26. The myth of the Red Army as liberator.
27. The reality: General Olszyna-Wilczyński, murdered by a Red Army patrol.
28. ‘Queer allies’: Wehrmacht and Red Army officers confer outside Lwów;
29. A Red Army guard on the German-Soviet frontier: the ‘boundary of peace’.
30. Hitler arrives to claim Danzig.
31. The guns of Oksywie, barely silenced by Hitler’s arrival.
32. ‘All one can see is the chimneys of large bread ovens’: the remains of a Polish town.
33. Polish refugees take to the road, for many the start of an odyssey.
34. Poland’s peripatetic commander-in-chief, Edward Śmigły-Rydz.
35. Kutrzeba surrenders an ‘unrecognisable’ Warsaw to the Germans.
36. Modlin follows suit: ‘a free man turns into a slave’.
37. A Wehrmacht soldier guards a pile of Polish helmets.
38. Polish prisoners of the Red Army, marching into oblivion.
39. General Franciszek Kleeberg, who surrendered the last regular Polish forces at Kock in October 1939.
40. Hitler reviews his victorious 8th Army in Warsaw.
41. Red Army troops parade in captured Lwów, beneath Stalin’s stern gaze.
APPENDIX 1
Polish Army Order of Battle,1 September 1939
Pomeranian Army (commander: General Władysław Bortnowski)
9th Infantry Division, 15th Infantry Division, 27th Infantry Division, Pomeranian National Defence Brigade, Chełmno Nation Defence Brigade
Operational Group ‘East’
4th Infantry Division, 16th Infantry Division
Czersk Operational Group
Pomeranian Cavalry Brigade, Kościerzyna National Defence Brigade, Chojnice Detatchment
Modlin Army (commander: General Emil Krukowicz-Przedrzymirski)
8th Infantry Division, 20th Infantry Division, Nowogródek Cavalry Brigade, Mazowiecka Cavalry Brigade, Warsaw National Defence Brigade
Narew Independent Operational Group (commander: General Czesław Młot-Fijałkowski)
18th Infantry Division, 33rd Infantry Division, Podlaska Cavalry Brigade, Suwalska Cavalry Brigade
Poznań Army (commander: Major General Tadeusz Kutrzeba)
14th Infantry Division, 17th Infantry Division, 25th Infantry Division, 26th Infantry Division, Wielkopolska Cavalry Brigade, Podolska Cavalry Brigade
Łódź Army (commander: General Juliusz Rómmel)
2nd Legions Infantry Division, 10th Infantry Division, 28th Infantry Division, Kresowa Cavalry Brigade, Sieradz National Defence Brigade
Piotrków Operational Group
30th Infantry Division, Wołyńska Cavalry Brigade
Kraków Army (commander: General Antoni Szylling)
6th Infantry Division, 7th Infantry Division, 11th Infantry Division, Kraków Cavalry Brigade, 10th Motorised Cavalry Brigade
Silesian Operational Group
23rd Infantry Division, 55th Infantry Division
Bielsko Operational Group
21st Mountain Infantry Division, 1st Mountain Brigade
Carpathian Army (commander: Major General Kazimierz Fabrycy)
22nd Mountain Infantry Division, 2nd Mountain Brigade, 3rd Mountain Brigade, Carpathian National Defence Brigade
Reserve
24th Infantry Division, 38th Infantry Division
APPENDIX 2
German Army Order of Battle, 1 September 19391
Army Group North (commander: Colonel-General Fedor von Bock)
Army Group Reserve
10th Panzer Division, 73rd Infantry Division, 206th Infantry Division, 208th Infantry Division
3rd Army (commander: General Georg von Küchler)
I Corps
Panzer Division Kempf, 11th Infantry Division, 61th Infantry Division
XXI Corps
21st Infantry Division, 228th Infantry Division
Brandt Corps
Goldap Infantry Brigade, Lötzen Infantry Brigade
Wodrig Corps
1st Infantry Division, 12th Infantry Division,
3rd Army Reserve
217th Infantry Division, 1st Cavalry Brigade
4th Army (commander: General Günther von Kluge)
I Frontier Guard Corps
207th Infantry Division
II Corps
3rd Infantry Division, 32nd Infantry Division
III Corps
Netze Infantry Brigade, 50th Infantry Division
XIX Motorised Corps
2nd Motorised Division, 3rd Panzer Division, 20th Motorised Division, Panzer Lehr-Regiment
4th Army Reserve
II Frontier Guard Corps
XII Frontier Guard Corps
23rd Infantry Division, 218th Infantry Division
