p The German Government began its succession of wars for world rule with the intention of first crushing countries whose governments, prompted by anti-Soviet sentiment, condoned and comforted aggressors. A provocation typical of German militarist methods provided a pretext for attacking Poland.

p The story of that provocation was a war secret guarded by the German Government under the code name of Operation Himmler. The “operation” was carried out by the military, which organised an attack by a group of SS-men and criminal elements disguised in Polish army uniforms on the town of Gleiwitz near the Polish border. Before dawn on September i, 1939, German radio stations interrupted their usual broadcasts to announce a "Polish attack”. They switched in Gleiwitz and listeners heard confused noises, revolver shots and Polish speech with strongly German overtones.

p Not more than a few hours passed before the flames of war were alight. The battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the town and fort of Westerplatte, but neither artillery, air-raids nor unceasing groundattacks could subdue Polish resistance. The defenders repulsed 13 large-scale enemy attacks, making Westerplatte a symbol of Polish heroism.

p The 57 German divisions (2,500 panzers and 2,000 planes) that lunged into Polish territory on September i at 04.45 hours consisted of two operational groups striking from north-west and south-west, with a frontal thrust from the west playing a secondary role. The two operational groups 39 converged swiftly on the capital, with orders to surround and destroy the Polish troops west of the Vistula.

p Operational Group South under General Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was to strike from Silesia in the general direction of Warsaw with General Walter von Reichenau’s loth Army possessing half the available panzer force of 1,000 tanks, breaking through and capturing the capital.

p The bulk of Poland’s armed forces were east, not west, of Warsaw, massed against the Soviet Union in conformance with the Poles’ pro-Western policy. Just 22 army formations were west of the capital, and as many as 30 east of it.  [39•1  Trusting its allies, who had given assurances that Germany would not attack, the Polish Government did not order mobilisation until August 31. As a result, something like one-third of the Polish army had not been properly primed when the Germans attacked. Some divisions were still en route to assigned districts, others rail-borne. With the war at its height, only 33 divisions were deployed against the aggressor.  [39•2  And the plight of the Polish army was made more desperate still by the fact that its Supreme Command, and the government for that matter, did not believe effective resistance possible.

p The abyss that lay between the prewar reactionary Polish regime and the people was evident more than ever during the war. While the army and the people fought heroically, the government, stricken by panic, pleaded for British and French aid. The bourgeois-landlord regime proved unable of uniting the country in the hour of trial, while the people, hating the nazi invaders, were ready to fight, their patriotism fettered by the corrupt political system.

p Anti-Soviet in foreign policy and anti-people in home policy, the Polish Government was in no condition to fight a just war of liberation. In contrast, the people rallied and fought for their freedom and independence from the beginning until the day the country was cleared of nazis. The war was not, a continuation of the unpopular politics of the ruling classes. It was rather a rejection of it and a token of its bankruptcy. The accent was on the traditions of Polish struggle for national liberation, which created a moral uplift.

p Hitler Germany, on the other hand, was fighting a distinctly imperialist war of conquest. Bent on gaining world supremacy 40 and enslaving all peoples of the earth, the German imperialists intended to destroy a large part of the population of overran countries, especially the Slav people. Their war threatened biological existence of entire nations. Polish patriots were aware of this, though official propaganda in Poland, Britain, France and the United States concealed, rather than revealed, Hitler Germany’s true aims.

p Nazi historians and journalists portrayed the German aggression as "defence against" "Polish provocation”, making the most of the propaganda potential created by Operation Himmler, exposed at the Nuremberg trials. Hitler’s specious version is still being exploited by some West-German writers. Udo Walendy, for example, asserts the world war did not begin on September i, 1939; "the German press,” he says, "had been ordered to report ’retaliatory fire’, not ’war’, and everything was done to limit the conflict."  [40•1  The writer’s method is a devious one: he vindicates the war of conquest begun by Germany and blames its growth into a world war on Germany’s adversaries. But the war was bound to become world-wide, for that was predetermined by Germany’s aim: attainment of world rule. It is quite another matter that the German Government would have preferred to destroy one country before tackling the next, in order to avoid the emergence of an anti-fascist coalition.

