Anniversary of the ultimatum to Czechoslovakia by the Sanctional II of the Republic of Poland in Zaolzia case.
Today in our calendar we will look at European events from the turn of 1938 and 1939.
After the death of dictator Józef Piłsudski, the Polish power camp focused around Edward Śmigłego – Rydz and Józef Beck, decided to proceed the balance policy. Despite specified declarations, average cooperation with the 3rd Reich was started in practice, which initially gave real benefits. The specified signing of non-aggression pacts with both strong neighbours has strengthened Poland's position adequate to let itself to be rejected minority treaty (13 September 1934).
Cooperation with Germany was different. Although the proposed 2nd Polish anti-comintern pact was not implemented, the anticipation of entering the east Pact was rejected. A major accomplishment was the bid from Hitler to respect the rights of the Polish number in Silesia and the Free City of Gdańsk. erstwhile Germany occupied Austria in March 1938, a sanctimonious fewer utilized the minute of sending European attention there to deal with the substance of Kaunas Lithuania.
After an armed incidental on the border and death of a KOP soldier, an ultimatum was issued to the Konin authorities, in which average diplomatic relations were requested. The mourners accepted these conditions. Another completely open example of cooperation with Germany was the Zaolzia case. While Hitler, with the approval of France and the United Kingdom liquidated independent Czechoslovakia, Poles occupied the disputed area around Cieszyn since 1919.
September 30, 1938, Britain, France, Germany and Italy signed a deal in Munich that deprived Czechoslovakia of part of its territory. As a result, Germany obtained a belt of the lands of Czechoslovakia on the Czech-German borderland, called the Sudetian Country. The areas which were incorporated into Germany under the Munich Agreement accounted for 29 1000 sq km and accounted for almost 40 percent of the Czech Republic, Moravia and Czech Silesia. The vast majority of over 3 million inhabitants were German.
On the same day, Polish abroad Minister Józef Beck demanded that Prague treat Polish demands concerning Zaolzia equally. On 2 October 1938, troops of the Polish Army commanded by General Władysław Bortnowski, greeted by the Polish population, entered the part of the Cieszynski Silesia, which belonged to Czechoslovakia, called Zaolzie. Poles were the majority of residents there.
In the process of being occupied by Polish troops, there was a fire exchange with Germans close the railway station in Bogumina. There are many indications that the sanitation was expected to keep Slovakia in the form of a protectorate, which did not happen. It was besides an involuntary success to get a border connection with Hungary, which occupied Czechoslovakian Zakarpata.
As for a possible real alliance with the 3rd Reich, Beck keyed and played on time. He feared that Poles would be set up in specified a constellation as a junior partner. Meanwhile, after the partition of Czechoslovakia, Hitler returned to the Free City of Gdańsk.
In an interview with Polish ambassador in Berlin, Józef Lipski, abroad Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop suggested that the city be included in the Reich. In addition, he proposed to build an extraterritorial road that would connect Germany to East Prussia. Interestingly, Poles themselves offered to build specified a road in the 1920s. In return, the Second Republic was offered an extension of the non-aggression pact and an alliance against the USSR.
A small later, in the same case Hitler met with Minister Beck personally. The background of the talks was the alleged Polenaktion, meaning the expulsion of Jews of Polish origin from Germany. The operation was 1 of the elements of the massed anti-Jewish hunt. A fewer weeks after that, in November 1938, the alleged crystal night took place in Germany, or mass pogroms of Jews.
Leipzig and Beck culturally refused Hitler, but the proposals were renewed in the following months. It was apparent that the Führer wanted to cooperate with Poland, as his goal was to destruct the Maginot of France and then the russian Union. That's what his policy focused on. An alliance or at least the neutrality of Poland would give him free hand for trial in the west. For the same reason, a comparatively many and fighting Polish army would shield him from possible russian intervention.
The proof of specified a line of 3rd Reich politics is the so-called. Hossbach's report, a evidence of the gathering of the highest German government of November 5, 1937.
The increasingly visible German-Polish cooperation and the ghost of a possible alliance of these countries have seriously upset Britain. London considered specified a anticipation a major threat to its power position. For this reason, he took steps to torpedo the close-up on the Berlin-Warsaw line at any cost.
As we know, it worked, but it is simply a somewhat different story.
Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.
