Soviet invasion of Poland facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Soviet invasion of Poland |
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| Part of the invasion of Poland in World War II | |||||||||
 Soviet forces marching through Poland in 1939. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Poland |
 Soviet Union |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Edward Rydz-Śmigły |
 Kliment Voroshilov (Commander-in-Chief) Mikhail Kovalyov (Belarusian Front) Semyon Timoshenko (Ukrainian Front) |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 20,000 Border Protection Corps, 250,000 Polish Army. |
466,516–800,000 troops 33+ divisions 11+ brigades 4,959 guns 4,736 tanks 3,300 aircraft |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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3,000–7,000 dead or missing, up to 20,000 wounded. |
1,475–3,000 killed or missing 2,383–10,000 wounded. |
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The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939. It was during the early stages of World War II. Sixteen days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union did so from the east. The invasion ended on 6 October 1939. Germany and the Soviet union divided the whole of the Second Polish Republic.
In early 1939, the Soviet Union asked the United Kingdom, France, Poland, and Romania to make an alliance against Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union wanted Poland and Romania to let Soviet troops go through their territory. Poland and Romania both said no. The Soviet Union made a secret deal with Nazi Germany on 23 August. They planned to divide Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet lands. One week later, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast to wait for French and British support. The Soviet Red Army invaded the Kresy on 17 September. The Soviet government said it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians. They lived in the eastern part of Poland.
The Soviet government added the land they won. In November 1939 they made the 13.5 million formerly Polish citizens become citizens of the Soviet Union. They sent hundreds of thousands of people from this region to Siberia and other remote parts of the Soviet Union.
Soviet forces stayed in eastern Poland until the summer of 1941. They were moved by the invading German army in the course of Operation Barbarossa. The area was under Nazi occupation until the Red Army reconquered it in the summer of 1944. An agreement at the Yalta Conference let the Soviet Union add almost all of their part of the Second Polish Republic. The People's Republic of Poland got the southern half of East Prussia and lands east of the Oder-Neisse Line. The Soviet Union added the lands into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Images for kids
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Hitler watching German soldiers marching into Poland in September 1939
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Advancing Red Army troops, Soviet invasion of Poland, 1939.
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Instructions of Józef Beck, Polish minister of foreign affairs for Wacław Grzybowski, Polish ambassador to the Soviet Union concerning the Soviet invasion of Poland, 17.09.1939
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Disposition of all troops following the Soviet invasion
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German and Soviet officers shaking hands following the invasion
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Soviet propaganda appealing to Ukrainian peasants in Eastern Poland.
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" The liberation of our brothers and sisters in the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia on 17 September 1939" Postage stamps from the USSR, 1940.
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Polish prisoners of war captured by the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939
See also
In Spanish: Invasión soviética de Polonia de 1939 para niños
