Tuesday, 13 April 2021 agreed to carve up and rearrange the 34:10 Volume 34 Number 10 borders of Eastern Europe. Published by WWII History Round Table Ferociously anti-Polish German and Written by Drs. Simer, Harris, and John Radzilowski www.mn-ww2roundtable.org Soviet propaganda preceded the Nazi on 1 September 1939 and the Welcome to the April session of consequent Soviet invasion of eastern Poland the Dr. Harold C. Deutsch World on 17 September. While often described as an War II History Round Table. almost effortless , the Polish Tonight’s speaker is John Radzilowski, author defenders actually inflicted heavy casualties of Frantic 7: The American Effort to Aid the on the invaders despite being out-matched. , who will lecture on the One of the most far-reaching contributions of Polish forces in the 1939 German invasion of Poland to ultimate victory in World War II Poland. occurred during Poland’s collapse in the fall Poland suffered disproportionally more of 1939. losses and damage than any other nation in Necessity had been the mother for the World War II. Despite their nation’s defeat, creation of the first-class Polish intelligence many Polish soldiers fought on with the services during the 1920s and 1930s. Among Allied armies, as intelligence operatives, and their achievements was gaining possession of within occupied Poland in the Polish Home the German Enigma coding device. As Poland Army. The sheer tenacity and endurance of fell under the control of the Nazis and the Polish people sustained their cultural and Communists, this device was shipped to national existence under wartime oppression England where it formed the nucleus of the by both the Nazis and the Soviets and after British effort at Bletchley Park and the under Communist control and attests ULTRA secret. In addition, many Polish to the indomitable spirit of the heirs of military personnel fled the country and ended Sobieski. up in the to continue the Absorbed by Prussia, the Holy Roman fight. (Austrian) Empire, and the Russian Empire in Nazi racialist ideology viewed the Poles the late 1700s, Poland was restored as a self- as ‘subhuman’ and German occupation forces governing nation in 1918 in the Versailles systematically executed the Polish Treaty. War quickly began between Poland intelligentsia, clergy, academics, and other and Lenin’s Soviet Russia, already engaged in leaders, explicitly to deprive Poland of its the Russian Civil War. The spectacular defeat most influential figures. Similarly, the Soviet of Trotsky’s Red Army demonstrated the Union executed those Poles identified as fighting spirit of the Poles and ensured a “class enemies” — businessmen, political deadly antipathy from the Russian leaders, clergy, and officers of the Polish Communists that Stalin avenged in blood. Army. Tens of thousands of Polish prisoners Furthermore, part of the border revisions of war would be transported as slave labor imposed at Versailles to ensure a Polish into the Soviet death camps of Siberia. corridor to the Baltic Sea (across formerly Thousands of Polish officers from Generals to Prussian territory) served as a lightning rod Lieutenants were executed in an orgy of for German irredentists (most specifically Soviet murder at the Katyn forest. National ). After Hitler came to power, Socialist policies directed at the Jewish Poland found itself with profoundly population and the creation of the General antagonistic neighbors to the east and to the Government in central Poland under Hans west. Frank made this territory “Ground Zero” for The failure of the Western democracies to what evolved into . Auschwitz, consolidate “Collective Security” in the 1930s before becoming the greatest killing center on against left Poland supported by earth, was a concentration camp created to vague, ultimately empty, promises. With house Polish as well as Polish-Jewish appeasement ascendant in 1938, Poland saw prisoners. The Catholic martyr and saint its southern flank absorbed into the Greater Maksymilian Maria Kolbe was one of the Reich and realized the impotency of British Polish political prisoners at Auschwitz. and French assurances. As Hitler directed his During the German- focus to “reclaiming” Danzig and the Polish partnership in 1939-1941, Polish military Corridor he stunned Britain and France with personnel fought Germany only from the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression “Pact in England. Polish pilots in the Royal Air August 1939. Despite their ideological Force’s 303 “Kosciuszko” Squadron had the hostility, the Soviet Union and highest number of kills of any RAF squadron If you are a veteran, or know a veteran, of one of these campaigns – contact Don Patton at cell 612-867-5144 or [email protected]

The Round Tablette 13 April 2021 — 2 during the . Once Hitler July2021 - 952-746-6100 - www.wotn.org invaded the USSR in June 1941, Stalin Book Club - [email protected] allowed Polish military personnel to leave the Alliance Francaise 612-332-0436 - www.afmsp.org and go to the West to fight the Honor Flight - Jerry Kyser - 651-338-2717 - common enemy. There, they served in the [email protected] Polish II Corps commanded by Lt. Gen. CAF - Commemorative Air Force - 651-455-6942 - Wladyshaw Anders, who hinself had been www.cafmn.org Selim Center for Life Long Learning, UST, released from the torture cells of Lubyanka https://www.stthomas.edu/selimcenter/ Prison in Moscow. As part of the British Western Naval Historical Association Eighth Army Polish II Corps fought in the [email protected] Italian Campaign, most notably at the Battle MacArthur Memorial, Norfolk VA, of Monte . http://www.macarthurmemorial.gov National World War II Memorial, Washington DC, One of the most famous members of the http://www.wwiimemorialfriends.org Polish II Corps serving with the 22nd Supply Company in was a We need volunteers to drive our veterans recruit who joined the Polish forces as they to and from meetings. Please contact Don traveled through the Middle East to hook up Patton at cell 612-867-5144 or with the British Eighth Army. During the [email protected] Battle of , German observers Round Table Schedule 2021-2022 were stunned to see a fully grown brown bear 11 May The “Mighty Eighth” and Victory in Europe carrying ammunition to Polish artillery 14 Sept. Genesis of the 12 Oct. Pacific War positions. This was Private , who was 26 Oct. Reinforcing the Philippines adopted by the Polish soldiers. He rode next 9 Nov. Deutsch Lecture – Arcadia Conference to them in jeeps, and after battle would join 14 Dec. Pearl Harbor attack his comrades smoking cigarettes and drinking 2022 beer. After the war, rather than live under 11 Jan. Patton: the Enigma 8 Feb. Wake Island Communism, he immigrated to England 8 Mar. Nuremburg Trials – Goering where he lived in honored retirement at the 22 Mar. Finch - Filipino Heroine Edinburgh Zoo, until his death in 1963. 12 Apr. Doolittle Raid Further Readings: 10 May Last Battle: in the Alps Roger Morehouse, Poland 1939, The The Round Table is a 501.c.3 non-profit. We would greatly appreciate your Outbreak of World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2020). supporting the HCDWW2RT. Robert Forczyk, Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939 (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2020). Robert M. Kennedy, The German Campaign in Poland (Hoosick Falls, NY: Merriam Press, 2015). Richard Hargreaves, Blitzkrieg Unleashed: The German Invasion of Poland, 1939 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2010).

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