The Nazi invasion of Poland is one of the most harrowing episodes of the Second World War, which saw terrible scenes of abuse take place. Though long threatened, Poland was in no way prepared to face Hitler’s war machine when it finally attacked. Replete with tanks and planes, his would be a new kind of warfare. So, on the 10th of September 1939, Warsaw became the first capital in Europe to face relentless bombing raids, with Hitler - delighted by war - a spectator to the whole thing. The breaking point came when Stalin, whose troops had been fighting in Japan, agreed to send in his Red Army into Poland to reinforce the Germans. Before long, and despite their heroic resistance, the Poles had been decimated by German machinery, and nine days later the Nazis entered Danzig in triumph. With Warsaw an apocalyptic wasteland, Nazi occupied Poland became a hell of random brutality, discrimination, and horrific violence, particularly for the Jewish members of the population. Join Dominic and Tom for the tragic conclusion of their journey into the dark depths of the fall of Poland, including the invasion of the German war machine, Russian participation, and Poland's inspiring defence. _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Editor: Jack Meek Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What events led to the fall of Warsaw in 1939?
Now, meanwhile, in the West, the French and the British will launch their attack on Western Germany. Hitler will have to withdraw troops, recall troops to defend the fatherland. That will allow us to, at worst, stabilize our lines and at best, maybe launch a counterattack. So on paper, it doesn't sound like such a terrible scheme. But the issue is, will the French and the British do their bit?
Now, when the news broke that France and Britain had declared war on the 3rd of September, there were huge crowds in Warsaw, outside the embassies, people singing, you know, God Save the King and the Marseillaise and stuff, very moving scenes.
And two days later, on the 5th of September, the commander of the Polish armed forces, who's a guy called Marshal Rydz-Szmigli, he says, OK, let's put this band into operation. They start to withdraw to the center of the country. Give up Western Poland now. And they're waiting and waiting and waiting for the Allies to make their move.
And two days later, they get the first sign this is going to happen. The French cross into the Saarland at three points. And, you know, is this it? And actually, do you know what? The French just stop a few miles in. It's a complete sham. They don't even get to the fortified Siegfried Line, the line of kind of German forts. They hang around for a few, a couple of weeks. And then by early October...
They go back to France. And they outnumber the German forces in the West by five to one, six to one.
I mean, this is the thing. Goebbels, in his diary, wrote, the French withdrawal is more than astonishing. It is completely incomprehensible. At the Nuremberg trials, General Jodl told the judges, he told the trial, he said the French could have taken Germany in the first weeks of the war. He said they outnumbered us in the West by five to one. And they didn't do it.
And not only do they not launch a ground invasion of Germany, the Poles are begging London, please, when are the RAF going to attack the German airfields? When are they going to start hitting Germany? And they send direct messages, when are you going to do this? And the British say, we don't want to provoke German bombing raids of Britain. That's the last thing we want to do.
I mean, some British ministers notoriously said, well, we're not going to bomb German munitions factories and things like that because, I mean, that's private property. You couldn't attack people's private property. That's absolutely disgraceful. So all they do is they send the RF to drop propaganda leaflets over Germany saying, you know, you shouldn't be fighting the war.
You've let yourselves down.
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Chapter 2: How did Polish Mayor Stefan Starzynski inspire the nation?
wave after wave of bombers just indiscriminately hitting apartment blocks, schools, hospitals. In the end, there was so much fire, so much smoke that they basically had to call off the attack because they couldn't see what they were doing. There were just clouds and clouds of black smoke. Most people at this stage had run out of food.
Hundreds and hundreds of people are trapped in the ruins of these buildings. If you want to get a sense of it, I mean, why would you? But if you do, there's a brilliant documentary film, a very short film called Siege by an American photographer, Julian Bryan, who was basically the last Western journalist in Warsaw.
When you go to the museums in Gdansk and in Warsaw, they've always got this kind of playing. And it's extraordinarily kind of harrowing. I'll just read one eyewitness account to give you a sense of the novelty of it. Because that's the important thing. It's a scene that we're used to now from wartime footage. But the time was the first time it had happened.
And this is from a guy called General Stanislaw Sosabowski. Now, he actually ended up at Arnhem, a bridge too far. Do you know what? He was played by Gene Hackman in the film. Goodness. So imagine Gene Hackman telling you this. I was not expecting Gene Hackman to make it. No, no. It's always great to get him into the show.
He said, I had seen death and destruction in many forms, but never had I seen such mass destruction which hit everyone, regardless of innocence or guilt. Gone were the proud buildings of churches, museums and art galleries. Statues of famous men who fought for our freedom lay smashed to pieces at the bases of their plinths or stood decapitated and shell scarred.
The parks, created for their beauty and for the happy sounds of laughing, playing children, were empty and torn, the lawns dotted with the bare mounds of hurried graves. Almost the only noise was the rumble of bricks as walls weakened by bombs finally subsided. The smell of burning houses pillared into a windless sky and the smell of putrefaction lingered in the nostrils.
And if you juxtapose that... with the reading that we began the episode with you know one of them is warsaw's glory and the other is a much more unsentimental this is actually the reality of what it's like in the streets So also finally surrendered on the afternoon of the 27th. Its soldiers who defended it, 100,000 people, were led to POW camps.
The Nazi vengeance inevitably fell on the city's Jewish population. That was a third of the population, about 350,000 people. Their shops and houses looted. People are beaten up or killed in the streets. Women humiliated, stripped, raped, all of this kind of thing. I mean, it's a horrendous, horrendous scene. The news of Poland's defeat back in Germany, there was no triumph, actually.
There was no victory parade because, of course, the war wasn't over. They're still technically fighting Britain and France. And actually, for people who were in Berlin, they said, you know, nothing's really changed. You know, there's a bit of rationing, but otherwise nothing has changed. So William Shira, the journalist, American journalist, you've quoted a fair bit.
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