Army Group South (commander: Colonel-General Gerd von Rundstedt)
Army Group Reserve
VII Corps
27th Infantry Division, 68th Infantry Division
62nd Infantry Division, 213th Infantry Division, 221st Infantry Division, 239th Infantry Division
8th Army (commander: General Johannes von Blaskowitz)
X Corps
24th Infantry Division, 30th Infantry Division
XIII Corps
10th Infantry Division, 17th Infantry Division, SS Motorised Regiment ‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’
XIII Frontier Guards Corps
XIV Frontier Guards Corps
10th Army (commander: General Walther von Reichenau)
IV Corps
4th Infantry Division, 46th Infantry Division
XI Corps
18th Infantry Division, 19th Infantry Division
XIV Motorised Corps
13th Motorised Division, 29th Motorised Division
XV Motorised Corps
2nd Light Division, 3rd Light Division
XVI Panzer Corps
1st Panzer Division, 4th Panzer Division, 14th Infantry Division, 31st Infantry Division
10th Army Reserve
1st Light Division
14th Army (commander: General Wilhelm List)
VIII Corps
5th Panzer Division, 8th Infantry Division, 28th Infantry Division, SS-Germania Motorised Infantry Regiment
XVII Corps
7th Infantry Division, 44th Infantry Division, 45th Infantry Division
XVIII Corps
2nd Panzer Division, 3rd Mountain Division, 4th Light Division
XXII Corps
1st Mountain Division, 2nd Mountain Division
Slovak Army ‘Bernolak’
1st Infantry Division, 2nd Infantry Division, 3rd Infantry Division
APPENDIX 3
Red Army Order of Battle 17 September 19391
Byelorussian Front (commander: General Mikhail Kovalev)
3rd Army (commander: Komkor Vasily Kuznetsov)
4th Rifle Corps
27th Rifle Division, 50th Rifle Division, 18th Tank Brigade
Lepelska Army Group
5th Rifle Division, 24th Cavalry Division, 22nd Tank Brigade, 25th Tank Brigade
4th Army (commander: Komkor Vasily Chuikov)
8th Rifle Division, 29th Rifle Division, 32nd Tank Brigade
23rd Rifle Corps
52nd Rifle Division, Dniepr Military Flotilla
10th Army (commander: Komkor Ivan Zakharkin)
11th Rifle Corps
6th Rifle Division, 33rd Rifle Division, 121st Rifle Division
11th Army (commander: Komkor Nikolai Medvedev)
16th Rifle Corps
2nd Rifle Division, 100th Rifle Division
3rd Cavalry Corps
7th Cavalry Division, 36th Cavalry Division, 6th Tank Brigade
Dzerzhinsk Mechanised Cavalry Group (commander: Komkor Ivan Boldin)
5th Rifle Corps
4th Rifle Division, 13th Rifle Division
6th Cavalry Corps
4th Cavalry Division, 6th Cavalry Division, 11th Cavalry Division
1
5th Tank Corps
2nd Tank Brigade, 27th Tank Brigade, 20th Motorised Brigade, 21st Tank Brigade
Ukrainian Front (commander: General Semyon Timoshenko)
5th Army (commander: Komdiv Ivan Sovetnikov)
8th Rifle Corps
44th Rifle Division, 81st Rifle Division, 36th Tank Brigade
15th Rifle Corps
45th Rifle Division, 60th Rifle Division, 87th Rifle Division
6th Army (commander: Komkor Filipp Golikov)
17th Rifle Corps
96th Rifle Division, 97th Rifle Division, 10th Tank Brigade, 38th Tank Brigade
2nd Cavalry Corps
3rd Cavalry Division, 5th Cavalry Division, 14th Cavalry Division, 24th Tank Brigade
12th Army (commander: Komandarm Ivan Tyulenev)
13th Rifle Corps
72nd Rifle Division, 99th Rifle Division
4th Cavalry Corps
32nd Cavalry Division, 34th Cavalry Division, 26th Tank Brigade
5th Cavalry Corps
9th Cavalry Division, 16th Cavalry Division, 23rd Tank Brigade
25th Tank Corps
4th Tank Brigade, 5th Tank Brigade, 1st Motorised Brigade
Notes
Prologue
1 Alfred Spiess and Heiner Lichtenstein, Das Unternehmen Tannenberg (Wiesbaden, 1979), p. 79.
2 Ibid., p. 80.
3 Report of Staatsanwaltschaft Düsseldorf, December 1969, Bundesarchiv, B162/20571, p. 9.
4 Spiess and Lichtenstein, op. cit., p. 81.
5 William Shirer,The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (London, 1960), p. 629.
6 Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham (eds), Nazism 1919–1945, Vol. 3: Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination (Exeter, 1988), p. 743.
