Berlin bombings in 1943

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A series of bomb attacks against traffic facilities in Berlin , which was carried out by the Polish Home Army in 1943, is referred to as Berlin bombings . Similar attacks occurred in Szczecin and Wroclaw .

background

During the time of National Socialism , the Union of Poles in Germany, with its headquarters in Berlin, opposed National Socialist legislation, economic disadvantage and individual harassment, using legal and journalistic means. Shortly after the outbreak of World War II , leadership groups of the federal government and other Polish organizations were arrested and taken to concentration camps . The organizations' assets were confiscated and any further activity prohibited.

Resistance to National Socialism among the Poles of Berlin initially took place in individual actions and was limited to conscientious objection , support for foreign workers or help for the persecuted Jews of the city . Larger interrelated actions, ranging from espionage to assassinations, only arose in cooperation with various agencies of the secret service of the Polish Home Army. In addition, propaganda was carried out among forced laborers and the German population.

In May 1942 the Polish Home Army set up a special unit for sabotage and diversion to carry out special operations. This unit with the code name “ Zagra-Lin ” was subordinate to the Warsaw organization “ Osa-Kosa ” and consisted of 18 people who were commanded by Captain Bernard Drzyzga (alias “Jarosław”). His deputy was Józef Artur Lewandowski ("Jur") from Bromberg . It was founded in December 1942 by the main department for sabotage " Kedyw " with the aim of carrying out acts of sabotage on the territory of the German Reich and the occupied territories. The members of the group had a good education and excellent knowledge of German.

A company involved in the renovation of the Friedrichstrasse station warned the station master on January 18, 1941, "that Polish workers [...] were planning an assassination attempt." The police then arranged for all Polish workers to be withdrawn from the construction site.

Attacks by the "Zagra-Lin"

In the evening hours of February 13, 1943, a bomb exploded in the subterranean S-Bahn station Friedrichstrasse when two trains stopped there. According to police investigations, a cardboard suitcase filled with explosives and metal fragments was deposited under a bench and detonated. The Gestapo report called the explosive device a “hell machine”. The attack left four dead and 60 injured.

On February 24, there was another attack on the Berlin S-Bahn , in which 36 people died and 78 were injured. On April 10, a bomb exploded in the Lehrter station , killing 14 people; 60 suffered injuries. After this incident, Adolf Hitler ordered that Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler personally take on the investigation. 10,000 Reichsmarks were offered as a reward for the arrest of the saboteurs involved, but none of the assassins could be arrested.

Another attack on the Silesian train station on May 10, 1943 killed 14 people and injured 27. Other attacks came in 1942 and in the following years of the war, among others, in addition to the Szczecin North Station and the Station Berlin Alexanderplatz and the metro station Zoological Garden Berlin . Four people died in a similar attack in Breslau on April 23, 1943. In addition to the explosives bombings, there are sparse files that have been handed over to attacks with firearms on S and U-Bahn trains in Berlin, the authorship of which, however, could not be clarified.

According to a written statement by the group "Zagra-Lin", their attacks were "a reaction to the German terror on Polish soil". The attacks were barely known because the Gestapo obliged the injured to remain silent as well as the relatives of those who were killed. The strictest blackout was imposed on the events in order not to undermine the morale of the population. In fact, little information made it public.

On June 5, 1943, the Gestapo arrested about 90 guests at the wedding of a member of the "Osa-Kosa" in the Church of St. Alexander on Plac Trzech Krzyży in Warsaw . Although no members of the "Zagra-Lin" were affected by the arrests, the unit subsequently disbanded.

reception

In 1995 a memorial plaque for the combat group "Zagra-lin" was put up next to the entrance to the main train station in Wroclaw through an initiative of the World Association of Soldiers of the Home Army of Poland .

literature

  • Michael Braun: North-South S-Bahn Berlin. 75 years of underground railways. Berlin S-Bahn Museum (ed.), GVE-Verlag, Berlin 2008. ISBN 978-3-89218-112-5 . 288 pp.
  • Wolfgang Jacobmeyer : Home and Exile. The beginnings of the Polish underground movement in World War II. Göttingen 1973. 369 pp.
  • Juliusz Pollack: Wywiad, sabotaż, dywersja. Polski ruch oporu w Berlinie 1939–1945. Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1991. ISBN 8-32054-345-2 . 166 pp.
  • Aleksander Czerwiński: Dywersja w Berlinie. In: "Komandos", edition 10, 1996. pp. 32–34.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Jürgen Vietig : Berlin as a place of persecution and resistance by Poland. ( Memento from November 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Mitteilungen des Verein für die Geschichte Berlins , born 1975-78. P. 86.
  2. ↑ Tomasz Strzembosz : Oddziały szturmowe konspiracyjnej Warszawy 1939-1944. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1983, s. 57. ISBN 83-01-04203-6 .
  3. ↑ a b c Krzysztof Ruchniewicz: Breslau - memorial plaque for the combat group "Zagra-lin" . In: German-Polish Youth Office
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Michael Wildt, Christoph Kreutzmüller: Berlin 1933-1945. City and society under National Socialism. Siedler Verlag, 2013. ISBN 3-64108-903-4 , p. 40.
  5. ↑ a b Sven Felix Kellerhoff: Dramas under the earth In: Welt from May 25, 2008.
  6. ^ Michael Braun: North-South S-Bahn Berlin. 75 years of underground railways. Berlin S-Bahn Museum (ed.), GVE-Verlag, Berlin 2008. 288 pp.
  7. ↑ Aleksander Kunicki: Cichy front. Ze wspomnień oficera wywiadu dywersyjnego dyspozycyjnych oddziałów Kedywu, KG, AK. Wydawca Pax, 1969. pp. 32-33.
  8. ↑ a b Jacek Wilamowski, Włodzimierz Kopczuk: Tajemnicze wsypy: polsko-niemiecka wojna na tajnym froncie . Instytut Wydawniczy Związków Zawodowych, 1990. ISBN 8-32020-856-4 , p. 172ff.
  9. ↑ a b Andrzej Gass: Ostra gra Zagra-lina . In: historia.focus.pl of December 2, 2011.
  10. ↑ Dietmar Arnold, Frieder Salm: Dark Worlds: Bunkers, tunnels and vaults under Berlin . Ch. Links Verlag, 2010. ISBN 3-86153-583-1 , pp. 119f.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Dietmar Arnold and Frieder Salmals in Dark Worlds and Jürgen Vietig in Berlin as the place of persecution and resistance by Poles name February 15, 1943 as the date of the attack.