17 september 1939

Wildcat

Active member
This is date of soviet shameful attack on Polan. We were fightnig with german army and that was punch in the back. You must know that USSR and Poland sign document about non-aggression. Stalin helped Hitler in beating Poland. Poles would fight only with Germans which had bigger army. But Soviet with Germans was not to beat. I would know what do you think about this shameful date?
 
Should you not address this question to the League of Nations the for runner of the UN. Lets face it they sold Abyssinia down the river long before they sold out Poland. What did Poland do to help Abyssinia not a lot, so then why get off your high horse about about Britain and France. You should look at why your forces where so under equipped to deal the Germans, because at that time the Germans were picking of the weakest Nations around them and every one had their heads in the sand.
 
I don't know what you mean. Hitler had bigger army than Poland. He had about 1800 planes...we had 400 planes...he had 2000 tanks...we had 500 tanks...he had mechanized infantry...we had calvary...But Polish HQ haven't done good work in 1939. But better than France in 1940 cause we were defending our capital...They didn't want to defend Paris...
Hitler conquered Austria and Czechoslovakia. Everybody have done nothing. There were stronger countries than Poland which were able to do something...
 
Hitler didn't "conquer" Austria and all Czechoslovakia though he did conquer part of it to some extent. He was handed them over on a silver platter. The Austrians themselves agreed to join Germany in the "Anschluss" and the appeasement governments of Britain, and France gave him the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia - which happened to include all the country's fortifications. Hitler then walked in and took the rest of it to no resistance. Goebbels called these actions "the war of flowers" because of the garlands tossed into the streets as Hitler's troops marched in.

As to what I think about what happened to Poland, well I could say much, but I will say that Poland was doomed from the beginning by two things (1) the Polish corridor seperating East Prussia from the rest of Germany and (2) the topography of the land itself. Poland has been a battlefield virtually all its existence. The League of Nations, the Treaty of Versailles, and appeasement from Britain and France set Poland up for the fall. However, it is easy to sit back in these times and find fault with Britain and France. They both had lost millions, I'll say that again, millions of young men on the fields of WWI. An entire generation was lost. Three of my grandparents were Scots. All lost nearly all their male relatives of their generation. One grandmother had seven brothers - none returned from France. Having faced such losses, it can be understood by anyone of compassion how horror struck they must've been to see the spectre of such another war again.
 
Wildcat said:
I don't know what you mean. Hitler had bigger army than Poland. He had about 1800 planes...we had 400 planes...he had 2000 tanks...we had 500 tanks...he had mechanized infantry...we had calvary...But Polish HQ haven't done good work in 1939. But better than France in 1940 cause we were defending our capital...They didn't want to defend Paris...
Hitler conquered Austria and Czechoslovakia. Everybody have done nothing. There were stronger countries than Poland which were able to do something...

The French Military never surrendered in WWII, only the government. The military took off for North Africa, the UK and Russia.
Its even been argued that the French could have mounted a resistence in the South had they abandoned Paris. The French military had problems buts its real hinderence was its weak government.
 
mmarsh......I can't go along with that because the French Colonies could have fought on with the Allies, but they didn't. There were many cases of them actively opposing the Allies when they landed in North Africa
 
mmarsh said:
The French Military never surrendered in WWII, only the government. The military took off for North Africa, the UK and Russia.

Did you know that UK troops, the French Legion and Norway caused several major problems for the German Army in the city of Narvik in the North Of Norway? This battle is considered as the first draw back for the German war machine in the second world war - unfortunately the British gouvernment decided to abandon the Norwegian theatre where as the Norwegian troops surrendered after two weeks of heavy fightings.

Anyways when it cmes to Poland I agree with Charge 7. The Poles ought to know something was going on.
 
mmarsh said:
The French Military never surrendered in WWII, only the government. The military took off for North Africa, the UK and Russia.
Its even been argued that the French could have mounted a resistence in the South had they abandoned Paris. The French military had problems buts its real hinderence was its weak government.

