Until the complete cessation of the resistance of the Poles in early October (dates are given as 7 and even) of the year.

Prelude

September 1939

At the end of September, Soviet and German troops met at, and. There was even a small clash between the "allies", during which both sides had small losses. However, all problems were settled, and the German and Red Army held joint parades in and. of the year, summing up the results of the operation, he said, referring to Poland: "Nothing is left of this ugly brainchild that lived by the oppression of non-Polish nationalities."

Campaign battles and skirmishes

Battle of Sarny, Battle of Dubnya, Battle of Kodzowtsi, Defense of Vilna, Battle of Poohova Gora, Battle of Vola Sudkovskaya, Battle of Vladypol, Battle of Dhwola, Battle of Kzhemen, Battle of Shask, Battle of Vytychno, Battle of Kotsk.

Results

Poland was finally destroyed as a state. The USSR moved its border to the west, generally uniting all ethnically Belarusian and Ukrainian territories under its rule.

Territorial changes

Side losses

The losses of the Polish side in actions against the Soviet troops amounted to 3,500 people killed, 20,000 missing and 454,700 captured. Of the 900 guns and mortars and 300 aircraft, the vast majority went as trophies.

prisoners

After the entry of Soviet troops into the territory of Western Belarus and the partition of Poland between Germany and the USSR, tens of thousands of Polish citizens, captured by the Red Army and interned - servicemen of the Polish army and officials, found themselves in the territory occupied by the Soviet troops. local authorities state power, "siegemen" (military colonists), policemen.

With the entry of the Red Army into the eastern Polish lands, a wave of robberies, looting and spontaneous killings by peasants of members of the local Polish administration swept through. The general described the appearance of the "liberated" Lvov at the end of 1939 as follows:

Stores looted, windows smashed, only one has a few hats. Endless queues at grocery stores. (..) People are in a gloomy mood. The streets are full of NKVDs and soldiers. Pavements and sidewalks are dirty and covered with snow. The impression is terrible.

The Soviet government gave the local population free education and medical service, support Ukrainian language; on the other hand, the Polish population was subjected to discrimination and repression. Coercive and repression against "socially hostile elements" dealt a heavy blow to the entire society and embittered the population. The Poles were subjected to severe discrimination, they tried not to hire them, and from the beginning of 1940 they began to be deported en masse. Before the start of the Great Patriotic War 312 thousand families, or 1173 thousand people, were exiled to Siberia. As of June 1, 1941, 2.6 thousand collective farms were created here, in which 143 thousand people were united. agriculture. According to the commander of the rear of the Army Group "South" General Frideritsi, the Ukrainian population in 1941, upon entry German troops, met them as friends and liberators.

Soviet attack on Poland in 1939

Many extraordinary pages in the history of the USSR. But a special place is occupied by that chapter, which describes the events of the autumn of 1939, when the Red Army invaded Poland. The opinions of historians and ordinary people were divided into two completely opposite camps. Some argue that the USSR liberated western Ukraine and Belarus from Polish oppression and secured its western borders. And others insist that it was the expansion of the Bolsheviks against the population of these lands, who lived happily and prosperously in the civilized world.

Obviously, these disputes will continue indefinitely. After all, history is complex. Attempts are already being made to reduce the role of the USSR in World War II, which claimed more than 20 million lives in our country. But this is a very recent story. Eyewitnesses of these events are still alive. Yes, it's a complicated story. And interestingly, there are always people who try to take a different look at current events. It doesn't matter if they happened recently or a very long time ago. Suffice it to recall the sensational attempts to whitewash the Mongol-Tatar invasion, which threatened the very existence of Russia. But these are things of the past.

Let us return to the events of September 1939.

These two opposing opinions will be given below. military operation autumn 1939. The reader will have to judge for himself how true they are.

First opinion - the Red Army liberated Western Ukraine and Belarus

A small digression into history

The lands of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus once belonged to Kievan Rus and were lost during the Mongol-Tatar invasion. Subsequently, they began to belong to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and then to the Commonwealth. Judging by the fact that uprisings periodically broke out in these lands, it is unlikely that life was good under the Poles. In particular, there was strong pressure on the Orthodox population of these lands from catholic church. Bogdan Khmelnytsky's petition to the Russian Tsar for help characterizes very well the situation of Ukrainians under the Polish yoke.

Historians note that the local population was considered "second-class people", and Poland's policy was colonial.

As for recent history, some eyewitness accounts say that after the arrival of the Poles to the lands of Western Ukraine and Belarus in 1920, when they were given to Poland under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the situation in these areas was critical.

So, the massacre in the Bobruisk district and the city of Slutsk is mentioned, where the Poles destroyed almost all the central buildings. The population, which sympathized with the Bolsheviks, was subjected to the most severe repressions.

