Czechs invaded Poland first several years earlier - Reader comments at The New York Sun

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Reader comment on:
Clash Of Evils
in response to reader comment: Poland invaded Czechoslovakia with Hitler

Submitted by Stef, Oct 6, 2007 19:52

Poland did not invade Czechoslovakia. When Hitler invaded Czecholovakia Poland took back the small area of Teschen Czechoslovakia grabbed from Poland when Poland was at war with Bolshevik Russia. They did this when Poland was extremely vulnerable and they did this by putting on the uniforms of World War II non-Czech Allied forces. Teschen is a mixed Polish-Czech enclave which split up naturally by the local population into a part which joined Czechoslovakia and the other which joined Poland. When the Czechs realized that the Polish area had natural resources they desired they invaded the Polish section of Teschen and forcefully annexed it. Poland could not counter as they were in a life and death struggle with the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia also would not allow ammunition and equipment through their country into Poland, thereby severely hampering Poland's war efforts against the Bolsheviks, who were, by the way, planning to overrun all of Europe. Poland eventually won this war, no thanks to Czechoslovakia, and saved Western Europe from Communism.

Vic should try to be fair with history. Instead of being divisive and himself doing what he accuses the Poles of doing, namely forgetting to mention important aspects of history, I think he should lament the fact that initial attempts by Poland and Czechosloakia to form a coalition against Hitler were unsuccessful. Together they stood a very respectable chance of resisting Hitler. It was the bitterness over Teschen which prevented this alliance. When Poland saw that Czechoslovakia surrendered to Hitler without a fight and that England and France also gave up Czechoslovakia to Hitler without a fight, the Poles took back from the Czechs what the Czechs took from Poland several years earlier.

Vic could also rejoice in the fact that now Poland and Czechoslovakia are friendly nations and their governments have been cooperating on numerous issues.

I would also like to remind Vic that Poland was the first to fight Hitler, Poland had the largest underground army and the fourth largest standing Allied army after the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain. (Polish troops left Poland and continued the fight elsewhere instead of giving up) Polish troops participated in taking Berlin, Monte Cassino and in many other battles. Polish and Czech pilots cooperated and fought alongside one another in the Battle of Britain against the Luftwaffe. Why the Polish bashing?

In my opinion, Vic may be ignorant, maliciously anti-Polish, or both.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
This was formally before the start of WWII but part of the same story. Poles tend to forget to mention... [MORE]	vic	Sep 15, 2007 06:41
Poland did not invade Czechoslovakia. When Hitler invaded Czecholovakia Poland took back the small area of Teschen Czechoslovakia grabbed from...	Stef	Oct 6, 2007 19:52
Vic fails to mention that Czechoslovakia invaded Poland in 1919 with 15,000 troops, some in non Czech uniforms. After Austro-Hungary... [MORE]	Stef	Oct 12, 2007 11:20
I borrow that heading from Stephen Jay Gould's gloss on the rise of mammals through the contingent annihilation of dinosaurs... [MORE]	Brian Johnson	Sep 12, 2007 08:01
I read his history of Europe, and there too he takes swipes at Zionism even though it had no connection... [MORE]	Read his books	Sep 12, 2007 01:18
Emotions are easily manipulated and one would be naïve to think that such an emotionally charged issue as the Holocaust... [MORE]	Stef	Oct 6, 2007 23:35
Many people, including American military and political leaders at the time, focus most of their attention on the European war... [MORE]	Blain	Sep 12, 2007 00:19
1. Historian Norman Davies excludes origins, viz. "who started it," i.e. excludes from the explanation of later events the 1939... [MORE]	Don Phillipson	Sep 11, 2007 18:22
The involvement of the US and Great Britian against Germany was necessary for victory. If Great Britian had surrendered, all... [MORE]	charles	Sep 11, 2007 11:59
From the time my childhood in the USA, I've noticed a tendency to focus on Nazi war crimes to the... [MORE]	Aram	Sep 11, 2007 04:32
John's suggestion there was "no need to continue lend lease after 1944" is quaint. Unless the Soviet Union continued to... [MORE]	Norman Hanscombe	Sep 10, 2007 23:20
Hindsight is not always 20-20. The British and Americansconducted a very costly bombing campaign on German cities,costly both in men... [MORE]	Muggins	Sep 10, 2007 23:07
In "No Simple War," his treatment of the Holocaust is generally straightforward and unobjectionable. Yet he evidently still feels bruised... [MORE]	Omri Schwarz	Sep 10, 2007 22:10
He's a product of his times. Maybe he is an anti-Semite. or maybe he feels stung by the Zionist need... [MORE]	ds	Sep 12, 2007 12:42
I wish a less subjective reviewer had written this piece. Mr. Kirsch frets throughout that Davies' alleged lack of objectivity... [MORE]	jeepgypsy	Sep 10, 2007 15:05
Keep in mind, as even Churchill noted after the war, that the USSR did the bulk of the fighting against... [MORE]	We were fortunate	Sep 10, 2007 09:39
Dear RTK -- don't try to pull the age thing on Tom. It's like arguing that you only can understand... [MORE]	John	Sep 10, 2007 00:26
Granted John, it's not impossible to understand things you have no experience of, but that being said, comprehending the international... [MORE]	Avi	Sep 10, 2007 11:37
I have always been amused by people who buy our wartime propaganda that we were fighting for freedom and democracy... [MORE]	tom	Sep 5, 2007 03:43
My guess is that "tom" who so smugly wrote "snicker, snicker" is under the age of 70, and knows only... [MORE]	rtk	Sep 5, 2007 21:59

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Clash Of Evils
in response to reader comment: Poland invaded Czechoslovakia with Hitler