Click on the link here for Audio Player – Radio Warsaw, Radio Berlin, BBC Home Service – reports – September 1, 1939 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection
75 years ago today began what eventually became the start of World War 2. On September 1, 1939 German troops crossed the border into Poland, ending months-long speculation and diplomatic wrangling over the outcome of a land dispute between Warsaw and Berlin.
Although the U.S. wouldn’t actively take part in the shooting war for another two years, the rest of Europe was plunged into the conflict, with Britain’s Prime Minister Chamberlain declaring a state of war existed between Berlin and London and other countries following suit. The Axis Pact of Hitler, Mussolini and Japan’s Tojo (along with a tacit and tenuous alliance with Soviet Russia) aligned themselves against France, Britain, Belgium, Holland and the others. Some 21 years after the end of the First World War, a Second World War was now underway.
As events unfolded quickly, here is an extract from the first few hours of the conflict, via the English services of Radio Warsaw, Radio Moscow and Radio Berlin and the Home Service of the BBC, as heard on September 1, 1939.
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