Author: JF Ptak

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 230

In memory of the German attack upon Poland on 1 September 1939 I’d like to share this stupendously-titled pamphlet. This is one of those times when a pamphlet has posed an idea that had never before occurred to me. This anonymous work produced by the German propaganda machine in May 1939 presents the incredible assertion that Poland did indeed have plans to continue to break the back of Germany over the pretty-much-forgotten Treaty of Versailles, and to also physically attack south-eastern Germany sometime in 1940.

Again, the idea that Germany was defending itself against an imminent attack by Poland was completely novel to me.  There’s always a reason for these sorts of beginnings of wars (Gulf of Tonkin, WMD), but this one really is exceptionally removed.  Poland had just decided to defend its borders against the Germans following their conquest of Czechoslovakia the previous year–until then the Polish military’s biggest threat was the Soviet Union.  The German attack, the blitzkrieg (Fall Weiss) which would begin on 1 September 1939 involved 1.5 million German soldiers attacking two principal points in Poland. It was ostensibly launched in response to a suppoed “Polish” attack on the German border town of Gliwce–an attack orchestrated and simulated by Germany.   In the attack, the Germans unleashed 11 tank divisions versus Poland’s 1; sent in 1250 bombers and fighters to Poland’s (mainly obsolete) 360; rolled 4 motorized divisions against Poland’s, um, hat’s right, they didn’t have any.  And of course the Germans had a modern and vastly superior navy, compared with Poland’s 4 destroyers, five subs, and assorted smaller numbers of smaller and less-significant vessels. 

The British and the French issued an ultimatum to Germany to cease and desist; Hitler had no intentions in stopping, throwing the five armies of von Rundstedt and von Block deeper into the country in a fast and (according to many German generals) breakneck manner.  The British and French declared war on the 3rd, by which time the war in eastern Poland was already almost over.  The Germans did respond to the ultimatum (see this in continued reading, below) in which it outlines some of their needs and Polish-inspired dears. 

By 24 September the Germans had reached the formerly important geographic boundary of the Vistula and swarmed past.  Warsaw was bombed by some 1150 aircraft, and by the 27th, the fighting was almost entirely over. (Some divisions held out to 6 October, the invasion completed in 36 days). 

It is sometimes forgotten in the quickness of this defeat that Poland inflicted some heavy losses on the German military machine:  8000 soldiers killed with 27,000 wounded and 5,000 MIA; 217 tanks were destroyed.  The Luftwaffe lost over 500 planes, either entirely destroyed or damaged to the point of uselessness.  Polish losses were greater.

It was at this time that the first of my grandmother’s brothers, Raymond Dymek of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, would cross the border into Canada and volunteer, becoming a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force.  He would fly against the Nazis with the CRAF, then joined the RAF, until finally, when the U.S. joined the  European war 27 months later, would fly for the U.S. Army Air Force.  He had a very long career and made it through.  His five brothers would also enlist in the U.S. armed forces; all six brothers would return home. Fatherland and all that.   I know the vocabuarly for their response to the idea that Germany was responding to a Polish threat of invasion didn’t exist to them–it barely does for me. 

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 210

This engraving (s small section of which is highlight from the full image below), plate I/74/B.7 (yes, an incredible but true plate number)  from Johann Georg Heck’s masterpiece, Iconographic Encyclopedia, (American edition), 1849-1852, is a 12×12 grid basically showing the progression of the orders of earthly life.  It is a result years of zoological thinking, a systemic exposition of animals created by Aristotle, Pliny, Galen, Belon, Rendeletius, Gesner, Aldrovandi, Mouffer, Linneaus, Cuvier and etc.  Most were scientists  though many repeated the fables and imagined observations of earlier, less scientifically-fortunate colleagues (like Pliny, whose fantastical assertions took root over 15 centuries).

This fine and minutely-detailed work packs an incredible amount of data on a sheet of paper just 8×10 inches big (or small), 145 (don’t forget Eve in the 12-square grid!) elegantly arranged and easily identified images in 80 square inches.  It is a beautiful and remarkable accomplishment, and Heck’s artists did 435 times throughout the length of the work. (I wrote a post about Heck’s illustrations of the construction of the Thames Tunnel back in June.)

Life is arranged—here in 1849—along four division and 18 classes, from Radiata to Mollusca to Articulata to Vertebrata (ending with Adam and Eve, even though the couple is simply classified as Homo in the text, standing virtually next to Simis).  It is a classic (or should be) of scientific illustration, the net effect of which is similar to a flip book or nickelodeon–the images seem to just roll past and through the brain.