Byelorussia in World War II

The Polish defense was already broken, with their only hope being retreat and reorganisation in the south-eastern region (the Romanian Bridgehead), when on 17 September 1939, it was rendered obsolete overnight.

The 800,000 strong Soviet Union Red Army, divided into the Belarusian and Ukrainian fronts, invaded the eastern regions of Poland that had not yet been involved in military operations, in violation of the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact.

Soviet diplomacy were protecting the Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities inhabiting Poland in view of Polish imminent collapse.

Polish gained victory at the battle of Szack, and the Red Army reached the line of rivers Narew, Bug, Vistula and San by September 28, in many cases meeting German units advancing from the other side.

The last operational unit of the Polish Army, General Franciszek Kleeberg's Samodzielna Grupa Operacyjna "Polesie", capitulated after the 4-day Battle of Kock near Lublin on 6 October, marking the end of the September Campaign.

Adolf Hitler had argued in Mein Kampf of the necessity of acquiring new territory for German settlement (Lebensraum) in Eastern Europe.

However, these plans were delayed through the period of the Phoney War, followed by the Nazi invasions of Norway, France and Benelux, Denmark, and the failed Battle of Britain.

[5] At 04:45 on 22 June 1941, four million German soldiers, to be joined by Italian, Romanian and other Axis troops over the following weeks, burst over the borders and stormed into the Soviet Union, including the Byelorussian SSR.

With the capture of Smolensk and the advance to the Luga river, Army Groups Centre and North had completed their first major objective: to get across and hold the "land bridge" between the Dvina and Dnieper.

The German generals argued for an immediate drive towards Moscow, but Hitler overruled them, citing the importance of Ukrainian grain and heavy industry if under German possession, not to mention the massing of Soviet reserves in the Gomel area between Army Group Centre's southern flanks and the bogged-down Army Group South to the south.

In the Soviet Union the end of World War II in Europe is considered to be 9 May, when the surrender took effect Moscow time.