On 31 August 1939 in Gleiwitz, then a German town, SS men posing as Polish insurgents attacked the radio station to give Hitler a pretext for war. In January 1945 the 1st Ukrainian Front took the almost undamaged Upper Silesian Industrial District, and the Red Army's entry was accompanied by crimes against civilians, Poles among them. Breslau, declared a fortress and besieged from 13 February, did not capitulate until 6 May 1945.
1939
1945
- 12 January – 3 February 1945BattleVistula–Oder offensiveBetween 12 January and 3 February 1945 Zhukov's and Konev's fronts drove from the Vistula to the Oder, smashed Army Group A and took Warsaw, Kraków and Łódź.
- 31 January 1945EventThe bridgehead on the OderOn 31 January 1945 a forward detachment of the 5th Shock Army crossed the frozen Oder at Kienitz and seized a bridgehead some 70 km from Berlin.
- 13 February 1945EventThe siege of Breslau beginsOn 13 February 1945 troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front closed the ring around Breslau (Wrocław). The siege of Festung Breslau lasted until 6 May.
- 13 February – 6 May 1945BattleSiege of BreslauFrom 13 February to 6 May 1945 the Red Army besieged Festung Breslau. The fortress capitulated on 6 May, with about 70% of the city destroyed.
People
Born or died here
- Dietrich BonhoefferLutheran pastor and theologian, lecturer at the University of Berlin, head of the Confessing Church seminary at Finkenwalde (1935–1937), Abwehr agent (1940–1943)
- Dietrich von CholtitzCommander of the 16th Infantry Regiment (1940–1942), commander of LXXXIV Army Corps in Normandy (1944), Commander of Greater Paris (August 1944), General of Infantry (1944)
- Helmuth James von MoltkeLawyer in Berlin, expert on the law of war in the Foreign Office/Abwehr of the OKW (1939–1944), co-founder of the Kreisau Circle
- Karl HankeState Secretary in the Propaganda Ministry (from 1938), Gauleiter and Oberpräsident of Lower Silesia (1941–1945), Reich Defence Commissioner in Fortress Breslau, appointed Reichsführer-SS (1945)
- Nikolaus von FalkenhorstCommander of XXI Army Corps (1939–1940), commander of the invasion of Norway (1940), Wehrmacht Commander-in-Chief in Norway (1940–1944), Colonel General (1940)
- Wojciech KorfantyMember of the Reichstag (1903–1912, 1918), commissioner of the Supreme People’s Council (1918–1919), Polish plebiscite commissioner in Upper Silesia (1920–1921), Deputy Prime Minister (1923)