You can read about the start of World War II in this article in a German newspaper: http://www.dw.de/marking-the-75th-anniversary-of-the-outbreak-of-world-war-ii/a-17891943
This quote is from the news article in the above link:
The fighting [in World War II] began in the early hours of September 1, 1939, when the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired on the Polish fort of Westerplatte. The first battle of the Second World War quickly ensued.
The attack on Poland by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime led Britain and France to declare war on Germany two days later.
The fewer than 200 Polish soldiers posted to Westerplatte fought bravely, holding out for a full week before their commander surrendered to the German forces.
Prior to the attack on Westerplatte, the Nazi’s had staged a number of operations aimed at creating the illusion of Polish aggression on Germany as a pretext for attack. The best know[n] of this was the “Gleiwitz incident,” an operation by Nazis posing as Poles on the German radio station “Sender Gleiwitz” in Gliwice, which was then part of Germany.
I wrote about the attack on Gleiwitz on this previous blog post:
I wrote another blog post about the start of World War II here:
Another recent news article, which you can read in full here, claims that the Germans fired the first shots of World War II at Gdansk. It doesn’t really matter where the Germans fired the first shots to start World War, the important point is that Poland had nothing to do with starting World War II.
The Poles were planning to take Berlin with their cavalry which was the best in the world. When the Poles started their cavalry charge, heading for Berlin, they knew nothing about Blitzkreig, nor did they know that Germany had the best tanks in the world. They thought they could defeat Germany with horses.
This news story, which you can read in full here, also claims that the first shots were fired at Gdansk, which, to the Germans, was the German city of Danzig.
1939 photo shows ethnic Germans in Danzig saluting under a banner which says that Danzig is a German city
Wikipedia mentions the Polish cavalry here: “The charge at Krojanty, battle at Krojanty[1] or skirmish of Krojanty[2] was a cavalry charge that occurred during the Invasion of Poland in the Second World War. It took place on the evening of September 1, 1939, near the Pomeranian village of Krojanty.”
You can read this about the Polish cavalry at http://www.france24.com/en/20140901-poland-german-invasion-anniversary-wwii-75-years/
This quote is from Wikipedia:
From the very first German shells fired at a Polish fort in Gdansk in the early hours of September 1, 1939, to the final days in 1945, Poland suffered some of the worst horrors of the war, chief among them the extermination of most of its Jewish population by the Nazis.
You don’t hear much about how the Germans were treated badly by the Polish people. For example, do a search on “Bloody Sunday” and you will find this website which has lots of photos of Germans killed and mutilated by the Poles: http://www.saveyourheritage.com/bloody_sunday.htm
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