Nazi Germany's preparations for the invasion of Poland (1939.08)

A bugler of the Uhlan Regiment of the Polish Army gives a signal from his horse.

Polish military poster.

Military parade in Warsaw in August 1939. A cavalry unit on parade, uhlans with lances in their hands.

Inspector General of the Polish Armed Forces, Marshal E. Rydz-Śmigły reviews the parade.

A Polish infantry regiment on parade.

Horse-drawn heavy artillery passes by.

Senior officers and representatives of the Polish government are on the tribune.

Airplanes fly over.

Motorized and air defense units on parade in Warsaw.

High-power artillery on tracks passes in front of the tribune.

Tank units of the Polish Army on parade.

Map of Europe with the territories that Poland intended to occupy in the West (animated).

Standards and flags with swastikas on the streets of a German city.

Views of a Nazi rally.

German soldiers conduct reconnaissance on the German-Polish border.

A German border patrol passes along the barbed wire.

German troops advance toward the Polish border.

Faces of marching infantry.

Ships of the German fleet on a combat mission in the Baltic Sea.

People wave from the shore to a warship heading out to sea.

German dive bombers and seaplanes stand ready at the airfield.

Burning houses.

Refugees of German nationality flee the combat zone near Bydgoszcz on September 3-4, 1939. Cows abandoned by their owners near a burning barnyard.

Refugees walking along the roads.

Panorama of a burnt farm.

Carcasses of slaughtered cows.

German planes at the airfield in the pre-dawn haze.

Pilots during their morning washing.

A transport plane takes off.

A truck towing an aerial bomb to an aircraft.

A German outpost on a border bridge.

Lifting a box of ammunition into a machine-gun turret.

The daily routine of the garrison of a German pillbox.

Removing covers and branches from German aircraft camouflaged at the edge of a forest.

Hanging bombs under the wing of aircraft.

Camouflaging aircraft with spruce branches.

Unloading boxes of ammunition from trucks at the airfield.

Loading bombs into bombers, setting fuses.

Mechanics checking the bomber engines.

Refueling the aircraft.

Bringing small bombs to their final state.

Loading bombs into the bomber's compartment.

Arming machine-gun belts with a special device.

Checking the nose machine gun.

Installing a bomb in the bomber's compartment.

Pilots at the airfield play cards and read newspapers during rest periods.

One of the crews rests in the shade of an aircraft.

View of the nose of a dive bomber, symbols applied to the fuselage.

Crew members sleep on the grass near their planes in late August 1939. German newspaper headlines from late August 1939.