The war was delayed a week

A little known fact with the seventy-anniversary of the outbreak of World War II: Why Hitler 25th August 1939. in 19 hours suddenly withdrew the order for the attack on Poland, which was issued that day in 15 hours and two minutes?
The abundance of facts and data published on the occasion of the anniversary of the seventies the outbreak of World War II found itself, after all, those less known or completely unknown.

Known, for example, that Hitler has long planned, and thoroughly preparing aggression against Poland, but not to the attack, which was the prelude to the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century, the devastation of war and global scale, should begin 26th August, and not, as it happened, 1 September 1939th year.

With the border to Poland, but was concentrated German military power, when the Nazi dictator, 25 August, in 15 hours and two minutes gave the order for the attack, which was then suddenly pulled in 19 hours the same day, fifty-four divisions, with a million and a half men, 3600 armored vehicles and 1,500 aircraft.

Sudden order stopped the war machine that was already in motion, but not a military unit whose task was to capture a strategically important rail tunnel in southern Poland. By this formation Führer command, from who knows what reason, apparently is not the time arrived. So the soldiers of the Wehrmacht at the dawn of 26th August, with little resistance, occupied the tunnel and the nearby railway station on the Polish soil.

The Nazis, through a special delegation, then officially apologized for the Poles 'border incidents', svaljujući blame on a 'neuračunljivog officers'. "

While, therefore, more 25th August everything was ready for implementation "plan Weiss, encoded tags for the attack on Poland, Hitler tortured some uncertainties. It was not, namely, the Nazis with the team how to behave in case of attack, and what it will take, the United Kingdom and France, Poland's allies, and how the "position" his friend Benito Mussolini: Italy is in his plans, represented a force that could block the British navy in the Mediterranean.

In Hitler's office ruled that day a great tension and anxiety. Führer was surrounded by a number of heads and Nazi generals. In one class, when asked to be issued orders to attack, to do it, how it was planned, occurred in the dawn. From the General replied: up to 15 hours.

Leader of the Reich is more left before the release order to receive British ambassador Neville Henderson. Third Reich is ready, said the "generous" Ambassador, to guarantee the existence of the British Empire and her shalt help, wherever and whenever it is needed. With one condition: that the London "aminuje" attack on Poland.

At the end of the meeting with Ambassador odglumio the sentimentality: it is said pathetically, "the artist, a painter, not a politician," and when it is resolved, "the Polish question," he said, Behold, the power to "devote himself to art."

The British ambassador has not yet arrived to leave the building in which there was kancelarov Bureau, and Hitler, with two minutes of delay compared to the term that he was "determined" the General Staff of the Wehrmacht, in 15 hours and two minutes gave the attack to "destroy Poland" .

He was obviously convinced that the British would not "budge a finger," and that only a "bluff," claiming that will fit on the side of the Poles. Three hours after the issuance of orders for the attack on Poland, the news arrived from London: Britain is demonstratively signed an agreement on military alliance with Poland. London, therefore, not bluffing?

Short time after that, the play was new, too uncomfortable, surprise. Italian ambassador handed over a letter Firer Mussolini: Italy will, in the event of an attack on Poland, remain neutral.

Hitler was beside himself. His chief of propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote that "the Führer simply screams.

Issued after that (whether because of this?) New command: that, pothitno, stop the movement of horrific war machinery. Short. Hitler is 1 September 1939th year, just after ten o'clock, announced in the Reichstag the nation and the world that the Wehrmacht troops that morning at 5:45 crossed the Polish border and moved in - a counterattack.

Both were wrong. The "counterattack" - no Polish attack was not, the Nazis inscenirali it yourself - and time: an attack on Poland began an hour earlier than Hitler said.

Details that did not have influence on the hell that followed: the Third Reich, with the help of their allies, entered the bloodiest war in history of civilization against the 54 states, the war which lasted 2194 days. The battles of Murmansk and Marseilles, Tokyo and Torbruka, involved 110 million soldiers. Palo is between sixty and seventy million victims. Among them, a million and seven hundred space with the then Yugoslavia - after Poland (including Polish Jews) and the Soviet Union, the highest percentage of the total population of the 1939th year.