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But from 1947, Poland's territory was reduced to 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 square miles), so the country lost 73,739 square kilometres (28,471 square miles) of land. This difference amounts almost to the size of the Czech Republic, although Poland ended up with a much longer coastline on the Baltic Sea compared to its 1939 borders.
Poland is a member of the European Union, NATO, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Poland currently has a population of over 38 million people, [3] which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world [18] and one of the most populous members of the European Union.
Poland was at the time allied with Romania and France. Two critical developments caught Poland by surprise. At the end of March 1939, Britain and France announced that if Germany invaded Poland they would declare war. In terms of helping Poland in an actual war, everyone realized they could do very little.
The Polish–Soviet border, as of 1939, had been determined in 1921 at the Treaty of Riga peace talks, which followed the Polish–Soviet War. [7] Under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, the Soviet Union invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland.
Polish infantry in action during the Invasion of Poland in September 1939 Polish anti-aircraft artillery in September 1939 "Poland: A Military Autopsy" American map. On 1 September 1939, without a formal declaration of war, Nazi Germany invaded Poland using the pretext of the Gleiwitz incident, a provocation (one of many) [16] staged by the ...
Polish voivodeships, 1922–1939. Administrative Map in 1939 showing April 1938 voivodship revisions and Slovak border changes. Subdivisions of the Second Polish Republic became an issue immediately after the creation of the Second Polish Republic in 1918. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had been partitioned in the late 18th century.
Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the occupation of Poland by German forces, the Nazi regime attempted to destroy Polish culture. [97] As part of that policy, the Nazis confiscated Polish national heritage assets and much private property.
Under the terms of two decrees by Hitler (8 October and 12 October 1939), large areas of western Poland were annexed to Germany. These included all the territories taken by Prussia in Partitions of Poland which Germany subsequently lost under the 1918 Treaty of Versailles, including the Polish Corridor, Wielkopolska, as well as territories divided after plebiscites such as Upper Silesia, as ...