The occupation of Poland - the occupation of the territory of Poland by the Third Reich during World War II . The occupation began with the invasion of German troops on the territory of Poland on September 1, 1939, and ended in 1945, when the Red Army , after long battles, was able to liberate Poland from the Nazi occupation.
Nazi Germany pursued a policy of genocide , destroying the civilian population. On the part of the Soviet Union, after the liberation of Poland, the detachments of the Polish partisans ( the Craiova Army ), who were waging an armed struggle against the Red Army, were subordinated to the London government in exile .
During the occupation, about 6 million citizens of Poland died and died (about 21.4% of the total population), most of whom were Jews [1] .
Conquest of Polish territory
On August 31, 1939, Hitler signed the secret directive No. 1 “On the conduct of the war”, which stated: “In the West, it is important that responsibility for initiating hostilities falls entirely on France and England ...” [2]
At noon on August 31, SS navigator Alfred Naujoks received a conditional order to attack a radio station in the border town of Gleiwitz under the guise of Polish soldiers. An appeal was broadcast in Polish, the bodies of the murdered prisoners in Polish uniforms were left in place. On the same night, German news services stated that the Polish army launched an unprovoked attack on the Third Reich [3] .
On the morning of September 1, 1939, speaking in the Reichstag, Hitler said: “This night for the first time Poland fired at our territory using a regular army. We will respond with fire no later than 5.45
September 1, 1939 at 4 hours and 45 minutes. according to the Weiss plan , without a declaration of war, German troops launched an offensive on the front line of about 1600 km in length — across the German-Polish border, as well as from the territory of Moravia and Slovakia . A few minutes later, the training battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish naval base Westerplatte in the free city of Danzig .
On the very first day of the offensive, German aviation destroyed most of the Polish aviation on the ground, creating the conditions for the rapid advance of the ground forces. After that, German aircraft could be used to achieve other intended goals. It made impossible the organized completion of the mobilization of the Polish armed forces and large operational movements by rail, and also seriously disturbed the control and communication of the enemy [4] .
On the third day, the Polish Air Force ceased to exist. According to other sources, the Polish command retained aviation from the first strike of the Luftwaffe , transferring it to field airfields on August 31. And although German aviation gained complete air supremacy, Polish pilots shot down over 130 enemy aircraft during the war [5] .
On September 3, 1939, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, but until September 17, fighting on the western front was limited to local battles (although on September 7, units of the 3rd and 4th French armies crossed the German border in the Saarland and occupied several villages having met resistance from the German army).
After the USSR entered the war, the position of the Polish troops deteriorated sharply. In the new conditions, the main burden of resistance to German troops fell on the Central Front of Tadeusz Piskor. On September 17 - 26, two battles near Tomaszow-Lubelski took place - the largest in the September campaign after the battle of Bzur. Army "Krakow" and "Lublin" under the general command of Tadeusz Piskor and the main forces of the Northern Front, blocking the way to Lviv, were to defeat the forces of the 7th German corps in the area of Rava-Russkaya . During the fierce battles, the German defense failed to break through, the Polish troops suffered heavy losses. On September 20, 1939, General Tadeusz Piskor announced the surrender of the Central Front.
Poles of resistance were suppressed one by one. September 27 fell Warsaw, the next day - Modlin . On October 1, the Baltic naval base Khel capitulated. October 6 surrendered the last center of the organized Polish resistance in Kotzk .
In the period from September 1 to October 26, 1939, while Poland was under the control of the German military command, Wehrmacht soldiers carried out 311 mass executions of Polish soldiers and civilians. Later, on October 27, power in the occupied territory was transferred to the civil German administration [6] .
Occupation
After the division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union, most of the Polish territory was ceded to the Third Reich. On this part lived the majority of ethnic Poles. The territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus , the majority of the population of which were Belarusians in the north and Ukrainians in the south, departed to the Soviet Union [7] .
The annexation of Polish territory to Germany
On October 8, 1939, in accordance with the decree of Adolf Hitler, most of Western Poland, covering an area of about 94 thousand km², was annexed to Germany.
On October 26, 1939, the annexed Polish lands were incorporated into two new imperial districts:
- Reichsgau "West Prussia", which was transformed into Reichsgau " Danzig - West Prussia " on November 2, 1939 during the administrative reform;
- Reichsgau Posen ( Reichsgau Posen ), which on January 29, 1940, during the administrative reform, was reorganized into the Reichsgau " Varteland ".
About 10 million people lived in this area, most of whom were Poles. The German government resettled to these territories about 600 thousand Germans from Eastern Europe and 400 thousand from the Third Reich [8] . According to Ducker, the number of Germans who arrived in Poland by 1942 reached two million [9] .
