First to Fight

by Roger Moorhouse

  61 Józef Musiał, quoted in Joachim Trenkner, ‘Ziel Vernichtet’, Die Zeit, July 2003.

  62 Quoted ibid.

  63 The crash, at Neuhammer (now Świętoszów), is discussed in John Ward, Hitler’s Stuka Squadrons: The JU 87 at War 1936–1945 (Staplehurst, 2004), p. 57.

  64 Grzegorz Bębnik, ‘Wieluń, 1 września 1939’, in Wróbel (ed.), op. cit., p. 54.

  65 Abramowicz, op. cit., pp. 112–15.

  66 Palusinski quoted in David G. Williamson, Poland Betrayed: The Nazi–Soviet Invasions of 1939 (Barnsley, 2009), p. 71.

  67 Jerzy B. Cynk, The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History, Vol. 1: 1939–1943 (Atglen, PA, 1998), p. 74.

  68 Gabszewicz’s trophies are on display in the Polish National Army Museum in Warsaw.

  69 Quoted in Ferič, op. cit., p. 11.

  70 Cynk, op. cit., p. 73.

  71 Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum Archive, London (hereafter ‘PISM’), General Staff report, 1 September 1939, AII 9/5.

  72 Cynk, op. cit., p. 74; PISM, General Staff report on enemy aerial activity, 1 September 1939, AII 9/14.

  73 PISM, Corps District Command V situation report, 1 September 1939, AII 9/14/8.

  74 PISM, Ministry of Military Affairs situation report, 3 September 1939, AII 11/15/2.

  75 Cynk, op. cit., p. 74.

  76 Johann Graf von Kielmansegg, Panzer zwischen Warschau und Atlantik (Berlin, 1941), pp. 14–15.

  77 Wilhelm Prüller, Diary of a German Soldier (New York, 1963), p. 13.

  78 Account courtesy of Mr Robin Schäfer.

  79 Leo Leixner, From Lemberg to Bordeaux: A German War Correspondent’s Account of Battle in Poland, the Low Countries and France 1939–1940 (New York, 2017), p. 11.

  80 Hans von Luck, Panzer Commander (London, 1989), p. 28.

  81 Generalkommando VII AK, Wir zogen gegen Polen: Kriegserinnerungswerk des VII Armeekorps (Munich, 1940), p. 74.

  82 Ibid., p. 75.

  83 Leixner, op. cit., p. 30.

  84 Janusz Miniewicz, Ośrodek oporu Węgierska Górka 1939 (Poznań, 2000).

  85 Krzysztof Komorowski (ed.), Boje polskie 1939–1945: przewodnik encyklopedyczny (Warsaw, 2009), p. 471.

  86 Generalkommando VII AK, op. cit., p. 75.

  87 Andrzej Aksamitowski and Wojciech Zalewski, Mława 1939 (Warsaw, 2008), pp. 19–22.

  88 Eye-witness account of Staff Sergeant Mikołaj Bujan, Zawkrze Land Museum Archives, MZZ/fk/380. Translated by Anastazja Pindor.

  89 Account quoted in Ryszard Juszkiewicz, Bitwa pod Mławą 1939 (Warsaw, 1979), p. 93.

  90 Aksamitowski and Zalewski, op. cit., p. 37.

  91 Quoted in Hargreaves, op. cit., p. 118.

  92 Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (London, 1952), p. 70.

  93 Zaloga and Madej, op. cit., p. 110.

  94 PISM, Bortnowski letter, 10 April 1947, PISM B.1.25a.

  95 Bortnowski, 17 May 1962, quoted in PISM, B.1.25a/3.

  96 Paul Malmassari, Armoured Trains: An Illustrated Encyclopaedia 1825–2016 (Barnsley, 2016), pp. 201–2.

  97 Kriegstagebuch der Generalkommandos XIX AK (hereafter ‘KTB XIX AK’), US National Archives, T314, roll 611, p. 17.

  98 Historical Commission of the Polish General Staff, Polskie Siły Zbrojne w Drugiej Wojnie Światowej, Tom 1, Część 2: kampania wrześniowa 1939 – przebieg działań od 1 do 8 września (London, 1954), p. 70 n.

