Germany Invades Poland
On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland. The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to start a war--what would become known has the "blitzkreig" strategy. This strategy had extensive bombing early on to destroy the enemy's air capacity, railroads, communication lines, and munitions dumps. Also this was followd by a massive land invasion with alot of troops, tanks, artillery. Once Hitler setteled a base of operations within Poland, he began setting up "security" forces to annihilate all of his enemys of the Nazi ideology. Concentration camps were already being set up for slave labourers and the extermination of civilians. An example is that one day after the invasion, Hitler was already setting up SS "Death's Head" regiments to terrorize the population.
The Polish army made several strategic miscalculations. Even thought they were 1 million strong, they were severly under-equipped and attempted to take the Germans head-on, rather then falling back to more natural defensive positions. The thinking of the Polish commanders was no match for the overwhelming and modern mechanized German forces. (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-invades-poland)
Before the invasion of Poland, Hitler's first foreign policy initiatives, after coming to power, was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland in January 1934. The move wasnt very popular with many Germans who supported Hitler but resented the fact that Poland had recieved the former German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan, and Upper Silesia under the Treaty of Versaillies after WW1. Though the main reason Hitler sought the nonaggression pact was to neutralize the possiblity of a French-Polish military alliance against Germany before Germany had the chance to rearm. Hitler negotiated a nonaggression act with the Soviet Union in the summer of 1939. This pact called the German-Soviet Pact, stated that Poland was to be partitionated between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention.
In October 1939, Germany directly cutoff those former Polish territories along Germany's eastern border. The remainder of German-occupied Poland was organized has the so called General gouvernement(General Government) under a civilian governor general, Nazi party lawyer Hanz Frank.
Nazi Germany occupied the remainder of Poland when it invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Poland remained under German occupation until January 1945. (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005070)
The Polish army made several strategic miscalculations. Even thought they were 1 million strong, they were severly under-equipped and attempted to take the Germans head-on, rather then falling back to more natural defensive positions. The thinking of the Polish commanders was no match for the overwhelming and modern mechanized German forces. (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-invades-poland)
Before the invasion of Poland, Hitler's first foreign policy initiatives, after coming to power, was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland in January 1934. The move wasnt very popular with many Germans who supported Hitler but resented the fact that Poland had recieved the former German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan, and Upper Silesia under the Treaty of Versaillies after WW1. Though the main reason Hitler sought the nonaggression pact was to neutralize the possiblity of a French-Polish military alliance against Germany before Germany had the chance to rearm. Hitler negotiated a nonaggression act with the Soviet Union in the summer of 1939. This pact called the German-Soviet Pact, stated that Poland was to be partitionated between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention.
In October 1939, Germany directly cutoff those former Polish territories along Germany's eastern border. The remainder of German-occupied Poland was organized has the so called General gouvernement(General Government) under a civilian governor general, Nazi party lawyer Hanz Frank.
Nazi Germany occupied the remainder of Poland when it invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Poland remained under German occupation until January 1945. (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005070)