Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II

by Roger Moorhouse

Overview

An “exemplary” (Timothy Snyder, New York Times) history of the onset of World War II

For Americans, World War II began in December 1941, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor; but for Europe, the war began on September 1, 1939, when Hitler’s soldiers invaded Poland, followed later that month by Stalin’s Red Army. The conflict that ensued saw the debut of many of the features that would come to define the later war—blitzkrieg, the targeting of civilians, ethnic cleansing, and indiscriminate aerial bombing—yet it is routinely overlooked by historians.

In Poland 1939, Roger Moorhouse reexamines the least understood campaign of World War II, using original archival sources to provide a harrowing and very human account of the events that set the bloody tone for the conflict to come.

Winner of the Polish Foreign Ministry History Prize

Shortlisted for the 2020 Wellington Military History Medal

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541602618
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	296,650
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Roger Moorhouse studied history at the University of London and is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Warsaw. He is the author of several books on World War II history, including Berlin at War (shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize) and The Devils' Alliance. He lives in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

Maps viii

Author's Note xiii

Preface xv

Prologue - An Unremarkable Man 1

Chapter 1 "Westerplatte Fights On" 11

Chapter 2 The Tyranny of Geography 45

Chapter 3 A Frightful Futility 79

Chapter 4 The Temerity to Resist 103

Chapter 5 "Poland Is Not Yet Lost" 147

Chapter 6 Of "Liberators" and Absent Friends 181

Chapter 7 "Into the Arms of Death" 219

Chapter 8 Impenitent Thieves 243

Chapter 9 "To End on a Battlefield" 281

Conclusion 313

Appendix 1 Polish Army Order of Battle 321

Appendix 2 German Army Order of Battle 323

Appendix 3 Red Army Order of Battle 327

Selected Bibliography 331

Notes 341

Index 385

Editorial Reviews

"Exemplary.... About as good as military history can be. Moorhouse has visited the places he writes about, and understands weaponry, tactics and the structures of the German and Polish armed forces.... Like all good histories, Moorhouse's answers an old question and raises a new one."—New York Times

“As Roger Moorhouse relates in Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II, the short, savage campaign to crush the Poles, who fought against hopeless odds, proved to be ‘a five-week struggle that prefaced nearly 300 weeks of slaughter’… He tells a tale of Polish gallantry, German brutality, and what he sees as Anglo-French perfidy.”—New York Review of Books

"Moorhouse's book remedies that gap [in the history of The Polish War], weaving together archival material, first-hand accounts, perceptive analysis and heartbreaking descriptions of Poland's betrayal, defeat and dismemberment."—Economist

"Chilling... All Poles know that their September war — and of course the many subsequent years of occupation, resistance and exile — was no side-show. Now Moorhouse has expertly laid bare this simple truth: that when two totalitarian regimes make common cause, everyone in their immediate neighbourhood is likely to be trampled underfoot."—Times (UK)

"Excellent... a harrowing, but very needed, account of the first engagement of the Second World War."—Telegraph

"A fascinating book.... There are moments of heroism and defiance here that will put a catch in your throat and a shiver down your spine."—Sunday Telegraph

"Timely and authoritative.... Moorhouse has trawled through an impressive quantity of unpublished Polish and German sources, as well as a wealth of eyewitness testimonies from both sides, to produce a balanced account of this much neglected yet important episode of the Second World War which is both harrowing and inspiring."—Spectator

"Moorhouse...admirably achieves his aim of putting the Polish-German war back onto the broader canvas of the Second World War."—Richard Overy, History Today

“Readers will be fascinated by this well-written, carefully researched study of the beginning of World War II. Polish Americans, in particular, will be proud of the heroism and determination displayed by the Polish people throughout that devastating ordeal.”—The Am-Pol Eagle

"We tend to overlook 'the war Hitler won' but Roger Moorhouse brilliantly underlines its crucial importance for the future course of the Second World War. This deeply researched, very well-written, and penetrating book will be the standard work on the subject for many years to come."—Andrew Roberts , author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

"An accomplished British historian of World War II, Moorhouse delves deeply into this five-week opening to the larger conflict, showing how it presaged the horrors to come.... An excellent study by a thorough chronicler that adds considerably to the historical record."—Kirkus, starred review

"Moorhouse successfully fills in the gaps of an episode that receives cursory treatment in most WWII narratives."—Publishers Weekly

