In the Second World War, Poland was a very sad country, they had only been restored for many years, and before they could build their own country, they were once again destroyed.
So how did Poland perform in World War II? Poland should not be the kind of "fool" rendered on the Internet, they do not lack wisdom, do not lack courage, only not strong enough, so they have become the British and French sell-out, the meat on the German chopping board, the laughter in people's eyes.
Poland and Germany were at odds, and they wanted to "preemptively"
On September 1, 1939, the Germans launched the Polish Campaign, which opened the European part of World War II.
In fact, Germany had already planned to fight Poland in the mid-20s, and before the wounds of the First World War could be healed, it wanted to recover the territories occupied by Poland such as Pomerania, Poznan and Silesia, and the free city of Danzig.
In 1934, the Nazis buried a time capsule in a Polish foundation, which contained a copy of Mein Kampf.
The Poles were not unaware of Germany's intentions, they were like needles. Hitler took advantage of the Polish question in 1933, provoked German nationalism, and made Poland a target that must be destroyed, saying that Poland and Jews would be killed.
So the Polish Marshal Jozef Pilsudski proposed to France a joint war plan, asking the two to wipe out fascist Germany and overthrow Hitler. But the French, in response to the Soviets' policy of appeasement, rejected the plan and scolded the Poles for "frantically instigating war."
Unable to kill Germany, Poland chose to fight with the tiger
After realizing that it could not deal with Germany, Poland began to pursue the possibility of cooperation with Germany in order to enhance the bonds of interests and mutual trust between the two sides.
In 1934, Germany and Poland signed a non-aggression pact, but as soon as they took a breath, Germany immediately invited Poland to join the anti-Soviet alliance. Unwilling to be caught between the Soviet Union and Germany as a battlefield, Poland pushed back on Germany and strengthened ties with France, hoping that hugging France's lap would solve the problem.
Polish tanks entering the Czech industrial zone
Poland continued to cooperate with Germany, however, and in the Munich Conspiracy of 1938, they colluded with Germany to divide up parts of Czechoslovakia, even though the Czechs had previously expressed their willingness to relinquish the disputed territories occupied in 1919 and half of the ownership of the Skoda factory.
It didn't take long for the Poles to come away with the hungry wolf of Germany, and Hitler threatened to return the free city of Danzig to Germany in March 1939, and then the two sides collapsed and began preparations for war.
The Polish army was not as backward as one might think
Although much historical information indicates that Poland was a weak and backward waste country, this stemmed mostly from the slander of Poland by the fascist camp.
Poland had the world's first "all-metal air force" in the 1920s, and at the beginning of the war they also had the world's most advanced PZL.37 Łoś elk bomber in the world at the time.
PZL.37 Elk
There are also examples such as the MG42 machine gun, which became a symbol of the German army in World War II, known for its "tearing machine" and "Hitler's trouser zipper". However, the original technical data of the MG42 originated from the German raid on Poland in 39 years, and then Dr. Grounov designed the MG42 based on Polish drawings and combined with the experience of the MG34.
Polish 7TP tank
In the 1930s, Poland's defense expenditure as a proportion of gdp ranked second in Europe, second only to the Soviet Union, ahead of Germany, but Poland's foundation is too poor, as a country that was only restored after World War I, they lacked more than funds, and a large number of defense budgets were used in road construction, equipment purchases, plant construction and other basic units. If we actually spend military expenditure alone, the Luftwaffe alone is 10 times that of Poland.
In combat, the Polish army is actually not an elm head, they began to emphasize mechanized mobile operations very early, spurned static defense, in fact, they also belonged to the forerunner of new tactical theory, but the Polish army developed too slowly, the mobility was far lower than the more mechanized German army, coupled with the two blind commanders of Britain and France and the Soviet backstabbing, resulting in the Polish army being hanged.
Poland mobilized a lot of troops, and they were pitted
Poland had 30 active divisions and 7 reserve divisions, in addition to 12 cavalry brigades and a mechanized cavalry brigade. But the Germans deployed about 1.8 million troops. The Germans had 2,600 tanks, Poland could pull out only 180, the Germans had more than 2,000 aircraft, and Poland had only 420.
In August 1939, the Polish and German sides had actually begun to move, small-scale clashes were very frequent, and the Polish Border Guard sent elite troops to fight and counter-sabotage, which once again "shocked" the French, and they demanded that the Poles stop provoking Hitler.
Poland had mobilized a total of 2.5 million people before the war, but only 600,000 by the time the war began on September 1, when Poland terminated the mobilization order because of the French suspension, but because war was inevitable, the mobilization order came into effect again on August 30. The move put only one-third of Poland's troops in place on September 1.
Polish telecommunications deciphering capabilities were unexpectedly powerful
Poland is not a stupid country, and this place with quite a large number of Jews is very good at calculations and mathematics.
