Fall Weiß (1939)

All you want to know about Fall Weiß (1939)

This article is about the German campaign against Poland. For the 1943 campaign in Yugoslavia (also codenamed Fall Weiß), see Battle of the Neretva.

Dispositions of opposing forces, August 31, 1939, and the German plan of operation.

Fall Weiss ("Case White", German spelling Fall Weiß) was a German strategic plan for a war with Poland prepared before 1939 and put into action on 1 September 1939.

Plan details

The plan called for start of hostilities before the declaration of war. German units were to invade Poland from three directions:

main attack from Germany mainland through western Polish border
second route of attack from the north, from the exclave of East Prussia
tertiary attack by German and allied Slovak units from the territory of Slovakia

All three assaults were to converge on Warsaw, while the main Polish army were to be encircled and destroyed west of the Vistula.

Fall Weiss was initiated on 1 September 1939, and was the first operation of the Second World War.

Similar plans

Alongside of Fall Weiss ("Case White") German strategists prepared other variants of the plan:

Fall Gelb ("Case Yellow") (1940) - German offensive against western Europe
Fall Grün ("Case Green") (1938) - the German plan to invade Czechoslovakia
Fall Grün 2 - (1940) - the German plan to invade Ireland
Fall Rot ("Case Red") (1935) - German defense plan in case of an incursion by France when Czechoslovakia is invaded