7 Tomasz Chinciński, ‘Piąta kolumna’, Polityka, 4 November 2009. See also Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Polish White Book, Vol. 1 (London, 1940), Doc. 116, pp. 124–6.
8 List of victims from Polska Zbrojna, 30 August 1939.
9 Guzy interrogation, Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie Oddział w Tarnowie, 33/226, sig. V141.
10 Jochen Böhler, Der Überfall: Deutschlands Krieg gegen Polen (Frankfurt am Main, 2009), p. 63.
11 ‘The Overture’, Alfred Naujocks deposition, p. 9, Ian Sayer Archive.
12 Bundesarchiv, R9350/774.
13 ‘Polens Schande’, Völkischer Beobachter, 31 August 1939, p. 1.
14 Spiess and Lichtenstein, op. cit., pp. 156–76.
15 See the deposition of SS-Unterscharführer Josef Grzimek in Bundesarchiv, B162/20571.
16 Spiess and Lichtenstein, op. cit., p. 129.
17 Naujocks deposition, op. cit., p. 9b.
18 Quoted in Dennis Whitehead, ‘The Gleiwitz Incident’, After the Battle, 142 (2008), p. 13.
19 Naujocks deposition, op. cit., p. 15.
20 Jürgen Runzheimer, ‘Der Überfall auf den Sender Gleiwitz im Jahre 1939’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 10 (1962), p. 415.
21 Polish text quoted in Roger Moorhouse, Trzecia Rzesza w 100 Przedmiotach (Kraków, 2018), p. 180.
22 Naujocks deposition, op. cit., p. 18.
23 Böhler, op. cit., p. 70.
24 See the deposition of Kriminalsekretär Karl Nowak in Bundesarchiv, B162/20571.
25 See the deposition of Alfred Naujocks in Bundesarchiv, B162/1490, pp. 2–3.
26 See, for instance, ‘Polen-Überfall auf reichsdeutschen Sender Gleiwitz’, Völkischer Beobachter, 1 September 1939, pp. 1–2; ‘Ueberfall auf Gleiwitzer Sender’, Oberschlesischer Wanderer, 1 September 1939, p. 1.
1 ‘Westerplatte Fights On’
1 Andrzej Drzycimski, Westerplatte: Special Mission (Gdańsk, 2015), p. 54.
2 Ibid., p. 46.
3 Deposition of Wiktor Białous-Bielas, Karta Archive, Warsaw, AW/I/0034.
4 ‘Kriegstagebuch des Linienschiffes Schleswig-Holstein’, 1 September 1939, 4.48 a.m., Naval Historical Branch, Portsmouth, PG713.
5 Białous-Bielas deposition, op. cit.
6 Drzycimski, op. cit., p. 63.
7 Andrzej Drzycimski and Janusz Górski, The Redoubt Westerplatte (Gdańsk, 2015), p. 45.
8 Willi Aurich, quoted in Dieter Schenk, Die Post von Danzig: Geschichte eines deutschen Justizmords (Reinbek, 1995), p. 77.
9 ‘Kriegstagebuch’, op. cit., 27 August 1939.
10 Ibid., 31 August 1939.
11 Richard Hargreaves, Blitzkrieg Unleashed: The German Invasion of Poland 1939 (Barnsley, 2008), p. 103.
12 ‘Kriegstagebuch’, op. cit., Beilage, report by Kapitänleutnant Merten, 1 September 1939.
13 Białous-Bielas deposition, op. cit.
14 ‘Kriegstagebuch’, op. cit., 1 September 1939.
15 Drzycimski, op. cit., p. 65.
16 ‘Kriegstagebuch’, op. cit., 1 September 1939, 7.20 a.m.
17 Ibid., 1 September 1939, 8.55 a.m.
18 Leon Pająk, quoted in Zbigniew Flisowski (ed.), Westerplatte (Warsaw, 1974), p. 89.
19 Rolf Michaelis, SS-Heimwehr Danzig 1939 (Bradford, 1996), p. 32.
20 ‘Kriegstagebuch’, op. cit., 1 September 1939, 1 p.m.
