Fall Weiss

September 1, 1939. The German Armed Forces {Wehrmacht}invade Poland. The invasion begins the Second World War in Europe. What has always struck me about the accounts of the beginning was the incident at Gleiwitz. SS and Branderburger (a special operations regiment) units had taken prisoners from Buchenwald KZL and dressed them in Polish army uniforms before leaving their dead bodies at a German radio station on the border that the SS troops had 'sabotaged'. The multiple levels of depravity involved with this subterfuge is remarkable even for the deplorable levels that the National Socialists were capable of.

In any event, the German armies went on to smash the Poles in a thirty day campaign that demonstrated the power and fury that modern armoured forces were capable of exerting. And their ensuing four year occupation of Poland demonstrated a level of savagery that most would not have believed that modern man is capable of.