Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.
The Polish Corridor, also known as the Pomeranian Corridor, Danzig Corridor or Gdańsk Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia, which provided the Second Polish Republic with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Weimar Germany from the province of East Prussia. At its narrowest point, the Polish territory was just 30 km wide. The Free City of Danzig, situated to the east of the corridor, was a semi-independent German speaking city-state forming part of neither Germany nor Poland, though united with the latter through an imposed union covering customs, mail, foreign policy, railways as well as defence.
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939, was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the pact. One of the aims of the invasion was to divide Polish territory at the end of the operation; Poland was to cease to exist as a country and all Poles were to be exterminated. The Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. The invasion is also known in Poland as the September campaign or 1939 defensive war and known in Germany as the Poland campaign.
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia was an administrative division of Nazi Germany created on 8 October 1939 from annexed territory of the Free City of Danzig, the Greater Pomeranian Voivodship, and the Regierungsbezirk West Prussia of Gau East Prussia.
The Free City of Danzig was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrounding areas. The polity was created on 15 November 1920 in accordance with the terms of Article 100 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I.
Klaus Hildebrand is a German liberal-conservative historian whose area of expertise is 19th–20th-century German political and military history.
Eduard Willy Kurt Herbert von Dirksen was a German diplomat who was the last German ambassador to Britain before World War II.
Sir Nevile Meyrick Henderson was a British diplomat who served as the ambassador of the United Kingdom to Germany from 1937 to 1939.
Johan Birger Essen Dahlerus was a Swedish businessman, amateur diplomat and friend of Hermann Göring. He attempted through diplomatic channels to prevent the Second World War.
The presence of German-speaking populations in Central and Eastern Europe is rooted in centuries of history, with the settling in northeastern Europe of Germanic peoples predating even the founding of the Roman Empire. The presence of independent German states in the region, and later the German Empire as well as other multi-ethnic countries with German-speaking minorities, such as Hungary, Poland, Imperial Russia, etc., demonstrates the extent and duration of German-speaking settlements.
The territorial evolution of Germany in this article include all changes in the modern territory of Germany from its unification making it a country on 1 January 1871 to the present although the history of "Germany" as a territorial polity concept and the history of the ethnic Germans are much longer and much more complex. Modern Germany was formed when the Kingdom of Prussia unified most of the German states, with the exception of multi-ethnic Austria, into the German Empire. After the First World War, on 10 January 1920, Germany lost about 13% of its territory to its neighbours, and the Weimar Republic was formed two days before this war was over. This republic included territories to the east of today's German borders.
On 20 March 1939, Nazi Germany's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop presented an oral ultimatum to Juozas Urbšys, foreign minister of Lithuania. Germany demanded that Lithuania give up the Klaipėda Region which had been detached from Germany after World War I, or the Wehrmacht would invade Lithuania and the de facto Lithuanian capital Kaunas would be bombed. The Lithuanians had been expecting the demand after years of rising tension between Lithuania and Germany, increasing pro-Nazi propaganda in the region, and continued German expansion. It was issued just five days after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. The 1924 Klaipėda Convention had guaranteed the protection of the status quo in the region, but the four signatories to that convention did not offer any material assistance. The United Kingdom and France followed a policy of appeasement, while Italy and Japan openly supported Germany, and Lithuania accepted the ultimatum on 23 March 1939. It proved to be the last territorial acquisition for Germany before World War II, producing a major downturn in Lithuania's economy and escalating pre-war tensions for Europe as a whole.
History of Pomerania between 1933 and 1945 covers the period of one decade of the long history of Pomerania, lasting from the Adolf Hitler's rise to power until the end of World War II in Europe. In 1933, the German Province of Pomerania like all of Germany came under control of the Nazi regime. During the following years, the Nazis led by Gauleiter Franz Schwede-Coburg manifested their power through the process known as Gleichschaltung and repressed their opponents. Meanwhile, the Pomeranian Voivodeship was part of the Second Polish Republic, led by Józef Piłsudski. With respect to Polish Pomerania, Nazi diplomacy – as part of their initial attempts to subordinate Poland into Anti-Comintern Pact – aimed at incorporation of the Free City of Danzig into the Third Reich and an extra-territorial transit route through Polish territory, which was rejected by the Polish government, that feared economic blackmail by Nazi Germany, and reduction to puppet status.
Carl Jacob Burckhardt was a Swiss diplomat and historian. His career alternated between periods of academic historical research and diplomatic postings; the most prominent of the latter were League of Nations High Commissioner for the Free City of Danzig (1937–39) and President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (1945–48).
Events in the year 1938 in Germany.
Pact Ribbentrop - Beck is an alternative history novel by the Polish journalist and writer Piotr Zychowicz. The book, whose full title is Pact Ribbentrop - Beck, or How Poles Could Have Defeated the Soviet Union alongside the Third Reich, was published in 2012 by Dom Wydawniczy Rebis from Poznań.
Hans-Adolf Helmuth Ludwig Erdmann Waldemar von Moltke was a German landowner in Silesia who became a diplomat. He served as ambassador in Poland during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. After the German invasion of Poland, he became Adolf Hitler's ambassador in Spain during the Second World War.
The Danzig crisis was a 1939 crisis that led to World War II breaking out in Europe.
The following events occurred in August 1939:
Robert Coulondre was a French diplomat who served as the last French ambassador to Germany before World War II.
