Territories Of Poland Annexed By The Soviet Union
Immediately after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of World War II, the Soviet Union invaded the eastern regions of the Second Polish Republic, which Poles referred to as the "Kresy," and annexed territories totaling 201,015 km² with a population of 13,299,000 inhabitants including Poles, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Jews, Czechs and others.
Most of these territories remained within the Soviet Union in 1945 as a consequence of European-wide territorial rearrangements configured during the Tehran Conference of 1943. Poland was compensated for this territorial loss with the prewar German eastern territories much of which had been devastated during the war, and had been looted and pillaged by the Red Army. The Communist Poland described the territories as the "Recovered Territories". The post-World War II territory of Poland was significantly smaller than the pre-1939 land areas, shrinking by some 77,000 square kilometers (roughly equaling that of the territories of Belgium and the Netherlands combined).
Read more about Territories Of Poland Annexed By The Soviet Union: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939–1941, German Occupation 1941–1944, Soviet Annexation
Famous quotes containing the words territories of, soviet union, territories, poland, soviet and/or union:
“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capitalism is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“In the Soviet Union everything happens slowly. Always remember that.”
—A.N. (Arkady N.)
“For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the state into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is often said that Poland is a country where there is anti-semitism and no Jews, which is pathology in its purest state.”
—Bronislaw Geremek (b. 1932)
“If the Soviet Union can give up the Brezhnev Doctrine for the Sinatra Doctrine, the United States can give up the James Monroe Doctrine for the Marilyn Monroe Doctrine: Let’s all go to bed wearing the perfume we like best.”
—Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)
“I not only rejoice, but congratulate my beloved country Texas is reannexed, and the safety, prosperity, and the greatest interest of the whole Union is secured by this ... great and important national act.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)