Creating an occupational administration
On October 12, 1939, Hans Frank was appointed head of the department of population affairs in the Polish occupied territories.
On October 27, 1939, the occupied territories of Poland were transferred to the administration of the civil occupation administration. December 12, 1939 was created by the Governor-General ( him. Generalgouvernement ) with the capital in Krakow , Hans Frank remained Governor-General.
On the territory of the “General Governorate” and the Polish lands annexed to Germany, the population was classified into categories with different rights in accordance with nationality and origin, and the implementation of “ racial policy ” began. Citizens of German nationality (“Reichsdoyche” and “ Volksdeutsche ”) had a privileged position, the Poles were deprived of civil rights, and certain categories of the population (Jews, Gypsies, the mentally ill ...) were subject to physical destruction. In April 1940, Frank announced that Krakow should become the most racially clean city under his rule [10] .
In October 1939, the creation of the Polish General Government began .
On November 9, 1939, the “General Directorate of Railways - Vostok” ( Generaldirektion der Ostbahn ) was created, which was entrusted with the management of the railways.
In 1940, concentration camps were established on the territory of the “General Governor's Office”, into which prisoners of war of the Allied armies began to enter - French, Norwegians, Belgians, Dutch, and later - Greeks, Yugoslavs [11] .
On April 20, 1940, the organization “ Die Volksdeutsche Gemeinschaft ” started to operate on the territory of the general government , uniting ethnic Germans.
On December 1, 1940, the Baudienst paramilitary construction service was created.
After the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR on June 22, 1941, the borders of the Governor-General changed again: the “ District of Galicia ” (created on August 1, 1941) and the “ Bialystok District ” were included in its structure.
Occupation Regime
The Germans consistently pursued a policy aimed at disuniting and internal delimitation of the population living in the occupied territory of Poland, inciting ethnic conflicts. The Directive of the Directorate of Racial Policy of November 28, 1940 “Some Considerations on the Treatment of Persons of Non-German Nationality in the East” contained the prescription: nationalities, that is, along with the Poles and Jews, to single out Ukrainians, Belarusians, Goral, Lemko and Kashubians. And if somewhere else you can still find remnants of nationalities, then we will use them ... people from such ethnic groups, especially small ones, as police officers and burgomasters ... we shouldn’t allow national unification ” [12] .
From September 1939 to April 1940 , about 50 thousand teachers, priests, representatives of free trades and local nobility , public and political figures, as well as retired military and members of patriotic organizations, were methodically executed . Another 50 thousand were deported to concentration camps, where only an insignificant part of them survived. The executions were carried out in different regions of Poland. [13] .
In May — July 1940, an Emergency Pacification Action ( German Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion ) took place on the territory of the General Government , pursuing similar objectives.
Residents of Poland massively hijacked to forced labor in Germany .
Occupation Results
In total, in the Second World War, Poland lost 21.3% of the population (6,028 thousand people killed and dead, 644 thousand of them died during the hostilities, and 5 384 thousand during the occupation), for forced labor in Germany was taken out 2 841.5 thousand Polish citizens [14] .
Among the dead were highly qualified specialists, whose death was a severe blow to the development of Poland: 17 thousand teachers, about 6 thousand doctors, engineers, scientists, representatives of the creative intelligentsia [15] .
During the occupation, 700,000 German colonists arrived in Germany on the territory of the “General Governorship”, in whose ownership 206,000 trade, industrial and industrial enterprises were transferred; the best land, houses and property of Polish citizens [16] . In particular,
- the German concern Hermann Goering was given the ownership of coal mines in Upper Silesia, metallurgical and other plants [17] ;
- the German concern IG Farbenindustri were transferred to the ownership of the dye-producing company Boruta, Volya and Vinnitsa [17] ;
- The German bank Dresdner Bank was transferred to the Commercial Bank in Krakow , the Eastern Bank in Poznan and the branches of the Austrian Land Bank located in Poland [17] .
Labor legislation and social guarantees were abolished on the territory of the “general governorship”, a 12-hour working day was established [18] .
The total damage from the fighting and the German occupation of Poland during the war years amounted to 38% of the national wealth, 20% of industrial enterprises, 60% of health care institutions, more than 63% of school buildings and scientific institutions, over 353 thousand (22%) farms were destroyed. , 30% personal property of the population of Poland. One third of the population was left homeless [15] , 50% of agricultural land was not cultivated, and finance, transport, and trade were upset [19] .
