Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity

by Alexander B. Rossino

Book Overview

It was one of the most ruthlessly conceived and executed invasions in the annals of warfare. Hitler's Polish campaign unleashed a blitzkrieg in which SS troops, police squads, and the army itself waged an ethnic war of unprecedented brutality. Tens of thousands of Poles--roughly 80 percent of whom were Christian--were summarily executed in acts of collective punishment. After six weeks, a country was crushed and the world was at war.

Usually...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700613927
• ISBN13: 9780700613922
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Understanding atrocities

This is a serious history book but easy to read. I read this book to better understand how people can come to do such evil things. I have a personal interest in this as I am of Polish descent and my wife is partially of German descent. The book mentions atrocities committed by both Germans and Poles prior to the Nazi invasion of 1939. In fact a relative (German) of my wife was murdered by members of the Polish Army (or at least wearing the uniform of the Polish Army). The book gives a thorough picture of the brutal methods used by the SS and condoned by the German Army. It also explains the social conditions and attitudes that made these actions seem acceptable to Germans. What I found most disturbing is that I have family members who are advocating using the same brutal methods used by the Nazis against the warlords in Afghanistan in order to find Bin Laden. Reading this book and seeing how good people today can go down that same path is disturbing. This is a book everyone should read because it is a history lesson everyone should understand. If we do not learn the lessons of history, we will be forced to repeat them. This is, indeed, one of those lessons that should be learned from history not from experience.

THE CORROSIVE INFLUENCE OF NAZI IDEOLOGY ON SOLDIERS

If you read the title you will see that this book is NOT a military history of the Polish Campaign. That in-depth history has yet to be written. Therefore let me warn any future readers looking for a detailed description of the campaigns and the sweep of the panzers, the gallant fighting of the Poles replete with maps, you shall have to look elsewhere. The books central thesis could be summarised thus: historical interpretations of the Polish campaign have focused on it as the opening phase of a world war, where the harsh realities of battle on the Eastern Front and ideology of terror imbibed within Naziism did not give full vent. In fact as Rossino recounts, all the elements of Nazi Terror found expression from the first day of the war in Nazi occupied Poland. - SS Order Police were fully integrated behind the line and were detailed to pick up political and Jewish leaders and members of the polish "intelligensia" - Nazi ideology served as a well-spring to preciptate attrocities and aggravate encounters that turned into ferocious expressions of violence towards men, women and children --- without ideology some of these soldiers would have been controlled by their officers, or restrained by other men in their unit. - the tendency to view Poles and Jews as inferior to Germans, and German Culture, gave full expression by the wanton and unprecipated killing of Polish civilians for no reason other than personal pleasure.- in addition to SS and other terror elements, the Wehrmacht was equally responsible for the killing of civilians and POWs for no reason other than to terrorise the population or to "cleanse" it. And when reasons were lacking Poles were killed merely because they were viewed as members of a lesser race. Common sympathy were negated by ideology.All of the above happened from Sept 01st. Although the mass factory killings are absent, it is clear that that is only a matter of time. The fact remains that Poland was the first test case of a terrific expression of volience of the average German Soldier towards civilians and POWs. Besides the general attrocities commited in this book particular to Poland, I think that Rossino hits upon a grander issue. That is the issue of the corrosive influence of ideology on the mind of soldiers. In some cases commanders tried to stop the killings or discipline German troops or the SS. In most cases it was not because of a common human sympathy for the plight of Poles or Jews, it was merely for maintaining order in the rear and discipline within the army ranks. These few people found it immpossible to go through regular military authorities to discipline German soldiers guilty of attrocities. The system, conditioned by ideology thwarted them. In addition the German soldier also knew that he could kill with impugnity, and without compassion, as long as he was killing those of "lesser races."This should serve as a chilling reminder or the importance of order in the ranks or any army during military operation

Excellent Writing and Original Research

In a crowded field of study on World War II, Rossino has done an incredible job of finding new and important material about this topic. His research sheds new light on Nazi Policy in Poland during and after the invasion on 1 September 1939. He clearly shows that the "Final Solution" was not a systematic plan from the beginning of the war. Although the Nazis carried out operations of murder and oppression, they did not exclusively focus on Jewish citizens of that nation, but rather on all Poles in general. Anyone who is a student of World War II must have this book in order to understand the war in Poland and how Hitler began his conquest of Europe.

Poland: More Than a Speed Bump

When German armies poured into Poland in 1939, the destruction was so swift, so complete, and so foreshadowing of similar such invasions, that there is a tendency to measure the rout of the Polish military in terms of chronology. So many days for the breach to be made, so many for the encirclement of key Polish targets, and so many for the destruction of those targets. Truly, the German invasion was one of the few times in military history that a massive assault not only met its temporal objectives but exceeded them. Students of the Polish campaign, like Alexander B Rossino in his HITLER STRIKES POLAND, tend to view the entire five week campaign in terms of Rossino's subtitle: "Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity." There is little doubt that the combined Wehrmacht and SS whirlwind heralded a new type of warfare. Hitler's panzer armies were striking not only at a demoralized and outnumbered Polish military but also at a race of Slavs that for years had been demonized as subhuman. Rossino lists numerous examples of massacres of Polish civilians and behind the lines Polish army regulars who continued to fight even when it was clear that such isolated encounters could have no effect on the entire campaign. Rossino's main thrusts cover areas that the erudite reader has read before, but here he focuses on the entire spectrum of a battle that need not have turned out as catastrophic as it did. In an alternate universe, the Polish government might have suspected that an attack was coming, especially given the many warnings that Hitler provided: his stated intentions to destroy Poland in MEIN KAMPF and his movement of troops to the Polsh border that could not have been a secret. The destruction of the four Polish armies whose function was to protect Poland is well documented. The value of Rossino's book is that he explains clearly how and why Poland was put to the quick torch. Still, I would have appreciated how--given things might have been--Poland could have avoided collapse long enough to keep the Germans at bay for just a few months more. It is not well known that the quick German victory was fortuitous for Hitler in that he expected a quick victory. His supply columns for his Panzers and mechanized trucks were quite limited. He had to win via a quick ko or risk getting bogged down against a Polish military that fought valiantly and would have given a better acount of themselves if their leaders had had a little more foresight. The unspoken premise of HITLER STRIKES POLAND is that much of Hitler's spectacular successes between 1939 and 1942 were based more on his opponents' ineptitude than on his own sense of a misguided ideological and genocidal vision.

Demolishes the Wehrmacht's reputation

Rossino believes that the Wehrmacht committed numerous atrocities against civilians and POWs during the German invasion of Poland. Rossino disagrees with Bartov's thesis that the war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht was due to the stresses of combat on the Eastern Front instead Rossino states that even before they saw significant combat either in Poland or later Russia, the German army executed large numbers of civilians in Poland. Rossino states that the climate of brutality of the German army can be traced backed to the German officer corps taking Clausewitz's people's war theory to an extreme by massacaring the enemey's civilian population as seen in their actions in Southeastern Africa in the late nineteenth century and Belgum during the opening phases of the First World War. Also the ideological indoctrination of German soldiers greatly added to their hositilty to Slavs and Jews.Rossino mentions that oppostiion by some German generals to the activities by the SS and the Wehrmacht in Poland had to due with worries about keeping discipline in the army and not any great concern with innocent civilians. I would reccomend this book to anyone interested in the roots of the Holocaust and the massacre of millions of Slavs by the Wehrmacht during the Second World War.