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Start of the Second World War
On September 1st, 1939, at 4:45 in the morning, the 3rd and 4th German armies united in Army Group North under the command of General von Bock and the 8th, 10th and 14th armies under General von Runstedt invaded Poland. This marked the beginning of the Second World War, the largest military conflict in human history, which claimed over 55 million lives.
The inevitability of another war was determined by the outcome of the First World War, also known as the Great War from 1914 to 1918 in the 1920s and 1930s. After the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty on June 28, 1919, with Germany, the victorious nations (Great Britain, Italy, the United States, and France) blamed Germany and its allies for causing the war and the destruction that occurred during the conflict. Germany lost its colonies, some of its European territory, and was required to pay 132 billion marks in reparations over 37 years. Marshal F. Foch, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, noted the humiliating terms of the treaty and prophetically stated, "This is not peace; this is a truce for 20 years."
Having come to power in Germany in 1933, the chairman of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) A. Hitler set out to achieve his goals of revenge for the country's defeat and the realization of his dreams of racial supremacy and unity of the German people. By building up the armed forces rapidly in violation of the Versailles agreements, he openly opposed the established post-war order. By the mid-1930s, Germany joined forces with Italy and Japan, forming the so-called Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis, an aggressive bloc that threatened international stability.
The Soviet Union was among the first to speak about the need for stronger international security. In 1933, on November 16th, the USSR established diplomatic relations with the United States. However, Washington refused to get involved in European affairs. The Soviet leadership found an ally in French Foreign Minister J. Paul-Boncourt, who shared concerns about the militaristic ambitions of Adolf Hitler. At Paris' suggestion, on September 18th, 1934, the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations, an organization founded in 1920 to settle international disputes.
However, the idea proposed by the USSR and France to create a collective security system in Europe, which was expressed in the draft "Eastern Pact" (1934) and which most countries in Eastern Europe could have joined, was not brought to life. This was due to the evasive stance of some Eastern European countries, opposition from German diplomacy, and the change in French foreign policy leadership, which reoriented itself towards seeking a compromise with Germany after the United Kingdom.
The so-called appeasement policy pursued by Britain and France, which involved making concessions to Germany in order to avoid war, was destined to fail. As M. Litvinov, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, noted in a note following the Anschluss of Austria by Germany on March 17, 1938: "International inactivity and impunity for aggression in one instance fatally lead to the repetition and proliferation of such instances." Prior to Austria, the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, during which Germany and Italy, despite European agreements, provided weapons to the rebels. This led to the establishment of the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain, and subsequently, the annexation of the Sudetenland by Germany, which was sanctioned by Britain and France in Munich on September 29-30, 1938. The subsequent occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia by Germany in March 1939 showed that Adolf Hitler was not satisfied with concessions and a new war was unavoidable.
After that, Great Britain and France began discussions with the USSR about the possibility of a mutual assistance agreement in case of German aggression. However, these discussions were hindered by Poland's refusal to allow Soviet troops to pass through its territory, and also by the hostile attitude of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain towards the Soviet Union. The lack of progress in these negotiations, further delayed by potential allies' reluctance, influenced the Soviet leadership's decision to respond to Germany's offer to sign a non-aggression pact. On August 23rd, 1939, this agreement was signed in Moscow between the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, Vyacheslav Molotov, and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Thus, to avoid a war on two fronts, Adolf Hitler launched an attack on Poland on the evening of August 31st, 1939. After the code word "Grandmother died" was given, the German secret services staged a provocation on the border with Poland. They depicted a Polish attack on a German radio station, customs post, and small forestry, using this as a reason to declare war. On September 1st at 4:45 in the morning, German formations crossed the Polish border, in accordance with the Franco-Polish and British-Polish agreements. Great Britain and France, following these agreements, declared war on Germany on September 3rd, but they did not send any military assistance to Poland. By September 8th, German troops had already approached the outskirts of Warsaw, where President I. Moskitsky, members of the government, and Commander-in-Chief E. Rydz-Smigly had left.
On September 17, 1939, the Polish ambassador to the USSR, V. Grzybowski, received a personal note from V. M. Molotov regarding the termination of the Polish state. The Soviet government informed the Polish government that they had decided to protect the lives and property of the population in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. As a result, Soviet troops numbering more than 630,000 crossed the eastern border of Poland on September 28. Germany and the USSR then signed a friendship and border treaty, establishing a common border between the two countries on Polish territory.
Despite this temporary change in Germany's foreign policy, its underlying intentions remained unchanged. Adolf Hitler did not abandon his plans to expand German territory at the expense of Eastern Europe, and a clash between the two ideologies seemed inevitable.
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Based on materials of the Presidential Library:
USSR joins the League of Nations // On this day. 18 September 1934;