Originally posted by GScholz
This is technically correct, but in reality Hitler and Stalin divided Poland between them like a cake.
17 September 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Losing 3.379 men in the process.
Poland was by then a beaten nation having crumbled under the massive German invasion of 1st September.
Technically you are correct to some extend, because the agreement between Hitler and Stalin was changed after desintegration of Poland in such a way by the shrewd comrade Stalin (former Komissar on affairs of nationalities in Lenin's government) that the only territories the USSR gained were the ethnic Belorussian and Ukrainian lands.
And also, besides of the fact of "agression" against the territories of western Belorussia and western Ukraine, the Red Army took 454,700 Poles (soldiers,officers, and irregulars) prisoners of war. Also an interesting fact is that the Red Army captured up to 300 Polish military aircraft.
And, as far as I know, the state of war between Poland and the USSR was proclaimed in the radio address by the head of emigre Polish government Sikorsky on March 1, 1940 (for what purpose ?).
And now we have 15,131 Polish army officers and policemen shot in Katyn forest and 7,305 Polish prisoners shot in jails in western Belorussia and western Ukraine in spring of 1940.
We don't count, of course, about 60 thousand Soviet prisoners of war who died in 1919-1921 in Polish consentration camps.
I also have three questions to ask.
1) Does the number 3,379 is KIA and include those (not really many) who died from German fire ?
2) How many German troops were KIA in Poland ?
3) How many Polish planes did the German army capture ?