Subsequent events
On November 10, 1945, in Poland, the Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitler's Crimes in Poland was created - a special body for solving and investigating crimes committed by the Nazis in Poland on the basis of criminal procedure legislation. Her tasks included: collecting and studying materials related to this type of crime; coordination of related institutions and cooperation with the Institute of National History; publication of materials and research results in Poland and abroad. The commission was chaired by the Minister of Justice, the director was Professor C. Pililihovsky [20] .
Judicial trials of Nazi criminals in Poland were carried out by the Supreme People’s Tribunal (in effect from June 21, 1946 to August 5, 1948), special criminal courts and general courts. The Supreme People’s Tribunal dealt with 7 cases of Nazi war criminals [21] , special criminal courts tried cases of 1803 Nazi criminals, extradited by the government of the Polish People’s Republic (the USSR fully complied with the requests of the Polish government to extradite Nazi criminals, but from The American zone of occupation of Germany, the extradition was terminated in November 1947, and from the British zone of occupation of Germany - in May 1948 [22] ).
See also
- Operation Tannenberg
- Germanization
- Polish collaborationism in World War II
- Polish underground state
Notes
- ↑ Tadeusz Piotrowski. Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide .... - McFarland & Company, 1997. - P. 295. - ISBN 0-7864-0371-3 .
- ↑ Nuremberg process. - T. 1. - p. 349-350.
- ↑ Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. - 1948. - p. 390-392.
- ↑ Kurt von Tippelskirch. The history of the Second World War. - 1998. - p. 38.
- ↑ R.E. Dupuis, T.N. Dupuis. World history of wars. - P. 93.
- ↑ Gerd Yubersher. The military elite of the Third Reich. - Warsaw: Bellona, 2004. - p. 41. - ISBN 83-11-09880-8
- ↑ Jan Tomasz Gross. Revolution from Abroad. - 2005. - p. 4-5. - ISBN 0-691-09603-1 .
- ↑ Piotr Eberhardt. Political Migrations in Poland, 1939–1948. - 2006. - P. 24.
- ↑ William J. Duiker. World History. - 1997. - P. 794.
- ↑ History of the Krakow Ghetto with photographs (English) . www.krakow-poland.com. Circulation date June 3, 2012. Archived September 24, 2012.
- ↑ N. S. Alekseev. Atrocities and retribution: crimes against humanity. - M .: Legal literature, 1986. - p. 189.
- ↑ SS in action. Documents about the crimes of the SS. per. with him. - M., SVETOTON, 2000. - p. 530.
- ↑ Maria Wardzyńska. Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion : [] . - Institute of National Remembrance , IPN (Portal edukacyjny Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej)., 2009. - P. 1/356. - “Oblicza się, ae akcja„ Inteligencja ”pochłonęła ponad 100 tys. ofiar. Translation: Poles. (PDF pp. 8–10]. ”
- ↑ Ch. Pilikhovsky. No limitation. - Warsaw: Interpress, 1980. - p. 7.
- ↑ 1 2 World History / Editorial Edition, resp. ed. A. O. Chubaryan. Volume 11. - M .: Thought , 1977. - P. 59.
- ↑ The History of the Second World War 1939–1945 (in 12 volumes) / redcoll., Ch. ed. A. A. Grechko. V. 10. - M .: Voenizdat , 1979. - p. 56.
- ↑ 1 2 3 History of the Second World War 1939–1945 (in 12 volumes) / redcolle., Ch. ed. A. A. Grechko. T. 3. - M .: Voenizdat, 1974. - P. 277.
- ↑ World History / Editorial., Resp. ed. V.P. Kurasov. V. 10. - M .: Thought, 1965. - p. 59.
- ↑ World History / Editorial., Resp. ed. V.P. Kurasov. V. 10. - M .: Thought, 1965. - p. 388.
- ↑ N. S. Alekseev. Atrocities and retribution: crimes against humanity. - M .: Legal literature, 1986. - p. 341.
- ↑ N. S. Alekseev. Atrocities and retribution: crimes against humanity. - M .: Legal literature, 1986. - P. 342.
- ↑ F. Rafalovsky. The pursuit of Hitler's criminals in Poland in the light of the norms of international law, as well as the norms of the internal law of Poland // Sb .: Nuremberg is still an open section of history. - Warsaw, 1979. - p. 257-258.
Literature and Sources
- J. Gumkovsky, K. Leschinsky. Poland during the Nazi occupation. - Warsaw: Polonia, 1961.
- A. F. Noskov. The destruction of Poland’s economy by Hitler’s Germany (1939–1944). - M .: Science , 1971.