We have now moved into Phase IV of end of Poland.
The German Campaign in Poland: September 1 to October 5, 1939
Prepared under direction of the Chief of Staff
United States Government Printing Office Washington: 1942
d. Phase IV: September 15-20-Annihilation of Polish armies and Russian invasion (map No. 2).
(1) Fourteenth Army (List).--On the evening of September 14 the center group of the Fourteenth Army had flung a thin outpost line around three sides of the city of Lemberg-north, west, and south. The right wing of the army still stood motionless around Sambor, a town in the Carpathian foothills, which it had reached on the 12th.
The Polish forces in Galicia, half demoralized by their long retreat and weakened by straggling and loss of prisoners, stood in two main groups. The larger, composed of the 5th, 6th, 21st, 22d, and 23d Divisions and an armored brigade, was slowly withdrawing northeastward, and by the 15th was along the San River southeast of Sandomierz. The smaller group, made up of the 11th and 24th Divisions, lay between Przemysl and Lemberg. Serious fighting began on the 16th between the left wing of General List's army and the large Polish group of five divisions and an armored brigade, whose possible withdrawal to Rumania had been intercepted by German armored troops who had reached the region between Zamosc and Chelm.
The battle began in the vicinity of Bilgoraj, a town 80 miles northwest of Lemberg and 40 miles east of Sandomierz. The conflict here continued until about the 20th, when 60,000 Polish troops surrendered and 130 cannons were captured. Remnants of the Polish Army, including the 5th Division, escaped the German net and fled eastward until they fell into the hands of the advancing Russians.
On the 17th occurred the fruition of the German plan for the great outer double envelopment around the Polish armies. At Wlodawa scouting elements of the motorized reconnaissance battalions of the Fourteenth Army established contact with similar units of the Third Army advancing south from Brest Litovsk. However, the situation that was crystallizing in a tight encirclement between Kutno and Warsaw made this outer ring unnecessary and of no great importance. Less is known of the fate of the original Polish Przemysl Army Group, but 10,000 of its men were captured near Rawa Ruska on the 18th.
Russian forces began an invasion on September 17, and by the evening of the 20th Soviet units were on the eastern outskirts of Lemberg.
(2) Tenth Army (von Reichenau).--The right group of the Tenth Army regrouped itself on September 15, and the forces that took Radom and Zwolen crossed the Vistula and advanced toward Lublin. Deblin, an obsolescent ring fortress, was taken on the 16th, together with its undestroyed Polish air depot with 100 airplanes. On the 17th Lublin was captured and on the 18th advanced elements reached Krasnystaw, a point from which they were able to assist the Fourteenth Army in forcing the surrender of the Polish southern armies at Bilgoraj.
The Tenth Army's part in the battle between Kutno and the Bzura will be dealt with in the operations of the Eighth Army.
(3) Eighth Army (von Blaskowitz).--The concentric attack of the German armies on the surrounded Polish forces hemmed in between Kutno on the west and Blonie in the east, and between the Vistula in the north and the Bzura in the south, began on September 15. The entire Eighth Army exerted its whole might from the south against the line of the Bzura. The major part of the Tenth Army's left wing attacked from Warsaw in a westerly direction. Simultaneously the III Corps of the Fourth Army advanced southeastward from Wloclawek toward Kutno. Other forces of the Fourth Army held the north bank of the Vistula from Plock to Wyszogrod, barring a withdrawal there.
Under German thrusts from all directions the resistance of the Polish forces rapidly crumbled. The Polish Army appeared to have been exhausted and partly demoralized by its courageous but fruitless attempts to break out of the German ring. Continued bombing attacks contributed their part to this break-down.
Kutno was captured on the 16th by the III Corps of the Fourth Army. On the same day the Eighth Army crossed the Bzura and the Tenth Army gained ground in the direction of Sochaczew and Lowicz.
