[[World War II]] began when [[Nazi Germany]] under [[Adolf Hitler]] invaded [[Poland]] on September 1st, 1939. This invasion was under the false pretext that Poland had orchestrated a series of sabotage operations against German targets along the border. The reality is actually the opposite, ; German commandos had staged pretend raids so as to give a ''casus belli '' for their invasion of Poland. Hitler, using the supposed attacks by the Poles as his reasoning, invaded Poland.
The major tactical innovation of the war was the use of combined arms warfare, typified by the German doctrine of [[blitzkrieg]]. In this style of warfare armor, infantry, artillery and air power (see [[Luftwaffe]]) all coordinate to achieve overwhelming superiority at point on the enemy lines. Armor and fast-moving infantry units then exploit the gap and penetrate deep behind enemy lines. Slower moving foot infantry would follow behind the motorized (later mechanised) and armored forces, securing their flanks in order to prevent encirclement. The objective is to cause a widespread collapse of the enemy's ability to fight. It was particularly effective during the early and middle stages of the war, before the Allies developed effective countermeasures.
The Gleiwitz incident occurred on the night of August 31st. A small party of German operatives dressed in standard Polish uniforms took over the Gleiwitz radio station.<ref name="Ailsby">Christopher J. Ailsby, ''The Third Reich Day by Day'', Zenith Imprint, 2001, ISBN 0-7603-1167-6, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TMdZSJGWaIYC&pg=PA112&dq=Gleiwitz+incident&as_brr=3&sig=WzKCJ2wdK-HI3d_BbZR49ofZspg#PPA112,M1 Google Print, p. 112]</ref> They then began to broadcast an anti-German message in Polish. To make the attack seem more plausible, the Germans used human corpses evidence of the attack. Several prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp were brought to the site, drugged, and shot.<ref name="WirtzGordon">James J. Wirtz, Roy Godson, ''Strategic Denial and Deception: The Twenty-First Century Challenge'', Transaction Publishers, 2002, ISBN 0-7658-0898-6, [https://books.google.com/books?id=PzfQSlTJTXkC&pg=PA100&ots=ouNc9JPz4y&dq=Gleiwitz+incident&as_brr=3&sig=WZF91Hk_0WybC1nqbS8Ghw7nTzw Google Print, p.100]</ref> <ref name="Ailsby">Christopher J. Ailsby, ''The Third Reich Day by Day'', Zenith Imprint, 2001, ISBN 0-7603-1167-6, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TMdZSJGWaIYC&pg=PA112&dq=Gleiwitz+incident&as_brr=3&sig=WzKCJ2wdK-HI3d_BbZR49ofZspg#PPA112,M1 Google Print, p. 112]</ref>
That being said, the German invasion was not a surprise attack. The bridges of the Vistula River connecting German and Polish territory over which the invasion occurred, had already been fitted with demolition charges in August by the Poles<ref>Chant, Christopher (unk. date). [www.https://codenames.info/operation/dirschau/ "Operation Dirschau"] ''Codenames'' website.</ref>, and in fact at sunrise on September 1, they did demolish a strategic bridge at Dirschau.
==Fall Weiss==