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| Europe |
| Interview: 'The Poles boast that they have turned a local conflict into a world war' (1939) |
| 2023-09-02 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Oleg Krivoshapov [REGNUM] In the early morning of September 1, 1939, Luftwaffe aircraft attacked Polish airfields, minutes later the Schleswig-Holstein battleship opened fire on the Westerplatte naval base, and Wehrmacht divisions crossed the German-Polish border from the Baltic to Silesia. So 84 years ago, the battles of the Second World War began simultaneously on land, at sea and in the air, which affected one and a half billion people and cost the world tens of millions of lives, including 27 million citizens of the USSR. By historical coincidence, the end of the bloodiest conflict in the history of mankind falls on September 3 - in three days Russia will celebrate the anniversary of the surrender of Japan. Nearly a century after the end of the Second World War, the situation in the world seems to be returning to normal. The “Western democracies” are abandoning the system of collective security and are striving to strike our country with proxy hands (if before the war the Third Reich was predicted to play the role of “ram against Moscow”, now this fate is assigned to Ukraine). Germany, as in the prewar years, is rearming. Poland dreams of hegemony in Eastern Europe, wants to increase military force and insists on reparations from Germany - the next requirement of Warsaw was voiced by the deputy head of the Polish Foreign Ministry Arkadiusz Mulyarchik on September 1 in an interview on the anniversary of the start of the war. Japan revives the army and in its military strategy relies on the defeat of Russia. The Second World War was preceded by many local conflicts, which modern historians consider, if not part, then the prologue of a global catastrophe. For which Western countries were preparing in advance, by the will of a historical case turned out to be our allies in World War II. About the background of what preceded the war, about its first days and how relevant the parallels between 1939 and 2023 are, IA Regnum spoke with military historian and writer Alexander Shirokorad . IA Regnum: Alexander Borisovich, there are different points of view on where to count the “real” start of the war: from the morning of September 1, 1939, from the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, from the Munich agreement between Hitler and the Western powers about the fate of Czechoslovakia, or from diplomatic contacts of pre-war Poland with the Reich. What do you think is the starting point? Alexander Shirokorad: For some reason, everyone believes that the war - just like a world war, began on September 1. But it actually began on September 3, after Britain and France declared war on Germany. Moreover, the Poles themselves and a number of historians see the main merit of the Polish government between September 1 and 3 in that it turned the local Polish-German conflict into a world war. That is, the Poles, oddly enough, even brag about the fact that they actually unleashed it. For example, these are the statements of individual Polish politicians. But I can make a more ironclad argument, literally and figuratively. IA Regnum: Which one? A. Sh .: Shipbuilding programs. All the rulers talk about peace, but warships are not tanks or planes, the production of which can be deployed in two or three weeks, and increased in one or two months. The battleship construction program is being prepared for a year, then the ship is being built for about another two or three years, preparing for launching, and so on. After the Washington Conference of 1922, a pause was taken for more than ten years in the construction of new battleships. And somewhere in the mid-thirties, preparations began for the construction of battleships in all the leading countries of the world. In England, they laid the "King George V", in France - "Richelieu". They even had to enter service in 1939-1940. Germany also laid down super battleships, but they were to be launched at the end of 1942-1943. The Soviet leadership also laid down the ocean fleet, it was planned to put it into operation in 1942-1943. What happens? That England and France considered 1939-1940 in advance as the time of the beginning of a big war. All data on shipbuilding programs are published in many reference books. They, unlike some controversial political issues, are not subject to doubt, they are all known. Undoubtedly, Hitler is the greatest criminal of the twentieth century. The Holocaust, the attack on the USSR and other grave crimes against humanity are on his conscience. The question is: can we assume that the Nazi dictator alone unleashed the Second World War? IA Regnum: Usually Western democracies are accused of pandering to the appetites of the Nazis. A.Sh .: In fact, England and France laid the first stone in the Second World War back in 1919-1920, at the Versailles Conference. Moreover, the most interesting thing is that during it, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George