French military formations did surrender in WW2 (I dont mean squads, platoons, companies). The surrender was as you point out organised by the government, executed by the military. The head of the government was Marshal Petain. The French army was a defeated formation, although doing well against Italy. The French armies total and complete defeat was only a matter of time.

sunb! said:
Did you know that UK troops, the French Legion and Norway caused several major problems for the German Army in the city of Narvik in the North Of Norway? This battle is considered as the first draw back for the German war machine in the second world war - unfortunately the British gouvernment decided to abandon the Norwegian theatre where as the Norwegian troops surrendered after two weeks of heavy fightings.

These formations were also defeated. The Germans had control of the skies and constantly outflanked the allies. Britain did well at sea in Norway at holding the germans, but Norway was not decided upon the sea but on land. The Germans were better lead and equiped for the war in Norway.

I dont think abandonned is the correct or best expression for Britain leaving Norway. Should they have committed further forces? those that would have been needed for France? When can a lost cause be won? Where was the decisive theatre in 1940?
 
Wildcat said:
This is date of soviet shameful attack on Polan. We were fightnig with german army and that was punch in the back. You must know that USSR and Poland sign document about non-aggression. Stalin helped Hitler in beating Poland. Poles would fight only with Germans which had bigger army. But Soviet with Germans was not to beat. I would know what do you think about this shameful date?

Personally? I think it was a good thing. Stalin managed to get an extra couple hundred miles between Moscow and the front, which probably prevented the Wermacht from taking the city and kept Russia in the war, if Stalin doesn't attack Poland it is quite possible that Russia falls and the Allies don't win the war for several years, if at all.

It is unfortunate what happened to Poland but as Charge said your nation was pitifully ill-prepared for the attack, despite the fact that several neighbors had already fallen Poland was not at all prepared. I will say however that Poland did a far better job of defending themselves than France. Unlike Poland, France held the advantage in manpower, number of tanks, and as they claim far superior tanks. This will probably never be known because most were simply destroyed because they were dispersed instead of grouped together behind the lines to hit back wherever Germany hit.

Poland was, IMO, the worst treated nation during WWII followed closely by Ukraine, screwed first by Germany, then Russia, then Russia again and if my memory serves me correct more jews were killed in Poland than any other nation.

But I am going to be a little harsh in my judgements because I am of the opinion that if France was going to be such a little ***** at Versailles and insist that Germany be brought to face such harsh punishments then it was there job to make sure that Germany was never able to do what they did again. Which they of course failed miserably at millions suffered because of their incompitence.
 
Wildcat said:
This is date of soviet shameful attack on Polan. We were fightnig with german army and that was punch in the back. You must know that USSR and Poland sign document about non-aggression. Stalin helped Hitler in beating Poland. Poles would fight only with Germans which had bigger army. But Soviet with Germans was not to beat. I would know what do you think about this shameful date?

I'm afraid your country was deemed expendable by all the other major powers. Even though the UK and France declared war on Germany as a result, neither country did anything tangible at all to help Poland when it was invaded by Germany. There's not a lot Germany could have done about a strong, concerted Anglo-French attack into Western Germany via the Low Countries as the holding German divisions there were quite weak. However, this attack never came, one of the main reasons being that the French Army, considered the finest in the world at the time, was set up on defensive lines to defend France from German aggression.

A Soviet 'stab-in-the-back' was inevitable, agreement or no agreement. There's simply NO way Stalin would have allowed Germany to entirely swallow what the Soviets considered a buffer zone around their borders.
 
Damien435 said:
Personally? I think it was a good thing. Stalin managed to get an extra couple hundred miles between Moscow and the front, which probably prevented the Wermacht from taking the city and kept Russia in the war, if Stalin doesn't attack Poland it is quite possible that Russia falls and the Allies don't win the war for several years, if at all.

.

I don't think that Stalin has profited a lot from these "extra couple hunderd miles" in 1941. Unfortunately for him and the Red Army all fortifications along the old border have been decomissioned and the new ones have not built yet. So the Germans have conquered these former Polish territories within a week.
However, it has to be mentioned that Stalin in Sept. 1939 has been almost fully allied with Hitler(without formally joining the Anti-Comintern Pact, of course - it would be so ironic:lol: )
The German U-boats were stationed in Polyarny, the German surface raiders have been escorted by the Soviet icebreakers via Arctic Seaway to the Far East to prey on British maritime traffic on the Pacific. The Soviet Union was suplying Germany with food, ore and other strategic materials right before being invaded by their former friend.

