Talk:Invasion of Poland

RFC: Free City of Danzig

Should the Free City of Danzig be listed in the infobox as a belligerent, on the German side? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:46, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Please answer Yes or No in the Survey with a brief explanatory statement. Please do not reply to other editors in the Survey. That is what the Discussion is for.

Survey

• Yes — Several sources describe the SS Heimwehr Danzig (created by the Free City of Danzig Senate) and the Free City of Danzig Police (official police department of the Free City of Danzig) participating, alongside the German forces at the Battle of Westerplatte as well as the Defence of the Polish Post Office in Danzig. In The Polish Campaign, 1939 (1985 book), it says, On page 108 of that book: “In Danzig itself, the SS Heimwher Danzig, supported by a Marinesturmkompanie and some paramilitary units, began attacks on the Polish Westerplatte base and overwhelmed the Polish Post Office, where the workers had armed themselves and resisted.” & on page 142 of that book: “The garrison [Battle of Westerplatte] was attacked by a mixed force of SS Heimwehr Danzig, Danzig Police, and regular Wehrmacht troops…The combined German forces…had lost over 300 men in a week of fighting.” That, along with several sources in both engagement Wikipedia articles, support the inclusion of the Free City of Danzig as a belligerent (engaged in hostile actions) alongside the Germans during the Invasion of Poland. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:27, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

  This names units participating in combat. Perhaps they belong in the unit box. Perhaps clarification is needed on who ordered these actions or who they were subordinated to.

  But it doesn’t say anything that would warrant inclusion under belligerents, for example:

  • “Danzig was a belligerent.”
  • “Germany and Danzig invaded Poland.”
  • “Danzig chose to join Germany in invading Poland.
  • “The Danzig government ordered attacks.”

   —Michael Z. 14:47, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• No. I see what WeatherWriter is getting at, but Danzig was annexed by Germany on 1 September 1939, the date that the Invasion of Poland began, so Danzig was officially part of Germany (under both the Hitler and Forster legal declarations; it was a mutual agreement) for the entire invasion. That various bodies (police groups and such) within Danzig that were not technically part of the Nazi war machine took part is immaterial; that sort of "join the violent party" behavior was common throughout German-controlled regions, and they don't equate to an official/formal involvement of something called "the Free City of Danzig", because that had ceased to legally exist the same day. At most, maybe a few hours passed during which FCoD persons/bodies were involved in starting to attack non-FCoD Polish facilities before they FCoD officially became part of Germany, but that would be both original research to assert, in all probablility, and of no encyclopedia-level relevance, but just momentary trivia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:46, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
• Yes — I agree with SMcCandlish. Danzig did not exist in the form of "The Free City of Danzig" during the invasion. While Danzig was never really autonomous. I think it should be included in Germany instead of it's own unit —Matteow101 (talk) 15:00, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
  • So you mean no? -Indy beetle (talk) 10:29, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
• No. The salient question is: was Danzig a sovereign actor during a significant part of the invasion? Did it have an independent government that could decide on its own whether its forces would participate or not (whether authoritarian or democratically driven, and even if it was pressured so that it felt it had no choice)? I’m not very familiar with the history of the city, but it appears that that was not the case at all, as of the annexation on the day before the invasion. —Michael Z. 15:30, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  A bit more reading tells me the German Nazi Party held majority power in the Danzig Senate from 1933, and Hitler’s Gauleiter Forster remained in charge until 1945. I’m reasonably confident that Danzig was fully subordinated to Nazi Germany upon its annexation.  —Michael Z. 04:10, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

• N0 per Michael Z. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:46, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
• No per Michael Z. and the fact I mentioned earlier: we must have clear evidence that most academic sources consider the Free Cities to be the belligerent side of this war. So far we don't have a single one.Marcelus (talk) 22:54, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
• No Though I can understand the position of those who advocate "yes", I do not think there is sufficient evidence to support the Free City of Danzig constituting a separate belligerent, either politically or militarily, further substantiated by Danzig's absorption into Germany on 1 September. I would need to see significant and convincing citation, indicating some consensus among historians, that Danzig was an independent belligerent in the conflict to support its inclusion as one. 47.219.237.179 (talk) 04:30, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
• No: Danzig was annexed by Germany on 1 September and thus not a sovereign entity thereafter. Parham wiki (talk) 00:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
• No - Danzig was annexed by Germany on 1 September and thus not a sovereign entity thereafter. We also don't have reliable sources indicating that Danzig was a belligerent. Betelgeuse X (talk) 13:12, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
• Yes per Matteow101. 89.206.112.10 (talk) 09:27, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

  So you mean no? Parham wiki (talk) 16:44, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