told the French chairman of the conference: "Do not make Poland a second Alsace-Lorraine." And the commander of the French army, Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, said: "This is not peace, this is a truce for 20 years!" Foch was only six months wrong, but Lloyd George accurately pinpointed the start of World War II. It was still 1919. The question arises: if it were not for the predatory terms of the Treaty of Versailles, humiliating for Germany, which was not defeated on the battlefield, would there be a war? In Germany, without exception, all parties and movements opposed the Treaty of Versailles. Suppose for a second that in 1933 the elections to the Reichstag were won not by the Nazis, but by the Communists. That was? Back in 1930, the leader of the German Communists, Ernst Thalmann, said that Soviet Germany would not pay a pfennig in reparations and would never tolerate borders imposed against the will of the peoples: about a third of Germany was given to the same Poland, Czechoslovakia, and so on. What would have happened if Hitler had not survived after being wounded during the Beer Putsch in Munich in November 1923? This means that Telman would have started the war, it would just have been conducted in a completely different way. And the Jews would not be in concentration camps, but in the government and the Reichstag of Germany. IA Regnum: Pre-war Poland was also called an ugly brainchild of the Versailles system. To what extent, in your opinion, is this definition justified? A. Sh.: The Polish state was created by force. Within the borders of 1939, Poland included territories where about 60% of Poles lived, and the rest were Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Germans, Jews, and so on. But even 60% are not purebred Poles. Warsaw equated the Kashubians in the Baltic Pomerania and the Lemkos in the Carpathians with the Poles, who have much more differences with the Poles than Russians with Ukrainians and Belarusians. And in Poland they announced that these peoples do not exist, do not exist. By the way, they were still pursued by the communists after 1945. They were all included in the 60% of Poles. Nevertheless, the Polish leader Józef Piłsudski tried to create an "Intermarium federation" from the Baltic to the Black Sea, "od mozha to mozha" - "from sea to sea", as he said. The Baltic states, Smolensk, Kyiv and even part of Romania were supposed to enter there. IA Regnum: But these are still plans, but in reality Poland had a chance not to attack, but to defend itself from superior enemy forces. A. Sh .: The Poles have a symbol of faith - the defense of the Westerplatte peninsula. Almost until 1991, I myself believed that it was really Polish soldiers who defended their native land there from September 1 to 3. Later I found out the details and was very surprised. It turns out that this is a peninsula that was not part of Poland, but of the Free City of Danzig, which was formed in 1922 by the League of Nations. This primordially German city, founded by the Germans, was torn away from Germany. And the population of Danzig was 95% German. Rejected and did not even know what to do with it. They couldn’t seem to give it back to the Poles either - the population was against it - and they came up with the status of a “free city”. In this free city of Danzig there was not even an army, there were only police formations. And the Poles wanted to capture Danzig. Since 1936, there have been threats that one corps will solve all problems. Warsaw asked to arrange a customs terminal on the territory of the Free City, where more than two hundred Polish soldiers were stationed under the guise of customs officers. What was erected there seemed to be blockhouses, which turned out to be in fact powerful forts, into which six guns were brought, almost 20 machine guns, and so on. In addition, the Poles asked for permission to post their mail in Danzig. By September 1, 1939, there were 120 postmen with machine guns and machine guns. And all these postmen and customs officers were supposed to capture Danzig, reacting to some demonstrations by the few Poles of the city, during which Polish blood was to be shed. It is difficult to say how much the Poles were aware of the German attack. But not a single German soldier entered the territory of the free city of Danzig until September 3. With 120 armed "postmen" the police of the city finished off in a matter of hours, and the "customs officers" had to be tinkered with, because they had powerful casemates, pillboxes and guns, they were transported for about three days. True, the old German training battleship Schleswig tried to help from the sea, fired several shots, but didn’t hit anywhere. And where the terminal was, there is a huge monument and a museum of the Second World War. The Poles believe that the defense of Westerplatte is perhaps the most important battle of the Second World War. But the museum is exclusively anti-Soviet. There is not so much about the Germans as dirty tricks about the Soviet Union. And further. Germany had a very large merchant fleet in the late thirties. By