Regarding the Soviet-Polish relations before the war, it is important to remember that Poland has defeated the Soviets in 1920(The Warsaw Miracle) and Stalin personally has been the one defeated. These realtions were very bad and the Soviets were very eager to avenge themselves.

I believe, it was some probability at that time that Nazi Germany and Red Russia could have fight on the same side, if:
1. Great Britain could manage to occupy Norway before the Germans did and deny Swedish ore to the Germans
2. British and French troops came to help the Finns against the Red Army and bomb Baku, as it has been planned
 
Except the only people the Nazi's hated with as much passion as the Jews were Communists. The only people the Russians hated as much as the Jews were Germans. Both nations had fought each other in the Great War, and they never were close to "friendship". Stalin and Hitler held too much hatred for one another and each other's political systems to ever get along for much longer than they did. If Hitler doesn't attack Stalin, Stalin attacks Hitler while his armies are off in England, then Stalin controls Europe, not Hitler, and the Cold War gets off to a white hot start pretty damn quick.
 
Damien435 said:
Except the only people the Nazi's hated with as much passion as the Jews were Communists. The only people the Russians hated as much as the Jews were Germans. Both nations had fought each other in the Great War, and they never were close to "friendship". Stalin and Hitler held too much hatred for one another and each other's political systems to ever get along for much longer than they did. If Hitler doesn't attack Stalin, Stalin attacks Hitler while his armies are off in England, then Stalin controls Europe, not Hitler, and the Cold War gets off to a white hot start pretty damn quick.

You are right in one major issue - these two tirans couldn't share the same Earth for a long time. But on everything else we can argue:2guns:

1. The difference between the Nazi and Commie is not as big as you think.
Racial superiority vs. Class superiority, that's all. This is theory
In their practical application both regimes were so similar. From mass propaganda and youth's indocrination from their suppression of any dissent to the foreign aggression - they were like brothers!
Do you know that Gestapo and NKVD used to have joint seminars to share their methods and findings, that more German communists of high rank have been destroyed in Gulag than by Gestapo? They were much better pair than the trio FDR-Churchill-Stalin, don't you think?
2. The Germans and the Russians didn't hate each other before the WWII! The Russian Csars after, I believe, 1765, were German by origin, including Ekatherine the Great. Nicolas II and the Kaser Wilhelm II were cousins. Ethnic Germans were serving in the highest state and military posts of the Russian Empire including prime-minister's. When the Germans were occupying some russian territory in the WWI, they behaved, more or less.
So, when they advanced again in 1941, many people, including the Jews(!!) didn't want to flee, saying:"The Germans are civilized people, why should we fear them?"
3. Are you aware of the role the Soviets played in the restoration of the German War Machine in the 20-ies? Of the visits made by the future Wermaxt generals(including Guderian) to The Red Army training centers?
4. I have started to climb mountains in the USSR more than 30 years ago. At that time, we still had some old instructors who fought in the war in the Caucasus mountains. They told us - EVERY officer and many men of the German alpine division had an opportunity to visit these mountains before the war! There were climbing there with their Russian friends. So, when they came back in 1942, the fights were often personal - the enemies were often known by their first names!

Of course, the brutality of the Nazi occupation and the bitter fighting has changed all that. But it wasn't always the case...
 
boris116 said:
You are right in one major issue - these two tirans couldn't share the same Earth for a long time. But on everything else we can argue:2guns:

1. The difference between the Nazi and Commie is not as big as you think.
Racial superiority vs. Class superiority, that's all. This is theory
In their practical application both regimes were so similar. From mass propaganda and youth's indocrination from their suppression of any dissent to the foreign aggression - they were like brothers!

And yet despite this they still hated eachother dearly and the Communists and Nazi's were sworn enemies from the world go.