Soldiers who took part in the fighting were settled on the occupied lands. They were called settlers. According to eyewitnesses, during the offensive of the Red Army, the siegemen preferred to surrender so as not to fall into the hands of their fellow villagers. This also speaks of the great "love" of the local population for the Poles.

So, on September 17, 1939, the Red Army crossed the border of Poland and, almost without resistance, advanced deep into the territory. In the memoirs of eyewitnesses, one can read that the population of these places enthusiastically greeted the Red Army soldiers.

Soviet Union, thanks to this offensive, increased its territory by 196,000 square meters. kilometers. The population of the country has increased by 13 million people.

Well, now it's the complete opposite.

Red Army - occupiers

Again, according to historians, the inhabitants of Western Ukraine and Belarus lived very well under the Poles. They ate well and dressed well. After the seizure of these territories by the USSR, general “purges” took place, during which a huge number of people were destroyed and exiled to camps. Collective farms were organized on the lands, where the villagers fell into slavery, as they were forbidden to leave their places. In addition, residents western regions they could not go to the eastern territories, since there was an unspoken border, where the Red Army soldiers were on duty, not letting anyone in either direction.

Describes the famine and devastation that came along with the Red Army. People were constantly afraid of reprisals.

Indeed, this is a very vague page. Soviet history. Older people remember that in textbooks this war, if you can call it that, was mentioned like this: “In 1939, the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were annexed to the Soviet Union.” And that's it!

In fact, Poland, as a state, ceased to exist, as Hitler announced on October 6, 1939, speaking in the Reichstag. The captured territory was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union.

As you can see, the opinions of historians are radically different. But all of them are based on documents of that time and on the testimonies of eyewitnesses of events. It is likely that each person evaluated them differently.

Before great war less than two years left. But, perhaps, it is worth remembering that the Poles fought bravely against the Nazis during this war on the side of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Germans formed a whole division "Galitchyna" from the natives of the western regions of Ukraine. And with the remnants of the Bendera gangs, the struggle continued for several more years after the end of the war.

Confusing all the same thing, the story!

According to the generally accepted opinion, on September 1, 1939, World War II began - the Third Reich attacked Poland, although in China they count from 1937. At 04:45, at the mouth of the Vistula River, the old German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military warehouses at Westerplatte in Danzig, the Wehrmacht went on the offensive along the entire border line.

Poland at that time represented a rather artificial public education- created from the actual Polish territories, the wreckage of the Russian Empire, the German Empire and Austria-Hungary. In 1939, out of 35.1 million people in Poland, there were 23.4 million Poles, 7.1 million Belarusians and Ukrainians, 3.5 million Jews, 0.7 million Germans, 0.1 million Lithuanians, 0.12 million Czechs. Moreover, the Belarusians and Ukrainians were in the position of oppressed slaves, and the Germans also sought to return to the Reich. Warsaw, on occasion, was not averse to adding territory at the expense of its neighbors - in 1922 it captured the Vilna region, in 1938 the Teszyn region from Czechoslovakia.

In Germany, they were forced to accept territorial losses in the east - West Prussia, part of Silesia, the Poznan region, and Danzig, predominantly populated by Germans, was declared a free city. But public opinion regarded these losses as a temporary loss. Hitler initially did not focus on these territories, believing that the problem of the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland was more important, and Poland even became an ally of Berlin, receiving crumbs from the master's table (Teszyn region of Czechoslovakia). In addition, in Warsaw they hoped, in alliance with Berlin, to go on a campaign to the East, dreaming of creating " Greater Poland» from the sea (Baltic) to the sea (Black Sea). On October 24, 1938, the Polish ambassador in Germany, Lipsky, was given a demand for Poland's consent to the inclusion of the free city of Danzig in the Reich, and Poland was also offered to join the Anti-Comintern Pact (directed against the USSR, it included Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary), during the ensuing later negotiations, Warsaw was promised territories in the East, at the expense of the USSR. But Warsaw showed its age-old stubbornness and constantly refused the Reich. Why were the Poles so self-confident? Apparently, they had complete confidence that London and Paris would not abandon them and would help in case of war.

Poland at that time pursued an extremely unwise policy, quarreling with almost all its neighbors: they did not want help from the USSR, although Paris and London tried to agree on this matter, there were territorial disputes with Hungary, they captured Vilna from Lithuania, even with the formation in March 1939 years, Slovakia (after the German occupation of the Czech Republic) had a fight - trying to seize part of the territory from it. Therefore, in addition to Germany, in September 1939, Slovakia also attacked Poland - they put up 2 divisions.

Polish "Vickers E" enters the Czechoslovak Zaolzie, October 1938.

France and England gave her a guarantee that they would help, but the Poles had to hold out for a week or two in order for France to complete the mobilization and concentrate forces for the strike. This is official, in reality in Paris and London they were not going to fight with Germany, thinking that Germany would not stop and go further, to the USSR, and the two enemies would grapple.

