Germany invades Poland

The bombardment of Danzig sparks the Second World War

Hitler had already broken the Munich Agreement in March 1939 by expanding beyond the confines of the Sudetenland – handed to him by the Western powers – and moving to “crush the remnants of Czechoslovakia”. Shocked by this blatant breach of international law, Great Britain and France hurried to provide guarantees to Poland, promising military assistance in the event of a German invasion. This did not deter Hitler from his goal of “destroying” Poland, but it did lead him to conclude the Hitler–Stalin Pact, which ruled out any threat to Germany from the East. The German dictator then staged a series of false-flag operations involving incidents on the German–Polish border. SS men disguised as Polish irregulars conducted sabotage attacks, leaving a murdered concentration camp inmate in Polish attire as “evidence” of Polish responsibility. On 31 August, SS men once again dressed as Poles launched an attack on the German radio station at the border town of Gleiwitz. The German propaganda ministry then sent a radio broadcast outlining a set of diplomatic demands – that had never been communicated to Poland – and claimed that the Poles had rejected them out of hand.

Speaking to the Reichstag – also broadcast on the radio – on the morning of 1 September 1939, Hitler made further false claims, ending his tirade with the announcement: “Since 5:45 a.m., we are now firing back!” In fact, a German naval ship had opened fire on a Polish garrison near Danzig an hour earlier, and Wehrmacht fighter bombers had largely destroyed a Polish town. The German attack had been launched without a formal declaration of war. Great Britain and France demanded the immediate withdrawal of the Wehrmacht; when this was not forthcoming, they declared war on Germany on 3 September. As Great Britain had the support of its global empire, the shots fired on 1 September were the first of what became the Second World War.