  99 Major Stanisław Malecki, ‘The 18th Pomeranian Lancers Regiment in the War of 1939’, PISM, B.1.28g.

  100 Komorowski (ed.), op. cit., p. 187.

  101 Malecki, op. cit.

  102 Guderian, op. cit., p. 71.

  103 KTB XIX AK, p. 29.

  104 Quoted in Hargreaves, op. cit., p. 15n.

  105 Zbigniew Zieliński, ‘Bitwa pod Mokrą’, Niepodległość i Pamięć, 16/2 (30) (2009), p. 127.

  106 Peter Chamberlain and Hilary Doyle, Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two (London, 1999), pp. 20–30.

  107 Zieliński, op. cit., p. 129.

  108 Jan Kamiński, Od konia i armaty do spadochronu: wspomnienia uczestnika II wojny światowej (Warsaw, 1980), p. 17.

  109 Willi Reibig, Schwarze Husaren: Panzer in Polen (Berlin, 1941), p. 14.

  110 Włodzimierz Tabaka, quoted in Władysław Dziewicki, Dzieje pułku ułanów podolskich 1809–1947 (London, 1982), p. 167.

  111 Mirosław Dziekoński, quoted ibid., p. 170.

  112 Reibig., op. cit., pp. 16–17.

  113 Dziewicki, op. cit., p. 162.

  114 Zieliński, op. cit., p. 129.

  115 Hargreaves, op. cit., p. 120.

  116 Jochen Böhler, Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 (Frankfurt am Main, 2006), p. 131.

  117 Szymon Datner, 55 dni Wehrmachtu w Polsce: zbrodnie dokonane na polskiej ludności cywilnej w okresie 1 IX–25 X 1939 r. (Warsaw, 1967), pp. 184, 187.

  118 Ibid., pp. 171, 183.

  119 See Böhler, Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg, pp. 115–17; Datner, op. cit., p. 173.

  120 Maria Wardzyńska, Był rok 1939: operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce ‘Intelligenzaktion’ (Warsaw, 2009), p. 98.

  121 Rada Ochrony Pomników Walki i Męczeństwa, Przewodnik po upamiętnionych miejscach walk i męczeństwa: lata wojny 1939–1945 (Warsaw, 1966), p. 104.

  122 Erwin Kartzewski, ‘Verzeiht mich bitte, dass ich noch lebe’, blog post, 28 December 2012 (www.erwin-kartzewski.blogspot.de).

  123 Datner, op. cit., p. 110.

  124 Tomasz Ceran, ‘Anti-Polonism in the Ideology of National Socialism’, Totalitarianism and 20th Century Studies, 1/2017, pp. 218–39.

  125 Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, Happy Odyssey (London, 1950), p. 156.

  126 Die Wehrmachtberichte 1939–1945, Bd 1: 1. September 1939 bis 31. Dezember 1941 (Munich, 1985), p. 1.

  2 The Tyranny of Geography

  1 Quoted in Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 1: The Origins to 1795 (Oxford, 1982), pp. 521–2.

  2 Ibid., p. 526.

  3 Daniel Beer, The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile under the Tsars (London, 2016), p. 137.

  4 Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present (Oxford, 1981), pp. 147–8.

  5 Stefan Kieniewicz, Andrzej Zahorski and Władysław Zajewski, Trzy powstania narodowe: kościuszkowskie, listopadowe, styczniowe (Warsaw, 1992), pp. 357–61.

  6 Quoted in Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish–Soviet War 1919–1920 and the ‘Miracle on the Vistula’ (London, 2003), p. 21.

  7 Ryszard Mirowicz, Edward Rydz-Śmigły: działalność wojskowa i polityczna (Warsaw, 1991), p. 110.

  8 Quoted in Davies, God’s Playground, Vol. 2, p. 396.

  9 See Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (London, 2004), pp. 180–83.

  10 Quoted in Davies, God’s Playground, Vol. 2, p. 393.

  11 Seeckt quoted in Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War (London, 2012), p. 35.

  12 Peter Stachura, ‘National Identity and the Ethnic Minorities in Early Inter-War Poland’, in Peter Stachura (ed.), Poland between the Wars 1918–1939 (Basingstoke, 1998), p. 62.

