Would Pilsudski have allied with Hitler had he lived?

I've been curious about this for some time--had Jozef Pilsudski lived for at least an additional several years, would he have allied with Hitler?

I know that Pilsudski didn't have a lot of faith in France's commitments to Poland back in the 1920s, but I wonder if his attitude in regards to this would have changed by the 1930s. Also, Pilsudski is probably going to appreciate the fact that Hitler is offering to help Poland expand up to the Dneiper River (Pilsudski was a big fan of Intermarium, after all). At the same time, though, I'm not really sure that Pilsudski would have been comfortable with the idea of Poland being surrounded by Germany on all or almost all directions. After all, Nazi Germany already bordered Poland to the north and west and Nazi puppet Slovakia bordered Poland to the south. If the Nazis will also acquire the territory east of the Dneiper after a successful German-Polish war against the Soviet Union, then Poland is also going to border German forces in the east. I really don't think that Pilsudski would have been very comfortable with that. At the same time, though, I would also think that he would have serious doubts about Britain's and France's ability to help Poland in the event of a Nazi German invasion.

Anyway, what do you think that Pilsudski would have done had he lived longer? Would he have allied with Hitler on Hitler's terms or would he have tried to resist?

Also, for the record, I am posting this thread here because I think that this thread will get more attention here.
 
Piludski may have been a big fan of Intermarium but why on Earth should he voluntarily trade the Baltic for a distant shot at the Black Sea, plus becoming a German puppet state into the bargain? He might surrender Danzig in September '39 rather than fight hopelessly when he 'knows' the French won't come, but ally to give away lumps of Poland in exchange for a promise of land on the Dneiper? If Slovakia's there, he knows precisely what Hitler's promises are worth.
 

BigBlueBox

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Piludski may have been a big fan of Intermarium but why on Earth should he voluntarily trade the Baltic for a distant shot at the Black Sea, plus becoming a German puppet state into the bargain? He might surrender Danzig in September '39 rather than fight hopelessly when he 'knows' the French won't come, but ally to give away lumps of Poland in exchange for a promise of land on the Dneiper? If Slovakia's there, he knows precisely what Hitler's promises are worth.
Before the Munich Conference Hitler would have been satisfied with just Danzig, and would have been fine with the Poles keeping Gdynia.
 
I thought he wanted to avoid alliances with both Germany and Russia - but he also saw this as only a temporary solution. Maybe he could have thought up something, had he still been alive.
 
Before the Munich Conference Hitler would have been satisfied with just Danzig, and would have been fine with the Poles keeping Gdynia.
Ah yes. Hitler. Satisfied. Those concepts go so well together. But yeah, there is some small chance that maybe Piludski might have believed that in 1937. I still think the odds of him going on believing it long enough to go fight the Soviets together are slim, unless Stalin invaded first.
 
Before the Munich Conference Hitler would have been satisfied with just Danzig, and would have been fine with the Poles keeping Gdynia.
Yep. Also, interestingly enough, even when Hitler proposed to conduct a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor (August 1939, I believe), he specifically proposed to exempt Gdynia from this plebiscite and to allow Poland to keep it.

If Poland accepts Hitler's offer of alliance early enough, it would probably be able to keep the entire Polish Corridor without holding any plebiscites there.
 
I thought he wanted to avoid alliances with both Germany and Russia - but he also saw this as only a temporary solution. Maybe he could have thought up something, had he still been alive.
Yes, I suspect that he preferred a policy of Polish neutrality. That said, though, if Poland can no longer sit on two chairs at once, would he prefer to fall to the floor or pick one specific chair to sit on?
 
Ah yes. Hitler. Satisfied. Those concepts go so well together. But yeah, there is some small chance that maybe Piludski might have believed that in 1937. I still think the odds of him going on believing it long enough to go fight the Soviets together are slim, unless Stalin invaded first.
The problem is, though, that Poland doesn't have any good options in regards to this. It could ally with Nazi Germany, but even if they and the Nazis win a war with the Soviet Union, Poland is then going to be surrounded by Nazi forces on most sides and is thus going to be very vulnerable to Nazi pressure and demands. It could ally with Britain and France, but without the Soviet Union as an ally, Poland doesn't have a chance of holding on against Germany and would thus have to endure several years of German occupation before the Anglo-French liberate them--if the Soviets don't enter the war and get there first, that is. As for having the Soviet Union as an ally, this would be extremely risky given that the Soviet Union tried to import Communism to Poland back in 1920.

