The Invasion of Poland - WW2 Documentary Special 

"We don't beg for freedom - we fight for it" - Witold Urbanowicz: , the legendary polish 303 squadron leader and ace pilot during the Battle of Brattain. Poles are tough, resilient, and intelligent - enemies can conquer their flat land, but they will never be able to conquer their minds and souls even using the most oppressive means including concentration camps and mass killings. Be assured, Poles will fight back and destroy the enemy at the end. Greetings from a Polish-American.

The Polish people have proven throughout history that they are a brave and heroic people. God Bless Poland!!

Poland is the unsung hero of WW2. History is still alive in Poland. Prof. Richie's book Warsaw 1944 is an amazing work that shows the amazing courage of the Polish people. Love Poland, love the Polish people ❤

My grandfather never said he fought the Nazis, he said he fought against the Germans. Germans also didn’t call themselves Nazis, they called themselves Germans. Signs said „only for Germans” not „only for Nazis”. Poland was occupied by Germany not a „Nazi regime”.

Love for Poland. Stay Strong Forever.

Been to Warsaw and Krakow as well as Auschwitz- Birkenau and the Resistance Memorial. The Polish people are amazing and proud people, the history of the country is engrossing and complex. They were also very important in helping the Allies defeat Nazi Germany in many ways- cracking the Enigma code ( as stated), enlisting in the British military and the Resistance. Amazing people.

The forgotten soldiers of WWII! Salute and extremely grateful for bringing the history back. I took a part in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 myself. I think everyone should watch this., Lets not forget the Nazis refer to Germans who started the war. Not some other people. Germans. .

Do not lie! Poland fought against German aggression.

Beautifully presented....and accurately !!! The Poles took part at Normandy and in closing the Falaise Pocket. Polish pilots played a big role in the Battle of Britain. They were in Narvik, Norway in defense of that country. They helped liberate Belgian, Dutch , French and Italian towns. It is my understanding that they accepted the surrender of the German navy at Wilhelmshaven. They also took part in the assault and capture of Berlin. They captured the abbey at Monte Cassino outside of Rome.

It's great to here some Polish history during WWII. There's always overblown coverage of the French underground, when in fact the Polish Home Army did so mch more.

During the engagement of the sinking of the Bismarck I believe I remember a tale about a destroyer lobbing it’s little shells at the huge behemoth of a ship while flashing lights in Morse saying “I am a pole!” Gotta love that spirit!

No shortage of courage from Poland. May we all have such courage in the face of insurmountable odds.

Poland forever

Poland such courage! This historian does a wonderful job, thank you!

Alexandra Richie is a great historian. I've watched her over the years and love her insightful and intriguing information.

I read of an instance that I have always liked. The STEN gun was developed so that resistance workers could replicate it in simple machine shops. There was one part that was necessary, the spring inside the barrel. Springs require better manufacturing techniques than stamped steel, plus better steel. One of the Home Army agents was a manager under the Germans at a particular factory. The Germans thought him to be under their control, “safe”. He orders a couple of hundred of high quality springs from Sweden which gets approved. After the shipment arrives, the truck bearing it is attacked and all goods aboard it taken by the Home Army. Even while the streets of Warsaw were burning during the 1944 Uprising, a workshop beneath one of the streets was churning out new STENs. The ammunition used was the 9mm Parabellum which was a standard German ammunition for pistols and submachine guns.

Great video, Thank you for talking about our history 🇵🇱

Maly Powstaniec ("Little Insurrectionist") Monument erected just outside Warsaw's medieval city walls in 1981, commemorates the children who fought in the Warsaw Uprising, against the German occupation.

“Women men and children fight they were dying side by side, but the blood they shed upon the streets was a sacrifice willingly paid”

Kudos to the Polish Resistance....the bravery of the Resistance blows me away...just amazing...

Poland!! First to Fight!! My father was in the Polish Army fighting the Germans in Warsaw in 1939, then Northern France in May 1940 then joined the Polish First Armored Division in England known as the Black Devils. He hated the Germans all his life and who could blame him or anyone else that lived through that period of history.

🥲 A brutal but fantastic piece of history. And wonderfully presented, too. Thank you, History Hit.

It's rare for the westerners to talk about the occupation and resistance of Poland. It's not surprising that the Holocaust gets most of the attention, it is extremely important in Poland too but that's not the whole history. Thank you for this documentary.

