Himmler's belief that " it is in the nature of German blood to resist " led to his conclusion that Balts or Poles who resisted Germanization were racially superior to more compliant ones.

Initially, Germany hoped to transform Poland into a satellite state, but by March 1939 German demands had been rejected by the Poles three times, which led Hitler to decide, with enthusiastic support from Ribbentrop, upon the destruction of Poland as the main German foreign policy goal of 1939.

That same day, on 21 March 1939, Ribbentrop presented a set of demands to the Polish Ambassador Józef Lipski about Poland allowing the Free City of Danzig to return to Germany in such violent and extreme language that it led to the Poles to fear their country was on the verge of an immediate German attack.

Ribbentrop had used such extreme language, in particular his remark that if Germany had a different policy towards the Soviet Union then Poland would cease to exist, that it led to the Poles ordering partial mobilization and placing their armed forces on the highest state of alert on 23 March 1939.

In 1612 the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by two national heroes, merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky.

The many ethnic groups such as Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, Jews, Italians, and African Americans that began to settle in Chicago in the early 1900s were mostly detached from the political system, due in part to lack of organization which led to underrepresentation in the City Council.

* August 10 – Battle of Nakło: The Poles, led by Bolesław III Wrymouth, defeat the Pomeranians.

Repnin also demanded religious freedom for the Protestant and Orthodox Christians, and the resulting reaction among some of Poland's Roman Catholics, as well as the deep resentment of Russian intervention in the Commonwealth's domestic affairs, led to the War of the Confederation of Bar from 1768 – 1772, where the Poles tried to expel Russian forces from Commonwealth territory.

Individual Poles, both clerical and secular, also offered various forms of aid to the Jewish people. For example, the children's section of Żegota led by Irena Sendler saved 2, 500 Jewish children with cooperation of Polish families and the Warsaw orphanage of the Sisters of the Family of Mary, Roman Catholic convents such as the Little Sister Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary Conceived Immaculate.

The differences between Germans and Poles led to the First & Second Silesian Uprisings, and German resistance against them.

" An office of the Polish Government in Exile wrote to warn Władysław Sikorski that if the Charter was implemented with regards to national self-determination, it would make the desired Polish annexation of Danzig, East Prussia and parts of German Silesia impossible, which led the Poles to approach Britain asking for a flexible interpretation of the Charter.

The atmosphere of revenge for the Soviet crimes against ethnic Poles led to the Jedwabne pogrom of July 1941, where a mob of Poles murdered around 300 local Jews in a burning barn-house.

The massacres committed by UPA led to ethnic cleansing and retaliatory killings in kind by Poles against local Ukrainians in both Poland itself and the regions to the east of the Curzon Line.

The London Poles, led by Mikołajczyk, refused to this proposition, even when Churchill threatened to cut off relations with them.

The West Ukrainian People's Republic, led by Yevhen Petrushevych, had tried unsuccessfully to create a Ukrainian state on territories to which both Poles and Ukrainians laid claim.

It was formerly part of the Zielona Góra Voivodeship ( 1975 – 1998 ), a reconfiguration of the old German state of Prussia, the eastern 40 % of which was inherited by Poland in 1945, and led to the expulsion of its native German inhabitants and the repopulation of the city and the environment by Poles.

The Poles, led by Poniatowski, defeated one of the Russian formations at the Battle of Zieleńce on June 18.

This led to increasing numbers of Poles being sent to Siberia for katorga, where they were known as Sybiraks.

An Austrian division then crossed the Vistula again trying to pursue the Poles, but was routed on May 2 at Góra Kalwaria in a daring attack led by General Michał Sokolnicki.

Later, the increase in the sheer numbers of Poles led the government to a direct anti-Polish demographic policy.

The state itself was led by German nationalism and Bismarck viewed Poles as one of the chief threat to German power ; as he declared The Polish question is to us a question of life and death and wanted Polish nation to disappear in private going as far as expressing his wish to exterminate Poles As a result the Polish population faced economic, religious and political discrimination the Germanisation of their territories was promoted and in places where Poles and Germans lived a virtual apartheid existed.

In 1920, the area was used as a conduit for arms and ammunition for the anti-Soviet Poles fighting in the Polish-Soviet War directly to the north, while local Communists sabotaged the trains and tried to help the Soviet side.

Matériel and food transports were scarce, but the Poles made up lack of supplies with ingenuity, constructing three armoured trains.

As the forces of the Red Army approached the log jam of trains backed up before Novo-Nikolaevsk ( Novosibirsk ) in early December, the Poles had to put down a local revolt by White troops.