The disposition of enemy forces on August 31, 1939 and Polish campaign 1939.

Plans, forces of the parties

Poland began covert mobilization on March 23, 1939, managed to mobilize for war: 39 divisions, 16 separate brigades, only 1 million people, approximately 870 tanks (most of the wedges), a certain number of armored vehicles, 4300 guns and mortars, up to 400 aircraft. In addition, the Poles were sure that from the very beginning of the war they would be supported with all their might by the Allied aviation and the British Navy.

They planned to defend for two weeks, to hold back the Wehrmacht along the entire length of the border - almost 1900 km, against East Prussia, in favorable conditions, even expected to conduct an offensive. Plan offensive operation against East Prussia was called "West", it was supposed to be carried out by the operational groups "Narew", "Vyshkow" and the army "Modlin". In the "Polish corridor", which separated East Prussia and Germany, the "Help" army was concentrated, it, in addition to defense, was supposed to capture Danzig. The Berlin direction was defended by the army "Poznan", the border with Silesia and Slovakia was covered by the army "Lodz", the army "Krakow" and the army "Carpathians". In the rear, southwest of Warsaw, the Prussian auxiliary army was deployed. The Poles stretched their orders along the entire border, did not create a powerful anti-tank defense in the main directions, did not create powerful operational reserves for flank attacks on the enemy that had broken through.

The plan was designed for several "ifs": if the Polish army held out for two weeks in the main positions; if the Germans concentrated a small part of their forces and means (especially aircraft and tanks), the Polish command expected that Berlin would leave a significant grouping in the west; if in two weeks the Anglo-French forces launch a major offensive. Another weak point of the Polish army was the leadership, it almost from the very beginning of the war thought only of its own skin. It is surprising that with such a command, the Polish army held out for almost a month.

Germany, against Poland, the Third Reich involved 62 divisions (of which 40 were personnel divisions of the first strike, of which 6 were tank and 4 mechanized), a total of 1.6 million people, approximately 6,000 guns, 2,000 aircraft and 2,800 tanks (of which more than 80% were light , tankettes with machine guns). The German generals themselves assessed the combat effectiveness of the infantry as unsatisfactory, besides, they understood that if Hitler made a mistake and the Anglo-French army struck in the west, then disaster was inevitable. Germany is not ready to fight France (its army was considered the strongest in the world at that time) and England, they had superiority at sea, in the air and on land, the defenses were not prepared (“Siegfried Line”), the western front was bare.

They planned to destroy the Polish army (White plan) with a powerful blow maximum number troops and funds within two weeks (the idea of ​​a "blitzkrieg"), due to the exposure of the western border. They wanted to defeat the Poles before they could go on the offensive in the west, creating a strategic turning point in the war. At this time, the western border was covered by 36 understaffed, almost untrained divisions, devoid of armored vehicles and aviation. Almost all tanks and armored vehicles were concentrated in five corps: 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th and mountain. They had to find weak spots in the defense of the enemy, overcome the defenses of the enemy, enter the operational space, entering the rear of the enemy, at this time infantry divisions pinned down the enemy along the front.

Army Group "North" (4th and 3rd armies) beat from Pomerania and East Prussia in general direction to Warsaw, so that, by connecting with units of Army Group South east of Warsaw, they would close the encirclement over the remaining Polish troops north of the Vistula. Army Group "South" (8th, 10th, 14th armies) hit from the territory of Silesia and Moravia in the general direction of Warsaw, where it was supposed to connect with units of the Army Group "North". The 8th army beat in the direction of Lodz, the 14th was supposed to take Krakow, to advance on Sandomierz. There were weaker forces in the center, they were supposed to tie down the Poznan Polish army, imitate the direction of the main attack.

Dislocation of troops on 09/01/1939.

Occasion

In order to maintain the appearance of allegedly retaliatory actions, the German security services organized a provocation - the so-called "Gleiwitz incident". On August 31, SS fighters and criminals in Polish uniforms specially selected from prisons attacked a radio station in Gleiwitz, Germany. After the capture of the radio station, one of them in Polish read a specially prepared text on the radio, provoking Germany to war. Then the criminals were shot by the SS (one of the names of the operation is “Canned food”), left on the spot, they were discovered by the German police. At night German media that Poland attacked Germany.

First shots new war, training battleship "Schleswig-Holstein".

War

During the first day, the Luftwaffe destroyed most of the Polish aviation, and also disrupted communications, control, and the transfer of troops along railways. The German shock groups quite easily broke through the front and moved on, which is not surprising given the dispersion of the Polish units. So, the 19th mechanized corps (one tank, two mechanized, two infantry divisions), which fought from Pomerania, broke through the defenses of the 9th division and the Pomeranian cavalry brigade, passing 90 km by the evening of September 1st. In the Gulf of Danzig, the German Navy destroyed a small Polish squadron (one destroyer, one destroyer and five submarines), even before the start of the war, three destroyers went to England, and two submarines were able to break out of the Baltic (they later fought as part of the British Navy).

