Władysław Sikorski was appointed Commander-in-Chief and Chief Inspector of the Polish Armed Forces on November 7th, 1939.

The term was used by the national socialists. Based on their racial ideology, it aimed at separating the German and parts of the Scandinavian population from other ‘lesser’ people. The ‘Aryan race’ was considered superior to all other 'races'.

Term for the period of hostility between the USA and the Soviet Union which lasted from 1945 to 1991. In the course of this conflict, most states either chose to side with one of the camps or were assigned to one of them.

Christian Social Union: conservative German political party in the federal state Bavaria.

Since it's foundation in 1952, the committee serves as an institution which aims at lobbying for the interests of German economical associations in Eastern Europe.

Term designating the process of interconfessional convergence of the Christian churches and, in the case of ecumenic services, the shared celebration of the holy mass.

In its origin a medical term for assisted dying, it was used by the Nazis as a belittling phrase for their systematic murdering of mentaly ill and/or disabled people.

The General Governorate was a German military/administrative district which encompassed a large part of occupied Poland during World War II.

Helmut Kohl (1930 - 2017) was the sixth chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1982 to 1996.

The "Armia Krajowa" (eng. Home Army) was the military arm of the Polish underground state and the largest military resistance organization in Europe during World War II. Its goal was to liberate Poland from German and Soviet occupation.

Term used for the European border between the countries belonging to the Eastern and the Western bloc during the Cold War. Probably coined by the sentence " […] an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" by Winston Churchill from 1946.

Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who governed the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Initially heading a collective one-party government, he became the state's de facto dictator by the late 1930s.

The term "Neue Ostpolitik" (eng. "New eastern policy") designates a phase in German politics of normalization regarding the relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Eastern European countries, particularly the German Democratic Republi. It was promoted by the chancellor Willy Brandt from 1969 on, guided by the principle "change through rapprochement". Due to this policy several traeties with Eastern European countries were signed - one of them being the Treaty of Warsaw.

The National Socialist German Workers' Party was founded in Munich in 1920. Its political orientation was based on radical nationalism, antisemitism as well as on the rejection of democracy and marxisim. Adolf Hitler was head of the party since 1921. During the Nazi regime, the NSDAP was the only party permitted in Germany.

After the II World War, the Allied forces (Great Britain, Soviet Union, USA) and France divided Germany in four occupation zones, which served at the same time as administrative districts.