JF Ptak Science Books Post 2354
This pamphlet certainty has entry to the evocative Fantastic and Improbable Pamphlet Covers Collection, though I was a little stumped by not being able to make it reveal itself to me with a short effort. It was written by J. Kmicic and from what I can see was probably published during WWII, though there is no publishing information and nothing in the text to hang a firm date on. (There is a periodicals reception stamp in it from November 1946 fro the periodicals division of the Library of Congress, but that doesn't mean it was accessed right after publication, though it does put a limit to how old it isn't.) As it turns out the keys to WWIV is Poland. That a very strong and heavily armed Poland would be the cornerstone of a defense of the West in the East, that the further the extent of a strong Polish eastern border reached the greater the play "of our Western culture will extend". Kmicic makes the case that it if Poland were stronger then it could have resisted Napoleon (evidently WWI), and the Kaiser (making WWI into WWII) and Hitler (WWII=WWIII). The WWIV part is murkier because there isn't a clue so far as I can tell that the author knew what happened to Poland when the Nazis fell and the Soviets moved in. Had that been the case, the call for having a strong and unified Poland would probably not have been played so heavily. A "Mighty Poland", Kmicic writes, means "freedom for all smaller nations of Europe" and therefore "the impossibility of world war". There are a few things that I've missed no doubt in my speed-read, but I was just after the cover, anyway.
Hitler and Company tied to sell the idea of an aggressive Polish nation, that the attack launched on 3 September 1939 was a preventative measure to stop the advance and attack of Poland against Germany. Not too many people believed it--at least outside of Germany--but Hitler tried it out, anyway. And why not? When most of everything he said was grounded in The Big Lie, why not pile it on? The great the untruth, the more impossible it is, and the ore you say that you believe it to be the case, the more of a possibility exists for others to believe it, too--because who in their right mind would say something so insane about something else that is equally unbelievable? Therefore, the insane statement much be so. That's part of The Big Lie.
See Polish Designs on Germany, here
And another attempt at winning hearts and minds, this from 1933 (here):
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