Poland 1939
The Outbreak of World War II
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4.2 • 15 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A gripping history of the Nazi invasion of Poland, the true onset of World War II
“Exemplary...About as good as military history can be.” —Timothy Snyder, New York Times
For Americans, World War II began in December 1941, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor; but for Europe, the war began on September 1, 1939, when Hitler’s soldiers invaded Poland, followed later that month by Stalin’s Red Army. The conflict that ensued saw the debut of many of the features that would come to define the later war—Blitzkrieg, the targeting of civilians, ethnic cleansing, and indiscriminate aerial bombing—yet it is routinely overlooked by historians.
In Poland 1939, Roger Moorhouse reexamines the least understood campaign of World War II, using original archival sources to provide a harrowing and very human account of the events that set the bloody tone for the conflict to come.
Winner of the Polish Foreign Ministry History Prize
Shortlisted for the 2020 Wellington Military History Medal
Customer Reviews
TMI
This is an exhaustive description of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and, to a lesser extent, the Russian occupation of Poland. The level of detail is overwhelming and tends to overshadow the real point that the author is trying to make - to expose the truth about this period in Poland’s history and correct the widespread myths fostered by German and Russian propaganda.