Oh, they wanted to build a few “railways” alright. A railway to Auschwitz, a railway to Treblinka, a railway to Majdanek…
MOSCOW – Poland and Russia headed toward a new fight over history yesterday after an article on the Russian Defence Ministry’s Web site claimed Poland started the Second World War. The extraordinary piece flies in the face of conventional wisdom that Nazi Germany’s expansionist ambitions caused the war.
“Any person who studies the history of World War II in an impartial manner knows that it started because of Poland’s refusal to give into German demands,” wrote Colonel Sergei Kovalyev, head of historical research for the ministry’s northwestern branch.
“The German demands were quite moderate,” he went on. In his view, the Third Reich was merely seeking to annex the free Baltic city of Gdansk, and build roads and railways across Polish territory linking East Prussia with the rest of Germany. “It is difficult to say that these demands were without foundation,” he said.
Actually, from what I’ve read of the events leading up to the Second World War, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 after initiating a “false flag” event in Gleiwitz. The Nazi SS manufactured the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which would be used to justify the subsequent invasion of Poland. In any event, the breach of Poland’s borders went against every single agreement that Hitler had made since the “anschluss”, and precipitated the declaration of war on the German Reich by Great Britain, France and Commonwealth nations like Canada.
