Hitler patsey that started wwii

1. How the war actually began: decision, planning and the date

Hitler decided to attack Poland in 1939 and gave orders and preparatory directives well before the first shots: directives to prepare for occupying the Free City of Danzig and recorded accounts of meetings in which he announced plans to make war on Poland appear in wartime evidence ^[4]. The assault itself began at dawn on 1 September 1939 when German forces—supported by large concentrations of tanks, aircraft and infantry—crossed the Polish border ^{[5] [6] [7]}. Contemporary histories and major reference works consistently mark that invasion on 1 September as the event that triggered Britain and France’s declarations of war on 3 September and thus the outbreak of World War II in Europe ^{[1] [2]}.

2. Manufactured pretexts: Operation Himmler and propaganda

Germany did not rely solely on straightforward diplomatic demands. Nazi leaders implemented Operation Himmler—several staged false‑flag incidents—intended to create pretexts and propaganda claiming Poland had attacked Germany; Hitler then cited those incidents and an ultimatum in Reichstag remarks as justification after the invasion began ^[3]. Multiple sources note that Hitler’s Reichstag speech framed the action as “retaliatory,” even though the military assault was already underway ^{[3] [5]}.

3. Military scale and why Germany expected quick success

The invasion was a large, coordinated campaign: Germany committed roughly 60 divisions—nearly 1.5 million men—supported by thousands of tanks and aircraft to overwhelm Polish forces, while the Red Army’s later move from the east sealed Poland’s defeat ^{[5] [8]}. German staff debated the timing and risk—some officers worried the Wehrmacht was not yet at full strength—but Hitler pressed forward, viewing the operation as a calculated gamble tied to his longer strategic aims ^{[1] [4]}.

4. Wider strategy: Lebensraum, Anschluss precedents and the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact

Hitler’s ambitions went beyond Danzig. He had earlier articulated a program of territorial expansion (Lebensraum) and had already annexed Austria and dismantled Czechoslovakia; these prior moves and explicit plans shaped the push against Poland ^{[9] [4]}. The August 1939 German‑Soviet non‑aggression treaty—whose secret protocol divided Poland into spheres of influence—gave Hitler confidence that the Soviet Union would not oppose a western attack, enabling a two‑front partition of Poland ^{[5] [8]}.

5. Poland’s allies and the limits of deterrence

Britain and France had guaranteed Poland’s independence, and those guarantees ended the policy of appeasement; their declarations of war on 3 September followed Germany’s invasion and Hitler’s refusal to withdraw ^[2]. Nevertheless, geographic and military realities meant Britain and France were unable to stop the rapid German advance into Poland, a point underscored by contemporary and retrospective accounts that call the guarantees politically significant but militarily limited ^{[2] [10]}.

6. Casualties, division and immediate aftermath

The invasion and subsequent occupations brought heavy losses and rapid political change: Poland’s armed resistance collapsed within weeks; German and Soviet forces partitioned and annexed Polish territory, and large numbers of Polish soldiers were taken prisoner ^{[1] [8]}. Sources provide differing casualty figures and emphases—Britannica lists battle losses for both sides, while Holocaust and other histories stress the invasion’s role in enabling subsequent brutal occupation policies ^{[1] [5]}.

7. Disputed narratives and what sources agree on

There is clear consensus in the sources that the German invasion on 1 September 1939 started the European war, that Hitler and his command planned the operation, and that false‑flag operations were used to manufacture a casus belli ^{[1] [4] [3]}. Available sources do not mention any credible, contemporaneous evidence that Poland “started” the war in the sense of initiating unprovoked large‑scale aggression; rather, German fabrication and the coordinated German–Soviet actions are emphasized ^{[3] [8]}.

8. Context and caution for modern readers

Modern summaries can compress complexity: diplomatic maneuvering, secret pacts, military planning and propaganda all combined to produce the invasion. Primary documents and postwar legal examinations (cited in the Avalon Project) show Hitler’s explicit intent and planning, while encyclopedic treatments place the invasion as the proximate trigger for war in Europe ^{[4] [1]}. Readers should note differing emphases across sources—legal, military and commemorative histories each frame causes and consequences somewhat differently ^{[4] [5] [1]}.