Yeah, Pilsudski is going to be stuck in a very unpleasant position in this TL. Poland's post-Pilsudski leadership chose to ally with Britain and France without also allying with the Soviet Union, but would Pilsudski have made that same choice?
 

Deleted member 1487

Before the Munich Conference Hitler would have been satisfied with just Danzig, and would have been fine with the Poles keeping Gdynia.
That doesn't really help the Polish economy, as Danzig sat on the mouth of the Vistula river, which was the economic highway of Central Poland and Warsaw; Gdynia was only linked to Poland via rail ways and was more expensive to use.
 
That doesn't really help the Polish economy, as Danzig sat on the mouth of the Vistula river, which was the economic highway of Central Poland and Warsaw; Gdynia was only linked to Poland via rail ways and was more expensive to use.
Wouldn't Poland get to keep its economic rights in Danzig, though?
 
So the turtledove idea of save guarding Polish Jews like Finland through an alliance wouldn't work?
I mean, it's certainly not impossible. However, what would have been really nice is if the Nazis and Poles would not have been able to completely defeat the Soviet Union. After all, it would be absolutely wonderful if the Polish Jews survived, but if tens of millions of Soviet people get deported east of the Urals, then that's certainly going to be very tragic. :(
 

Deleted member 1487

Wouldn't Poland get to keep its economic rights in Danzig, though?
Would you trust Hitler? I'm sure it would be promised, but Pilsudski would have to be a moron not to see the leverage the Germans would have over the Polish export economy. Of course at that point the Germans probably would have economic domination over Polish export markets as it was if they allied. Poland might well end up like Hungary: nearly totally dependent on Germany for it's economy to function and therefore an appendage to German demands. IOTL that is the major reason why Polish leaders turned down the alliance offer

So the turtledove idea of save guarding Polish Jews like Finland through an alliance wouldn't work?
IOTL Poland was pretty anti-semitic as it was, but it seems their efforts were more toward creating a situation where they Jews would emigrate to Palestine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Stern
Stern spent the rest of the 1930s traveling back and forth to Eastern Europe to organize revolutionary cells in Poland and promote immigration of Jews to Palestine in defiance of British restrictions (this was therefore known as “illegal immigration”).

Stern developed a plan to train 40,000 young Jews to sail for Palestine and take over the country from the British colonial authorities. He succeeded in enlisting the Polish government in this effort. The Poles began training Irgun members and arms were set aside, but then Germany invaded Poland and began the Second World War. This ended the training, and immigration routes were cut off.[8] Stern was in Palestine at the time and was arrested the same night the war began. He was incarcerated together with the entire High Command of the Irgun in the Jerusalem Central Prison and Sarafand Detention Camp.
 
Would you trust Hitler? I'm sure it would be promised, but Pilsudski would have to be a moron not to see the leverage the Germans would have over the Polish export economy. Of course at that point the Germans probably would have economic domination over Polish export markets as it was if they allied. Poland might well end up like Hungary: nearly totally dependent on Germany for it's economy to function and therefore an appendage to German demands. IOTL that is the major reason why Polish leaders turned down the alliance offer

Hungary didn't have a coastline and was willing to play along with Germany because it wanted its lost territories. Poland did have a coastline and didn't have any territorial claims after it acquired Teschen.

IOTL Poland was pretty anti-semitic as it was, but it seems their efforts were more toward creating a situation where they Jews would emigrate to Palestine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Stern

Yeah, Poland wanted its Jews to emigrate, but it didn't want to murder its Jews.
 

Deleted member 1487

Hungary didn't have a coastline and was willing to play along with Germany because it wanted its lost territories. Poland did have a coastline and didn't have any territorial claims after it acquired Teschen.
They weren't really that willing to play along, but realized they had little choice and though it was better to suck up and survive especially if it came with some territorial revisions. Poland really had little reason to cooperate as not only did they have no claims after Teschen (other than perhaps Pilsudski's desires), but an alliance with Germany would actively mean giving up critical territory (Danzig) and becoming a appendage of Hitler's foreign policy.

