WWII IN EUROPE:  REVIEW V Poland and the Danzig Corridor Having acquired Austria and all of Czechoslovakia, Hitler now set his sights on Poland.  A narrow strip of land, the Danzig Corridor, divided East Prussia from the rest of Germany.  Hitler now demanded return of this area which Germany had been forced to surrender after World War I.  He faced two possible problems:  possible intervention from Poland’s allies, England and France; and retaliation from Poland’s neighbor to the East, the Soviet Union. The Nazi-Soviet Non-Agression Pact On August 23, 1939, Hitler and Josef Stalin signed a "non-aggression" pact .  The agreement gave Hitler a free hand in the east by assuring a secure rear in case of action in the west.  For his part, Stalin obtained a franchise on spheres of influence in eastern Poland, southeastern  Europe, and the Baltic states. "Operation Canned Goods" The Nazis took criminals from the Oranienberg concentration camp in eastern Germany and transported them to the Polish border.  On August 31, 1939, the prisoners (the “canned goods”), dressed in Polish uniforms, were shot and arranged to look like they were killed invading Germany.  Simultaneously, German secret agents dressed as civilians took over a radio station in Gleiwitz, Poland, and began broadcasting inflammatory messages in Polish, saying Poland had invaded Germany and rallying Poles to the colors.  On September 1, Adolf Hitler made a speech before the Reichstag, and cited this “incident” as an example of Polish aggression on German soil.  He announced he had thrown the full might of Germany’s armed forces into an attack against the offending nation. Two days later, Poland’s allies, England and France, declared war against Germany.  World War II had begun.