Warsaw’s Surrender and Poland’s Partition

On 28 September 1939, Polish forces in Warsaw officially surrendered. The capitulation was signed that day, and German troops entered the city on 1 October. The date marked more than the end of resistance in the capital: Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland between them. The campaign that had begun with a German invasion on 1 September had reached a stark outcome in less than four weeks.

The attack had not come in isolation. On 23 August, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression agreement and a secret protocol dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September. Two days later, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, honoring their guarantee of Poland’s borders. In western Europe, land and air warfare remained limited in the first weeks; at sea, the Battle of the Atlantic had opened.

The Soviet Union entered Poland from the east on 17 September. The Polish government fled through Romania, first to France and later to Great Britain. Warsaw’s surrender therefore came after the country had been attacked from both directions and its government had left. The city’s transfer to German control formed part of a division agreed between the two invading powers, rather than a settlement reached by the Polish government.

The chronology left little room for ambiguity. The invasion had begun on 1 September; Britain and France had declared war on the 3rd; Soviet forces had crossed into eastern Poland on the 17th. By 28 September, Polish forces in Warsaw had officially surrendered; German troops entered the city on 1 October. Germany and the Soviet Union divided the country between them. The campaign’s first month had ended with Warsaw under German control and Poland partitioned, while the wider war continued on land and at sea.