"...the Poles reacted with unbelievable stupidity."*

What is with the Poles? "Dumb Polack" was an epithet we used for them growing up in Barnesboro, mainly I concluded, because the way they pronounced certain words ("turd" for "third") in their accented English made them sound dumb, or at least uneducated.

But here is Shirer. This is two weeks before the Nazis invaded Poland. The Poles hated communist Russia; couldn't get past that even with national existence at stake. Played footsie with Uncle Alf. Presently they were going to get the whole Wehrmacht boot but still adamantly rejected the services of the Red Army. So the Soviets decided to make their deal with the devil. Less than two years later Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa. So Poland would be invaded again. Poland is the only country to have been overrun with extreme unction by both sides during World War II. Quite a testament to Polish judgment and intelligence.

*The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (536).