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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.
In 1795, Poland's territory was completely partitioned among the Kingdom of Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Austria. 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.
Large territories of Polish Second Republic were ceded to the Soviet Union by the Moscow-backed Polish government, and today form part of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Poland was instead given the Free State of Danzig and the German areas east of the rivers Oder and Neisse (see Recovered Territories), pending a final peace conference with ...
Polish nationalist propaganda from the 1930s: "Nie jestesmy tu od wczoraj.Sięgaliśmy daleko na zachód." (We are not here since yesterday. Once we reached far west.) The term "Recovered Territories" was officially used for the first time in the Decree of the President of the Republic of 11 October 1938 after the annexation of Trans-Olza by the Polish army. [7]
Temporary borders created by advancing German and Soviet troops. The border was soon readjusted following diplomatic agreements. Seventeen days after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet Union entered the eastern regions of Poland (known as the Kresy) and annexed territories totalling 201,015 square kilometres (77,612 sq mi) with ...
None of the Nazi-ordered territorial changes were recognised by the Allies of World War II, and the annexed territories became the centre of the People's Republic of Poland after World War II. Germans living in the formerly annexed territories fled or were expelled to post-war Germany.
The territories acquired by Poland after World War II are known there as the Recovered Territories. [2] The territories Poland annexed had been ruled as part of Poland by the Piast dynasty in the High Middle Ages , with the exception of southern East Prussia , which originally was inhabited by Old Prussians and came under Polish suzerainty in ...
Tadeusz Piotrowski, Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire has provided a reassessment of Poland's losses in World War II. Polish war dead included 5,150,000 victims of Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles and the Holocaust, the treatment of Polish citizens by occupiers included 350,000 deaths during the Soviet occupation in 1940 ...