Well, my dear friend, let’s dive into the tumultuous currents of 1939 and 1940, a period when the very fabric of Europe was being violently rewoven. It’s a sobering exercise, to be sure, but by understanding these pivotal moments, we can grasp the true scale of the impending catastrophe and the forces that propelled it. What becomes abundantly clear is a horrifying symphony of escalating aggression, broken norms, and a chilling parallel in the methods of totalitarian regimes.
The Polish Rebuke and Hitler’s Shifting Ambitions (March 1939)
The year 1939 began with an unmistakable shift in Adolf Hitler’s foreign policy. His earlier strategies of “gathering in Germans” by annexing Austria in March 1938 and dismantling Czechoslovakia in March 1939 had largely succeeded without outright war. He had also, for years, tried to recruit Poland as an ally for an eastern war, perhaps even tempting them with promises of annexing territories from Soviet Ukraine.
However, on March 21, 1939, when the Germans tried to intimidate the Poles into an arrangement and were rebuffed, it marked a critical turning point. Poland, under the heirs of Józef Piłsudski, had consistently pursued a policy of “equal distance” between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – meaning non-aggression pacts with both, but alliances with neither. This firm refusal by Warsaw signaled to Hitler that his goals could no longer be achieved through diplomatic courtship or intimidation alone. This rejection specifically meant that his “first war would be against Poland,” which implicitly carried the horrifying consequence of also being “against Poland’s Jews”.
Just four days later, on March 25, 1939, Hitler gave instructions for the Wehrmacht to prepare for an invasion of Poland. This move demonstrated that Hitler had exhausted his previous foreign policy methods and was now fully committed to achieving his territorial ambitions through military force. The path to war, rather than a coerced alliance, was now set.
Fascism’s Ascendancy and the Erosion of Collective Security (April 1939)
In the same pivotal spring, the forces of fascism celebrated another significant victory. In April 1939, Francisco Franco won the Spanish Civil War. This brutal conflict, which saw Hitler and Mussolini provide crucial aid to Franco’s Fascist rebellion, had unfolded while the Roosevelt administration’s neutrality act effectively “shut off help to the Spanish government”.
Franco’s triumph underscored the growing power of right-wing authoritarianism across Europe, a trend that had seen Italy become the first Fascist state in 1922, followed by Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria gravitating towards Germany. The defeat of the socialist-liberal government in Spain highlighted the “weaknesses of the Popular Front against fascism”. This outcome demonstrated the international community’s failure to effectively counter totalitarian aggression, further emboldening the Axis powers and shifting the geopolitical balance.
The Unholy Alliance: Stalin and Hitler Carve Up Eastern Europe (September 1939)
The most astonishing development of 1939, however, was the rapprochement between the seemingly irreconcilable ideological foes. After failing to secure an alliance with Poland against the Soviet Union, Hitler desperately sought an accord with Moscow, eager to launch his war that year. Stalin, for his part, made a striking gesture towards Hitler by firing his Jewish foreign commissar, Maxim Litvinov, and replacing him with the Russian Molotov, a move that could be interpreted as a step to appease Hitler. Stalin also saw a strategic opportunity to improve the Soviet Union’s position in the Far East, having initiated an attack against Japanese forces on August 20, 1939.
On September 1, 1939, the Wehrmacht attacked Poland from the north, west, and south, initiating World War II. Just two days later, on August 23, 1939, Stalin and Hitler reached an understanding on Eastern Europe in the form of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This was ostensibly a non-aggression pact, but it concealed a secret protocol that designated “areas of influence for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union within eastern Europe,” including the independent states of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania.
The immediate consequence of this pact was the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland. Sixteen days after Germany’s invasion, on September 17, 1939, the Red Army invaded Poland from the east. The two armies met in the middle of the country and even organized a joint victory parade. This agreement dramatically altered the European landscape:
- Destruction of Poland: Poland ceased to exist as an independent state, its territory divided and annexed by the two powers. This act created a “new stage in the history of the bloodlands,” where Germans and Soviets would conduct mass killings of Polish civilians in comparable numbers.
