military units began on the territory: first, the 1st Polish Infantry Division named after. T. Kosciuszko, and later - and other Polish military units and divisions. Colonel Zygmund Berling (former head of the military camp of the Anders Army in Krasnovodsk) was appointed commander of the first Polish division, and Alexander Zavadsky was appointed political commissar.

In June 1943, the formation of the 1st Infantry Division was completed, on July 15, 1943, the fighters of the division took the military oath

On July 20, 1944, the artillery of the 1st Army of the Polish Army supported units of the 69th Army with fire while crossing the Western Bug. On the same day, the first Polish soldiers set foot on Polish soil. Over the next three days, the main forces of the 1st Polish Army crossed to the western bank of the Bug. In late July - early August 1944, the 1st Polish Army was at the junction of the 8th Guards Army and the 69th Army, it participated in battles with units of the 4th German Panzer Army, the offensive on Chelm and Lublin, the liberation of Deblin and Pulaw .

The 1st Polish Tank Brigade participated in the defense of the Studzyansky bridgehead on the western bank of the Vistula south of Warsaw. In three-day defensive battles on the line Magnuszew - Rychevul - Studzyanka farm, Polish soldiers destroyed about 1,500 enemy troops, 2 tiger tanks, 1 panther tank, 12 T-IV tanks, one T-III tank, 8 self-propelled guns, 9 armored personnel carriers, eleven 75 mm guns and sixteen anti-tank guns.

On July 28, 1944, units of the 1st Army of the Polish Army took up combat positions on the eastern bank of the Vistula and received an order from Marshal Rokossovsky to cross the river. On the night of August 1, the 2nd Polish division tried to do this. As a result, one company crossed the Vistula, another company was able to reach one of the islands in the middle of the river. All units that tried to cross the Vistula suffered heavy losses.

On the afternoon of August 1, the 1st and 2nd Polish infantry divisions tried to cross the Vistula. As a result, the 2nd regiment of the 1st division was almost completely destroyed. On August 2, the army did not try to advance, since all 9 attempts to force the Vistula ended in failure. On August 3, attempts by the 2nd Division to cross were stopped by German artillery.

On September 10, 1944, Soviet and Polish troops went on the offensive in the Warsaw region and on September 14 captured Prague, a suburb of Warsaw on the eastern bank of the Vistula. Immediately after the end of the fighting in the Prague region (a suburb of Warsaw), units of the 1st Army of the Polish Army made an attempt to cross to the western bank of the Vistula in order to assist the rebels.

On the night of September 15-16, 1944, in the Saska-Kempa area, the crossing of units of the 3rd Infantry Division of the Polish Army began. Despite fierce opposition from the enemy, the landing operation continued until September 19, 1944 and was terminated due to heavy losses. On September 23, 1944, the previously transferred units of the Polish Army, as well as a group of rebels who had joined them, were evacuated to the eastern bank of the Vistula. During the operation, the total losses of the Polish Army amounted to 3764 soldiers and officers, including 1987 people. killed on the western bank of the Vistula (1921 soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division of the Polish Army and 366 soldiers of the 2nd division of the Polish Army), the loss of the wounded amounted to 289 soldiers.

On January 12, 1945, a new Soviet offensive began, in which the 1st Polish Army took part. On January 16-17, 1945, Warsaw was liberated, which the Germans turned into ruins.

At the end of January 1945, the 1st Polish Army (93 thousand people) was stationed in Pomerania. In February, she went on the offensive.

In February-March 1945, the Polish 1st Army fought fierce battles for ten days for the city of Kolberg, which was given the status of a fortress by the Nazi command. On March 18, 1945, units of the 1st Army of the Polish Army established control over the city. In the battles for Kolberg, German troops lost 5,000 soldiers killed and 6,992 prisoners.

In January 1945, the formation of the 2nd Army of the Polish Army was completed. She was transferred to the Neisse River, which she crossed on April 17. The next day, German troops under the command of Field Marshal Schörner, who were marching to defend Berlin, were partially driven back, partially surrounded by units of the 2nd Polish Army.

On April 20, German troops left their positions on the western bank of the Oder and began to retreat to the west.

The contribution of Polish soldiers to the victory was highly appreciated: more than 5 thousand military personnel and 23 formations and units of the Polish Army were awarded Soviet orders, 13 times the Polish Army was noted in the orders of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the USSR. The best soldiers of the Polish Army took part in the Victory Parade on Red Square on June 24, 1945.

In May-June 1945, the Polish Army numbered about 400,000 people. It was the largest regular military force that fought alongside the Soviet troops. The Polish Army (1st, 2nd armies and the Reserve of the High Command) had 2 army directorates, 1 tank corps; 14 infantry, 1 artillery and 3 anti-aircraft artillery divisions; 10 artillery, 1 mortar, 1 motorized rifle, 5 engineering and sapper, 1 cavalry and 2 separate tank brigades, 4 aviation divisions, as well as a number of special, auxiliary and rear units and several military educational institutions. It was armed with 4,000 guns and mortars, 400 tanks and self-propelled guns, 600 aircraft, and 8,000 machine guns.

In total, during the war, the USSR transferred to the Polish Army about 700 thousand rifles and machine guns, more than 15 thousand heavy machine guns and mortars, 3500 guns, 1000 tanks, 1200 aircraft, 1800 vehicles and a significant amount of other equipment and military equipment, and also ensured the supply of the Polish Army with uniforms, food, ammunition, fuel and medicines.

Polish citizens took an active part in the Soviet partisan movement in the occupied territory of the USSR.

The BSSR was attended by 2,500 Poles, of which 703 were awarded Soviet government awards.

2000 Poles took part in the Soviet partisan movement on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR.

In addition, the Poles took part in the Soviet partisan movement on the territory of other republics of the USSR:

In total, 5 thousand Poles took part in the Soviet partisan movement in the occupied territory of the USSR. For participation in the anti-fascist struggle in the underground and partisan detachments on the territory of the USSR, 993 Polish citizens were awarded Soviet government awards.

Notes

Main theaters of war:
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
mediterranean
Africa
Southeast Asia
Pacific Ocean