Life Magazine‘s “World War II Erupts: Color Photos from the Invasion of Poland, 1939” hints at the diplomatic charade that preceded the outbreak of World War II:
On September 1, 1939, one week after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact, more than a million German troops–along with 50,000 Slovakian soldiers–invaded Poland.
Two weeks later, a half-million Russian troops attacked Poland from the east. After years of vague rumblings, explicit threats and open conjecture about the likelihood of a global conflict–in Europe, the Pacific and beyond–the Second World War had begun.
