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The history of Poland from 1939 to 1945 encompasses primarily the period from the Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany to the end of World War II. The outbreak of the war followed the period of intense armament by Nazi Germany and other neighbors of Poland, with which Poland was unable to keep up because of the country's fundamental economic weakness. Following the German-Soviet non-aggression treaty, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September 1939 and by the Soviet Union on 17 September. The campaigns ended in early October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in summer 1941, Poland was occupied by Germany alone. Under the two occupations, Polish citizens suffered enormous human and material losses. It is estimated that about 5.7 million Polish citizens died as a result of the German occupation and about 150,000 Polish citizens died as a result of the Soviet occupation. Ethnic Poles were subjected to both the Nazi and Soviet persecution. The Jews were singled out by the Germans for a quick and total annihilation and about 90% of Polish Jews (close to three million people) were murdered. Jews and others were killed ''en masse'' at Nazi extermination camps, such as Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sobibór. Ethnic cleansing and massacres of civilian populations, mostly Poles, were perpetrated in western Ukraine from 1943. The historically unprecedented war crimes committed in Poland were divided at the postwar Nuremberg trials into three main categories of wartime criminality: waging a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. A Polish resistance movement began organizing soon after the invasions in 1939. Its largest military component was a part of the Polish Underground State network of organizations and activities and became known as the Home Army. The whole clandestine structure was formally directed by the Polish government-in-exile through its delegation resident in Poland. There were also peasant, right wing, leftist and Jewish partisan organizations. Among the anti-German uprisings waged were the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising. The latter was a late (August–September 1944), large-scale and ill-fated attempt to prevent the Soviet Union from dominating Poland's postwar government. Collaboration with the occupiers was limited. The Nazis planned a permanent elimination of any form of Polish statehood and even a longer-term destruction of the Polish nation. In September 1939, the Polish government officials sought refuge in Romania, but their subsequent internment there prevented the intended continuation abroad as the government of Poland. General Władysław Sikorski, a former prime minister, arrived in France, where a replacement government in exile was soon formed. After the fall of France the Polish government was evacuated to Britain. It was torn by a conflict between the post-Sanation and anti-Sanation elements, with the latter, led by Prime Minister Sikorski, gaining the upper hand because of the support of the French and then the British government. The Polish armed forces had been reconstituted and fought alongside the Western Allies in France, Britain and elsewhere. In order to cooperate with the Soviet Union, after the German attack an important war ally of the West, Sikorski negotiated in Moscow with Joseph Stalin and the formation of a Polish army in the Soviet Union was agreed, intended to fight on the Eastern Front alongside the Soviets. The "Anders' Army" was indeed created, but with the Soviet and British permission was instead taken to the Middle East. Further attempts at continuing Polish-Soviet cooperation were made, but they failed because of the disagreements over the borders, the discovery of the Katyn massacre of Polish POWs perpetrated by the Soviets, and the death of General Sikorski. Stalin pursued a strategy of facilitating the formation of a Polish government independent of (and in opposition to) the exile government in London. He empowered the Polish communists, whose party he eliminated in 1938 by murdering most of its activists (they had limited popular support in Poland). Among the new communist organizations were the Polish Workers' Party in occupied Poland and the Union of Polish Patriots in Moscow. A new Polish army was being formed in the Soviet Union to fight together with the Soviets. At the same time Stalin worked on co-opting the Western Allies (the United States led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United Kingdom led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill), who in reality conformed to Stalin's views on Poland's borders and future government (he promised free elections). A series of negotiations included the conferences in Tehran, Yalta, and finally at Potsdam. The Polish government in exile approved and the underground in Poland undertook unilateral political and military actions aimed at establishing an independent Polish authority, but they were not successful. The government ceased being a recognized partner in the Allied coalition. The Polish communists founded the State National Council in 1943/44 in occupied Warsaw and the Polish Committee of National Liberation in July 1944 in Lublin, after the arrival of the Soviet army. The Soviet Union did not return the prewar Polish Kresy (the eastern lands), granting Poland instead the greater southern portion of the eliminated German East Prussia and shifting the country west to the Oder–Neisse line, under Stalin's plan to prevent Germany's future re-emergence as a great military power. Poland was still to experience much internal turbulence and power struggle, but barring the West's war with the Soviet Union, the Soviet domination was a foregone conclusion. ==Before the war== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of Poland (1939–45)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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