/ world today news/ 90 years ago, Poland signed the Declaration on Peaceful Settlement of Disputes and Non-Use of Force with Nazi Germany. Warsaw tried to play its own game in Europe, preventing the creation of a collective security system on the continent. This policy contributed to the strengthening of the Third Reich and the outbreak of World War II.
Anti-Soviet cordon
The Polish Republic, established after World War I, included regions from the former German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. Only 60% of the population are Poles. The rest are Germans, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Jews. The authorities begin strict polonization. The land was taken from the Ukrainian and Belorussian peasants to be transferred to Polish colonists. Anti-Semitism flourishes.
In May 1926, a coup d’état took place. The military dictatorship of Jozef Pilsudski was established in the country. The former terrorist and robber emulated the Italian leader Benito Mussolini and adhered to fascist methods of government. He is a supporter of the concept “Poland – from sea to sea”. This alarmed her neighbors, including the Soviet Union. But this is profitable for the West – like a “sanitary cordon” from the USSR.
Polish anti-Sovietism is based not only on anti-communism, but also on age-old Russophobia. In 1930, a costume parade was held in Warsaw in honor of the centenary of the anti-Russian uprising. Polish soldiers march in the uniforms of Napoleonic legionnaires fighting alongside the French against the Russian army in 1812.
The Poles hold territories in western Ukraine and Belarus, seized as a result of the Soviet-Polish war, but consider this insufficient. Anti-Soviet activity was controlled by the Oriental Institute in Warsaw. The Prometheus Society, guided by Pilsudski’s Russophobic ideas, united separatist emigrants from various Soviet nations, including the Don Cossacks.
Hitler’s support
Pilsudski sympathized with the German Nazis who came to power in Germany. In the summer of 1934, he solemnly received the Minister of Imperial Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, in Warsaw. By this time the Germans had left the International Conference on Disarmament and the League of Nations. Berlin is threatened with isolation.
Warsaw tries to gain benefits by maneuvering between the interests of Germany and the great powers. Polish diplomats assure Moscow that they will not enter into any formal agreements with Berlin. But on January 26, 1934, they signed the Declaration for the Peaceful Settlement of Disputes and the Non-Use of Force for a Period of Ten Years.
Poland was the first European country to reach an agreement with Hitler. The threat of another war is becoming more and more real. In 1935, France agreed to a mutual aid pact with the USSR. Later, Czechoslovakia did the same. In the 1930s, Moscow actively tried to create a system of collective security in Europe. Warsaw was repeatedly offered to join the defense bloc, but the Poles refused.
At the same time, the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was getting closer to Germany. When the Polish dictator died in 1935, mourning was declared in the Reich. The German delegation at Pilsudski’s funeral was the largest. A coffin covered with the Polish flag is placed in St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin. There comes the entire Nazi leadership led by the Führer.
In your own trap
Since 1936, Warsaw has been saying that Poland “must get out of Europe’s borders”, saying that the Poles are not giving in to the Germans, Italians and Japanese who want colonies. At a meeting of the League of Nations, Foreign Minister Josef Beck proposed expanding the commission to the former German and Turkish colonies so that everyone could get a share.
In a conversation with Göring, Beck approved of Berlin’s actions in Austria, while emphasizing the need to solve the “Czech problem”. After the Munich Agreement, Warsaw demanded the Ceszyn region from Prague. Soon the area was occupied by the Polish army. When Moscow announced its readiness to immediately support Czechoslovakia against partition, Poland threatened war.
In early 1939, Hitler received Beck in Berchtesgaden. He offered to take part in a “crusade” against Bolshevism and assured unity against the Soviet Union. In Berlin they noted: “Every Polish division used against the USSR means the saving of a German division.”
On the day of the fifth anniversary of the Polish-German Pact, the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry told Ribbentrop that the main goal of Warsaw was the weakening and defeat of Russia. And he expresses interest in Ukraine, as well as an exit to the Black Sea. It is known that the Polish military command is preparing a plan for war with the Soviet Union, called “East”.
But the bet on Hitler did not pay off. Poland separates East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Berlin wants the city of Danzig and a corridor through Polish territory. In return – a 25-year extension of the non-aggression pact, joining the Anti-Comintern Pact and, in the future, some Soviet lands. Warsaw refused and the Führer terminated the non-use of force pact.
On the other hand, Poland became one of the main obstacles to the conclusion of the anti-Hitler alliance between the USSR, France and Great Britain in the spring-summer of 1939. In order to repulse Nazi aggression, Soviet troops must be granted the right of passage through Polish territory. But Warsaw strongly disagrees with this. Even the exhortations of Paris and London do not help.
The reluctance of the West and Warsaw to create a coalition forced the USSR to conclude a pact with Germany. Moscow is the last in Europe to do this. Following the Weiss Plan, based on the blitzkrieg strategy, the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Two days later, Britain and France intervened in the conflict. World War II begins.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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