Imagine checking your phone on the 1st of September, 1939. WW2 LIVE delivers the Second World War as a real-time 24/7 news feed in the voice of reporters who don’t yet know what’s coming. Colourised photography, live maps, dispatches from the front and editorials written in the dark. Six years, day by day, beginning 01 September 2026.
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The German news agency DNB [state-controlled] reports an armed group described as Polish insurgents attacked the Reichssender Gleiwitz radio transmitter in Upper Silesia this evening. The attackers, the agency states, were killed by German police within minutes. No independent confirmation. Warsaw has not commented.
The Reichssender Gleiwitz transmitter stands in Upper Silesia, close to the German-Polish frontier.
The Polish Telegraphic Agency has rejected the German account of an attack on the Reichssender Gleiwitz transmitter as “wholly without foundation” and “a fabrication.” A Foreign Ministry spokesman states recent border incidents have been “manufactured in the German press for purposes which are now evident.” The denial has not been carried by DNB.
The SMS Schleswig-Holstein has opened fire on Polish positions at the Westerplatte peninsula in Danzig harbour. The Polish garrison is reported to be returning fire. Berlin has made no announcement. Continued…
Schleswig-Holstein opens fire in Danzig harbour as smoke rises over Westerplatte.
Reports reaching the wire describe German troops crossing the Polish frontier from East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia. The Polish High Command has yet to issue a consolidated statement. Communications with frontier districts are described in Warsaw as fragmentary. Continued…
German forces mass on Poland’s border as invasion fears grow.
Albert Forster, the National Socialist leader in the Free City, has broadcast a proclamation declaring that Danzig has on this day returned to Germany. Berlin radio reports that the Chancellor has accepted the act. The British Government's position, conveyed informally, is that the Free City's international status cannot be altered unilaterally and that the proclamation will not be recognised.
Reports describe German aircraft overhead in multiple Polish cities this morning. Air-raid sirens have sounded. First reports of bomb damage to civilian districts are reaching foreign correspondents. The scale and accuracy of these reports remain under verification. Continued…
Warsaw wakes to uneasy silence as war clouds gather.
Air-raid sirens sounded over central Warsaw before first light, followed by the drone of aircraft and, somewhere to the south, the dull thud of explosions. Civilians are making for the shelters. The trams have stopped. The streets are quieter than this correspondent has ever known them. Full dispatch continues →
In the Commons this morning the Prime Minister has stated that all three Services have been ordered to mobilise. A Vote of Credit for five hundred million pounds has been moved, together with a Currency (Defence) Bill placing the financial system on a war footing. Mr Chamberlain told the House that attacks upon Polish towns are proceeding and that British efforts at peaceful settlement are now at an end. Continue reading →
Westminster this morning as the Prime Minister announces full mobilisation.
In a speech to the Reichstag, the Chancellor has framed the invasion as a defensive response to alleged Polish aggression along the frontier, including an incident overnight at the Gleiwitz radio station. Foreign correspondents present treat the framing with reserve. No independent confirmation of the Gleiwitz incident has reached the foreign press; Polish authorities deny it.
The Chancellor today repeated the German account of last night’s incident at the Reichssender Gleiwitz transmitter. No foreign correspondent has been permitted to visit the station; the bodies of the alleged attackers have not been produced. The phrase recurring in dispatches from Berlin today — “according to the official German account” — is doing considerable work. (cont.)
The Government has put its evacuation plan into effect. From this morning, children, expectant mothers, and the blind are being moved from London and other vulnerable cities to receiving districts in the country. British wireless reports the operation is proceeding in a 'quiet and orderly fashion'. ARP controllers nationwide have been ordered to assume full duty.
The British Government has delivered a formal communication to the Reich Government tonight. Unless Germany suspends its attack and is prepared to withdraw its forces from Polish territory, His Majesty's Government will without hesitation fulfil their obligations to Poland. The note, handed to Herr von Ribbentrop in Berlin by Sir Nevile Henderson this evening, sets no time limit. No reply has been received.