- Strategic Advantage for Hitler: The pact prevented a two-front war for Germany, ensuring that if Britain and France declared war over Poland, Germany would not face an immediate threat from the east. This allowed Germany, “supplied with food and fuel by the Soviet Union,” to rapidly invade and occupy Western European countries like Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in the spring of 1940.
- Soviet Gains and Isolation of Japan: For Stalin, the pact secured his western border, allowing him to focus on the Far East, where his forces had just defeated the Japanese on September 15. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact “nullified the Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan,” causing a “political earthquake in Tokyo” and isolating Japan.
- Justification for Terror: The Soviet Union had previously justified the murder of over a hundred thousand of its own citizens based on the false claim that Poland had signed such a secret codicil with Germany. Now, the Soviet Union had, in fact, agreed to attack Poland alongside Germany.
The Deepening Abyss of Mass Murder (Early 1940)
Following the conquest and division of Poland, both totalitarian regimes began to implement policies of systematic violence and extermination against the Polish population, particularly its leadership and “undesirables.”
In early 1940, Hitler concluded that “leadership elements” in the General Government should simply be executed. The “General Government” was the part of conquered Poland not directly annexed by Germany, intended as a “dumping ground for unwanted people, Poles and Jews”. Nazi ideology viewed Poles as an “inferior race” and the Polish educated classes as a “barrier to German plans”. This decision formalized the intent to destroy Polish civilization and leadership.
This directive was swiftly put into action. On March 2, 1940, Hans Frank, the General Governor, announced his plan to “liquidate” Polish “spiritual leaders”. This “AB Aktion” (Extraordinary Pacification Action) involved killing people already under arrest and arresting and killing others deemed dangerous. These actions, targeting the educated, clergy, and politically active, were carried out systematically in locations like Palmiry Forest and Krzesawice, with victims often forced to dig their own mass graves.
Chillingly, just three days later, in the Soviet-occupied zone, a parallel campaign of extermination against Polish elites was initiated. On March 5, 1940, Lavrenty Beria, Stalin’s secret police chief, initiated terror actions against Polish prisoners in the Soviet Union. Beria proposed, and Stalin approved, the execution of Polish prisoners of war, arguing that they were “just waiting to be released in order to enter actively into the battle” against the Soviet Union. This resulted in the sentencing and execution of approximately 14,587 Polish prisoners of war, primarily officers, along with thousands of others from prisons in western Belarus and Ukraine. The Soviets sought to maintain secrecy around these killings, unlike the Germans who sometimes were less discreet. Both regimes, however, acted to remove elements they regarded as dangerous to their systems, resulting in “more or less concurrent deportations and more or less concurrent mass shootings” aimed at eliminating Polish leadership.
Britain Stands Alone: The Battle of Britain Begins (June 1940)
With continental Europe largely subdued, Hitler’s attention turned to Great Britain. After France signed an armistice with Hitler on June 22, 1940, Britain was left to “fight alone against the Axis powers”. Hitler, confident from his swift victories, expected British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to seek terms for peace.
However, Churchill was resolute. In June 1940, Churchill told the British parliament that “the battle of Britain is about to begin”. This declaration marked the start of the intense aerial campaign where the German Luftwaffe sought to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force as a prelude to an invasion. Churchill’s defiance, coupled with the success of the RAF (which included Polish and other foreign pilots), prevented Germany from establishing the necessary air superiority for an amphibious invasion of the British Isles. This was a profoundly significant moment because it forced Hitler to alter his strategic plans. Unable to defeat Britain in 1940, he ultimately decided to invade his Soviet ally on June 22, 1941, initiating a devastating two-front war. Had Churchill not “kept Britain in the war in 1940, there would have been no such war to fight” in the same manner, and no grand Allied coalition of Moscow, Washington, and London that ultimately won World War II.
These interconnected events, from the Polish refusal to Hitler’s change of plans due to British resistance, paint a vivid picture of a world spiraling into unprecedented conflict. They highlight the terrifying efficiency of totalitarian states in implementing mass murder and conquest, and the desperate, yet ultimately successful, struggle of democratic nations to survive and eventually prevail against such overwhelming forces.