Do you know that Gestapo and NKVD used to have joint seminars to share their methods and findings, that more German communists of high rank have been destroyed in Gulag than by Gestapo? They were much better pair than the trio FDR-Churchill-Stalin, don't you think?

They might have been a better pair than that trio, but latter three were world leaders, not the scum of the earth sharing techniques for the most painful methods to slowly kill one another. Stalin believed that Churchill and Roosevelt were holding back in their aid of the Soviet Union because his paranoid side said that the Germans could not be capable of sinking as many ships as they were in the dangerous route to Archangel.

2. The Germans and the Russians didn't hate each other before the WWII! The Russian Csars after, I believe, 1765, were German by origin, including Ekatherine the Great. Nicolas II and the Kaser Wilhelm II were cousins. Ethnic Germans were serving in the highest state and military posts of the Russian Empire including prime-minister's. When the Germans were occupying some russian territory in the WWI, they behaved, more or less.

A.) King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Alexander were all cousins and used to spend the summers together in England. B.) Brest-Livotsk. C.) WWI was, for the most part, fought honorably by all parties involved so that is a mute point.

So, when they advanced again in 1941, many people, including the Jews(!!) didn't want to flee, saying:"The Germans are civilized people, why should we fear them?"

Because the "Civilized German people" and their leaders had been shouting for the "solution to the Jewish problem" for years.

3. Are you aware of the role the Soviets played in the restoration of the German War Machine in the 20-ies? Of the visits made by the future Wermaxt generals(including Guderian) to The Red Army training centers?

Of course, just like China is doing in North Korea, they wanted a buffer between the Capitalist pigs.

4. I have started to climb mountains in the USSR more than 30 years ago. At that time, we still had some old instructors who fought in the war in the Caucasus mountains. They told us - EVERY officer and many men of the German alpine division had an opportunity to visit these mountains before the war! There were climbing there with their Russian friends. So, when they came back in 1942, the fights were often personal - the enemies were often known by their first names!

That may be true, but still doesn't change the fact that from everything I have heard/read about WWII; Nazi's and Communist's, Hitler and Stalin, shared a very strong hatred for each other and as history seems to have shown the Non-Aggression Pact appears to have been little more than a facade and the brutality with which the Germans and Soviets treated each other which seems to imply that they really didn't care for the other.

Of course, the brutality of the Nazi occupation and the bitter fighting has changed all that. But it wasn't always the case...

The brutality was far from one sided and I am willing to bet that Russian Gulags were around far longer than Concentration Camps.
 
Damien435 said:
Because the "Civilized German people" and their leaders had been shouting for the "solution to the Jewish problem" for years..

And why did the poor people had no idea about this "solution"?
Because their Communist leaders hid this information from them!




Damien435 said:
That may be true, but still doesn't change the fact that from everything I have heard/read about WWII; Nazi's and Communist's, Hitler and Stalin, shared a very strong hatred for each other and as history seems to have shown the Non-Aggression Pact appears to have been little more than a facade and the brutality with which the Germans and Soviets treated each other which seems to imply that they really didn't care for the other...

I don't have much personal experience with the Nazis(thank God!), but I lived for 35 years under the Communist rule. We were trained to believe in what the Party told us, without questioning. Today this guy a genius and a hero, tomorrow - after just one article in "Pravda" - he is a scumbag.
When i was in college, I had to study the History of CPSU. Somehow, our dorm had 3 copies of the textbook -c.1946, c. 1961 and c. 1976. There were 3 completly different versions of the same events and leaders' role in them! In the 50-es the Soviet people were told to befriend the Red Chinese and they did. In the 60-ies they were told to hate them. And they did.

What I am trying to say here that these two ideologies were not far from each other. In some situations, they could coexist and cooperate, like in Germany of the 20-ies and early 30-ies, when the Browns and the Reds were allied against the Social Democrats.


Damien435 said:
The brutality was far from one sided and I am willing to bet that Russian Gulags were around far longer than Concentration Camps.