  13 Norman Davies, Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland’s Present (Oxford, 2001), p. 107.

  14 Paul N. Hehn, A Low Dishonest Decade: The Great Powers, Eastern Europe, and the Economic Origins of World War II 1930–1941 (New York/London, 2005), p. 72.

  15 See Steven Zaloga and Victor Madej, The Polish Campaign 1939 (New York, 1985), p. 11; Steven Zaloga, The Polish Army 1939–1945 (London, 1982), p. 4.

  16 Józef Garliński, Poland in the Second World War (Basingstoke, 1985), p. 12.

  17 Jamie Prenatt, Polish Armor of the Blitzkrieg (Oxford, 2015), p. 6.

  18 David R. Higgins, Panzer II vs 7TP: Poland 1939 (Oxford, 2015), p. 74.

  19 Jerzy Cynk, The Polish Air Force at War: The Official History, Vol. 1: 1939–43 (Atglen, PA, 1998), p. 29.

  20 John Ellis, The World War II Databook
(London, 2003), pp. 237, 240; Cynk, op. cit., p. 56.

  21 Quoted in Andrzej Suchcitz, ‘Poland’s Defence Preparations in 1939’, in Stachura (ed.), op. cit., p. 117.

  22 Zaloga and Madej, op. cit., pp. 17–18.

  23 Suchcitz, op. cit., pp. 117–18.

  24 Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945 (Wiesbaden, 1973), vol. 2, p. 927.

  25 E. L. Woodward and R. Butler (eds), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, Third Series, Vol. 4 (London, 1951), p. 552.

  26 Quoted in Frank McDonough (ed.), Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War (Manchester, 1998), p. 81.

  27 Włodzimierz Borodziej and Sławomir Dębski (eds), Polish Documents on Foreign Policy 24 October 1938–30 September 1939 (Warsaw, 2009), p. 126.

  28 Roderick Macleod and Denis Kelly (eds), The Ironside Diaries 1937–1940 (London, 1962), p. 80.

  29 Józef Beck, Final Report (New York, 1957), pp. 198–9; Kochański, op. cit., pp. 49–50.

  30 Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (London, 2015), p. 105.

  31 Quoted in Hans-Bernd Gisevius, To the Bitter End (Boston, 1947), p. 363.

  32 Jürgen Matthäus and Frank Bajohr (eds), The Political Diary of Alfred Rosenberg and the Onset of the Holocaust (Lanham, MD, 2015), p. 156.

  33 Instructions quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, English History 1914–1945 (Oxford, 1965), p. 447.

  34 Anthony P. Adamthwaite, The Making of the Second World War (London, 1977), pp. 218–19.

  35 Sir Stafford Cripps to the Foreign Office, 16 July 1940, The National Archives, London (hereafter ‘TNA’), FO 371/24846, f.10 N6526/30/38.

  36 Quoted in Ivo Banac (ed.), The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov 1933–1949 (New Haven, CT, 2003), p. 115.

  37 Quoted in Richard Raack, Stalin’s Drive to the West 1938–1945: The Origins of the Cold War (Stanford, CA, 1995), p. 24.

  38 HMSO, Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D 1937–1945 (hereafter DGFP), Vol. 7: The Last Days of Peace, August 9–September 3 1939 (London, 1956), No. 56, p. 64, Ribbentrop to Schulenburg, 14 August 1939.

  39 Quoted in Mikhail Semiryaga, Tainy stalinskoi diplomatii 1939–1941 (Moscow, 1992), p. 57.

  40 Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin, 1939–1945 (Bonn, 1950), p. 55.

  41 Quoted in Laurence Rees, World War Two behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West (London, 2008), p. 10.

  42 For the text of the Non-Aggression Pact and the Secret Protocol, see Roger Moorhouse, The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin 1939–1941 (London, 2014), pp. 305–6.

