How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer

Hitler offered Poland deals and hoped for an alliance, much like the one he had with Hungary, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, Japan and countless others

At the time of Hitler's offer, Poland faced 3 options
A) Stay neutral. Not possible
B) Join Germany
C) Say no and rely on France & England

History has shown that Poland took the bloodiest route. But was it the right decision?

Considering how France and England did little to nothing following Germany's attack. Furthermore how Poland was yet again lied to during the War by it's Western allies which ultimately led to 40 years of Soviet control anyway, would have joining Hitler been any worse?

A German - Poland alliance would have taken over Russia, which Stalin feared. Adding Japan into the mix would have only strengthen an Eastern powerhouse.

Hindsight Pearl Harbor doesn't happen and neither would the need for invasion of France/England. Instead we would see a legitimate Western & Eastern Europe.

Ultimately, Polands ''foolish'' decision spared millions of Jewish lives. As an alliance would have meant every Jew in Central & Eastern Europe would have been sent to work/perish in the Russian gulags, now under German control.

As usual I'll now ask you to go into detail as to what Britain could have done in September 1939 which it did not do. And as is traditional you'll now either ignore the question or start chucking insults around.


Any chance that you can go into detail about those alleged lies or about what Britain could have done to dislodge the millions of Soviet troops?


Why not?


You got anything at all to back that claim?

So what was the planned date of British-French attack on German ?

It is quite possible that joining Hitler could have produced the bloodier route.

I think that the fights in Eastern Front MIGHT have been more balanced. Tough to say who would win. I mean its almost 1,000,000 more troops and equipment. Thats if axis attack was done by the early war. By the mid of war Poland might still be there and producing new equipment and perhaps added more soldiers to help the Germans in Russia.

Now keep in many German soldiers were in the Eastern Front...
the Germans might have decided to send a smaller amount of armed men and military if helped by Poland.
In that case Germans would have maybe more men in the West.

All speculation and no proof...


This is also possible. The West might have acted with more force or a Nuke. The Soviets might have been more aggressive if they would win. Hundreds of thousands or millions more could have died too in that case.

Could you give any reliable link where it is stated that Hitler provided Poland any posibility to join him (on favorable conditions)?
To a larger extent Hitler didn't need Poland as an ally since he easily captured it (as he planned) and effectively used
Poles as a slaves.In any case Nazies regarded Poland as one of the primary target for lebensraun - a place to be
populated by Germans.Poland in 1939 was father to the East than now and was backward country with little power they
could propose Hitler.But there was all the same no lack in those Poles who served in Wehrmacht.At least 250.000 Poles fought
for Hitler.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_the_Wehrmacht

Doesn't it depend on if Poland would be kept and "rehabilitated " like West Germany or still been given up to Stalin along with E Germany?

Certainly would be a few less Jewish saved but the various resistance movements would have still been there. But it would have been no less bombed and sacked.

In option A: it would have had its infrastructure rebuilt with Marshall plan, nazi sympathies bred out, currency changed, heavy industry halted (until population deemed clean to be allowed technology so til mid 1950s? when US forced Britain and france to allow recovery to progress forward?), and total plundering of its intellectual properties of the time in the "reparation" act.

In option B: very bad ? since as former Nazis, the Commies would hate you worse than as just plain Polish and likely annihlate even more of the population than it did in retaliation?

Of course there is that possibility that Poland may have tipped the scales, made the takeover of Europe swifter before the US government could get it's VERY reluctant people to become heavier involved by declaring War? And US would likely had only concentrated on Japan as long as no move was made against it from the Nazi regime.

Winner make the deals and write the history.

IEDIT: Good point Vlad... IF Poland had such an offer since Hitler would have Germanized it eventually. Didn't he have the notion Poles in general as beasts to exterminate (though just as Aryan in appearance maybe even more so in the % of population)?

I am not sure either when he did it...
It would be interesting to know when (before or after) he said Poland is "lebensraum", when he said Poles will "killed", and when he offered this "peace treaty" or whatever.

As the British historian A. J. P. Taylor noted in his 1963 foreword "Second Thoughts" to his 1961 book The Origins of the Second World War:

It is equally obvious that Lebensraum always appeared as one element in these blueprints. This was not an original idea of Hitler's. It was commonplace at the time. Volk ohne Raum (People Without Space) for instance, by Hans Grimm sold much better than Mein Kampf when it was published in 1928. For that matter, plans for acquiring new territory were much aired in Germany during the First World War. It used to be thought that these were the plans of a few crack-pot theorisers or of extremist organisations. Now we know better. In 1961 a German professor [Fritz Fischer] reported the results of his investigations into German war aims. These were indeed a "blueprint for aggression" or as the professor called them "a grasp at world power": Belgium under German control, the French iron fields annexed to Germany, and, what is more, Poland and the Ukraine to be cleared of their inhabitants and resettled with Germans. These plans were not merely the work of the German General Staff. They were endorsed by the German Foreign Office and by the "good German", Bethmann Hollweg.[14]

Poland was never offered an option of joining Germany so the basis of your entire thread is pointless.


