Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union committed mass atrocities in occupied Poland during WWII, killing an estimated six million Polish citizens in crimes unparalleled elsewhere in Europe.
Key Facts
- Estimated Polish deaths
- ~6 million
- Primary perpetrators
- Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Lithuanian Security Police, OUN-UPA
- Nuremberg Tribunal
- Held 1945–46 in Nuremberg, Germany
- Crime categories established
- Aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide
- Victims
- Predominantly civilians
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, followed by a Soviet invasion from the east on 17 September 1939. Both powers occupied Polish territory and implemented systematic policies of repression, ethnic cleansing, and mass murder targeting civilians, Jews, political prisoners, and other groups deemed enemies of their respective regimes.
Over the course of World War II, occupying forces—primarily Nazi Germany but also the Soviet Union, Lithuanian Security Police, and Ukrainian nationalist organizations—killed an estimated six million Polish citizens. Atrocities committed on Polish soil included mass executions, death camps, forced deportations, and organized massacres, occurring on a scale unmatched elsewhere in occupied Europe.
The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1945–46) codified three categories of wartime criminality—aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity—into international law for the first time. Genocide was subsequently elevated as a fourth distinct category. These legal frameworks, shaped substantially by the scale of crimes in Poland, became foundational to modern international humanitarian law.