WWII why was only war declared against Germany? didn't the Soviets invade Poland as well?

Question

to my understanding poland was divided between both of them.

Answer 1

the germans invaded on september 3rd 1939 at 4 in the morning. britain had entered a 'garuntee of independence ' for poland if it was to be invaded in august 1939. the british did this after the sudetenland and the czech republic had been annexed by germany. this was done to halt germand expansion.

britain and france had a mutual protection pact. this meant if britain declared war france would do so also. so this explains why when poland was invaded france and britain declared war.

as for russia. russia never declared war on pland. once poland was defeated hitlers foreign minister - robbentrop and stalins foreign minister - molotov had a meeting to discuss the polish question. i.e. germany was now bordering russia.

this famous meeting lead to what was called the 'robbentrop -molotov accord'.. under this agreement germany gave russia land east of the vistuala river which is east of warsaw and is in eastern poland.

the accord also gave russia a free hand to do what it will in eastern europe especially in finland, romania and the baltic states. while russia agreed to not declare war on germany and germany could do what it wil in the west.

to this end russia annexed the baltic states and declared war on finland known as the 'winter war of 1939'. russia was defeated in this war. romania later joined the axis powers after receiving, and giving into, russian demands for land namely moldova in north eastern russia.

so this agreement was a coup for germany not only did finland and romania later join the axis due to russian demands for territory but also the baltic states of estonia, latvia and lithuania would support the germans when they finally invaded also it garunteed that germany would not be attacked in the east

Answer 2

The short answer, to paraphrase Churchills remarks upon hearing of the nazi invasion of 6/22/1941, was that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I'm not aware of either party to the pact making any secret of it; there might've been secret protocols, but it was a certainty that Poland would get invaded and split up. Here's a rough timeline: 9/1939: About a week after the nazi-soviet pact to partition Poland, almost before the ink was dry, Germany invades Poland. They overran most of it in about two weeks, before the western Allies got all their troops in place. The soviets waltzed in about then, after the Polish frontiers had been stripped of troops to face the Germans. But France and Britain only warned Germany against going after Poland, not the soviets, probably because they had been played for such fools at Munich a year and a half before by Hitler, who took over Czechoslovakia as a result. Also, by the time the soviets went in, the conquest of Poland was pretty much a done deal. ~ Winter/1939: The Winter War with Finland. The Finns eventually lost to the Soviet invaders, but did an incredible amount of damage to the red army, who were poorly led because Stalin had killed most of the senior officers beginning in 1937. The Soviets also overran Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia about the same time as Finland. These countries all had been part of the Russian Empire prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. But the western allies already had more on their plate than they could handle, because in Spring/1940: The nazis conquered Denmark (a few days) and Norway (a few weeks) Before they were really done with that, on 5/10/1940: The Nazis overrun Luxemburg (5 minutes) Netherlands (5 days) Belgium (couple weeks) and France (month and a half) Then, about August/1940: The Battle of Britain starts. The Luftwaffe discovers that fighting an enemy air force in the air is much more difficult that destroying it on the ground. After a few months of daylight bombing, the Germans switch to nighttime area raids. It was then that Hitler decided that given: 1.) The poor Soviet showing against Finland. 2.) Britain wouldn't make any aggressive moves anytime soon. 3.) The Wehrmacht had overrun France in 40 days. That it might be a good time to invade the Soviet Union! That was his objective all along, for nearly two decades, but his ally/toady, Mussolini, foolishly attacked the Greeks, got his butt handed to him, and Hitler decided that the Yugoslavs needed to be taught a lesson, so what better way to do it by overrunning the Balkans. This is why the invasion of the Soviet Union didn't commence until six weeks later. 6/22/1941: Operation Barbarossa Stalin was caught so flat footed because he believed there was honor among thieves and all the Red Army was deployed very close to the border. The Soviets were forced to trade space and troops for time; they needed the latter had had a lot of the former. It also became clear that the Blitzkreig had distance limitations, about 300-400 miles, that weren't apparent in smaller countries. Also, Hitler kept changing the objectives instead of making a serious run at Moscow. Let's be clear here; seizing an enemy capital isn't the guarantee of victory it once was, but the seizure of Moscow would be a bigger deal in a totalitarian regime, and would've included manufacturing, transportation, and logistic facilities. Although the Wehrmacht in 1941 was able to inflict casualties upon the Red Army at several times the amount they lost, and maintained that qualitative superiority throughout the war, something like a quarter of the German army became casualties, so that in the spring of 1942 Hitler was unable to attack along the entire eastern front. Also, the Soviets bore the brunt of the ground combat in Europe, with 25,000,000 Russian dead, even more than Stalin killed in the 1930's. 12/7/1941: Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. is at war. But it wasn't exactly the war they wanted, and they didn't get the war they wanted until a few days later, when Hitler did the favor of declaring war on the U.S. in the vain hope that Japan would attack the Soviets from the east. That put America on the same side as the Soviets, which wouldn't last much longer than the war.

Answer 3

Ha, you strike a good point!

Most people seem ignorant of the fact that the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany, and they both invaded Poland at the same time - Germany from the West, the Soviets from the East. They divided up the territorial proceeds.

The Soviets weren't the "good guys" until they had a common enemy with Britain.

We can only assume the Western alliance at the time (France, UK et all) only had a quarrel with Germany - prior to that, the Germans had been continuously annexing land and posing a threat to them - this was lesser so with the Soviets.

And perhaps they just didn't want to bite off more than they could chew. France and Britain were dead scared of a war with Germany at the time, let alone a war with Germany and the Soviet Union.

Answer 4

You're right, but Russia invaded Poland later, after war had been declared between Britain and Germany. Churchill was more anti- Stalinist than the Americans, but he defended Britain's help to the USSR (the Murmansk convoys) by saying that he'd make a pact with the Devil himself against the Nazis. I was born in Britain and emigrated to NZ. I'm not patriotic, but the Brits have a much better record of opposition to both Nazism and Stalinism than the US. Britain was fighting Hitler for nearly 2 years before the Jap attack on Pearl Harbour forced America to stop profiteering out of the war and to stop trading with Japan. The only reason why Britain has a reputation of being soft on Stalin is some well-publicised spy scandals; Burgess, MacLean, Philby and Blunt. But it was Churchill who wanted to keep going east and Eisenhower who insisted on doing a deal with Stalin and letting him help himself to East Germany. There's a saying; WWII had a villain, Hitler, a hero the Brits, and two winners America and Switzerland. Britain is still in debt to America for the payments she made to her for Liberty ships and so on.

Answer 5

Because Germany declared war against us a few days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And that attack led us to declare that a state of war had existed between the U.S. and the Empire of Japan as of the date and time of that attack. So, technically, we didn't declare war on anyone. The last time we declared war was in April of 1917.

Answer 6

Enemy of my enemy is my friend. The only reason why the USSR and UK where working together is that Germany had attacked them both. The UK was getting ready to send troops to Finland during the USSR attack on them, but the Fins made a peace deal before it happened.

Answer 7

ACTUALLY.

After the attack on pearl harbor, while Roosevelt considered his options, it was Hitler that declared war on the United States. Since Hitler was already at war with Stalin at the time it would have made little sense for the U.S. to declare war on Stalin, while at war with germany.

Answer 8

They did and the soviets deported nearly 5,000 Polish Officers whom they subsequently executed in the infamous Katyn massacre.

Answer 9

germant went into both poland and russia,usa had no interest in either until we were attacked and dragged into the war

Answer 10

Hitler and Stalin were allies at that point ,and due to the sickening leftist wave of appeasement, much of the world simply allowed those two criminals to act unfettered.