Case White

On August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a secret protocol which divided all of Central Europe between the two totalitarian states. The stage was set for the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe, which came on September 1, 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland in an operation designated Fall Weiss (Case White). However, despite its significance, the actual military campaign for Poland has not been well covered in histories of the Second World War, an many significant misconceptions remain- notably that the Luftwaffe destroyed the Polish Air Force at the beginning of the war, that Polish military doctrine was outdated and foolish, and that the Polish armed forces were equipped with obsolete equipment and lacked the means to develop modern weapons. In Case White, author Robert Forczyk challenges these misconceptions and examines the campaign in the context of sources from both the German and Polish sides to expand and update our understanding of the opening campaign of the Second World War in Europe.-- book jacket