Fall Weiss

Fall Weiss (German orthography Fall Weiß translated as Case White following the German military's naming convention) may refer to two military operations:

Case White

Case White (German: Fall Weiss), also known as the Fourth Enemy Offensive (Serbo-Croatian: Četvrta neprijateljska ofenziva/ofanziva) was a combined Axis strategic offensive launched against the Yugoslav Partisans throughout occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. It was one of the most significant confrontations of World War II in Yugoslavia. The offensive took place in early 1943, between 20 January and mid-to-late March. The Axis operation prompted the Partisan Supreme Command to enact its plans to drive toward eastern Herzegovina, Sandžak and Montenegro. In order to do this, Tito formed the so-called Main Operational Group, which eventually succeeded in forcing its way across the Neretva in mid-March 1943, after a series of battles with various hostile formations. Other Partisan formations, the 1st Croatian and 1st Bosnian Corps, managed to evade Axis blows and, despite significant losses, reclaim most of the territory they had held before the beginning of the operation.

Since its final stage took place on the Neretva River, the operation was known in Yugoslavia as the Battle of the Neretva (Bitka na Neretvi). This stage is also known as the Battle for the Wounded (Bitka za ranjenike).

Invasion of Poland

The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, or the 1939 Defensive War in Poland (Polish: Kampania wrześniowa or Wojna obronna 1939 roku), and alternatively the Poland Campaign (German: Polenfeldzug) or Fall Weiss in Germany (Case White), was a joint invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Free City of Danzig, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent, that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, while the Soviet invasion commenced on 17 September following the Molotov-Tōgō agreement that terminated the Russian and Japanese hostilities in the east on 16 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty.

German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west the morning after the Gleiwitz incident. As the Wehrmacht advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the Polish–German border to more established lines of defence to the east. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited expected support and relief from France and the United Kingdom. Those two countries had pacts with Poland and had declared war on Germany on 3 September, though in the end their aid to Poland in the September campaign was very limited.