page_title: Poles in the Wehrmacht
hierarchical_section_title: Poles in the Wehrmacht
caption_attribution_description: English: Poland occupied by Nazi Germany (Third Reich) and the USSR (21/10/1939-22/06/1941)
context_page_description: Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, some Polish citizens of diverse ethnicities served in the Wehrmacht, in particular citizens from parts of Poland annexed to Germany such as Upper Silesia and Pomerania. Service in the German military was universal in nature in these areas, however assessing the number of ethnic Poles involved is difficult due to the fluidity of national identity. At the low end, Polish estimates often place the number of native Poles at 250,000. Ryszard Kaczmarek's conservative estimate, based on documentary evidence, is 295,000; however Kaczmarek considers this very low and is inclined to accept numbers of up to 500,000.
  Overall, nearly 90,000 former German personnel served in the Polish forces in the West. By Victory Day in 1945, nearly a third of the Polish servicemembers in the West were formerly in the service of Germany. In the Eastern Front, prisoner-of-war camps for Wehrmacht were a significant recruitment pool for the Polish Armed Forces in the East.
  Service in the German military or descent from such individuals had led in Poland to repression, discrimation and ostriacization.
context_section_description: Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, some Polish citizens of diverse ethnicities served in the Wehrmacht, in particular citizens from parts of Poland annexed to Germany such as Upper Silesia and Pomerania. Service in the German military was universal in nature in these areas, however assessing the number of ethnic Poles involved is difficult due to the fluidity of national identity. At the low end, Polish estimates often place the number of native Poles at 250,000. Ryszard Kaczmarek's conservative estimate, based on documentary evidence, is 295,000; however Kaczmarek considers this very low and is inclined to accept numbers of up to 500,000.
  Overall, nearly 90,000 former German personnel served in the Polish forces in the West. By Victory Day in 1945, nearly a third of the Polish servicemembers in the West were formerly in the service of Germany. In the Eastern Front, prisoner-of-war camps for Wehrmacht were a significant recruitment pool for the Polish Armed Forces in the East.
  Service in the German military or descent from such individuals ("grandfather in the Wehrmacht") had led in Poland to repression, discrimation and ostriacization. Even in the 21st century, descendants are often excluded from the Polish national collective.
caption: Aftermath of the Nazi-Soviet attack; divisions of Poland into spheres of interest
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