  43 Vladimir Karpov, Marshal Zhukov: ego soratniki i protivniki v dni voiny i mira (Moscow, 1992), p. 124.

  44 Statistical breakdown from OSS report no. 2325 from 22 August 1944, quoted in Litanus, 27:3 (1981).

  45 Quoted in Jane Degras (ed.), Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, Vol. 3: 1933–1941 (Oxford, 1953), p. 367.

  46 Andor Hencke, ‘Die deutsch-sowjetischen Beziehungen zwischen 1932 und 1941’, unpublished protocol, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, MA 1300/2, p. 11.

  47 Donald Cameron Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War 1938–1939 (London, 1989), p. 480.

  48 TNA, FO 371/23686/N4146/243/38, 26 August 1939.

  49 Henry ‘Chips’ Channon, quoted in Irene Taylor and Alan Taylor (eds), The Secret Annexe: The World’s Greatest War Diarists (London, 2004), p. 436.

  50 ‘The Russo-German Deal’, The Times, 23 August 1939, p. 13.

  51 Alexander Polonius, I Saw the Siege of Warsaw (Glasgow, 1941), p. 14.

  52 Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, Happy Odyssey (Barnsley, [1950] 2007), pp. 153–4.

  53 Ibid., p. 154.

  54 Borodziej and Dębski (eds), op. cit., pp. 360–61.

  55 Domarus, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 1257.

  56 Nevile Henderson, Failure of a Mission: Berlin 1937–1939 (London, 1940), pp. 307–8.

  57 Domarus, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 1257.

  58 Watt, op. cit., p. 489.

  59 Garliński, op. cit., pp. 13–14.

  60 Domarus, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 1258.

  61 DGFP, Vol. 7, Doc. 286, p. 296.

  62 Borodziej and Dębski (eds), op. cit., p. 180.

  63 Edward Raczyński, In Allied London (London, 1962), p. 20.

  64 DGFP, Vol. 7, Doc. 271, Attolico note, 25 August 1939, pp. 285–6.

  65 Walter GÖrlitz (ed.), The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel (New York, 1965), p. 89.

  66 Kulik interrogation, Ian Sayer Archive.

  67 Original document is in the Ian Sayer Archive.

  68 Herbert Schindler, Mosty und Dirschau 1939 (Freiburg, 1971), p. 20.

  69 Herzner debrief, Ian Sayer Archive.

  70 Alfred Spiess and Heiner Lichtenstein, Das Unternehmen Tannenberg (Wiesbaden, 1979), p. 116.

  71 Quoted in Schindler, op. cit., p. 48.

  72 See Władysław Steblik, ‘Niemiecki napad na Przełęcz Jabłonkowską w nocy z 25 na 26 VIII 1939’, Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny, 10:4 (1965), pp. 287–99.

  73 Kulik interrogation, op. cit.

  74 Herzner debrief, op. cit.

  75 General Józef Kustroń, quoted in Schindler, op. cit., p. 98.

  76 Domarus, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 1264.

  77 Wacław Stachiewicz, Wierności dochować żołnierskiej (Warsaw, 1998), p. 448.

  78 Jan Karski, Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World (London, [1944] 2011), p. 9.

  79 Henderson, op. cit., pp. 308–11.

  80 Quoted in Domarus, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 1266.

  81 Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters 1939–1945 (London, 1964), p. 27.

  82 Stachiewicz, op. cit., p. 443.

  83 See Garliński, op. cit., p. 12; Rafał Białkowski, ‘Plan Operacyjny “Zelint”’, Biuletyn DWS, 7 (2010), p. 15.

  84 Hugh Trevor-Roper (ed.), Hitler’s War Directives 1939–1945 (London, 1964), p. 38.

  85 DGFP, Vol. 6: The Last Months of Peace, March–August 1939 (London, 1956), Doc. 754, Moltke to German Foreign Ministry, 1 August 1939, pp. 1035–43.

  3 A Frightful Futility

  1 The National Archives, London (hereafter ‘TNA’), PREM 1/331A, telegram to Prime Minister, 1 September 1939, quoted in Richard Overy, 1939: Countdown to War (London, 2009), p. 73.