Prime Minister Daladier has signed the decree of general mobilisation. The first day of mobilisation is to be Saturday, 2 September. President Lebrun is to address Parliament tomorrow. A French communication has been delivered to the Reich Government in Berlin tonight in terms aligned with the British warning.
Mobilisation orders appear across France this evening, with call-up beginning tomorrow.
President Roosevelt has appealed to the governments of Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and Poland to give a public undertaking that their armed forces will not bomb civilians or undefended cities. France and Poland have replied in the affirmative. Germany has replied that the principle accords with the Chancellor's own view, and that the Luftwaffe has been instructed to confine itself to military objectives. Polish dispatches received this evening report civilian casualties from air attack.
Diplomatic pressure is building, but the Anglo-French response remains uncertain. The treaties of guarantee point in one direction; political hesitation in another. The hours between now and tomorrow's parliamentary sessions in both capitals may decide whether the war remains a Polish question or becomes a European one. Full report continues below →
Every book, film and documentary about the Second World War is written backwards, with the ending already known. WW2 LIVE tells the biggest global event in history forwards, day by day, dispatch by dispatch, with the fog of war lifting one day at a time. Just like they experienced it, 86 years ago.
Open the live feed before work, on the train, in the middle of the night. Every refresh drops you into a global war as it stands at that moment, unfolding at the pace the world lived it the first time.
The State of the War email lands in your inbox at 07:00 GMT every morning. What happened yesterday, and what it means for today.
Everyone reading WW2 LIVE is on the same day of the war. Same headlines, same shocks, same unanswered questions. The next day’s news hasn’t happened yet, not for you, not for anyone. You’ll find out when they do.
Breaking wires, correspondent dispatches, maps, photographs and editorials arrive in the order events happened. Dunkirk, Barbarossa, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Hiroshima: none of them have happened yet. They won’t, until the day they do.
The live feed and the State of the War email briefing are free, every day, until VJ Day in 1945. A shared experience works better when nobody’s locked out of it.
A day in the Second World War isn’t understood in one neat article. It’s a morning rumour, an official denial, a photograph from the road, a speech in parliament, a wire from Berlin, a frightened report from Warsaw. On the feed, the day assembles itself the way it did at the time, piece by piece, hour by hour.
Soviet armoured columns that crossed the Polish eastern frontier at dawn yesterday are driving west in strength for a second day, according to monitored radio traffic from both Moscow and Warsaw. Forward elements are reported at the outskirts of Wilno in the north and approaching Lwów — already under German attack — in the south. Resistance from Polish border units has been described as scattered.
Restored & colourised · Day 18
Britain went to war after Germany invaded Poland. Now the Soviet Union has entered Poland from the east. That creates a blunt question for London: if one invasion triggered the guarantee, what does the second one trigger?
The British guarantee is still in force. But its practical meaning is becoming harder to explain.
Nine publications contribute to the Live Feed, each with its own politics, and its own way of telling you what happened today. They will not always agree.
"Britain enters the war this government was constituted to avoid. The question is not whether Britain can fight. She can. The question is how long it will take, and what the world will look like at the end."
"The Cabinet meets in emergency session this morning."
"It is officially stated that the Polish ambassador has sought urgent consultation."
"Washington watches in silence. The State Department issues no statement before noon."
"The German calculation rests on a hope that London will hesitate."
"Berlin and Warsaw have spent the morning addressing the world."
"At the Élysée the Council convenes for the third time this week."
Plus The Atlantic Ledger, The Southern Cross, The Far Eastern Courier.
The live feed is a present-tense newsroom for the Second World War. The State of the War keeps you oriented between visits: two minutes, every morning, when that’s all you’ve got.
Open it any time. Refresh and the war moves forward.
For the days when two minutes is all you’ve got.
WW2 LIVE exists because the Second World War was a rolling global emergency before it became a fixed historical narrative. People followed it through newspapers, radio reports, rumours, communiqués and maps that changed overnight. Today we follow elections, wars and emergencies through live feeds, refresh by refresh. The idea is simple: apply the same breaking news, present tense rhythm and format to the events of WW2.