World: When World War II Began

THIRTY years ago this week, on the morning of Sept. 1, 1939, Nazi bombers swooped down on the airfield and cities of Poland. A few days later, Adolf Hitler reviewed his all-conquering troops on Polish soil (above). The unprovoked attack touched off history’s most widespread and cataclysmic conflict. Before World War II ended nearly six years later, it had involved 60 countries and claimed more than 50 million lives. This week, as wailing sirens in Warsaw and ceremonies across Poland marked the 30th anniversary of the German invasion, the Poles reminded the world that the first victims had suffered the most severely of all. In the grip of an especially brutal German occupation, 6,000,000 Poles died—22% of the population. No fewer than 3,250,000 of the victims were Polish Jews who perished in Nazi death camps.

Seizing on hatred of the Germans as a popular unifying theme, Poland’s postwar Communist government has rarely missed a chance to belabor West Germany as a haven of unrepentant Nazis. Now, in an abrupt switch, Party First Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka has held out the promise of better relations in return for West German acceptance of the Oder-Neisse Line as Germany’s legal eastern boundary. The motivation is economic: in search of up to $400 million to modernize their old plants, the Poles hope that a more friendly political atmosphere might bring in much-needed West German credits.