June 22, 1941, on the eve of the attack on the USSR, all German merchant ships left Soviet ports and generally left the Baltic Sea, since the Red Banner Baltic Fleet could simply sink them. And by September 1, 1939, all German ships sailed the world's oceans, and several dozen ships were captured. And all these iron arguments indicate that Germany hoped for a local conflict "a la Czechoslovakia." And on September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany. As I said, from now on the war can be considered a world war. Otherwise, you can count from 1937, when Japan invaded China. IA Regnum: Again, before the invasion of the Third Reich in Poland, there was still the annexation of Austria and the Munich agreement on Czechoslovakia. There is a consensus in post-war Austria that it was their country, and not Poland or Czechoslovakia, that was the first victim of Nazism. How justified is this? A. Sh.: It is impossible to consider the capture of Austria as the starting point of the Second World War. Even the programs of the most leftist parties in Austria until 1933 contained demands for the Anschluss - unification with Germany until the Nazis came to power there. When German troops entered Austria in 1938, none of the Austrians went to the partisans. Maybe someone sat at home and cursed, but the overwhelming majority of the population, in any case, welcomed the German troops. Who was dissatisfied and with whom Germany could have a conflict is Italy. But Hitler was able to negotiate with Mussolini. As for the Munich Agreement, the situation is different there. The Soviet Union was ready to help Czechoslovakia, it had military cooperation with Czechoslovakia, but Poland refused to let the Soviet troops through. Moreover, Poland, together with Germany, took part in the attack on Czechoslovakia, seizing the Teszyn region from it. IA Regnum: And as a result, it lost its own statehood a year later, with the actual non-interference of Western guarantors. A. Sh.: That's right. As far as Poland is concerned, today it is not able to admit that Joseph Stalin returned statehood to it. And one more small nuance. In 1943, rebuking the presumptuous Polish prime minister in exile, Winston Churchill said that Britain did not start the war for Poland. This is an indisputable fact. The same can be said about Ukraine now, where the war is supported by the West not because of Ukraine itself, not because of some areas that Washington and London do not care about. IA Regnum: Don't you think that today we are seeing the ideas of Western exclusivity and expansionism in action? A. Sh.: These ideas have always existed, they have not gone away. Think Kipling. They are peculiar not only to Western Europeans, but also to the Poles - Belarusians, Ukrainians, Jews, and so on have always been considered inferior. Pogroms organized Jewish pogroms in 1939 and 1941. And by the way, in 1945 there were also Jewish pogroms, which we try not to mention, but they were very large. And by the way, the Poles gave the Nazis 90% of the Jews on their territory. And they prevented the return of surviving Jews to their homes after the victory. Poles are waiting for an apology from Ukraine for the Volyn massacre By the way, the Soviet press in the 30s called Poland a fascist state, until 1939. And let someone explain to me the fundamental difference between the SS of Nazi Germany and the SS of Poland - the “Union of Streltsy”. The tasks are the same - helping the army and suppressing anti-government forces in peacetime. Security squads. In September 1939, no one spared the Poles. And the Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov, who declared about Poland that “the ugly offspring of the Versailles Treaty is over,” only repeated what Pilsudsky had said earlier about Czechoslovakia, in the division of which the Poles took part in 1938. IA Regnum: Poland constantly pops up when discussing the beginning of World War II. Today we also see a similar and not very far-sighted policy of Warsaw in the eastern direction. Mateusz Morawiecki calls to "destroy the Russian world". Don't you think that Poland, with such a policy, is ready to become Ukraine No. 2 at any moment? A. Sh.: The Polish ruling circles equally hate Russia and Ukraine. Now they are playing a very dangerous game of roulette. If the Ukrainian state collapses and the Poles play somehow well, they can grab Western Ukraine for themselves, including Lviv. But if they try, for example, to send troops not in the event of the collapse of Ukraine, but earlier, that is, to inflict some sort of blow on Russia, this may lead to the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Poland. And then there are two options. Either NATO will disown Poland, or apply the "fifth article", and the third world war will begin. Another thing is that, with a certain development of the situation, it can grab a hefty piece of Ukraine. In this case, the Ukrainian state will simply fall apart. The game is very difficult. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 Big Jan |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2023-09-02 11:05 |