| | | Nazi Propaganda and the Outbreak of World War II
Eighty years ago, on September 1, 1939, Germans awoke to news informing them that Polish troops had attacked Germany. At 5:40 a.m., Adolf Hitler took to the airwaves to alert the German armed forces that “the Polish state has rejected his efforts for the peaceful regulation of neighborly relations” and, instead, had taken up arms. Germans in Poland, he proclaimed, are being persecuted with “bloody terror, driven from home and farm.” In order to put an end to Poland’s “unacceptable violations of Germany’s borders,” he had no choice but to resort to “force against force.”
Later that day, Hitler expanded upon these themes in his address to the Reichstag, his Nazi-only, rubber stamp parliament. He presented himself as a longtime advocate of peace. Poland, instead of negotiating for a peaceful settlement of their differences, had repeatedly violated the German border, carried out economic warfare against the German city of Danzig, and treated the ethnic Germans in Poland, including women and children, in a “bestial and sadistic” way. While castigating Poland for its abuse of minorities, Hitler bluntly stated that minorities living in the German Reich were not persecuted. He then promised not to wage a fight against women and children but only against military targets,
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Saps believed it then... Saps believe Putin now |
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