Thank you, madam, for this incredible presentation.

The western world sold the Poles down the river both at the beginning and the end of WWII. This can be symbolically illustrated that - when they held a victory parade in London they excluded the Poles because they knew it was no victory for them. The allies lost WWII in Europe and we all suffered the expense and fears of the con they called the cold war.

Very good, professional, realistic account of Polish and Warsaw struggle during WW2. A relief from the ocean of flashy&bold rambling, stuffed with plenty of errors by many youtubers trying to speak about Polish history... Thank you!!!

This was fantastic. I don't know nearly enough about the history of where half of my ancestors came from.

Many Polish pilots fought in the Battle of Britain, but were never given the credit they deserved. Wonderful, brave people!

Fascinating, thank you for uploading.

Thank you for your time and consideration for the Poles and your American English

Just amazing stories about a part of history I didn't know much about. I had heard of Witold Pilecky and the Warsaw Ghetto and Warsaw Uprisings, of course. But the rest was brand new to me. The world owes a huge debt to these nameless Poles who fought the Nazis and the Soviets.

Great presentation of v.important piece of Polish struggle with Germans juts to fall under Moscow control afterwards..😕

Its amazing the Poles accomplished this much with the little they have.

Come on guys get your act together. Professor Richie, despite her being well known, is wrong with regard to Jan Nowak Jezioranski - who incidentally was my Godfather. Jan Nowak did NOT fly back to London with the V2 . He actually flew from Brindisi with the plane to Poland to provide instructions/orders from the Polish Government in exile to the resistance movement in Warsaw about the uprising. The story about the plane being stuck is accurate. He made his way to Warsaw. Later on - after the uprising was defeated he went back to London to provide information about Soviet complicity/duplicity in helping the Germans defeat the uprising (by not helping the AK). You’d want to think Professor Richie had done her research - but getting this detail wrong is not excusable for someone who is a well known Professor. The whole episode is ruined by getting important facts wrong. It also ruins her credibility and that of Channel. If you want to know who actually flew back to London with the V2 and information it was a person called Jerzy Chmielewski. Also on the plane back to Brindisi was Tadeusz Chiuk-Celt who was also an emissary and part of the chichociemny group. I know this because Tadeussz Chiuk-Celt’s family were our neighbors in Munich working for RFE. My father was the godfather of his son John Celt and we used to play together. Also the Soviets were on the water bank of the Vistula during the uprising and there is documentary evidence that Stalin indeed purposefully wanted the uprising to fail. The German counter offensive was not a major factor in the Soviet behavior as advanced elements of the Red Army were already on the other side of the bank early August as the battle raged and refused to help and denied landing rights to US and British airplanes as well as keeping airdropped supplies intended for the Poles for themselves. In fact you can easily find Soviet film recordings from the east bank showing Germans bombarding Warsaw during the uprising. This information was smuggled out by Jan Nowak.

Why are here no grand international memorials for the 6 million Polish people who died in World War 2?

"History can say what it want but rarely does it remember anything correctly"-Lawkeeper Equity Mlp Ace Attorney EOJ

Thank you. Very well made.

Always interesting. Thank you for keeping history alive and fresh in our memories at this important time.

“Liberation from red army” LMAO - yeah they “liberated” us all right.

Very enjoyable and informative slice of ww2 history

Thank you for this video.

Wolverhampton UK. I was in uniform on way to see my Great Aunts - all 3 never married after their fiancé's died on the Somme. On the way Got invited into the Polish military club - they flew Hurricanes and Spitfires and fought at Arhnem, got me very very drunk. I was so worried about seeing my Aunts whilst drunk. I got a pint of stout from my Aunts and they smiled and was put in their father's chair. My2 older brothers who turned up later got cups of tea 😂

Thank you , I really like your work and appreciate it.

Great upload, thanks for sharing.

As a Boy Scout in the 1970s, we learned to handle guns and read maps also.

Świetny film. Może da do myślenia.... Mamy zarówno bardzo smutną i wesołą historię

"But the thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies"-Lawkeeper Equity MLP Ace attorney EOJ

Yes I agree the people of Poland are brave and courageous and in 2024 they are still prooving how brave and courageous they are.