"There remain a number of myths about the invasion of Poland in 1939. Moorhouse seeks to use modern historiography to correct these falsehoods. A solid analysis of World War II's first major operation."—Library Journal

From the Publisher

03/09/2020

Military historian Moorhouse (Berlin at War) revisits the opening campaign of WWII—the 1939 invasion of Poland—in this dense and exhaustive account. Contending that the Poles have long been rendered “nameless, voiceless victims, bit-part players in their own narrative,” Moorhouse uses diaries, memoirs, and archival documents to correct the historical record. Caught between Hitler’s determination to annex historically German regions lost under the Treaty of Versailles that brought an end to WWI and Stalin’s desire to seize territory guaranteed in the “secret protocol” of the German-Soviet nonaggression pact, Poland was doomed to be the first domino to fall, despite the valor of its armed forces. Moorhouse documents the implications of France and England’s refusal to send military aid (an estimated 200,000 Polish civilians and soldiers died in the two-front invasion) and describes how Germany’s blitzkrieg tactics, as well as its extensive bombing of towns and cities and refusal to distinguish combatants from noncombatants, foreshadowed the brutal nature of the war and the transformation of Poland into “a Nazi dystopia in which populations were expropriated, deported, or murdered on a whim.” Moorhouse successfully fills in the gaps of an episode that receives cursory treatment in most WWII narratives, but armchair historians may be overwhelmed by the level of detail. This granular account is for completists only. (May)

Publishers Weekly

04/01/2020

There remain a number of myths about the invasion of Poland in 1939. Moorhouse (Berlin at War; The Devils' Alliance) seeks to use modern historiography to correct these falsehoods. He reminds readers that all of Germany's surprise attacks on the morning of September 1, 1939, were failures. Polish forces, for the most part, fought valiantly, winning minor victories first against Germany and later against Stalin's Red Army. In return, both Germany and the Soviet Union engaged in executions, mass killings, and other atrocities against both military personnel and civilians. Moorhouse estimates that Germany committed 15 massacres every day while the Soviet Union killed 22,000 Polish officers and officials in the Katyn Massacre. One overriding theme is that Germany imposed a race war in western Poland while the Soviet Union embarked upon a class war in the eastern half of the country. Although Stalin painted the Soviet invasion as a liberation, the Red Army's presence was nothing more than a military invasion meant to secure land promised from the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, maintains Moorhouse. VERDICT A solid analysis of World War II's first major operation, this work should appeal to any readers interested in Polish history or the war's beginnings.—Matthew Wayman, Pennsylvania State Univ. Lib., Schuylkill Haven

Library Journal

★ 2020-03-02
A fresh, well-documented look at the Nazi-Soviet invasion and partition of Poland in September 1939, rejecting both “the Nazi mythology of an easy Blitzkrieg victory” and “the Soviet lie that the Red Army never invaded at all.”

An accomplished British historian of World War II, Moorhouse delves deeply into this five-week opening to the larger conflict, showing how it presaged the horrors to come. The author notes how this campaign—during which Hitler restoked the animosity between Poland and Germany through a series of fabricated border skirmishes and plunged headlong into invasion to quell Polish “terror” and defend German “honor”—is too often overlooked in WWII histories. Just as he did in his previous book, The Devil’s Alliance: Hitler's Pact With Stalin, 1939-1941 (2014), Moorhouse refreshingly looks beyond the chronicles of the victors, clearly portraying the shameful lack of action on the parts of Britain and France to come to the defense of the country it had sworn to defend as well as the ongoing Soviet efforts to disguise its subsequent invasion as some kind of “humanitarian intervention.” The fact is that Hitler and Stalin had already agreed to divide the country via a German-Soviet nonaggression pact, which would have essentially wiped Poland off the map. While the British and French vowed to protect the country if attacked, they were in no military position to do so and hoped, futilely, that by threatening war, Germany would back down. What the author demonstrates splendidly is the tenacity of the Polish resistance and bravery in the face of the Nazi onslaught, a spirit inculcated through centuries of invasion and occupation. This was not an easy annexation, as the Nazis had hoped. Moreover, as Moorhouse ably shows, the overwhelming air power and targeting of noncombatants, as well as racial murder and revenge, foreshadowed later atrocities.

An excellent study by a thorough chronicler that adds considerably to the historical record. (16-page insert; 10 maps)

Kirkus Reviews