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The Invasion of Poland, [e] also known as the September Campaign, [f] Polish Campaign, [g] and Polish Defensive War of 1939 [h] [13] (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. [14]
By the end of the Polish Defensive War the Soviet Union had taken over 52.1% of the territory of Poland (circa 200,000 km 2), with over 13,700,000 people.The estimates vary; Professor Elżbieta Trela-Mazur gives the following numbers in regards to the ethnic composition of these areas: 38% Poles (ca. 5.1 million people), 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians and 0.6% Germans.
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. [citation needed]
Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, most of the approximately 3.5 million Polish Jews were rounded up and put into newly established ghettos by Nazi Germany. The ghetto system was unsustainable, as by the end of 1941 the Jews had no savings left to pay the SS for food deliveries and no chance to earn their own keep. [68]
The scheduled invasion (see 25 August) is called off at the last possible moment to buy the Germans more time. [4]: 16 The cancellation of the invasion orders fail to reach all German units in time; German saboteurs carry out a bombing attack at the Jablunkov Pass in what becomes known as the Jabłonków incident. [5]: 47
The history of Poland from 1939 to 1945 encompasses primarily the period from the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to the end of World War II. Following the German–Soviet non-aggression pact, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September 1939 and by the Soviet Union on 17 September.
Map of central Poland with the Siege of Warsaw (upper middle). Situation after September 14, 1939 - the map also gives information on placement and movement of some Soviet troops. The Soviet order of battle for the invasion of Poland in 1939 details the major combat units arrayed for the Soviet surprise attack on Poland on September 17, 1939 ...
In October 1939, a month after the invasion of Poland, Nazi Germany annexed an area of 92,500 square kilometres (35,700 sq mi) [2] (23.7% [2] of pre-war Poland) with a population of about 10,000,000 people (30% [2] of the pre-war Polish population).