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Soviet invasion of Poland
|
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Part of the
invasion of Poland
in
World War II
|
Soviet forces marching through Poland in 1939.
|
Date
| 17 September ? 6 October 1939
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Location
| |
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Result
|
Decisive Soviet victory
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Territorial
changes
|
Polish territory divided and annexed
|
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|
Belligerents
|
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Poland
|
Soviet Union
|
Commanders and leaders
|
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Edward Rydz-?migły
|
Kliment Voroshilov
(
Commander-in-Chief
)
Mikhail Kovalyov
(
Belarusian Front
)
Semyon Timoshenko
(
Ukrainian Front
)
|
Strength
|
---|
20,000
Border Protection Corps
,
[1]
[2]
250,000
Polish Army
.
[3]
[4]
|
466,516?800,000 troops
[3]
[5]
33+ divisions
11+ brigades
4,959 guns
4,736 tanks
3,300 aircraft
|
Casualties and losses
|
---|
3,000?7,000 dead or missing,
[1]
[6]
up to 20,000 wounded.
[1]
[Note 1]
|
1,475?3,000 killed or missing
2,383?10,000 wounded.
[Note 2]
|
The
1939 Soviet invasion of Poland
was a
Soviet
military operation that started without a formal
declaration of war
on 17 September, 1939. It was during the early stages of
World War II
. After
Nazi Germany
had
invaded Poland
from the west on September 1. The Soviet Union invaded from the east and ended on 6 October 1939. Germany and the Soviet Union divided the whole of the
Second Polish Republic
.
[8]
In early 1939, the Soviet Union asked the
United Kingdom
,
France
,
Poland
, and
Romania
to make an alliance against Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union wanted Poland and Romania to let Soviet troops go through their territory,
[9]
but Poland and Romania refused. The Soviet Union made a secret deal with Nazi Germany on 23 August. They planned to divide Northern and
Eastern Europe
into German and Soviet lands.
[10]
One week later, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast to wait for French and British support. The Soviet
Red Army
invaded the eastern Polish region of Kresy on 17 September.
[11]
[12]
The Soviet government used the excuse that it was acting to protect the
Ukrainians
and
Belarusians
, who lived in the eastern part of Poland.
[13]
[14]
[15]
The Soviet government took pver the area. In November 1939, it made the 13.5 million formerly-Polish citizens become Soviet citizens. The Soviets sent hundreds of thousands of people from the region to
Siberia
and other remote parts of the Soviet Union.
Soviet forces stayed in eastern Poland until the summer of 1941, when the German Army invaded
Operation Barbarossa
. The area was under Nazi occupation until the Red Army reconquered it in the summer of 1944. An agreement at the
Yalta Conference
let the Soviet Union keep almost all of what it had occupied in the Second Polish Republic. The
People's Republic of Poland
got the southern half of
East Prussia
and lands east of the
Oder-Neisse Line
.
[16]
The Soviet Union put those areas into the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
and the
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
.
[16]
- ↑
The figures do not take into account the approximately 2,500 prisoners of war executed in immediate reprisals or by anti-Polish
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
.
[1]
- ↑
Soviet official losses ? figures provided by Krivosheev ? are currently estimated at 1,475 KIA or MIA presumed dead (Ukrainian Front ? 972, Belorussian Front ? 503), and 2,383 WIA (Ukrainian Front ? 1,741, Belorussian Front ? 642). The Soviets lost approximately 150 tanks in combat of which 43 as irrecoverable losses, while hundreds more suffered technical failures.
[5]
Sanford indicates that Polish estimates of Soviet losses are 3,000 dead and 10,000 wounded.
[1]
Russian historian Igor Bunich estimates Soviet losses at 5,327 KIA or MIA without a trace and WIA.
[7]
- ↑
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
Sanford
pp. 20?24
- ↑
Increasing numbers of
Border Protection Corps
units, as well as Polish Army units stationed in the East during peacetime, were sent to the Polish-German border before or during the German invasion. The Border Protection Corps forces guarding the eastern border numbered approximately 20,000 men.
[1]
- ↑
3.0
3.1
"Kampania wrze?niowa 1939"
[September Campaign 1939].
PWN Encyklopedia
(in Polish). Archived from
the original
on 9 May 2006
. Retrieved
16 July
2007
.
- ↑
The retreat from the Germans disrupted and weakened Polish Army units, making estimates of their strength problematic. Sanford estimated that approximately 250,000 troops found themselves in the line of the Soviet advance and offered only sporadic resistance.
[1]
- ↑
5.0
5.1
Krivosheev, Grigory Fedot (1997).
Soviet casualties and combat losses in the twentieth century
. London: Greenhill Books.
ISBN
1-85367-280-7
.
- ↑
Topolewski & Polak
p. 92
- ↑
Bunich, Igor (1994).
Operatsiia Groza, Ili, Oshibka V Tretem Znake: Istoricheskaia Khronika
. VITA-OBLIK. p. 88.
ISBN
5-85976-003-5
.
- ↑
Gross
pp. 17?18
- ↑
Watson
p. 713
- ↑
Watson
p. 695?722
- ↑
Kitchen
p. 74
- ↑
Davies (1996)
p. 440
- ↑
"The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office No. 371"
.
Avalon project
. Lillian Goldman Law Library
. Retrieved
2009-06-11
.
- ↑
"The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office No. 372"
.
Avalon project
. Lillian Goldman Law Library
. Retrieved
2009-06-11
.
- ↑
Degras
pp. 37?45
- ↑
16.0
16.1
Wettig
p. 47
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18 December 1878 ? 5 March 1953
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History and politics
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Concepts
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Controversies
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Works by Stalin
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De-Stalinization
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Criticism of Stalin
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Remembrances
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Family of Stalin
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