History Thread: 75th Anniversary Of The Beginning Of The War Of Polish Aggresion

On this day in 1939 the war of Polish Aggression began with the seizure of the Gleiwitz Radio Tower in Upper Silesia, Germany by Polish Soldiers.



The Soldiers broadcast a number of anti-German messages before the station was recaptured.

This was proven to be the final straw in a series of aggressive acts by the Poles since 1918.

Despite winning a resounding victory on the Eastern Front in World War One Germany was stripped of several territories that had been German for nearly a millennia. Proof is in the maps:

It started with the Teutonic Knights ("Deutscher Orden" or "German Order") who settled the area and created the Teutonic State in a 13th Century Crusade to Christianize the Baltic:


This continued into golden era of the first German Reich



...and into the second Reich:



Then, at the end of World War One, despite defeating the Russians and driving them to peace in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Despite the fact that the Germans had never been defeated on the field of battle, no blood had been shed on German soil and the Kaiser's Army had advanced within five miles of Paris the Germans sued for peace and lost the negotiations. Many Germans in these traditionally German areas were driven to live under Polish rule in a new Polish state...and we're not even going to talk about how the same thing happened in the West with Elsaß-Lothringen and Straßburg.

Many plebiscites were held in these areas after Versailles and most all of them voted to remain German but still these territories were handed to Poland. West Prussia, Prussian since 1466 and before that German under the Tetuonic Knights was one of these territories:





Danzig, a Germany City for seven hundred years was also stripped away from Germany.

Emboldened by their diplomatic victories Poles began attacking Germans civilians and authorities in those territories that remained German in the Silesian Uprisings of 1918-1921. They did this in the hope of forcing Germans out of the area so they could win the plebiscites. Polish insurgents:



In 1938 Germany annexed the Sudetenland, a traditionally German area that had been given to the Czechs causing international uproar.

Maps of Germans by percentage in the interwar Sudetenland:


Hitler was painted as being some terribly evil guy at the time (which he was because of the holocaust but that's a different issue) despite the fact that the Americans and Brits did this in the past with Texas, Ireland and so on.

In response to the reunification of Germany the English got ansy and signed a treaty of "defense" with Poland in March of 1939. Emboldened once more the Poles began probing German borders and got themselves in a world of hurt.

But that's not what you'll read in any textbooks.

Nope, Germany was bent on world domination. yada yada yada.