Many of their trains began to break down, and the Poles were forced to abandon them and join the exodus that streamed along the frozen tracks beside the railway.

As the remaining trains limped towards Krasnoyarsk, the town was occupied by the Siberian Partisans of Shchetinkin 4 January 1920, even though the Poles still controlled the station.

After losing one tankette the Poles withdrew, but managed to gain enough time for the armoured trains to return to the area.

After a short pause at midday, Teuton units were able to push the Poles back ; however, they found themselves under very heavy fire from crossbows of the Polish infantry, which caused huge losses and withdrawal.

In 1226 Duke Konrad I of Masovia summoned the Teutonic Knights for assistance ; by 1230 they had secured Chełmno ( Culm ) and begun claiming conquered territories for themselves under the authority of the Holy Roman Empire, although these claims were rejected by the Poles, whose ambition had been to conquer Prussia all along.

In 1871 – 1878 Bismarck launched the " Kulturkampf " in Prussia to reduce the power of the Catholic Church in public affairs, and keep the Poles under control.

It was Ribbentrop's fear that if German-Polish talks did take place, there was the danger that the Poles might back down and agree to the German demands as the Czechoslovaks had done in 1938 under Anglo-French pressure, and thereby deprive the Germans of their excuse for aggression.

As a result, even many Poles of the region voted for Germany out of fear that if the area was allocated to Poland it would fall under Soviet rule.

According to the Rybno administration most active Poles during that region included Jóżwiakowscy, Wojnowscy, Grzeszczowscy families working under the guidance of politician Leon Wojnowski who protested German attempts to remain Działdowo a part of Germany after the war ; other local pro-Polish activists were Alfred Wellenger, Paczyński, Tadeusz Bogdański, Jóźwiakowski.

At the same time while Pan-Slavism worked against Austro-Hungary with South Slavs, Poles enjoyed a wide autonomy within the state and assumed a loyalist position as they were able to develop their national culture and preserve Polish language, something under threat in both German and Russian Empires.

In 1919, after World War I, the eastern part ( with a majority of ethnic Poles ) came under Polish rule as the Silesian Voivodeship, while the mostly German-speaking western part remained part of the German Reich as the Province of Upper Silesia.

After that victory, Wends were under increasing pressure from Germans, Danes and Poles.

* September 22 – Battle of Obertyn: The Moldavians are defeated by Polish forces under Jan Amor Tarnowski, allowing the Poles to recapture Pokucie.

Władysław supported his brother Švitrigaila as grand duke of Lithuania, but when Švitrigaila, with the support of the Teutonic Order and dissatisfied Rus ' nobles, rebelled against Polish overlordship in Lithuania, the Poles, under the leadership of Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki of Kraków, occupied Podolia, which Władysław had awarded to Lithuania in 1411, and Volhynia.

During World War II, he gave lectures at the underground university in Warsaw, since higher education for Poles was forbidden under German occupation.

The composers of these operas are not known: they may have been Poles working under Marco Scacchi in the royal chapel, or they may have been among the Italians imported by Władysław.

In 1941, the German leadership decided that in ten to 20 years, the Polish territories under German occupation were to be cleared entirely of ethnic Poles and resettled by German-speaking colonists from Bukovina, Eastern Galicia and Volhynia.

Two years later, when Churchill and Stalin formed an alliance against Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the Anders Army and marched to Persia to create the II Corps ( Poland ) under British high command.

" Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, said the use of the Nazi swastika by vandals was anti-Polish as well as anti-Semitic, and that " Non-Jewish Poles also suffered horribly under the Nazis ... the vast majority of Poles are appalled by what ’ s just happened.

The town of Marienburg under Mayor Bartholomäus Blume and others resisted the Poles for three further years.

The battle resulted in the victory of the French and Poles under Marshal Lannes against the Spanish under General Castaños.

The Poles dropped under fire at 17: 00 and sustained casualties but assembled in good order.

Behind the Hungarians, closer to the Black Sea and the lake, was the Wagenburg, defended by 300 or 600 Czech and Ruthenian mercenaries under hetman Ceyka, along with Poles, Lithuanians and Wallachians.

While Belarusians consider it a reunification of the Belarusian nation under one constituency ( BSSR at that time ), Poles consider it the date when the city was lost.

A combined force of Poles, Czechs and Germans under the command of the Polish duke Henry II the Pious of Silesia, supported by feudal nobility and a few knights from military orders sent by the Pope, attempted to halt the Mongol invasion of Europe.

While his main objective was to give historical legitimisation to germanising of Poles that found themselves under Prussian rule, the praise of a mythical genocide conducted by German ancestors against other national groups would eventually become a means of legitimising claims to further eastern territories.