Already on September 1, the president left Warsaw, followed by the government on the 5th, and so began their movement to Romania. The last “heroic” order was issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army Edward Rydz-Smigly on the 10th, after which he did not get in touch, then showed up in Romania. In his last orders, he ordered Warsaw and Modlin to keep the defense surrounded, the remnants of the army to keep the defense near the border with Romania and wait for the help of England and France. Rydz-Smigly arrived in Brest on September 7, where in case of war with the USSR they were supposed to prepare the Headquarters, but it was not prepared, on the 10th he arrived in Vladimir-Volynsky, on the 13th in Mlynov, and on September 15 - closer to the Romanian border, to Kolomyia, where there was already a government and a president.

Marshal of Poland, Supreme Commander of the Polish Army Edward Rydz-Smigly.

On the 2nd, the "Help" army, which was defending the "Polish corridor", was dissected by counter attacks from East Prussia and Pomerania, most of it, the seaside, was surrounded. In the southern direction, the Wehrmacht found the junction of the Lodz and Krakow armies, the 1st Panzer Division rushed into the gap, going to the rear of the Polish units. The Polish command decides to withdraw the Krakow army to the main line of defense, and the Lodz army to the east and southeast beyond the line of the Nida and Dunajec rivers (about 100-170 km). But the border battle had already been lost, from the very beginning it was necessary to defend not the entire border, but to concentrate troops in the main directions, to create operational reserves for counterattacks. The defense plan of the Polish command was thwarted, in the north of the Wehrmacht, advancing from East Prussia, by the 3rd day they broke the resistance of the Modlin army, its remnants retreated beyond the Vistula. And there was no other plan, all that remained was to hope for the allies.

On the 4th, the Poles in the center withdrew to the Warta River, but they could not hold out there, they were almost immediately shot down by flank attacks, already on the 5th, the remnants of the units retreat to Lodz. The main reserve of the Polish armed forces - the Prussian army - was disorganized and simply "dissolved", by September 5 the war was lost, the Polish army was still fighting, retreating, trying to gain a foothold on some lines, but ... The Polish units were dissected, lost control, did not know what to do, were surrounded.

German tanks T-1 ( light tank Pz.Kpfw. I) in Poland. 1939

On September 8, the battle for Warsaw began, its defenders fought until September 28. The first attempts to take the city on the move, on September 8-10, were repulsed by the Poles. The Wehrmacht command decided to abandon the plan to take the city on the move and continued to close the blockade ring - on the 14th the ring was closed. On the 15-16th the Germans offered to capitulate, on the 17th the Polish military asked for permission to evacuate civilians, Hitler refused. On the 22nd, a general assault began, on the 28th, having exhausted the possibilities of defense, the remnants of the garrison capitulated.

Another grouping of Polish forces was surrounded west of Warsaw - around Kutno and Lodz, they held out until September 17, surrendering after several attempts to break through and when food and ammunition ran out. On October 1, the Baltic naval base Hel surrendered, the last center of defense was liquidated in Kotsk (north of Lublin), where 17 thousand Poles capitulated on October 6.

September 14, 1939.

The myth of the Polish cavalry

With the filing of Guderian, a myth was created about the attacks of the Polish cavalry on the tanks of the Wehrmacht. In reality, horses were used as transport (as in the Red Army, in the Wehrmacht), there was reconnaissance on horseback, soldiers of the caval units entered the battle on foot. In addition, cavalrymen, due to their mobility, excellent training (they were the elite of the army), good weapons (they were reinforced with artillery, machine guns, armored vehicles) turned out to be one of the most combat-ready units of the Polish Army.

In this war, only six cases of attacks on horseback are known, in two cases there were armored vehicles on the battlefield. On September 1, near Kroyants, units of the 18th Pomeranian Lancers met the Wehrmacht battalion, which was at a halt, and, taking advantage of the surprise factor, attacked. Initially, the attack was successful, the Germans were caught by surprise, they were cut down, but then German armored vehicles intervened in the battle, which the Polish scouts did not notice, as a result, the battle was lost. But the Polish cavalry, having suffered losses, withdrew into the forest and were not destroyed.

On September 19, near Vulka Venglova, the commander of the 14th regiment of the Yazlovetsky Lancers, Colonel E. Godlevsky (a unit of the 9th regiment of the Malopolsk Lancers joined him) decided to break through German infantry on horseback, relying on the factor of surprise, to Warsaw. But these turned out to be the positions of motorized infantry tank division, besides, artillery and tanks were not far away. The Polish cavalry broke through the positions of the Wehrmacht, losing about 20% of the regiment (at that time - 105 people killed and 100 wounded). The battle lasted only 18 minutes, the Germans lost 52 people killed and 70 wounded.

