How long did it take until the Allies saved Poland?

Answer 1

Its arguable that they never did save Poland. Poland was eventually "liberated" by the Soviet Union in late 1944-early 1945, over five years after the Nazis invaded in 1939. But two weeks after the Nazis had invaded from the west in 1939, the Soviets had invaded Poland from the east, and met the Nazis in the middle at the Vistula River, and they extinguished Poland as a nation, dividing it between them. This was during a two-year period when Hitler and Stalin were partners, from mid 1939 to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in mid 1941, when Hitler turned on his partner. During this period Hitler invaded eight countries and Stalin five, but Hitler was much more successful.

So just how much your average patriotic Pole felt that he was "saved" by being "liberated" by the Soviets is debatable. The only ones who happily welcomed the Soviets were the Polish communists, and even they soon learned hard truths. The Soviets preferred Polish communists who had been in Russia during the war, as a refugee, to those Polish communists who had been in Poland during the German occupation. It was the Communist Poles brought from Russia whom the Russians installed as the powers in the new Communist puppet state of Poland they erected after WWII.

When the Soviets were penetrating into eastern Poland late in 1944, driving the Germans back before them, Polish patriots jumped the gun and rose up against the German occupiers, thinking "liberation" was at hand. Instead of pushing on to join Polish patriots battling the Germans in Warsaw, with whatever inadequate weapons they had been able to hide or steal from the Germans (they of course had no artillery), the Russians paused across the River from Warsaw for six weeks, while the Germans completely repressed this rebellion with thoroughly savage brutality. Warsaw was bombarded by the Germans and bombed by German aircraft, slaughtering the Poles. At last the Russians moved, after all the resisters were dead or captured (and then shot), taking the ruined city of Warsaw with ease.

So how "saved" would you expect the Poles to feel?

Eventually the Poles saved themselves. It was the Polish movement "Solidarity", headed by Lech Walesa in the 1980s which began the process that eventually resulted in the fall of communism in Russia and eastern Europe. So it was about fifty years before the Poles were finally able to have their country they way they wanted it, after the Nazis invaded in 1939.