September 1, 1939

The title of Auden’s poem—“September 1, 1939”—is also the day the German army, under direction of dictator Adolph Hitler, first invaded Poland in their effort to secure domination of Europe. Hitler claimed the invasion was necessary as the land was needed to support the German people; however, the ultimate aim stretched far beyond the land borders of Poland. Shortly after Hitler’s move on Western Poland (and prior to this poem’s publication, though not necessarily to its creation), Poland was attacked from the east by the Soviet Union. Caught between two powerful armies, Poland was overwhelmed and forced to admit defeat. Both Germany’s and Russia’s invasion of Poland were a direct result of a non-aggression pact made between Germany and the Soviet Union, signed in late August 1939 and known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. In this agreement, the countries “agreed that they would not attack each other and secretly divided the countries that lay between them” (“Germany and the Soviet Union Sign a Non-Aggression Pact.” Anne Frank House). This pact and the subsequent invasions of Poland were widely viewed as a violation of the Munich Agreement, a peace treaty signed in September 1938 with the intention of avoiding war in Europe altogether. The Munich Agreement gave Germany possession of Sudetenland (then a part of former Czechoslovakia) and “in exchange, Hitler abandoned his plans to usurp the rest of Czechoslovakia” (“The Munich Agreement.” Anne Frank House).

In response to the invasion of Poland, the British government issued Germany with a command to extract itself from Poland. Predictably, Hitler refused; this led England and France to declare war, effectively starting what would quickly become known as World War II. Although it took a few days for all-out war to be established, September 1, 1939, marked the beginning of the end; the Polish invasion was widely circulated through newspapers, meaning it was a hot topic of discussion in both Europe and America. Opinions, informed and otherwise, were being made at an alarming rate; loyalties were tested and the world was blanketed in the outrage and fear—all emotions that Auden references in his poem. This poem is notable because it wasn’t written at the height of battle, but at the birth of it. Auden’s observations of humanity and society contained marked insight of the days to come.