Series 117
This is a Ladybird Expert book, one of a series of titles for an adult readership. Written by some of the leading lights and outstanding communicators in their fields and published by one of the most trusted and well-loved names in books, the Ladybird Expert series provides clear, accessible and authoritative introductions, informed by expert opinion, to key subjects drawn from science, history and culture.
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Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published 2018
Text copyright © James Holland, 2018
All images copyright © Ladybird Books Ltd, 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover illustration by Keith Burns
ISBN: 978-1-405-92947-9
with illustrations by
Keith Burns
On Monday 21 August 1939, Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. Politically and ideologically, the two countries were natural enemies, but the USSR was not ready for war, and Adolf Hitler, the German leader, wanted to invade Poland without risk of being attacked from the east in turn. Both countries understood this was a temporary treaty of convenience. It did, however, pave the way for the outbreak of the Second World War.
The following day, Tuesday 22 August, Hitler called together his senior commanders to the Berghof, his house near Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps, and outlined his plans for war against Poland. Since 1919, the enclave of East Prussia, still part of Germany, had been cut off by a narrow strip of land known as the Danzig Corridor. It was time, he told them, to take it back, and to test German military strength. ‘We are faced,’ he said, with his usual black-and-white world-view, ‘with the harsh alternatives of striking or of certain annihilation sooner or later.’ The only choice remaining was to crush Poland.
A day later, Hitler announced that the invasion would be launched in a matter of days. Curiously, that evening the Northern Lights were showing over the Alps and a shroud of deep red was cast over the Untersberg. The Führer and his followers were watching from the terrace as the same red light now bathed their faces and hands.
Hitler turned to one of his military adjutants and said, ‘Looks like a great deal of blood.’
Britain and France, two of the world’s most powerful nations, had vowed to defend Poland’s sovereignty. This meant that if Germany invaded, then they would both declare war. Many senior commanders in the Wehrmacht, the German armed services, believed this threat, but Hitler thought they were bluffing. After all, in 1936 he had marched back into the Rhineland, ceded from Germany after the end of the First World War, and the French and British had done nothing. Then, in spring 1938, his forces had poured into Austria and brought that country into the Third Reich without a shot being fired; and that autumn, German troops had occupied the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, then six months later had taken control of the entire country. Once again, the rest of the world had sat back and watched. Now, in the late summer of 1939, he could not imagine Britain or France risking war over Poland.