Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II
By Roger Moorhouse (2020)
"As German and Soviet forces met on Polish soil and declared their eternal brotherhood - conveniently forgetting the preceding years of rabid antipathy - Poland entered a new totalitarian dark age: a world of persecution, misery, and death. By the end of the Second World War, one in five Poles would be dead. ...
"The Soviets, meanwhile, did everything they could to pretend they did not invade Poland in 1939. ... As recently as 2016, a Russian blogger was prosecuted for sharing a text about German-Soviet collaboration in the invasion of Poland. His alleged crime was the 'circulation of false information.' "
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.,,,as usual--- the victor writes the history.
To actually talk to a person of that generation , though is to have a FIRST hand clearer historic insight. My father said the Polish resistance was urged to assault<than
brutally betrayed when Russia sat by and built up their position to take over EVERYTHING.
To see Roosevelt's capitulation at Volta was
another SLAP IN THE FACE.. he basically gave Stalin whatever he wanted..
Thanks
BBJong
Level 7
Jan 29, 2022
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Two weeks after the Germans invaded Poland from the west, Stalin invaded from the east under the ludicrous pretext of "coming to Poland's aid." Poland fought a brief, hopeless battle on two fronts.
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After Hitler and Stalin divided up Poland, Stalin rounded up and executed about 22,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest massacre, in 1940, a crime that Stalin later tried to blame on the Nazis (forensics proved unequivocally that the Russians committed the mass murder).
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Four years later, the German front in the east was collapsing. The Soviet army was poised on the edge of Warsaw and broadcast a call to Poles in Warsaw to rise up against the Germans, pledging that Soviet forces would join the battle "tomorrow." This was the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (not to be confused with the Jews' "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" of 1943).
But instead of joining the battle, the Soviets sat back and watched the Germans crush the Polish fighters in Warsaw over the course of 63 days. The Soviets refused to allow any Western aid (from the US and Britain) to be transported to the Poles. They didn't lift a finger because Stalin wanted the Germans to eliminate all the armed Poles who might be troublesome to him in a post-war Soviet world.
- At the end of the war, Stalin invited the Polish Government-in-Exile to travel from London for "talks" about the future government of Poland. It was a ruse. As soon as the London Poles landed, they were imprisoned by the Soviets. Poland would be a Soviet puppet until the end of the Cold War, almost half a century later.
Thanks for the extra context ; the brutality is
hard to comprehend . But must be remembered.