Against germans not nazis. There wasn't any nazi nation, speaking nazi language. They were germans

The Soviets throw the poles to the wolves twice

WAR IS EVIL

The liberation of Poland by Soviet forces in May (not January)1945 is a complex historical issue. While it did mark the end of Nazi German occupation, it also led to a new period of Soviet occupation over Poland.This period of Soviet control lasted until the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989

Really interesting video

thanks for that video

Poland did not fought back against The Nazis. Poland did fought back again The Germans and Russians.

And all the underground schooling. That's worth of mentioning as well.

Piękna i zakochałem się w Tobie

Very interesting

Nice

France was occupied, Belgium was occupied, Poland was undergoing extermination. Do not compare these two things that are completely different things...

Until 1989, we were subject 5o the most brutal occupations

Warszao walcz!

What language did the nazi speak?????

That was so much information from her right off the bat - absolute barrage 😂

I'm so gonna love if someone gives a dicionary of "nazi" language

Red Army waited other side of river Veiksel…

Not Nazis - the Germans!!!

Pitty about the loud music

Warszawa city whose War Saw. Only this and another more. You have answer.

Always enjoy listening to foreigners mispronounce every Polish name. Just kidding, great video! Glad there're quite a few people interested in my country's effort during World War Two. Our history books always paint us in a very flattering light, so listening to an outsider's take is quite reaffirming.

Against the Nazis? What kind of nonsense is this! Poland and Polish people fought against the GERMANS, for Christ sake.

After Katyń, after the gulag there was also an element of fear, no, well incredible bravery also, the Soviet soldiers were sometimes just as bad as the Nazis, truth be told even after the war the AK was being killed by the Soviet regime, or the people who fought overseas if they didn't all out swear aliegance to the Soviet flag, right anyway in my thinking, I don't know if I am right or not it was a case of either being massacred by one or the other so they anyway knew it would be suicide, so the bravery which has throughout history been with the Poles kicked in, always against superior forces from the Kosciuszko inseruection, all the way to then if not now, anyway they decided to fight hoping against hope that if they fought their allies would notice and help or march east (where there were countless other nations waiting), anyway it nearly didn't happen till the very end and Poland continued or stopped (depends on the perspective), the war as they started it off, alone. (I know, I'm sorry but Yalta, Potsdam, etc. if you just read a bit outside you realise what I mean), anyway, that's my hypothesis, sorry if it's harsh or anything else but that's just a hypothesis, plus for me to really understand you have to look beyond the history in the country itself, beyond the forgotten front (numerous times over the war there were cases), of Central and Eastern Europe, look at how they treated their allies, how they fought elsewhere etc. so a look at everything, but for a 32 minute video I think it's one of the best, I mean explaining everything else would take hours, I understand that, anyway super job, I just thought well, I just had/have a hypothesis or a suspicion, no ale też jeśli ktoś wie czy to prawda czy nie, czy wy byście mogli mi odpowiedzieć? Może też jeśli ktoś kto przezył jeszcze żyje? Bym był zainteresowanym.

Bless the Poles, helping us 🇺🇦 with Russia

One of the biggest mistakes of the Poles, next to the Monte Cassino and the general fight on the side of the Allies, i.e. 303 Squadron, for the First Independent Parachute Brigade, etc. After the "September betrayal", we should not have fought at all, especially when Stalin became the "Ally", but suffered as little as possible. The politicians were stupid and chose a completely senseless strategy.

God bless the Polish people ,they were given a bad hand in the war and faught like lions.

Poland fought the invading Russians and Germans in 1939 while US watched from far away instead of helping, Pulaski and Kościuszko made a huge mistake fighting and dying for US independence. After the war US took in Germans while giving Poland to Russia. No movies from Hollywood about Polish heroes, but a lot of movies about Germans and Russians.

January 1945? more like 1989

They aren't Ukrainians. They fight for their country.

Ah yes those brave agents parachuted into Europe by the British that were sold out because they didn't want the Germans to know they had broken the enigma codes. Very well documented. Might have saved a lot of lives if Poland would have just made a deal about Danzig.

The Jewish Ghetto did it a year earlier.

Posh historians really annoy me

The Polish are very organized. It only takes three Poles to change a lightbulb!

Danzig was 96% German in 1939. If the Poles had of handed it back to Germany, there would have been no war with Germany.

Those were russians and germans, not some nazis from nazia and soviets from sovietsia.

Do not lie! Poland fought against German aggression.