tageblatt




Start quoteI have issued the command—and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by firing squad—that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly I have placed my death-head formations in readiness—for the present only in the East—with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

—Hitler, August 22, 1939

In September 1939, Nazi Germany marched into Poland; the Polish cavalry was no match for the German tanks. In view of the existing mutual assistance treaties in force between Poland and England and France, a state of war thus existed between Germany, on the one hand and Britain and France on the other—a period known as "the phony war," as hardly a shot was fired once Poland had surrendered.

Suddenly, on May 10, 1940, Germany invaded the neutral Low Countries, now known as Benelux, and marched into France.