Probably yes, Germans had specific plans concerning Poles, these plans included gassing some 20 milion people, germanising 2-3 milion more and resettling the rest to Syberia. The few milion survivors would be used as human cattle/slave labor. If Germany won the war there was nothing to guarantee it would honor any sort of agreement.


No it would not. Poland added 1.5 milion soldiers to the mix but their armament was subpar, Poles would make a difference in the sense that they would prolong the war by perhaps half a year, maybe a year but Russia would still conquer central and eastern Europe.


Giving Poland a much more significant wartime credit would be a start. France which was much more exposed than Britain offered Poland a significant credit which resulted in among other things 100 extra tanks for Poland.

Its worth to note that both France and England were late to grant Poland any credit, that alone revealed their intentions to use Poland as a time-buying scapegoat. Abbeville simply confirmed that.

Anyone who has studied the War (especially in the 1930's) realize that France and England weren't prepared for war. After the debacle on WWI (France and England lost a generation of their men) They not only weren't prepared they simply didn't want to fight. Poland didn't go through WWI like the French and English.

Poland could have done better against Germany and Russia especially after the War, after-all they were offered the Marshall Plan, but refused. Poland doesn't have a history of good governance. Poles need to start taking responsibility for their own actions, a significant number of Poles after the War believed in Communism. That's a fact.

Yes they were, France could mobilise and equip a 2 milion strong force, Britain could muster a 100 thousand mobile army, what you mean is that neither France nor England mobilised for war in time but thats again due to their willingness to sacrifice Poland.


That much is true, neither France nor UK were willing to honor the letter of their agreement with Poland and limited themselves to token aid, both financial and military.


No, Poland actually went through WWI much worse than French and English, Poland was the frontline of the german-russian war and then russian-polish war, the combined military and civilian losses mount to around a milion people and the loss of 90% of its economy. That means that Poland lost about as much as France (France lost approximately 1.5 milion but was larger) and its economic losses were several times bigger and yet Poles were both ready and willing to fight.


After the war Poland was occupied by over a milion russian troops and could not decide about anything by itself.


See above. They were made to refuse by Russians, there's even specific letters from Moscow which underline that "there is no need nor requirement for the capitalist aid".


So are you a biased idiot or just a troll? Poland ruled as a sole power of central and eastern Europe for over 200 years but it doesnt have a history of good governance?


Approximately a milion, out of more than 30 milion people, that means that approximately 3% of Poles believed in communism, hardly a significant number. Poland was communist because it was sold, betrayed and forgotten by the western allies and then occupied by Russia, that's a fact.

What a bunch of bs. Please tell me you arent in Poland.

"Poland was annexed by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia from 1795-1914. By late 1915 Germany had complete control over modern-day Poland. A 2005 Polish study estimated 3.4 million Poles served in the Armed Forces of the occupying powers during World War I. Total deaths from 1914-18, military and civilian, within the 1919-1939 borders, were estimated at 1,130,000." -Andrzej Gawryszewski

Poland was in the middle of the battlefield.

Józef Piłsudski's foreign minister Józef Beck answered your question best, "We would have defeated Russia, and afterwards we would be taking Hitler's cows out to pasture in the Urals." No educated Slav could have read Hitler and other German authors who were advocating expanding German borders by pushing the Slavic people further East and come to a different conclusion. Yet, the Slovaks, and the Slavs in the failing USSR who were starved under Stalin, were quick to jump and aid the Nazis by attacking their Slavic brothers in Poland. Hitler didn't keep his treaty with Stalin, who was supplying the Nazi war machine with raw materials and minerals until the day Hitler invaded the USSR, and Hitler would not have kept any treaty with Poland after the USSR had been defeated.

The better point to ponder is how history might be different if Poles and others had headed Piłsudski's call to recreate the Commonwealth, possibly including the modern rump state of Lithuania, and thus deny the Soviet Union Belarus and Ukraine. The alliance with Ukraine would have gained the Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, making a quick war with Poland less likely to succeed. Piłsudski was very much opposed to the Treaty of Riga and selling out the Ukies. History has proved him very wise.

This has been thoroughly discussed in other venues here.

From your own linked source: "More than 225,000 citizens of the Polish Second Republic served in the Wehrmacht,[1] and some in the Kriegsmarine and Waffen SS. The majority of these Polish citizens were of German extraction, the so-called "Volksdeutsche", or members of ethnic minorities, such as Silesians, Kashubians, and Masurians whom the Nazis considered to be almost Germans. The Waffen SS on the Eastern Front contained a sizable number of non-Germans, but no Polish-based unit was ever formed...."

