The area was divided into four administrative districts with seats at Krakow, Warsaw, Radom, and Lublin. The chief administrator was Governor General Hans Frank, a lawyer and longtime follower of Adolf Hitler. The Germans placed the Generalgouvernement under civilian authority with the seat in Krakow. The remainder of partitioned Poland that fell to Germany under the secret provisions of the German-Soviet agreements of August and September 1939 was organized into the "Generalgouvernement" (General Government) of Poland on October 26, 1939. Finally, the Polish part of Upper Silesia, a small area of southwestern Poland including the cities of Katowice and Oswiecim (Auschwitz), was incorporated into the German province of Silesia. The former Polish province of Poznan and part of Lodz were combined into a new province called the Warthegau. The district of Ciechanow (Zichenau), directly to the south of Allenstein (Olsztyn), East Prussia, was attached to the German province of East Prussia. The former Polish corridor and the Free City of Danzig were incorporated into the new German province of Danzig-West Prussia. In October 1939, Germany annexed most of western Poland. The Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland on September 17, 1939, in accordance with the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. After heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 28, 1939.īritain and France-which had agreed to defend Poland in the event of a German attack-declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia in the south, German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. Within weeks, the Polish army was defeated. Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. William (Welek) Luksenburg describes the first night of the German invasion of Poland We didn't know what's coming and it was a horrible thing, that first night.
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