Akcja Główki

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Akcja Główki ( "Action head") was the Polish code name for planned attacks on leading Nazis in occupied Warsaw . It is a sardonic allusion to the symbol of the SS death's head associations .

background

"Łapanka" in Warsaw (1942)

In the Warsaw district and other cities in Poland, the non-Jewish population was rounded up, kidnapped and murdered by police and SS units in street raids. From 1942 to 1944, 400 Polish civilians per day fell victim to such "Łapankas" in Warsaw. Tens of thousands were killed in mass executions, 37,000 alone in Pawiak , the (men's) prison of the Secret State Police , and thousands of others in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto . Public executions of previously arrested resistors and supporters of partisan activities were common. Lists appeared daily with the names of Poles who would be executed in the event of an attack on Germans. The Polish Home Army responded to this terror with the Akcja Główki. Their attacks were aimed at members of the civil and military administration, the police, Gestapo, SS and SA, who had been sentenced to death by a special court (Poland) for crimes against Polish civilians and partisans. Because of the police involvement in the occupation in Poland, partisans of the Home Army murdered 361 and 584 police officers in 1943 and 1944, respectively. Ten Germans were killed every day in Warsaw alone. From August to December 1942, the Home Army carried out 87 attacks on the German administration and members of the occupation apparatus. In the first four months of 1943 there were 514.

Attacks (1943–1944)

Gesiowka (August 5, 1944)
  • Anton Hergel, representative for the press and publishing houses in the Generalgouvernement, wounded in two attacks in 1943
  • Franz Bürkl, SS-Oberscharführer, Gestapo employee, commandant of the Pawiak, killed on September 7, 1943
  • August Kretschmann, SS-Hauptscharführer, commandant of Gęsiówka , killed on September 24, 1943
  • Stephan Klein, SS-Scharführer, prison administration of the Pawiak, killed in 1943 by the Kedyw
  • Herbert Schultz, SS-Obersturmführer, killed on May 6, 1943
  • Ewald Lange, SS Rottenführer, Gestapo, killed on May 22, 1943 by the Szare Szeregi
  • Franz Kutschera , SS and police leader , killed on February 1, 1944
  • Ernst Wefels, SS-Sturmmann, women's prison “Serbia” , killed on October 1, 1943
  • Ludwig Fischer , governor of the Warsaw district, survived an attack in 1944 and was hanged in Poland in 1947
  • Albrecht Eitner , general trustee of the Jewish property, probably Abwehr officer under Admiral Canaris, shot dead on February 1, 1944
  • Willi Lübbert, Labor Office, organized Łapankas, killed on February 1, 1944
  • Wilhelm Koppe , SS and Police Leader, SS-Obergruppenführer, wounded in Aktion Koppe on July 11, 1944 in Krakow
  • Ernst Dürrfeld , survived the attack on July 12, 1944 and escaped
  • Willy Leitgeber , responsible in the criminal police for the fight against the Polish underground, wounded in the first attack and killed in the second attack
  • Michajło Pohołowko, Ukrainian collaborator, killed on March 31, 1944
  • Walter Stamm , Gestapo, escaped the attack on May 5, 1944
  • Eugen Bollodino, employment office, organized Łapankas, killed in 1944
  • Karl Freudenthal , district chief of Garwolin (rural community) , responsible for the murder of Jews and Poles and for the deportation of the Jews to the Warsaw ghetto, killed on July 5, 1944

literature

  • Tomasz Strzembosz : Akcje zbrojne podziemnej Warszawy 1939-1944 (English Armed actions of underground Warsaw 1939-1944). Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw 1983, ISBN 8306007174 .
  • Richard C. Lukas : Forgotten holocaust - The Poles under German Occupation 1939–1944 . Hippocrene Books 1997, ISBN 978-0781809016 .
  • Henryk Witkowski: Kedyw okręgu Warszawskiego Armii Krajowej w latach 1943-1944 . Facty i Documenty, 1984. ISBN 978-8320202175 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Strzembosz (1983)
  2. ↑ Tomasz Strzembosz, Akcje zbrojne podziemnej Warszawy 1939-1944 , Warszawa, 1978, pp. 401-406.
  3. ↑ Eugeniusz Duraczyński: Wojna i okupacja, wrzesień 1939 kwiecień 1943 . Wiedza Powszechna 1974
  4. ↑ Ernst Wefels (Forum Wierni Ojczyźnie)
  5. ↑ Ernst Wefels
  6. ↑ Wladyslaw Bartoszewski: The Warsaw Ghetto - as it really was