Attack of the Polish Lancers.

The results of the war

Poland, as a state, ceased to exist, most of its territories were divided between Germany and the USSR, some lands were received by Slovakia.

On the remnants of the lands not annexed to Germany, a general government was created under the control of the German authorities, with the capital in Krakow.

Lithuania ceded the Vilnius region.

The Wehrmacht lost 13-20 thousand people killed and missing, about 30 thousand wounded. Polish army - 66 thousand killed, 120-200 thousand wounded, about 700 thousand prisoners.

Polish infantry on the defensive

Sources:
Halder F. Military diary. Chief's daily notes General Staff ground forces 1939-1942 (in 3 volumes). M., 1968-1971.
Guderian G. Memoirs of a soldier. Smolensk, 1999.
Kurt von Tippelskirch. World War II, St. Petersburg, 1998.
Meltyukhov M.I. Soviet-Polish wars. Military-political confrontation 1918-1939 M., 2001.
http://victory.rusarchives.ru/index.php?p=32&sec_id=60
http://poland1939.ru/

There are things that should not be forgotten...
The joint fascist-Soviet attack on Poland escalated into the Second world war. And if the aggression of the Nazis received a due assessment at the Nuremberg trials, then Soviet crimes against the Poles were hushed up and went unpunished. However, Soviet crimes came back to haunt the shame and bitterness of 1941.
And it is worth looking at the events of 1939 through the eyes of the Poles:

Original taken from vg_saveliev to the Polish campaign of the Red Army in 1939 through the eyes of the Poles.

We were not taught that way, of course. What is written below, we were not told.
I think that even today the Polish campaign is described as taking Belarusians and Ukrainians under the protection in the conditions of the collapse of the Polish state and the aggression of Nazi Germany.
But it was. Therefore, the Poles have a completely different view of what happened, starting from September 17, 1939.

It was four o'clock in the morning on September 17, 1939, when the Red Army began to implement Order No. 16634, which had been issued the day before by People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Kliment Voroshilov. The order was brief: "Begin the offensive at dawn on the 17th."
The Soviet troops, which consisted of six armies, formed two fronts - Belarusian and Ukrainian, and launched a massive attack on eastern Polish territories.
620 thousand soldiers, 4700 tanks and 3300 aircraft were thrown into the attack, that is, twice as many as the Wehrmacht had, which attacked Poland on the first of September.

Soviet soldiers drew attention to themselves with their appearance
One resident of the town of Disna, Vilna Voivodeship, described them as follows: “They were strange - vertically challenged, bow-legged, ugly and terribly hungry. They had fancy hats on their heads and rag boots on their feet. There was another feature in the appearance and behavior of the soldiers, which locals noticed even more clearly: animal hatred for everything that was associated with Poland. It was written on their faces and resounded in their conversations. It might seem that someone had been "stuffing" them with this hatred for a long time, and only now she was able to break free.

Soviet soldiers killed Polish prisoners, destroyed the civilian population, burned and robbed. The operational units of the NKVD followed the line units, whose task was to eliminate the "Polish enemy" in the rear of the Soviet front. They were entrusted with the task of taking control of the most important elements of the infrastructure of the Polish state in the territories occupied by the Red Army. They occupied buildings public institutions, banks, printing houses, editorial offices of newspapers; confiscated securities, archives and cultural property; they arrested Poles on the basis of lists prepared in advance and current denunciations of their agents; caught and copied employees of the Polish services, parliamentarians, members of Polish parties and public organizations. Many were immediately killed, not even having a chance to get into Soviet prisons and camps, retaining at least a theoretical chance of survival.

Outlaw diplomats
The first victims of the Soviet attack were diplomats representing Poland on the territory of the Soviet Union. The Polish ambassador to Moscow, Vaclav Grzybowski, was urgently summoned to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs at midnight from September 16 to 17, 1939, where Vyacheslav Molotov's deputy minister Vladimir Potemkin tried to hand him a Soviet note justifying the attack of the Red Army. Grzybowski refused to accept it, saying that the Soviet side had violated all international agreements. Potemkin replied that there was no longer a Polish state or Polish government, at the same time explaining to Grzybowski that Polish diplomats no longer had any official rank and would be treated as a group of Poles located in the Soviet Union, which local courts had the right to prosecute for illegal actions. Contrary to the provisions Geneva Convention the Soviet leadership tried to prevent the evacuation of diplomats to Helsinki, and then arrest them. The requests of the Deputy Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Ambassador of Italy Augusto Rosso to Vyacheslav Molotov, remained unanswered. As a result, the Ambassador of the Third Reich in Moscow, Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg, decided to save the Polish diplomats, who forced the Soviet leadership to give them permission to leave.

