The German army entered the city on September 7, 1939, during the invasion of Poland, which started World War II. Afterwards, the German "Einsatzkommando 16" entered the city to commit various crimes against Poles. Nazi Germany annexed the city, and administered it as part of Danzig-West Prussia. Poles were classified as "Untermenschen" by German authorities, with their fate being slave-labor, executions, expulsions and deportations to German concentration camps. In October 1939 the new regional gauleiter, Albert Forster, announced in the city that "in a few years, not a word of Polish will be spoken here".