Hello, and thank you for listening to a History of World War II podcast, Episode 15, The Fall of Poland.

So I wanted to thank everybody for the comments that you've been putting on iTunes and the feedback. I really appreciate it.

I especially want to thank Ann W. from Illinois who sent me an email also for her support as well.

There's a book I was eyeing on Amazon about the Battle of Britain and because of her contribution, I was able to get that book finally.

So thank you very much Ann.

On the last episode, we'd gotten to the point where Hitler had called off the attack against Poland about 730 on August 25th.

It was supposed to be launched on 445 the next day, the next morning.

But two letters that he received that day, one from Mussolini and one from Chamberlain,

really rattled his cage and so he panicked and he stopped the attack.

Honestly, the letter from Mussolini really hurt him personally, but it was the letter from Chamberlain that brought him up short.

He did not or could not notice the change in Chamberlain and his cabinet and the British government in general about appeasing him or fearing war anymore.

They were certainly afraid they certainly didn't want war, but they weren't going to let that stop them from stopping this madman.

The British would always be a puzzle to Hitler. His insecurity in whatever form it played out against this island nation, this tiny body with a mighty heart to paraphrase Shakespeare,

would time again just drive him crazy and he would switch back and forth between wanting to destroy them completely and to do anything to have them see Germany as an equal.

Now, the German forces on the Polish border were stomped, as we've said, but their action was noticed. Fortunately, there had been so much movement going on in the last week.

There had been a couple of skirmishes and things like that that it really wasn't considered anything more than what it was.

But some of the conspirators in Germany, Colonel Auster, Keneres and Dr. Schatt, who was the interpreter for Hitler, believed that calling off the war, which is what they had thought had happened, would be the end of Hitler.

But they really didn't understand that his whole over the army, the police, the government and the people, was just too complete and a hiccup like this was not going to bring him down or he wouldn't walk away or no one would stand up to him.

But again, here they were about to find out very soon that the war wasn't called off. It was just being delayed. Initially, only he and Gary were the only ones who knew.

Another conspirator, General Halder, who was in charge of the conspirators the last time during the Munich crisis, didn't try to stop Hitler because he wanted to attack Poland just as much as Hitler did.

Remember that Poland was very impopular in Germany after the Versailles Treaty, the Polish corridor, it was seen as an embarrassment, humiliation to Germany, and they were all pretty much agreed that Poland had to go.

Even General von Witsleben, who was in charge of the Berlin forces, who was instrumental, if they had planned anything, if they had done anything against Hitler during the Munich crisis, he was out in the field in the west, getting ready to lead his troops, so he wasn't in the area to help out with any kind of attempt to stop Hitler.

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