However, before that, other, much more dramatic stories with the participation of Polish diplomats managed to happen in the USSR.
On September 30, the Polish consul in Kyiv, Jerzy Matusinsky, was summoned to the local branch of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. At midnight, accompanied by two of his drivers, he left the building of the Polish consulate and went missing. When the Polish diplomats who remained in Moscow learned about the disappearance of Matusinsky, they again turned to Augusto Rosso, who went to Molotov, who stated that, most likely, the consul with the drivers fled to some neighboring country. Schulenburg failed to achieve anything either. In the summer of 1941, when the USSR began to release the Poles from the camps, General Władysław Anders (Władysław Anders) began to form a Polish army on Soviet territory, and the former driver of the consul, Andrzej Orszyński, turned out to be in its ranks. According to his testimony given under oath to the Polish authorities, on that day all three were arrested by the NKVD and transported to the Lubyanka. Orshinsky was not shot only by a miracle. The Polish embassy in Moscow appealed to the Soviet authorities several more times about the missing consul Matusinsky, but the answer was the same: "We don't have him."

The repression also affected employees of other Polish diplomatic missions in the Soviet Union. The consulate in Leningrad was forbidden to transfer the building and the property in it to the next consul, and the NKVD forcibly expelled personnel from it. A rally of “protesting citizens” was organized near the consulate in Minsk, as a result of which demonstrators beat and robbed Polish diplomats. For the USSR, Poland, like international law, did not exist. What happened to representatives of the Polish state in September 1939 was a unique event in the history of world diplomacy.

Executed army
Already in the first days after the Red Army's invasion of Poland, war crimes began. First, they affected the Polish soldiers and officers. The orders of the Soviet troops abounded with appeals addressed to the Polish civilian population: they agitated to destroy the Polish military, portraying them as enemies. Ordinary conscription soldiers
whether to kill their officers. Such orders were given, for example, by the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Semyon Timoshenko. This war was waged against international law and all military conventions. Now even Polish historians cannot give an accurate assessment of the scale of the Soviet crimes of 1939. We learned about many cases of atrocities and brutal murders of the Polish military only after several decades thanks to the stories of witnesses of those events. So it was, for example, with the story of the commander of the Third Military Corps in Grodno, General Jozef Olshina-Vilchinsky.
On September 22, in the vicinity of the village of Sopotskin, his car was surrounded by Soviet soldiers with grenades and machine guns. The general and the people accompanying him were robbed, stripped, and shot almost immediately. The general’s wife, who managed to survive, told many years later: “The husband was lying face down, left leg was shot through the knee. Nearby lay the captain with his head cut open. The contents of his skull spilled onto the ground in a bloody mass. The view was terrible. I stepped closer, checked for a pulse, though I knew it was pointless. The body was still warm, but he was already dead. I started looking for some little thing, something for memory, but my husband’s pockets were empty, even the Order of Military Valor and the icon with the image of the Mother of God, which I gave him on the first day of the war, were taken from him.

In the Polesye Voivodeship, the Soviet military shot an entire captured company of the battalion of the Sarny Border Protection Corps - 280 people. A brutal murder also took place in the Great Bridges of the Lviv province. Soviet soldiers drove the cadets to the square local school police officers, listened to the report of the school commandant and shot all those present from the machine guns placed around. No one survived. From one Polish detachment that fought in the vicinity of Vilnius and laid down their arms in exchange for a promise to let the soldiers go home, all the officers were withdrawn, who were immediately executed. The same thing happened in Grodno, taking which Soviet troops killed about 300 Polish defenders of the city. On the night of September 26-27, Soviet detachments entered Nemiruvek in the Chelm region, where several dozen cadets spent the night. They were taken prisoner, tied with barbed wire and bombarded with grants. The policemen who defended Lviv were shot on the highway leading to Vinniki. Similar executions took place in Novogrudok, Ternopil, Volkovysk, Oshmyany, Svisloch, Molodechno, Khodorov, Zolochev, Stry. Separate and massacres of captured Polish soldiers were committed in hundreds of other cities eastern regions Poland. The Soviet military also mocked the wounded. So it was, for example, during the battle near Vytychno, when several dozen wounded prisoners were placed in the building of the People's House in Vlodava and locked up there without any help. Two days later, almost all died from their wounds, their bodies were burned at the stake.
Polish prisoners of war under the escort of the Red Army after the Polish campaign in September 1939

Sometimes the Soviet military used deception, treacherously promising Polish soldiers freedom, and sometimes even pretending to be Polish allies in the war with Hitler. This happened, for example, on September 22 in Vinniki near Lvov. General Vladislav Langer, who led the defense of the city, signed with the Soviet commanders a protocol for the transfer of the city to the Red Army, according to which Polish officers were promised an unhindered exit in the direction of Romania and Hungary. The agreement was violated almost immediately: the officers were arrested and taken to a camp in Starobilsk. In the Zalishchiki region on the border with Romania, Russians decorated tanks with Soviet and Polish flags to pose as allies, and then surround the Polish detachments, disarm and arrest the soldiers. They often took off their uniforms and shoes from the prisoners and let them go on without clothes, shooting at them with undisguised joy. In general, as the Moscow press reported, in September 1939, Soviet army about 250 thousand Polish soldiers and officers were hit. For the latter, real hell began later. The denouement took place in the Katyn forest and the basements of the NKVD in Tver and Kharkov.

