DK - World War II Map by Map

POLAND DESTROYED 39

POLAND OCCUPIED

Both Jews and ethnic Poles suffered

under German and Soviet occupation,

as mass executions, confinement in

the ghettos, and deportation took

a heavy toll.

Sites of large

massacres

SOVIET OPPRESSION SEPTEMBER 1939–JUNE 1941

The Soviet regime swiftly rounded up hundreds of thousands

of Poles deemed to be a threat or “anti-Soviet.” In April

and May 1940, around 22,000 officers and members of the

intelligentsia were executed by the NKVD (Soviet secret police)

at Katyn. In total, the Soviets deported over 1 million Polish

men, women, and children to labor camps.

4

Deportation of Poles,

Oct 1939–Jun 1941

Soviet

territory

POLAND DESTROYED

Poland emerged from World War I as an independent state after more than 200 years of

subjugation. However, it took just a few weeks in 1939 for Germany and the Soviet Union

to crush Polish resistance, divide the country, and begin brutalizing its population.

After Germany’s expansion into Austria

and Czechoslovakia, Hitler determined

to attack Poland to regain lost territory

and create Lebensraum (“living space”)

for his people, turning Poland into

a German satellite state. Under the

terms of the cynical pact that he had

negotiated with the Soviet Union in

1939 (see pp.32–33), Poland was to be

partitioned between the two powers;

this enabled Germany to attack Poland

without the fear of Soviet intervention.

On September 1, German troops

moved into the country. Although

France and Britain declared war on

Germany on September 3, they reneged

on their promise to provide military aid

to Poland, giving Hitler a free hand.

Within a week, German “Blitzkrieg”

tactics had squeezed Polish forces

into the heart of Poland. When the

Soviet army invaded from the east on

September 17, Poland’s fate was sealed.

With its forces trapped between

two enemies, Poland capitulated on

September 28. The country was split

into three: one zone was annexed by

Germany, one by Soviet Russia, and the

third—the General Government—was

occupied by the Germans.

Nov 1939 184 professors

from the Jagiellonian

University in Krakow are

sent to concentration camps.

First mass executions of Operation

Tannenburg, Oct 20, 1939

German territory

OPERATION TANNENBURG

SEPTEMBER 1939– JANUARY 1940

In a sustained campaign of terror, Operation Tannenburg,

the Germans attempted to destroy Poland’s elites—from the

intelligentsia and nobility to priests and teachers—in the hope

of leaving Poland incapable of challenging Germany. Tens of

thousands of Poles were imprisoned or executed, often en

masse and in public, by SS Einsatzgruppen units.

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THE POLISH GHETTOS SEPTEMBER 1939–JUNE 1941

The Jews in German-occupied Poland were ghettoized—

confined to small urban zones surrounded by walls and barbed

wire, where many died of hunger and disease. The largest

ghetto, Warsaw, was established on October 12, 1940. More

than 350,000 Jews—a third of the city’s population—were

confined in just 2.4 percent of the city’s total area.

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Largest ghettos

INVASION AND OPPRESSION

Poland was destroyed in a matter of

weeks from August 31 to October 12,

1939. The Poles were seen by their
      occupiers as an inferior people and
      suffered deeply under the oppressive
      regimes imposed upon them.

JAN 1940 JUL JAN 1941 JUL JAN 1942

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TIMELINE

JUL 1939

POLAND

U

S

S R

SLOVAKIA

EAST

PRUSSIA

ROMANIA

G

R

E

A

T

E

R

G

E

R

M

A

N

Y

Ba

lt

ic

S

e

a

PRO

TECT

ORAT

E (^) OF
BOH
EMIA
AND
MORAV
IA
HUNGARY
LITHUANIA
LATVIA
Polish
Corridor
To^ A
rkha
ngel
sk^ O
blas
t
To^ Siber
ia
To Kaza
khstan
Kalinin
Katyn
Kherson
Kiev
Minsk
Kharkov
Lodz
Warsaw
Śrem
Kórnik
Mosina Kostrzyn
Radom
Minsk Mazowiecki
Lublin
Krakow
Bedzin
Środa
Wielkopolska
Książ Wielkopolski
Oct 1939–Jul 1941
Around 1 million Poles
are expelled from the
German zone; the
region is resettled
by Germans.
US_038-039_Poland_destroyed.indd 39 22/03/19 2:38 PM