German-occupied Poland during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

consisted of two major parts with different types of administration. The

Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany Following the Invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter of the entire territory of the Second Polish Republic was annexed by Nazi Germany and placed directly under the German civil administration. The rest of Naz ...

following the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week af ...

at the beginning of World War II—nearly a quarter of the entire territory of the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First World ...

—were placed directly under the German civil administration. The official term used by the Nazi authorities for these areas was the "incorporated Eastern territories" (german: Eingegliederte Ostgebiete). They planned for a complete

Germanization Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In ling ...

of the annexed territories, considering them part of ''

lebensraum (, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...

''. The rest of Nazi-occupied

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

was renamed as the

General Government The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...

district ().Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "German Occupation of Poland" (Washington, D.C.: Dale Street Books, 2014), pp. 12-16.

References

{{reflist Poland in World War II Military history of Germany during World War II World War II occupied territories Germany–Poland relations Germanization

See also

References