21 Ibid., Beilage.
22 Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (ed.), Generaloberst Halder Kriegstagebuch, Bd. I: vom Polenfeldzug bis zum Ende der Westoffensive (Stuttgart, 1962), p. 55.
23 Sucharski quoted in Flisowski, op. cit., p. 50.
24 Alfons Flisykowski interrogation record, courtesy of Muzeum Poczty Polskiej, Gdańsk, p. 5.
25 Schenk, op. cit., p. 61.
26 Bob Carruthers, Poland 1939: The Blitzkrieg Unleashed (Barnsley, 2011), p. 88.
27 Anton Winter, quoted in Michaelis, op. cit., p. 22.
28 Schenk, op. cit., p. 61.
29 Flisykowski, op. cit., p. 5.
30 Testimony of Franciszek Milewczyk, from Janina Skowrońska-Feldmanowa bequest, Jagiellonian University Archives, Kraków, DLXXXVI/13.
31 Schenk, op. cit., p. 67.
32 Ibid., p. 66.
33 Ibid., p. 67.
34 Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945 (Wiesbaden, 1973), vol. 3, p. 1307.
35 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London, 1970), p. 236; Wahl quoted in Wilhelm Deist et al., Ursachen und Voraussetzungen des Zweiten Weltkrieges (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), p. 25.
36 Heinz Linge, With Hitler to the End: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler’s Valet (London, 2009), p. 116; Birger Dahlerus, The Last Attempt (London, 1948), p. 119.
37 Domarus, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 1313.
38 Ibid., p. 1314.
39 Halder quoted in ibid., p. 1317.
40 HMSO, Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D 1937–1945, Vol. 7: The Last Days of Peace, August 9–September 3 1939 (London, 1956), Weizsäcker circular, 1 September 1939, Doc. 512, p. 491.
41 William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (London, 1964), p. 721.
42 Quoted in Miroslav Ferič, Pamiętnik wojenny pilota 111 Eskadry Myśliwskiej im. Tadeusza Kościuszki, vol. 1, p. 5, Central Military Library, Warsaw, Rps 126.
43 Diary of Alma Heczko, Karta Archive, Warsaw, AW/II/1297/2K; testimony of Konstanty Peszyński, Karta Archive, Warsaw, AW/II/3448.
44 Broadcast of Roman Umiastowski, cited in Hargreaves, op. cit., p. 121.
45 Władyław Szpilman, The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw 1939–45 (London, 2002), pp. 24–5.
46 Quoted in Express Poranny, 2 September 1939, p. 1.
47 Quoted in Hargreaves, op. cit., p. 84.
48 Testimony of Wacław Sawicki, Karta Archive, Warsaw, AW/II/3185.
49 Józef Garliński, Poland in the Second World War (Basingstoke, 1985), pp. 12–13; Steven Zaloga, Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg (Oxford, 2002), p. 23.
50 Witold Wojciechowski, Pamiętnik z wojny na morzu 1939–1943 (Gdańsk/Gdynia, 2014), pp. 30–34.
51 Steven Zaloga and Victor Madej, The Polish Campaign 1939 (New York, 1985), p. 31.
52 Quoted in C
ajus Bekker, The Luftwaffe War Diaries (New York, 1994), p. 37.
53 Szpilman, op. cit., p. 23; Alexander Polonius, I Saw the Siege of Warsaw (Glasgow, 1941), p. 24; Marta Korwin-Rhodes, The Mask of Warriors: The Siege of Warsaw, September 1939 (New York, 1964), p. 8.
54 Janine Phillips, My Secret Diary (London, 1982), pp. 47–8.
55 Herbert Schindler, Mosty und Dirschau 1939 (Freiburg, 1971), p. 101.
56 Ibid., p. 127.
57 Hozzel quoted in Peter C. Smith, Ju 87 Stuka: Luftwaffe Ju 87 Dive Bomber Units 1939–1941 (London, 2006), p. 20.
58 The precise timing of the Wieluń raid is disputed. I have concurred with Jochen Böhler, Grzegorz Bębnik and Sławomir Abramowicz, who cite Luftwaffe records showing it to be 5.40 a.m., rather than 4.40.
59 Quoted in Bekker, op. cit., pp. 32–3.
60 Sławomir Abramowicz, ‘Tragedia Wielunia w świetle materiałów śledztwa Oddziałowej Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu’, in Janusz Wróbel (ed.), Wieluń był pierwszy: bombardowania lotnicze miast regionu łódzkiego we wrześniu 1939 r. (Łódż, 2009), p. 134.
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