In the 1930s, a group of young Polish mathematicians had successfully cracked The German military communication code, which is believed to have been compiled by the early models of the famous Enigma enigma coding machine in World War II. In 1938, Poland could crack almost all German radios. When the Germans sensed the problem, they upgraded the machines, making it more difficult to crack, but the Poles were still able to decipher 10% of the Wehrmacht communications in 39 years.
When the war broke out on September 1, 1939, because the German gendarmerie continued to use the old system, the Poles were able to see through it, so the Polish High Command had the position and deployment of 90% of the German combat troops on the Eastern Front.
Polish cavalry slashing tanks was a lie spewed out by Nazi propaganda machines
Poland did have cavalry, but they were mainly used for infantry mobility to increase the speed of mobile combat of troops, and rarely fought on horseback, which was roughly 10%. But in the Nazi propaganda apparatus, the Polish became a pathetic clown who fought like the ancient winged cavalry.
Polish cavalry with spears
The fact is that when Guderian's Mechanized Corps attacked the Polish army on 1 September, a unit of the Pomelska Cavalry Brigade targeted a German infantry battalion encamped. So the Polish cavalry rushed up and slashed and killed the Germans. During the battle, German armored units arrived and dispersed the cavalry, killing several men, which the Nazis advertised as "stupid Poles charging German steel chariots on horseback."
In fact, on 1 September, Guderian was already sweating a little on his forehead, and the German 20th Motorized Division was repulsed by the Polish 18th Lanser Regiment (Bolemese Lancers).
The Poles did have some brain holes, such as their desire to ration cavalry to tank units, and when tank troops charged, cavalry followed behind to expand the results. This is actually a copy of mechanized combat, and the Polish army, which is seriously lacking in armored vehicles, must not come up with this kind of trick of using horses and tanks.
In fact, the land of Poland is full of rivers, swamps and forests, and if the cavalry is used well, it is indeed a combat force that cannot be ignored. The Soviets also used Cossacks, and the Italian cavalry also cut the Soviets. After all, it was a junction between electrical automation and the old era.
The Poles won the Battle of the German Cavalry and captured the German generals
On September 23, 1939, three squadrons of the Polish Nogrod Cavalry Brigade defeated a part of the German Eighth Infantry Division at Krasnobrod, and the scattered German army ran to the town down the hill, and the Polish cavalry rose up in pursuit, resisting German machine gun fire and defeating it again.
German cavalry
As a result, the operation caught a big fish, not only defeated the last German cavalry, but also captured the cavalry general Rudolf Koch-Erpach of the Eighth Infantry Division, and gave the opposing command to a pot. In this battle, Lieutenant Tadeuz Gleki, commanding the Second Squadron, defeated a German cavalry unit— the last battle between rival cavalry in military history. (Old Li that cavalry even did not say we understand)
Poland is not stupid, and planned the La-In-French cushion back at the beginning
Poland's national policy was to closely follow Britain and France, to fight against Germany and the Soviet Union, and to survive in the cracks, so they were very concerned about whether Britain and France could be pulled into the war at the first time.
The war was on the verge of breaking out in 1939, and Poland's defense strategy was a profound manifestation of this, and they were ready to abandon their borders to defend themselves against the enemy, because after Germany took out the Czech Republic, it could attack from many aspects. The Poles prepared to withdraw to the southeast of the border with Romania, backed by friendly neighbors, using the rugged terrain, reserves of equipment and supplies, and intensively defended the battle until Britain and France entered the war.
This strategy was still valid on 25 August, but the British and French forced the Poles to change their strategy, demanding that Poland resist on the border to avoid Germany taking advantage of the opportunity to swallow Danzig and other places, and to guarantee that "any German attack will be declared war".
As a result, the Poles changed their deployment on August 30, the Germans attacked Poland on September 1, and the two pits of Britain and France were just declaring war and did not move, but they also told Poland not to evade their obligations.
The old German battleships fired the first guns of World War II
The battleship Schleswig-Holstein was an old ship from world war I, but in the 1920s it became a symbol due to the decline of the German navy.
Before the start of the war in 1939, the Schleswig-Holstein was sent to the harbor of the free city of Danzig by the Germans under the pretext of a "courtesy visit". The old ship was in place at 4:45 a.m., and it laid down 182 men to defend the shore, and then launched a fierce bombardment of the Polish with its huge cannons.
The Poles were very brave at the time, and when they found out that they had been attacked, someone actually pushed a small field gun to shoot at the battleship. The staff of the Danzig Post and Telecommunications Bureau and some of the reserves took up guns and fought the Nazis all day, and after defeat, they were executed on the spot.
The Resistance of the Poles was very brave
In the face of the German onslaught, the Polish army and civilians rose up in resistance, and in addition to the postmen, the railway workers of Danzig also resisted bravely, and they thwarted the German attempt to attack the Vistula River Bridge with armored vehicles.