  2 For audio of the BBC radio announcement, see ‘BBC News – Lionel Marson Reports on Invasion of Poland – September 1, 1939’, 4TheRecord/YouTube, 6 September 2016, https://youtu.be/ktn_P5z5MK4 (accessed 17 April 2019).

  3 Moyra Charlton, quoted in Terry Charman (ed.), Outbreak 1939: The World Goes to War (London, 2009), p. 103.

  4 Mass-Observation extract, quoted ibid., p. 95.

  5 TNA, CAB 23/100, Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, 1 September 1939, p. 443.

  6 Quoted in Włodzimierz Borodziej and Sławomir Dębski (eds), Polish Documents on Foreign Policy 24 October 1938–30 September 1939 (Warsaw, 2009), p. 392.

  7 TNA, CAB 23/100, Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, 1 September 1939, pp. 444–5.

  8 Quoted in Charman (ed.), op. cit., p. 93.

  9 TNA, CAB 23/100, Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, 1 September 1939, Annex, p. 458.

  10 Hansard, HC Deb, 1 September 1939, vol. 351, cols 126–32.

  11 Charman (ed.), op. cit., p. 100.

  12 Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945 (Wiesbaden, 1973), vol. 2, p. 1326.

  13 Nevile Henderson, Failure of a Mission: Berlin 1937–1939 (London, 1940), p. 272.

  14 Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter (London, 1951), p. 155.

  15 Quoted in Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl (eds), The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin (London, 2005), p. 47.

  16 Henderson, op. cit., p. 279.

  17 ‘For Freedom against Brutal Oppression’, Daily Telegraph, 2 September 1939, pp. 1, 10.

  18 ‘Communist Appeal to the British People’, Daily Worker, 2 September 1939, p. 1.

  19 Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Chips: The Di
aries of Sir Henry Channon (London, 1993), p. 211.

  20 Respondents Christopher Tomlin and Pam Ashford, quoted in Simon Garfield (ed.), We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (London, 2005), pp. 20–21.

  21 Respondent quoted in Charman (ed.), op. cit., p. 116; entries for 2 September 1939 from diarists 5456 and 5106, Mass-Observation Archive, University of Sussex, Brighton.

  22 HMSO, The Navy List, September 1939.

  23 James Holland, The War in the West: A New History, Vol. 1: Germany Ascendant 1939–1941 (London, 2015), p. 66.

  24 David French, Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919–1945 (Oxford, 2000), p. 63.

  25 John Ellis, The World War II Databook (London, 2003), p. 231.

  26 Alfred Price, The Spitfire Story (Leicester, 2002), p. 73.

  27 Ellis, op. cit., p. 237.

  28 Ibid., p. 245.

  29 French cabinet minutes reproduced in Anthony P. Adamthwaite (ed.), The Making of the Second World War (London, 1977), p. 222.

  30 Quoted in Benjamin F. Martin, France in 1938 (Baton Rouge, LA, 2005), p. 78.

  31 Overy, op. cit., p. 78.

  32 Hugh Gibson (ed.), The Ciano Diaries 1939–1943 (Garden City, NY, 1946), p. 136.

  33 Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 1: The Gathering Storm (London, 1985), p. 362.

  34 TNA, CAB 23/100, Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, 2 September 1939, p. 470.

  35 Borodziej and Dębski, op. cit., p. 394.

  36 TNA, CAB 23/100, Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, 2 September 1939, pp. 465, 466, 472.

  37 Hansard, HC Deb, 2 September 1939, vol. 351, cols 280–86.

  38 Edward Spears, quoted in Overy, op. cit., p. 85.

  39 Hansard, HC Deb, 2 September 1939, vol. 351, cols 282–3.

  40 Sir John Simon, quoted in Donald Cameron Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War 1938–1939 (London, 1989), p. 582.

  41 Daladier speech, 2 September 1939, text at the Avalon Project, Yale University, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/fr1.asp (accessed 18 April 2019).

  42 Watt, op. cit., p. 583.

  43 Richard Overy and Andrew Wheatcroft, The Road to War (London, 1989), p. 140.