Yeah, Poland wanted its Jews to emigrate, but it didn't want to murder its Jews.
Right, which is why they'd probably have to emigrate rather than the Nazis taking over and mass murdering them. Take Hungary as an example, their Jews were protected and survived until the Nazis took over the country in 1944.
 
Assuming the Nazis and Poland ally, and in this situation the Germans, Poles, and Italy, Hungary, and Romania jump in, and the whole crew goes east only. Will Britain and France DoW Germany (and others) to save Stalin - I doubt it. Assuming this crew does defeat the USSR, what then? How far will the Poles go if the Germans begin to demand the Jews be handed over? I very much doubt the Polish government, and the bulk of the Polish population, will want to shed Polish blood to save the Jews. In any case, I can't see the Nazis offering an alliance to the Poles and if they do, not turning on the Poles at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately the Poles were screwed.
 
It is often mentioned in discussions about a Soviet-Polish alliance that the Poles would not actually want Soviet troops in their territory, because they tend not to leave when the party ends. The same applies to the Germans, and so I can’t see Pilsudski aligning himself with Hitler for an invasion of the Soviet Union—the Wehrmacht has to march through Poland to get there.

While Pilsudski distrusted the Entente after the Treaty of Locarno was signed, I don’t see he has much room to do other than Rydz-Smigly did. And while I might hope he’d be smarter about Czechoslovakia than Beck was IOTL and maybe try to ally with them, he was also the man who put Beck in charge of foreign affairs in the first place, so I have no reason to believe he’d be more imaginative.

The man was lucky, in a way, to have died at the height of his achievements.
 
They weren't really that willing to play along, but realized they had little choice and though it was better to suck up and survive especially if it came with some territorial revisions.

To be fair, though, Hungary did have the choice of making nice with the Little Entente. It instead chose to ally with Nazi Germany in the hopes of getting some spoils.

Poland really had little reason to cooperate as not only did they have no claims after Teschen (other than perhaps Pilsudski's desires), but an alliance with Germany would actively mean giving up critical territory (Danzig) and becoming a appendage of Hitler's foreign policy.

You know, I wonder just how critical Danzig was to Poland in 1939. I mean, sure, trade through Gdynia is harder, but Poland's a tough country and it thus seems like she'd e capable of finding some way to make it work. Plus, she can always redirect some of her trade from Danzig to Gdynia--as well as to Latvia if she really wanted to.

Right, which is why they'd probably have to emigrate rather than the Nazis taking over and mass murdering them. Take Hungary as an example, their Jews were protected and survived until the Nazis took over the country in 1944.

Good luck finding a country that would accept so many Polish Jews in such a short time period. Indeed, it seems more likely that the Nazis would demand that they be send off to either Siberia or Madagascar. :(
 
Assuming the Nazis and Poland ally, and in this situation the Germans, Poles, and Italy, Hungary, and Romania jump in, and the whole crew goes east only. Will Britain and France DoW Germany (and others) to save Stalin - I doubt it. Assuming this crew does defeat the USSR, what then? How far will the Poles go if the Germans begin to demand the Jews be handed over? I very much doubt the Polish government, and the bulk of the Polish population, will want to shed Polish blood to save the Jews.

Well, there is a "compromise" solution, but it's not a very pleasant one--specifically deporting Poland's Jews to, say, Siberia or Madagascar instead of killing them. I don't see any country being willing to accept so many Polish Jews unless it's forced to, which leaves either Siberia or Madagascar as available options.

In any case, I can't see the Nazis offering an alliance to the Poles and if they do, not turning on the Poles at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately the Poles were screwed.

There is a theory that Hitler was initially not anti-Polish (since he was Austrian rather than Prussian, and the Poles were not big troublemakers in Austria) and that he only became anti-Polish once Poland rejected his overtures for an alliance. If Poland is willing to cooperate with Hitler early enough, Hitler mind avoid ever backstabbing Poland.
 
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