Red terror
Terror and killings of the civilian population took on a special scale in Grodno, where at least 300 people were killed, including scouts who took part in the defense of the city. Twelve-year-old Tadzik Yasinsky soviet soldiers tied to a tank, and then dragged along the pavement. Arrested civilians were shot at Dog Mountain. Witnesses of these events recall that piles of corpses lay in the center of the city. Among those arrested were, in particular, the director of the gymnasium Vaclav Myslicki, the head of the women's gymnasium Janina Nedzwiecka and the deputy of the Seimas Constanta Terlikovsky.
All of them soon died in Soviet prisons. The wounded had to hide from the Soviet soldiers, because if they were found, they would be immediately shot.
The Red Army soldiers especially actively poured out their hatred on the Polish intellectuals, landowners, officials and schoolchildren. In the village of Bolshiye Eismonty in the Bialystok region, Kazimierz Bisping, a member of the Union of Landowners and Senator, was tortured, who later died in one of the Soviet camps. Arrest and torture also awaited the engineer Oskar Meishtovich, the owner of the Rogoznitsa estate near Grodno, who was subsequently killed in a Minsk prison.
Soviet soldiers treated foresters and military settlers with particular cruelty. The command of the Ukrainian Front issued a 24-hour permission to the local Ukrainian population to "crack down on the Poles." Most brutal murder happened in the Grodno region, where not far from Skidel and Zhydomlya there were three garrisons inhabited by Pilsudski's former legionnaires. Several dozen people were brutally killed: their ears, tongues, noses were cut off, and their stomachs were torn open. Some were doused with oil and burned.
Terror and repression also fell upon the clergy. Priests were beaten, taken to camps, and often killed. In Antonovka, Sarny district, a priest was arrested right during the service; in Ternopil, Dominican monks were expelled from the monastery buildings, which were burned before their eyes. In the village of Zelva, Volkovysk district, a Catholic and Orthodox priests, and then brutally dealt with them in the nearby forest.
From the first days of the entry of Soviet troops, the prisons of the cities and towns of Eastern Poland began to fill rapidly. The NKVD, which treated the captives with bestial cruelty, began to create their own makeshift prisons. Within just a few weeks, the number of prisoners had increased by at least six to seven times.

Crime against the Poles
In the era of the Polish People's Republic, they tried to convince the Poles that on September 17, 1939, there was a "peaceful" entry of Soviet troops to protect the Belarusian and Ukrainian population living on the eastern borders of the Polish Republic. Meanwhile, it was a brutal attack that violated the provisions of the 1921 Riga Treaty and the 1932 Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.
The Red Army, which entered Poland, did not reckon with international law. It was not only about the capture of the eastern Polish regions as part of the implementation of the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on August 23, 1939. Having invaded Poland, the USSR began to put into practice a plan that had been born in the 1920s to exterminate the Poles. First, the liquidation was supposed to affect the "leading elements", which should be deprived of influence on populace and defuse. The masses, in turn, were planned to be resettled deep into the Soviet Union and turned into slaves of the empire. It was a real revenge for the fact that Poland in 1920 held back the onset of communism. Soviet aggression was an invasion of barbarians who killed prisoners and civilians, terrorized the civilian population, destroyed and desecrated everything that they associated with Poland. The entire free world, for which the Soviet Union had always been a convenient ally in helping to defeat Hitler, did not want to know anything about this barbarity. And that is why Soviet crimes in Poland have not yet received condemnation and punishment!
Barbarian Invasion (Leszek Pietrzak, "Uwazam Rze", Poland)

It's kind of weird to read that, isn't it? Breaks the pattern. Makes you suspect that the Poles are blinded by their hatred of the Russians.
Because this is not at all like the liberation campaign of the Red Army, which we have always been told about.
Well, that's if you don't count the Poles as occupiers.
It is clear that punishing the occupiers is the right thing to do. And war is war. She is always cruel.

Maybe that's the whole point?
The Poles believe that this is their land. And the Russians - what are they.

Was Poland part of the USSR or in the Russian Empire?

Answers

1 0

7 (59826) 11 64 174 6 years

After the Second World War as part of the USSR until the 89th year.

The USSR included 15 republics. And for some reason I don't remember the Polish SSR. Probably because after the war she was part of the countries of the socialist camp. Just like Yugoslavia, for example, Bulgaria, etc.

