Poland · Animated schematic fronts

Invasion of Poland (1939)

The German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 opened the Second World War in Europe. A week earlier Germany and the Soviet Union had agreed, in the secret protocol to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, to divide the country between them. Fall Weiss combined panzer divisions, motorised infantry and the Luftwaffe into rapid encirclements: the corridor, Mława, Piotrków, the Radom pocket and the battle of the Bzura. On 17 September the Red Army invaded from the east and the Polish government crossed into Romania. Warsaw capitulated on 28 September, Modlin a day later, Hel on 2 October and the last group at Kock on 6 October. Then the occupation began: in the German part the Intelligenzaktion, the ghettos and later the extermination camps, in the Soviet part deportations and the murder of Polish officers at Katyn.

Schematic front lines at dated moments (by day), simplified by hand from overview maps; movement in between is smoothly interpolated, so this is not a day-by-day reconstruction. Three lines follow one another: the German front from 1 September, the Soviet advance from 17 September and, from 22 September, the contact line of the two invading armies, which on 28 September becomes the demarcation line along the Pisa, Narew, Bug and San. Because the map knows two sides, Germany and the Soviet Union stand together on one side; Soviet units and arrows are named as such. Encirclements and besieged fortresses appear as rings, advances as arrows and armies as counters placed roughly in their sector; the closing edges of the coloured areas are graphic. Three battles have a full tactical and strategic analysis.