Hello everyone, I’m very interested in the lesser known things about WW2 as I’ve studied it deeply and know most of what’s out there. However, recently, I learned that hitler tried many times to get Poland to ally with him and even respected Pilsudski very much, even attending a church service when he died (only time hitler was known to attend a church service as Furher from what I understand). Was hitler sincere in these attempts? Is there any reading material on this matter, i cannot find any of any real value or in depth information. I feel like hitler would of loved to avoid a war in the west and allying with Poland to destroy the Soviets seems very logical to me to avoid war in the west, and with the French-Polish alliance, I know this gets very complicated and Poland was in a tough spot. Obviously, they ultimately trusted the French and British more because of what happened in history, Poland received no real assistance from the French or British and then was abandoned to the Soviets afterwards but was there really a true attempted alliance by Hitler? . I just assumed hitler hated the poles because of territory issues and being “subhuman” to the Germans, I’ve never put much thought into it until I read a small article about it. Any information is much appreciated, thank you very much in advance!
All I'm going to say comes from Barbarossa 1941 La guerre absolue,
written by Jean Lopez and Lasha Otkhmezuri (the book is in
french, and I havn't found an english version). I'll add that I cannot guarantee that my english is flawless, please excuse me.
Just to make things clear: Germany's allies, at least in Hitler's views, are more like client states. To win some time, I'll use "the West" to speak of France and the UK.
The authors state that Hitler had an irascible hate against the Soviet Union, the Jews,
and an imaginary Jewish bolshevism. This is already present in Mein Kampf. He had a very strong anti-Russian sentiment, which was at first very unique in Germany. The other warmongers were in favor of a war against the West, and an alliance with Russia, since it had been Prussia's ally for a while. This idea suited the Soviets well, as they were really isolated diplomatically.
But Hitler was seeing things differently. To him, Germany was too small for such a great people, and he wanted the vast Ukranian fiels to feed an 80 millions people. (Hunger was a traumatise for a lot of Germans, including Hitler, during the war and the economic crisis.)
War against the USSR was inevitable, and quite easy. The Soviet army was an absolute catastrophy, especially after the Great Purges, and without a single ally. The only problem is that Germany and the USSR don't have a common border. Two options were found: befriending Poland, and fight together a war against Russia, or take the Polish corridor, and attack through the Baltic states.
Poland had a very strong nationalism, and Pilsudski determined that Poland should not follow Germany nor Russia. After the Polish-Soviet war (1918-1921), Poland did it's best to stay neutral. (This changed in the late 30's, when they occupied a Czechoslvakian region after the partition of the country.) Polish land was to be free of any foreign soldier. This decision gave a hard time to the franco-british diplomats sent in Russia. These three tried to negociate an alliance in the late 30's.
These negociations, and the partition of Czechoslovakia, convinced Hitler respectively that the war had to begin, and that the West would stay out of it. But every diplomatic action with Poland failed and the only way to reach the USSR was to invade Poland first. It was the very beginning of 1939, and suddently, Poland was an enemy who would call the French and the British, who would eventually call the Soviets. So, Hitler did his best to befriend Russia, leading to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Germany's goal was to break the upcomming alliance between the West and Russia, and to get some natural ressources via a trade deal. The USSR gained some machine tools, a huge chunk of Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and Moldavia, to put some ground between Germany and Leningrad and Moscow.
Then the war started. For Jean Lopez and Lasha Otkhmezuri, this is the second best scenario for Germany. The first would have been a German-Polish-Japanese alliance attacking during the Great Purges, since the West would have stayed out of it.
If any precision is needed, ask for it and I'll do my best to answer.