As to an alliance with Germany, Hitler more-or-less proposed one in 1938 which the Poles refused. Hitler wanted access across the northern region (Gdansk) and if given that Hitler said that an alliance would be possible. Had the Poles accepted and used modern German military equipment then Russia would almost certainly have lost to a German-Polish federation. It's also possible that American aid would not be forthcoming to the Soviets under that circumstance.Some here might want to follow up on that. Of course Hitler could not be trusted to keep any promise of his and the Poles rightfully refused his dubious overture.


A devastated Poland was dominated by the Soviets after the war. They made those sorts of decisions. and were the puppet masters. Given a chance, there is no doubt that Poles would have chosen to be independent and free of the Soviet yoke.

If Poland had joined with the nazis then the RAF would have flattened Warsaw for the invading Russians instead of Dresden.
The end result would have been the same except the hundreds of thousands of Poles who lived in the west after the war in the UK and Canada etc would also have been stuck under Stalin too.

That would be the *good* option,the more plausable alternate history would have been Soviet Russia steam rolling all the way to the English channel coast as the german nazis and their allies would fall back and no doubt the petty western nations who in reality supplied 10s of thousands of men to the nazis would have been targets for the soviets too if the US and UK were not on the ground in western europe to put them off.

The likelihood is that ALL of mainland Europe would still be under Soviet occupation( and if Britain hadnt needed to exhaust and bankrupt itself fighting the nazis then we would still have a huge Empire,which Im sure would p*ss off some Poles more than having to live under the communists ;)

Perhaps not. Britain had a tough time int the "Battle of Britain" or the "Phony War" months.
helium.com/items/1117707-raf-strategy-during-the-battle-of-britain
From the link: "....the RAF almost lost the battle. Initially, Goering focused his energy on eliminating the RAF airfields and planes. He almost succeeded, but Hitler intervened by ordering the bombers to shift their focus to British population centers. Without this reprieve, the RAF might well have collapsed regardless of their efforts due to the loss of planes and pilots."

Additionally, the Polish pilots in Britain were instrumental in the air war. Their 'kill' numbers were extraordinary and had these pilots been 'Germanized' with some sort of German-Polish alliance then those resources may have tipped the scale.

Ther would be the Great Republic of Poland.

How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer

We all be speaking German now, German and Poland would defeat Russia and England would not stand a chance as they would not get working enigma machine to break German war codes.

How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer

If my auntie had balls, she'd........

Nobody wanted to fight another World War after WWI. Why do you think that the French and English were pushed into the Channel at Dunkirk?


If Poland had a history of good governance they never would have been occupied by three different nations. The partition happened due to internal political weakness which ushered in the foreign dominance. Poland was so internally divided the countries thought they were doing Poland a favor by taking over.

Not everything you can find on the internet and in any case I cannot be bother to look for that specific piece of information. However there were definitively long history of diplomatic negotiation between Hitler and Beck. Also Hitler wanted Poland in his camp as primarily he wanted to attack Soviets.


You are way off course!
When would that happened? after or before Soviets would have been conquered?Would you attack Germany then?Really?


That is nonsense and rubbish.


Well, it is debatetable, depends what period you are talking about but given the fact that you constantly exposes your ignorance as to facts about Poland I can sadly say that you are wrong.

Anyway gov of the IIRP was actually very good.

Britain and France wouldn't have declared war on Germany in the first place, so possibly no WW2 on European soil. And if Poland and Germany would have attacked and defeated the USSR and started an attack in the west, Britain wouldn't have stood a chance anyway. Britain only survived the war because the Russians did the blunt work of the fighting on the ground for them, and because their colonies helped them out (again). Woulda, coulda...

In 1936, Ribbentrop offered Poland the chance to join Germany and Italy in the Pact of Steel because Poland, at the time, coveted Těšínské knížectví (The Duchy of Teschen) because of its industry and coal mines. Germany, at the time, wanted to invade Czechoslovakia and annex Sudentenland in order to incorporate it into the Reich. But the primary reason Poland did not join the Pact of Steel was Germany's demands, which, if accepted, would cut across the Polish corridor and move the Western border eastward, which would cut off Polish trade in the Baltic. Ribbentrop wanted to establish a connection to East Prussia for ideological reasons, so he proposed a railroad through the corridor. Knowing that Danzig was Ribbentrop's primary motive, Poland refused the demands and joined France, bound by the 1921 treaty, and England, bound to a hasty 1939 treaty, to resist German expansion.

Yes, it was the only right and just decision. As flawed and deceitful as the Poms and French were, Nazi Germany was one of the greatest evils of all time. I understand you're putting a hypothetical forward, but do you really think any true Pole would sign on with the Nazis? I would be absolutely disgusted to think that my ancestors were sided with the Nazis, whatever the gain may have been, and I'm sure that all of our Polish members would feel the same.