• No Danzig was not sovereign then. killer bee  16:28, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
• No, as they were not an independent actor in the timeframe discussed. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 17:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
• No. TL;DR it was just part of Germany at that point. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:46, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• Was Hitler’s annexation seen/considered on a formal scale though. That is a question I think some people should look at as well. If I understand it correctly, it was more of a de facto annexation, not seen on the international scale. Also, was it a true annexation or was it just Hitler signing a law? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 16:05, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  I don’t understand the distinction in the last sentence. The text of Gdańsk#Inter-war years and World War II sure makes it sound like the “free city” status under the League of Nations and some relationship with the state of Poland were completely gone in favour of total political and military control by the German Nazis, never to be restored. Was there some government of Danzig in exile that clung to de jure sovereignty while still ordering its forces to join Germany in the invasion?  —Michael Z. 17:32, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  A little clarification for my questions since I don’t think I asked them the right way: How official vs de facto was the annexation? Like, when Hitler annexed Danzig, did the government instantly dissolve, or was the Danzig government still, in some capacity, an entity when Hitler signed the law? That is more or less my question. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:49, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  Well, I’d guess that whatever sovereign identity remained with the local government, perhaps it wasn’t notable enough to talk about it in the article about the city. As SS member Albert Forster was Nazi Germany’s Gauleiter of Danzig from 1930 to 39, head of state for nine days, and then Reichsstatthalter until 1945, and seeing as the German Nazi Party had already seized a majority in the Danzig Senate as of 1933, I don’t suppose there was much independent spirit.

  I’m glad to be corrected if I’ve missed or misinterpreted anything.  —Michael Z. 04:06, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

  It's been a long time since I touched this topic, but to my knowledge, there as nothing resembling a Danzig government in exile until after World War II had ended. -Indy beetle (talk) 10:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

• Another point that isn't directly related with the RfC, but if the RfC decides against listed it as a belligerent, given I think we have (so far) a consensus with sources that Danzig forces were involved in active combat, would those of you opposed to the idea support it in the infobox under "Units Involved"/"Invading armies"? I obviously still support it being listed as a direct belligerent, however, so far, I haven't seen anyone deny that Danzig units (Police/SS) were not active-combat units during the Invasion. If one or two of the editors who answered "No" in the survey could respond to this question, that would be much appreciated. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 04:14, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

  I see no problem with it in principle. Inclusion would depend on whether they were notable or significant enough, or at a high enough level of command to rate inclusion in the infobox—I don’t know enough about the specifics to have a confident opinion on this part of the question.  —Michael Z. 14:33, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

• Mzajac, replies/questions are suppose to be in this section, rather than a direct reply in the survey section (per the RfC directions). I’m going to go ahead and reply to it here, but I am formatting my comment so you could do a copy/paste of that reply comment in the survey section down here above this. The definition of belligerent means any hostile action, so those quotes directly stating that two units from Danzig participated, militarily, in two battles means they participated in a hostile action, and therefore are belligerents. That is my reasoning for yes. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 16:47, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

• I think this conversation has run its course. There's enough support against Danzig being listed as a belligerent that it can be removed from the infobox. Betelgeuse X (talk) 14:11, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  Absolute hogwash. This is the dumbest conversation I've seen on a military conflict in a long while. Guess we should remove Donetsk and Luhansk PR from the Russo-Ukrainian War page because they agreed to become part of Russia. Apparently the definition of "Autonomous" is foreign to you all. Just in case you didn't, autonomous =/= independent. Crimea was an autonomous government within Ukraine, for example. It was not independent of Ukraine. GustavaKomurov (talk) 00:11, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Germany and the Soviets should be two separate belligerents.

Last time I checked, Molotov-Ribbentrop was a no aggression pact, not technically an alliance. I think it would work better with 2+ belligerents like Wars of the Three Kingdoms's current state or the Syrian Civil War a while ago. 31.205.0.5 (talk) 05:48, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Not sure I agree. These were three-way conflicts in which each side fought the others, at least sometimes, same as in the Bosnian War. On the other hand, in case of the invasion of Poland Germany and the Soviet Union clearly did not fight each other. Alaexis_¿question? 20:12, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

"not technically an alliance" - disputable. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:47, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Molotov-Ribbentrop was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but it was an alliance pact against countries of the Eastern Europe including Baltics and Poland since the pact contained its secret portion with "Zones of Influence". Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 15:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

This article is about the German invasion of Poland. Why was the word German removed?

The word German was recently removed from the title of this article. Are you trying to rewrite history? Nazi invasion ended on 1st September on Western Poland and Soviet invasion started separately on 17th September in Eastern Poland. This is getting too low even for Wikipedia’s standards. What is the point then of having a separate partial for Soviet Invasion. It seems like you’re trying to exculpate the Nazis for their brutal and inhumane invasion of Poland which was initiated by them. Yasarhossain07 (talk) 02:14, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

The Nazi invasion began and ended on the same day? That's news!

This article is about the invasion of Poland. The USSR was part of the invasion. The Soviets and Nazis divided Poland per their Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and proceeded to invade. What part of that doesn't make sense? Betelgeuse X (talk) 04:25, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

capitalization

I'm not a subject-matter expert, and I've not gone through the cited sources. The first four words of the article, The Invasion of Poland, should "Invasion" be capitalized as a proper noun? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 17 March 2025

In the infobox (35 days) -> (1 month and 5 days) Chick Pea Corea (talk) 03:03, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

"35 days" explicitly and clearly means thirty-five days; "1 month and 5 days" could mean thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, or thirty-six days. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 04:32, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Battle of France editors did not have such a dilemma Chick Pea Corea (talk) 05:08, 17 March 2025 (UTC)