1 0

7 (41279) 2 5 14 6 years

Was. To see more details, just type in Google - Poland in 1939, as part of the Russian Empire or on Wikipedia - Poland.
Polish campaign of the Red Army Poland in the XX century
http://coins-polsk.narod.ru/index.html - Short story Poland being part of Russia
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland
Under Catherine|| was under the protection of Russia.


In 1772, the first partition of the Commonwealth between Prussia, Austria and Russia took place, according to which Galicia went to Austria, West Prussia to Prussia, and the eastern part of Belarus (Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Dvinsk) to Russia.

As we know, these territories both under the USSR and now belong to Belarus and Latvia. But, if we take the history deeper, then initially our Dvinsk was not Polish. It was Russia that returned its lands, and subsequently gave it to the republics.

The Commonwealth was divided between Prussia and Russia (1793). A Sejm was convened in Grodno, at which the restoration of the former constitution was proclaimed; Warsaw and several other cities were occupied by Russian garrisons; the Polish army has been drastically reduced.

The lack of support for the uprising by the Belarusian and Ukrainian population was revealed. Kosciuszko was defeated at Maciejovice and taken prisoner, the Warsaw suburb of Prague was taken by storm by Suvorov; Warsaw capitulated. After that, the third partition took place (according to an agreement concluded between Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1795) and Poland ceased to exist as a state.

Period of absence of statehood (1795-1918)
For more than a century, Poland did not have its own statehood, the Polish lands were part of other states (primarily Russia, Prussia and Austria).

The next partition of Poland took place in 1814-1815 at the Congress of Vienna between Austria, Prussia and Russia. Most of the former Duchy of Warsaw was transferred to Russia ... The Congress of Vienna declared the granting of autonomy to the Polish lands in all three parts, but in fact this was carried out only in Russia, where, largely on the initiative of Emperor Alexander I, known for his liberal aspirations, the constitutional Kingdom of Poland was formed .

On September 17, Soviet troops invade Poland and occupy Western Belarus and Ukraine. On September 27, Warsaw fell and the Polish army actually stopped resisting.

During the next partition of Poland, the ethnically predominantly non-Polish territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were annexed to the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR.

The Polish Republic was not part of the USSR. Belarusian, Ukrainian lands and the Vilnius region were returned. Under the Russian Empire, at one time it was part of the empire as the Kingdom of Poland.

0 3

1 (160) 3 9 6 years

First, she ruled in Russia, then came under the influence of many states, including the Russian Empire. It was independent at the beginning of the 20th century. After the Second World War as part of the USSR until the 89th year.

You WHAT!!! On a site with a domain.lv you can't ask such wrong questions!!!111onedin. It is necessary to ask "In what year did the evil occupying forces, led by a vodka-balalaika-voblo division, occupied the unfortunate, but proud and independent Republic of Latvia?"
Otherwise, evil KGB officers, strange uncles, may knock on your door, and if you don’t open it, they will drink beer right under the door and sing tautas diesmas

• I knew it would work

  Just at one time in the USSR there was such a thing as censorship. There were special people in the newspapers and not on television, who made sure that no bad things were said about the Soviet authorities. Therefore, it often turned out that people do not know what is really going on in the country. The Soviet people even learned about the Chernobol disaster only when the assessors of the tragedy said that it required the elimination of the consequences of an all-Union scale. According to my mother, at that time, by my birth, I dissuaded my father from going to Chernobol to eliminate the consequences of the accident.
  Well, this censorship spoiled everything, from the TV everyone looked at people with happy and smiling faces, but in life not everyone had a decision. For example, at that time it was impossible to buy an apartment, only to exchange or live in a factory hostel.
  Therefore, the current television does not litter them, it simply tells how people lived.
  Yes, and you yourself think about how they will live simple people. if a handful of people called communists, called everyone equal, and they are the coolest of all equals and fatten in special stores, take bribes and impose bribes on the guilds. And if you do not agree, then you are an enemy of the people, for which you should be shot or crazy and spend half your life in a fool.
  

• in the Empire ... IMHO the monarchy is the optimal state system ... one person decides and as a result this long bureaucracy, discussions and voting does not go on ... task setting is fast and just as quickly executed, because if something goes wrong, then the performer can specifically rake from the monarch ... the times of the Russian Empire are the times of the greatness of the Russian people ...

  corpus delicti is a set of features that characterize a socially dangerous act as a specific crime, thus it is the only basis for criminal liability.
  it is necessary to have four elements as an object, objective side, subject, subjective side.
  as it is written in the book so I understood ...
  and now look for the definition of all terms .. totality, signs, a socially dangerous act, a crime, a basis for criminal liability ... and all 4 elements
  

  The last ham I bought had only 79 calories per 100 grams. Better composition just don't read it!

  Durum wheat flour and water.