The presidents of Germany and Poland opened day-long observances of the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II yesterday with a ceremony in a central Polish town that was the first target of Nazi Germany's deadly bombings.
The ceremony in Wielun, attended by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, started at 4.40am local time, the exact hour that, according to survivors, the war's first bombs fell, killing civilians.
Minutes later, Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and European Union senior official Frans Timmermans led observances at Westerplatte Peninsula, on the Baltic coast, the site of the war's first battle as Polish troops put up resistance.
US Vice-President Mike Pence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders will also attend the main event in Warsaw. US President Donald Trump cancelled to deal with Hurricane Dorian, which is approaching Florida. Absent will be Russian President Vladimir Putin, not invited this time because of his annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
The invasion of Poland by Nazi German troops on September 1, 1939, marks the outbreak of World War II. It triggered a nearly six-year world conflict that left more than 70 million dead before Germany and Japan surrendered in 1945.