And, as is usual, I will ask you to detail whether or not what HMG actually did do was sufficient in discharge of its obligations under the Agreement and, as usual, you will have no genuine response.


Hardly. Without the Poles saving England during the BoB, there would be no RAF to bomb anything. You would do well to remember that.

It's shocking how I know you are correct and yet I can't find a single link to this on my American google. It's crazy. People rewriting history


- What's more than nothing? Send in fighter planes, bomber, significant amount of supplies. Something, anything?

- The assumption is that Poland-Germany pact taking over Russia keeps Hitler from moving West. Pat Buchanan actually wrote some interesting stuff on the subject

buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

"Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland's rescue.

But where is the evidence that Adolf Hitler, whose victims as of March 1939 were a fraction of Gen. Pinochet's, or Fidel Castro's, was out to conquer the world?

But if Hitler was out to conquer the world - Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia - why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can't get out of the Baltic Sea?

If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?

Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?

Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?

Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser's fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?

Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps."

Utter bollox mate and you know it, there was ONE squadron of Polish who fought in the last few weeks of the Battle of Britain.

What you would do well to remember you arrogent little man is that I had 2 uncles in the Battle of Britain neither of whom was remotly Polish.

*Your * pilots were an undisaplined liability more than anything else untill well into 1941.
But, I suppose it is rather pointless trying to convince histories perpetual losers of anything once they get on their self pitying/self congratulating hobby horse is it,so, in that spirit

Of course it was only some Pole responsible for the entire Bletchley Park and sub station set up and only people called somethingski ever fought in the battle of britain not to mention the tens of thousands of british and american and commonwealth soldiers who fought and died reducing cassino to rubble and its defenders to starving jibbering wrecks did sweet fk all,it was a regiment of Poles who won the war in italy...

If Poles and Poland were so god dammed tough and invicable why the FK didnt you go and invade the soviet union yourself and liberate your own fking country? I mean, you lot constantly trot out that BS about 4th largest allied army.why didnt you use it then for more than 2 ,or 3 at a push,battles?

Polish pilots represented of 10% of the total filers employed. On 15th of September they accounted for 14% of German losses, on 19th - 25% and on 26th 48%.

"Had it not been for the magnificent material contributed by Polish squadrons and their unsuppressed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of the battle have been the same" - Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding.

I'm sure that you are in better position to judge - not.


Polish pilots were very disciplined, most of them have been career officers of Polish Armed Forces, they were highly motivated and had experience of combat with the enemy. Treating them as recruits didn't inspire they trust in British officers after all many of them experienced the same imperial attitude and pricksh arrogance in France just to see that country going down in only six weeks not that much better than Poland. Given that Poland was devoured by the Germans and Soviets together and France faced only Germany, had a year to prepare, and the fact that geography and borders were much more favorable to France.


I guess it easy to be a "victor" living on an island in the middle of nowhere - would you like to share border with Superpower - Soviets. I just wonder how long would you last - not really but.

Stop whinnying will you? I don't care one way or the other but i think it is a pity that there are some people out there who do know something about history just to be so bloody stupid about it. The facts are there and denying them do not make you bigger but makes you less, like a petty little haggler.

Be like that if you want but do not start with the imperial attitude in the next sentence that just comical.


No but the key role of Polish cryptologists should be recognized.That the way to do it properly, not to grab all the glory for themselves like insecure lying little sissy.


War not, but the battle which all others people mentioned by you couldn't win. It inflicted have losses on Polish soldiers whose homeland had been handed to Soviet and at the point in time Polish high command was well aware of the fact. From the malpractice point of view it didn't make sense for them to continue fight against Germany.

That tragedy and dilemma and all what was involved is completely lost on you.


That is a silly qestion - one I'm sure you wish to retract. It just illustrates that you understand nothing from history save some bunch of disconnected facts and dates.

Abilities, skills and fighting spirit of Polish officers and soldiers and their contribution to the victory cannot be diminished by the fact that Poland economy after 19 years of independence and without benefits of long term exploitations of colonies wasn't able to support armaments needed to win against Soviets and Germans combined.

Do you happen to have a source for that? My understanding is that on that day 303 squadron actually 'accounted for' 145% of German losses.


Those numbers were incredible.


Yes it was sufficient. If you are aware of action which could have been taken but was not taken, please do feel free to go into detail about it (not that you ever will).


Yes, they just weren't used to flying planes which had retractable undercarriage (which explains the number of gear-up landings they made), mostly spoke very limited English, had no experience with the concepts of radar guidance and were not used to the idea that ground control was in charge: clearly they needed no retaining at all.

It's a pity any of our people took part in that battle, some lessons to be hopefully learn for the future.


So what was the date of planned British-French offensive on Germany ?