When Nazi armored vehicles burst into the Heart of Poland, in order to suppress the constant resistance, they carried out Hitler's command: "Kill without mercy or mercy all men, women and children of Polish origin or language ... Only then can we get the living space we need. ”
As a result, the Nazi army began to culled civilians and used women and children as human shields to disarm the Polish army.
The Polish Volinska Cavalry Brigade performed so well that the Nazi 4th Panzer Division attacked two regiments of the Wolinska Cavalry Brigade, so they laid out pocket formations and killed more than 50 German tank armored vehicles in one fell swoop.
How many pits are these two pits in Britain and France?
The French did little but "help" to prevent the mobilization of Poland as a whole, and they looked at Britain with their eyes in the hope that Britain would make a statement.
However, when the hat of the "ally-averse" was put on the head of the British, the British were still meeting to discuss what to do. They had forgotten exactly how they had "assured" Poland of what they had done, and had the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, send a note to Germany stating that "you are engaged in an invasion", and subsequently stating that the note was "of a warning nature only and should not be regarded as an ultimatum".
The Chamberlain administration, at the last minute, remained unwilling to accept the failure of the appeasement policy, and still wanted to co-opt Germany into a "powerful ally", trapped in pacifist illusions.
While the British Parliament dragged Chamberlain to the stage to give a speech in the face of outrage, people waiting to hear the ultimatum heard the Prime Minister say: "Hitler is a busy man, and may not have had time to review the Note from Berlin".
The whole audience was stupid, and then Chamberlain felt that he was also stupid, and only declared war on September 3.
But the British and French armies remained idle, and they watched nothing, which made the Germans wonder and the Poles were sad. Later German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel also said: "If France responds with a full-scale invasion of Germany, Germany will fall immediately." ”
Polish revolt after occupation
The German and Soviet occupation of Poland was quite iron-fisted, as resistance rose and fell, repression became more ferocious, and countless people were simply executed.
Many Poles fled into the forest against the Germans, most notably the story of "Major Huber". This man's real name was Henrik Dobzansky, and he took more than 70 people to drill ravines, sleep in the jungle, and get the Germans a vote when they found the opportunity, which made the Germans very angry. In the end, Huber was rounded up and killed by the Germans in April 1940, and in order to completely eliminate the resistance of the Poles, they crushed Huber's body to ashes.
Huber Henryk Dobrzanski
During the war, a large number of Polish troops fled abroad, such as 3 destroyers made their home in Britain and continued to fight with the Germans, one was blown to pieces by the Germans, and 2 successfully survived World War II. In addition, many Polish soldiers fled to other countries, such as the Soviet Union, which formed a Predominantly Polish Red Army unit, and the West also formed Polish armored units and airborne troops.
To liberate the Netherlands, the Polish army contributed a lot
Polish immigrants, refugees, escaped soldiers, and escaped prisoners of war formed the "Polish First Panzer Division" in Britain.
They entered the war in August 1944 and joined the Allied forces in the Normandy area, then passed through Belgium into the Netherlands, and within the formation of the Canadian 2nd Army, they fought fiercely in the Battle of the Scheldt with the British 1st Army.
The Polish 1st Panzer Division liberated the Dutch city of Breda on 29 October 1944 and was greeted with great enthusiasm by the Dutch people, who posted signs in the windows with the slogan "Thank you Poles".
Because many Dutch cities were liberated, the Dutch erected monuments to the Poles to commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of the Poles in the battle to liberate the Netherlands.
The "Back Pot Man" of Market Garden Action
Poland's 1st Independent Airborne Brigade took part in Operation Market Garden, where nearly 2,000 were airdropped to the battlefield to aid British troops.
In support of the British First Airborne Division north of the Rhine, Polish paratroopers were parachuted into Drier, the Netherlands, in bad weather, and 500 men returned halfway due to weather conditions that day, but the confusion of command caused other aircraft to not receive instructions to terminate their missions, and they still landed.
Because the ferry on the nearby river was destroyed, the Polish paratroopers crossed the Lower Rhine in rubber boats, then engaged the Germans in a fierce battle and reinforced the British in Osterbik, and when the British retreated on September 25, it was the Polish paratrooper brigade that struggled to cover it, and their battalions paid up to 40% of the casualties.
Unwilling to admit that it was Montgomery's strategic mistake and unwilling to tear up too stiffly with the complaining Americans, the British military blamed the Poles for the black pot and accused polish general Sosabowski of being a major factor in the failure of Operation Market Garden. The black cauldron made Sosabowski, known as the "first Polish paratrooper", buckle until his death before being rehabilitated.
Facing the danger of the Warsaw Uprising, Sosabovsky had called for an airborne landing in Warsaw, but was sternly refused.
How, what's the feeling?