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Poland regained its independence as the Second Polish Republic in 1918 after World War I, but lost it in World War II through occupation by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Poland lost over six million citizens in World War II, emerging several years later as the socialist People's Republic of Poland within the Eastern Bloc , under strong ...
The borders of Poland resembled the borders of the German-Russian gains in World War 2, with the exception of the city of Bialystok. This is called the Curzon line. The small area of Trans-Olza, which had been annexed by Poland in late 1938, was returned to Czechoslovakia on Stalin's orders.
Poland found itself under threat during the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1919–1921, [80] and the German population feared that Bolshevik forces would control Poland. Migration to Germany was a way to avoid conscription and participation in the war.
In November 1918, Piłsudski was released from internment in Germany by the revolutionaries and returned to Warsaw. Upon his arrival, on November 11, 1918 the Regency Council of the Kingdom of Poland ceded all responsibilities to him and Piłsudski took control over the newly created state as its provisional Chief of State. Soon all the local ...
Subdivision of Polish territories during World War II can be divided into several phases. The territories of the Second Polish Republic were first administered first by Nazi Germany (in the west) and the Soviet Union (in the east), then (following the German invasion of the Soviet Union) in their entirety by Nazi Germany, and finally (following Soviet push westwards) by the Soviet Union again.
Faced with an ultimatum from both Poland and Germany, Czechoslovakia gave up the area, which was annexed by Poland on October 2, 1938. [71] In early 1939, Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, which, in March 1939, then ceased to exist. Germany had demanded that Poland join the Anti-Comintern Pact as a satellite state of Germany. [72]
Nazi Germany in 1940 (dark grey) after the conquest of Poland together with the USSR, showing pockets of German colonists resettled into the annexed territories of Poland from the Soviet "sphere of influence" during the "Heim ins Reich" action. – The Nazi propaganda poster, superimposed with the red outline of Poland missing entirely from the ...
The idea of a future "buffer zone" to be cleared of Poles and Jews was discussed officially at highest levels as early as 1914. [7] In July 1917 the German supreme command under General Ludendorff, as part of the debate and planning regarding the cession of the "border strip" to Germany, specified its own designs in a memorandum. [1]