On this Day: Nazi Germany Invades Poland, Starting World War II

Early in the morning of Sept. 1, 1939, 1.5 million German troops invaded Poland by air and by land, rapidly overwhelming Polish forces, who had expected a much more gradual campaign.

Hitler utilized his new “blitzkrieg” strategy, deploying planes, tank and air forces with stunning speed, depending on the element of surprise to defeat his enemies. Troops destroyed railroads and communications stations, infiltrated strongholds by posing as Polish military officers and killed enemies with explosives, guns and even sabers.

Although it had secretly assembled an army of more than 900,000 in anticipation of a German attack, Poland was caught completely off-guard by this “lightning war,” and forces were completely depleted by Sept. 17, when more than 800,000 Soviet Union Red Army troops added their forces to the invasion.

During the September Campaign, as it came to be known, 66,000 Polish died and 694,000 were captured. Germany lost only 16,343 of its troops and none were captured.

Polish allies France and England quickly declared war against Germany after the Sept. 1 attack, but their support was nominal at best; neither country deployed significant military forces until the next year.

Adolf Hitler had long been frustrated by a provision in the Treaty of Versailles that entitled Poland to a corridor of land he wanted, and spent the 1930s scheming to regain the disputed territory.

The land included access to the Baltic Sea and had been explicitly promised to Poland in 1918 by President Woodrow Wilson during his famous Fourteen Points Speech to Congress. The speech, given 10 months before the end of World War I, was the basis of the terms of Germany’s surrender.

For a time, Poland’s alliance with England and France stymied Hitler, but on Aug. 23, 1939, the Soviet Union signed a treaty with Nazi Germany that not only ended fighting between the two countries, but effectively targeted Poland for attack.

After the initial rapid attacks on Poland, things appeared to quickly quiet down. News was sparse from the front lines, and the American press started referring to the situation as the “phony war.”

Actually, while there were few explosions or military engagements, there was plenty of activity in Poland, Germany and the Soviet Union. The Nazis were steadily establishing their occupation of Poland by imprisoning or killing the country’s residents. By Oct. 6, Poland had lost its last stronghold and the country was completely in German hands.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was pursing war on other soil. On Nov. 30, Joseph Stalin declared war on Finland but met with an even match. The fighting in Finland went on until spring, while the German forces rested from battle, exhausted from fighting in bitter winter conditions.

Ultimately, World War II was the bloodiest in history, with a death toll of more than 62 million. Battles were fought in Europe, the Middle East, China, Japan and Africa. Germany surrendered May 7, 1945; after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered on Aug.15, 1945.