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At 4:45 a.m., approximately 1.5 million German troops launched an invasion of Poland across its extensive 1,750-mile border with German-held territories. At the same time, Polish airfields were bombed by the German Luftwaffe, and Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea came under attack from German warships and U-boats.
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler asserted that this large-scale invasion was a defensive measure, yet Britain and France remained skeptical. Consequently, on September 3, they declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II.
For Hitler, capturing Poland promised the creation of Lebensraum, meaning “living space,” for the German population. His strategy proposed that the “racially superior” Germans would populate the land while enslaving the local Slavic population. German expansion efforts initiated in 1938 with Austria’s annexation, followed by the Sudetenland’s occupation, and all of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Notably, these actions occurred without provoking conflict with major powers, and Hitler anticipated a similar tolerance for his invasion of Poland.
To mitigate the risk of Soviet intervention in Poland, Germany executed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union on August 23, 1939. The agreement contained a secret clause in which both ideological adversaries consented to partition Poland.
Initially, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland to commence on August 26. However, after learning that Britain had secured a treaty with Poland on August 25 that guaranteed military support in case of an attack, he postponed the operation. To avert potential British involvement, Hitler resorted to propaganda and misinformation, alleging mistreatment of German-speakers living in eastern Poland. In response to fears of an impending assault, Poland began troop mobilizations, but under pressure from Britain and France, it chose to delay full mobilization until August 31 in a final attempt to dissuade Germany from war.
Shortly after noon on August 31, Hitler instructed that hostilities against Poland commence at 4:45 a.m. the following day. On the evening of August 31, Nazi S.S. troops dressed in Polish uniforms fabricated an invasion of Germany, resulting in minor damage to various installations on the German side of the border. They also left several deceased concentration camp prisoners dressed in Polish uniforms to further support the fabricated narrative of a Polish assault, which Nazi propagandists portrayed as an egregious act of aggression.
The invasion commenced at 4:45 a.m. on September 1. Amid the chaos, Nazi diplomats and propagandists were frantic in their efforts to avert conflict with Western powers. However, by September 2, Britain and France demanded Germany withdraw by September 3 or confront war. The British ultimatum expired at 11 p.m. on September 3, and just 15 minutes later, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain addressed the nation via radio to announce that Britain was officially at war with Germany. Shortly thereafter, Australia, New Zealand, and India followed suit. By 5:00 p.m., France declared war on Germany.
In Poland, German forces surged forward at an astounding pace. Utilizing a military strategy known as blitzkrieg, or “lightning war,” 
armored divisions penetrated enemy defenses, isolating segments of Polish forces, which were then encircled and captured by German motorized infantry, while panzer tanks advanced to replicate the successful tactic. Meanwhile, Germany’s formidable air force, the Luftwaffe, obliterated Polish air capabilities, provided critical air support for the blitzkrieg, and indiscriminately bombed Polish cities in an effort to instill terror in the enemy.
The Polish army managed to mobilize one million…
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Polish armed forces aimed to endure long enough for an offensive against Germany to be mounted in the west, but everything changed when Soviet forces invaded from the east on September 17, leading to the loss of all hope. The following day, Poland’s government and military leaders fled the country. On September 28, the Warsaw garrison ultimately surrendered after enduring a relentless siege by the Germans. On that same day, Germany and the USSR finalized an agreement delineating their respective zones of occupation. For the fourth time in its history, Poland found itself partitioned by its more powerful neighbors.
Even after declaring war on Germany, Britain and France acted minimally to support Poland militarily. On September 4, Britain targeted German warships, but Chamberlain hesitated to bomb Germany itself. Although German forces maintained only 23 divisions in the west during their campaign in Poland, France did not initiate a comprehensive attack, despite having mobilized more than four times that number. French assaults on its border with Germany were limited and ceased following Poland’s defeat. In the ensuing seven months, some observers accused Britain and France of engaging in a “phony war,” as no major military actions were undertaken, aside from a few dramatic British-German naval skirmishes. However, hostilities escalated significantly in 1940 with Germany’s invasions of Norway in April and the Low Countries and France in May.
In June 1941, Hitler launched an attack on the USSR, violating his nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, leading to Germany’s complete occupation of Poland. During this occupation, nearly three million Polish Jews perished in Nazi death camps. Additionally, the Nazis severely persecuted the Slavic majority, deporting and executing Poles in efforts to obliterate the intelligentsia and Polish culture. A significant Polish resistance movement emerged, effectively opposing the occupation with the support of the Polish government-in-exile. Many exiled Poles also contributed to the Allied cause. The Soviets completed the liberation of Poland in 1945 and subsequently established a communist government in the nation.