The final disintegration of the Polish Army began on the 17th. It had been pressed into a very narrow area, southeast of Wyszogrod, between the Vistula and the Bzura. Isolated units began to surrender, and on the 19th the last of the Polish troops in this area gave up their arms. An official German communique on September 21 claimed that 170,000 men were captured, one of the largest surrenders in military history. One German army captured 320 guns and 40 tanks, according to the communique, but no complete statement of booty has ever been issued by the German High Command.
Polish prisoners taken in the battle of the Bzura belonged to the 2d, 4th, 10th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 25th, 26th, 28th, and 30th Divisions. The larger part of three cavalry brigades was also captured.
(4) Fourth Army (von Kluge).--While the III Corps of the Fourth Army was playing an important role in the annihilation battle on the Bzura, the II Corps established a tight blockade west, north, and east of the fortress of Modlin. The actual siege was begun on September 19 by a special army group under General of Infantry Strauss.
On September 15 elements of the Fourth Army occupied the port of Gdynia in the Corridor.
(5) Third Army (von Kuechler).--The Third Army intensified its siege of Warsaw, closely blockading the suburb of Praga, east of the Vistula. Several attempts by Polish forces to break out of the capital failed, and in one effort, southeast of Praga, on September 16, the Germans captured 8,000 prisoners and 126 guns. But owing to the firm and courageous attitude of Polish authorities, all efforts by the German High Command to induce Warsaw to surrender failed. East of Warsaw the 1st Polish Division tried to escape to the southeast, but just southeast of Siedlce it was forced to surrender 12,000 officers and men, 80 guns, and 6 tanks. However, some few minor elements escaped to the east.
Bialystok was captured on the 15th by the 23d German Division, which was one of the group that had been assembled in the area Lyck-Johannisburg in East Prussia for the operations in eastern Poland.
The Russian invasion from the east resulted in the capture of Molodeczno and Baranowicze on September 18 and, on the 20th, of Vilna, principal city of northeast Poland. Nowhere did the Poles resist the Russians effectively, and they offered no opposition at all at Vilna.
(6) Air operations.--The air operations during this phase were considerably less extensive than before. Polish concentrations in the regions east of the Vistula were bombed and so were the airfields adjoining the Russian border. The last remaining Polish radio stations at Vilna and Baranowicze were destroyed.
The German Air Force also played an important role in the last phase of the battle of the Bzura, bombing troop units and contributing to their demoralization.
" Tenth Army ([Generalfeldmarschall Walther] von Reichenau)" Perhaps a typical Nazi Prussian German general?
"In September 1939, von Reichenau commanded the 10th Army during the invasion of Poland. In 1940 he led the 6th Army during the invasion of Belgium and France, and in July Hitler promoted him to field marshal.
Barbarossa
"During the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, von Reichenau again commanded the 6th Army, which captured Kiev and Kharkov.
"Politically, von Reichenau was an active anti-Semite and supported the work of the SS Einsatzgruppen in exterminating the Jews in the occupied Soviet territories. He encouraged his soldiers to commit atrocities against the Jews, telling them: "...In this eastern theatre, the soldier is not only a man fighting in accordance with the rules of the art of war...For this reason the soldier must learn fully to appreciate the necessity for the severe but just retribution that must be meted out to the subhuman species of Jewry...".
"During the offensive, Reichenau inspected every single Russian tank he came across. He would enter each tank and, using a ruler, he would examine the thickness of the armor. Upon examining a T-34 Tank, he told his officers, "If the Russians ever produce this tank on an assembly line, we will have lost the war."
"A few historians such as Walter Görlitz have sought to defend von Reichenau, summarizing his October 1941 "Reichenau Order" as "demanding that the troops keep their distance from the Russian civilian population."
"On 19 December 1941 Hitler sacked Walther von Brauchitsch as Commander-in-Chief and tried to appoint von Reichenau to the post. But again the senior Army leaders rejected von Reichenau as being "too political" and Hitler appointed himself instead.
"In January 1942 von Reichenau suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and it was decided to fly him from Poltava to a hospital in Leipzig, Germany. He is often said to have been killed in a plane crash in Russia, though Görlitz writes that the plane merely made an emergency landing in a field, and that von Reichenau actually died of a heart attack."