p Some West-German historians describe the German campaign in Poland as an outstanding feat of German arms, a model of precision in carrying through the preconceived plan. But that is not true. Polish resistance wrought havoc with the schedule set by the Wehrmacht command; this is borne out by the heroic defence of Warsaw, which began on September 8 and continued until September 28.

p The 4th Panzer Division, loth Army, which reached the Polish capital on September 8 from the south-east, encountered unexpectedly stiff resistance by the garrison and volunteers. Four tanks of the forward group were put out of action instantly and a 3O-panzer drive was repulsed the following day. Some of the tanks fell into traps dug by Warsaw’s citizens, and fire was set to many others with gasoline-filled bottles.

p The Polish Government abandoned Warsaw on September 6. Soon it crossed the Rumanian border. The defence of 41 Warsaw was organised by city President Stefan Starzynski and Magistrate Janusz Regulski. Polish Communists and Left Socialists, held in prisons and concentration camps until then, were in the front ranks, many having broken out of confinement, picking up whatever arms they could and going into battle.

p Left leaders had begun forming workers’ battalions on September 5, three days before the Germans came to the walls of the city. In due course these became the main volunteer force fighting the invaders and were reorganised into a Workers’ Brigade for the Defence of Warsaw. Command of the Brigade was in the hands of Communists and Left Socialists, specifically, Socialist Marian Kenig. Among its members were Wladyslaw Gomulka and other Polish Communists, as well as Pavel Marishchuk and other comrades of the West Ukrainian Communist Party. Poles, Ukrainians, Byelorussians and others fought shoulder to shoulder. The defence of Warsaw brought together patriots of different parties and classes, uniting the finest sons of the nation in the common fight against aggression.

p In the first days of the defence of Warsaw a large part of the German force was drawn off by a large-scale battle west of Warsaw, lasting from September 9 to 18. Between the rivers Vistula and Baura, its tributary, General Kutrzeba, in command of the Polish Posznan Army, counter-attacked the German 8th Army in defiance of Supreme Commander Rydz-Smigly’s order to the contrary. Early in the battle the Poles smashed the nazi 17th and 3Oth infantry divisions, opening the way into the rear of German troops advancing on Warsaw. The success could not be developed, however, due to contradictory High Command instructions and absence of coordination between commanders of the Posznan and Pomorze armies.

p All the same, the battle on the Baura detained the nazi strike force for several days, drawing it away from Warsaw. German troops suffered considerable casualties, but after Polish resistance west of the Vistula was crushed, Warsaw became their main objective. The general assault was made by a large force, though day after day the vicious attacks were repulsed with heavy losses for the nazis. Defending the capital became a national mission for its populace.

p On September 28 the city fathers signed the surrender instrument, but part of the troops and many of the inhabitants 42 would not accept defeat and continued to resist another two or three days. Not until the morning of October i did the German armies enter the half-destroyed city.

p Hitler Germany turned Poland into a colony. The western provinces were incorporated into the Third Reich, and the rest converted into a governorship. The nazi governor, Hans Frank, wrote in his diary: "I was assigned to undertake the administration of the conquered areas and given a special order to devastate them mercilessly as a war theatre and a conquered land, reducing the region to a pile of rubble economically, socially, culturally, and politically."  [42•1 

p Plunder of the Poles’ national heritage began, their culture was destroyed, the population systematically exterminated and the able-bodied driven off to Germany to do forced labour. More than six million Polish lives was the toll of the war and fascist occupation.  [42•2 

The nazis, who thought their hard line would break the nation’s resistance, did not reckon with the Polish people. The occupation was not the end, but rather the beginning of a new stage in the popular fight for freedom and independence. That this new stage of resistance was a continuation of the earlier stand is illustrated by the fact that the Workers’ Brigade for the Defence of Warsaw survived and conducted guerrilla actions in and outside the city. The resistance movement spread rapidly throughout the nazi-occupied area.