No disagreement here
 
Last edited:
boris116 said:
You are right in one major issue - these two tirans couldn't share the same Earth for a long time. But on everything else we can argue:2guns:

1. The difference between the Nazi and Commie is not as big as you think.
Racial superiority vs. Class superiority, that's all. This is theory
In their practical application both regimes were so similar. From mass propaganda and youth's indocrination from their suppression of any dissent to the foreign aggression - they were like brothers!
Do you know that Gestapo and NKVD used to have joint seminars to share their methods and findings, that more German communists of high rank have been destroyed in Gulag than by Gestapo? They were much better pair than the trio FDR-Churchill-Stalin, don't you think?
2. The Germans and the Russians didn't hate each other before the WWII! The Russian Csars after, I believe, 1765, were German by origin, including Ekatherine the Great. Nicolas II and the Kaser Wilhelm II were cousins. Ethnic Germans were serving in the highest state and military posts of the Russian Empire including prime-minister's. When the Germans were occupying some russian territory in the WWI, they behaved, more or less.
So, when they advanced again in 1941, many people, including the Jews(!!) didn't want to flee, saying:"The Germans are civilized people, why should we fear them?"
3. Are you aware of the role the Soviets played in the restoration of the German War Machine in the 20-ies? Of the visits made by the future Wermaxt generals(including Guderian) to The Red Army training centers?
4. I have started to climb mountains in the USSR more than 30 years ago. At that time, we still had some old instructors who fought in the war in the Caucasus mountains. They told us - EVERY officer and many men of the German alpine division had an opportunity to visit these mountains before the war! There were climbing there with their Russian friends. So, when they came back in 1942, the fights were often personal - the enemies were often known by their first names!

Of course, the brutality of the Nazi occupation and the bitter fighting has changed all that. But it wasn't always the case...

You're right, in a sense. The ideologies of Nazism and Communism are, in theory, diametrically opposed. But in practice they are in many ways almost the same.

I think it's possible that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany could have been allies, but only if Hitler had been different. But then that's a pretty big if!
 
Doppleganger said:
You're right, in a sense. The ideologies of Nazism and Communism are, in theory, diametrically opposed. But in practice they are in many ways almost the same.

I think it's possible that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany could have been allies, but only if Hitler had been different. But then that's a pretty big if!

Stalin : The Court of the Red Tsar
1400042305.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


I am highly recommending this book. The author(he is British) has managed to meet with the surviving memebers of Stalin's inner circle, their descendants, people who worked for him - secretaries, maids, etc. He visited most, if not all former Stalin's retreats newr Moscow, in Crimea and Caucasus. It's an amazing book!
 
:sniper: As the Dunkirk evacuation was in progress and in its aftermath the French as a Nation and as an Army were divided.The supporters of Vichy France collaborated with the Nazis and the Colonies were all under the Vichy govt which had been recognized by the Germans.However all the french were not collaborators and a considerable body of the retreating army evacuated to England during the Dunkirk Evacuation .There was a considerable lot of dissent among the units in the colonies under the control of the Vichies and a lot of offrs and men broke away to join ranks with the free french fighting under General De Gaulle who had set up his Hq under the Allied Supreme Command in England.The heroic resistance offered by former French soldiers who had gone underground in occupied France together with their civilian compatroits as the famous French Resistance can not be overlooked.A formal cease of hostilities by Marshal Petain and the laying down of arms by the surviving Army doesn't overshadow the overall French contribution to the cause of the Allies and should be considered in its proper historical perspective.:firedevi:
 
I personally think that all alliances are worthless. Thier sole purpose is to scare off potential enemies. Its like that: Kid gets beaten, calls for older bros, bros beat the attacker. That doesnt change the fact that kid got beaten. And dont kid urself... nowadays NATO works the same way. US runs around shouting: DONT TOUCH MY LITTLE BROTHER! The problem is, they have too many "little brothers" and they cant even hit back all the culprits. Getting back to september, we simply got tricked into alliance that didnt benefit us at all ( kid got beaten, people died ). Technically it was suppose to benefit our allies. But it failed. France & Co. thought that Hitler "wouldnt dare" to attack us, when there are big brothers waiting to hit him back...
 
Back
Top