[mr.WHO]

@-Joshua-: WOW!
I didn't knew about that offensive and on September 7th! That is rather impressive mobilization time and size of the force is good considering time.
Now French sux ass little less as ally in my eyes.

However looking at the map on wiki link you provided I can't help but to notice the irony:
Germans build Siegfried line and successfully defended it against French offensive with smaller force
French build Maginot line and dedicated most of their force to hold it...and Germans just bypassed it

Seems that Germans did their homework well with both trech warfare and blitzkrieg.

[Grizzly]

Hitler took decades to prepare.

[Mito [PL]]

Yeah, we were kinda screwed there in '39, especially when CCCP attacked us on 17th September. That was a pretty ruthless slaughter of Polish soldiers by these Russians.

I do not have a grudge towards France or Britain for them not saving us right away when Germany attacked, I kind of understand that the situation was both unexpected and really difficult. Rather towards our neighbors from East, who didn't hesitate to not only take our land, but also murder really many surrendering soldiers and most of the command staff... But it is irrelevant.

What revelant is is how Nazis even got their military power after WW1 - if I recall correctly, after the first war ended, there were some serious restrictions in terms of military power forced upon the Germany... Why didn't anyone react when Hitler's fanclub was building their war machine in front of Allied noses, making fun of these restrictions? I think this was the place *somebody* screwed up.
But I'm not a historician and I may be unaware of some things.

[Grizzly]

Because people thought/hoped that Hitler's sabre rattling was mainly to pull the country out of the great depression and in part a helpfull barrier against the communists (which he had been railing against for years). The molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a MASSIVE surprise. Hitler's rhetoric had been geared mainly against the communists, and everybody expected that the two would start a fight - and then they temporarily allied to shut down Poland.

[mr.WHO]

To me a suprise is that with my rant about WWI tactics I actually learned something new about both World Wars.
As I said, in general opinion in Poland both Brits and French didn't wasted a single bullet on Germans in September 1939 until actual German invasion on France.

Now I not only know about Saar Offensive, but also see French/Brits tactic very logical at that point of time.
My only complaint would be that between September 1939 (Invasion of Poland) and May 1940 (Invasion of France) that they failed to realize how the bliztkrieg work and prepare proper counter. Well Soviets failed too and they had even more time to prepare.

[Luis Dias]

The guilt associated with the Treaty of Versailles also played a part in the west not looking too deeply into german militarization.

But I do think that the russian threat was the bigger player. Hitler was an incredible anti-communist, and by western eyes, Germany was basically the one superpower that could stop Russia from steamrolling europe. They would steamroll europe if Germany had been seriously demilitarized, so they looked the other way. In retrospect, this wasn't totally stupid, since the main struggle (by far) in WW2 was between those two superpowers. Western powers really got it extremely easy both in the overall war and in the aftermath. Had Germany been demilitarized, however, who knows? The Berlin wall would possibly be called "The Paris Wall" or something.