Battle for the Westerplatte
Schleswig-Holstein fires on the Westerplatte
(photo from September 1, 1939)
| date | 1. bis 7. September 1939 |
|---|---|
| place | Westerplatte |
| output | German victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
|
|
| Troop strength | |
| 218 soldiers | 3500 soldiers and police officers |
| losses | |
|
15 killed, 13 seriously injured |
300 to 400 killed and injured |
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Gdansk - Westerplatte - Tucheler Heide - Krojanten - Mlawa - Radom - Wizna - Bzura - Brześć - Lemberg - Rawa Ruska - Lublin - Kampinos Heath - Warsaw - Szack - Modlin - Hel Peninsula - Kock
The fight for the Westerplatte in Gdansk was the prelude to the attack on Poland , which is considered to be the beginning of the Second World War . At 4:47 a.m. on September 1, 1939, the training ship Schleswig-Holstein , which was in the port of Danzig at that time , fired salvos from its heavy ship guns for about 10 minutes at a fortified ammunition depot in Poland on the Westerplatte , a peninsula on the edge of the port of Danzig. Subsequently, infantry units tried in vain to capture the ammunition depot. The Polish defenders only surrendered after seven days to the multiple German superiority. The Westerplatte memorial , inaugurated in 1966, commemorates the defenders.
geography
The Westerplatte was a sandbank at the mouth of the Vistula . Using excavated material from the Danzig harbor canal, it was only expanded to become an island and, after the mouth of the Dead Vistula was closed, it was expanded to form today's peninsula. The part of the Danzig Spit with which the Westerplatte grew together is now called Wyspa Portowa (Polish for port island ).
prehistory
The densely wooded Westerplatte was expanded into a Baltic seaside resort with a spa park, spa house and three bathing facilities on the Baltic Sea from around 1830 .
Construction of the Westerplatte ammunition port and depot
Since 1920, Poland had asked the Free City of Danzig to build an ammunition depot. The League of Nations granted this demand by resolution of March 14, 1924. Poland was granted the Baltic seaside resort of Westerplatte “as a place to extinguish, store and transport explosives and war equipment”, although the Danzig Senate under Senate President Heinrich Sahm protested against it from the start. At high costs, in which Danzig had to participate unwillingly, a port basin was excavated directly next to the port entrance at the site of the much-visited seaside resort. For this purpose, appropriate storage sheds were built and a connection to the Gdańsk railway network was created.
The Westerplatte did not become Polish territory, but the main part of the peninsula was reserved for the Polish military and not accessible to unauthorized persons. The League of Nations fixed the permissible number of guards at two officers, 20 non-commissioned officers and 66 men. Since an agreement in 1928, the city of Danzig was allowed to maintain two police posts at the entrances to the Westerplatte.
Westerplatte affair
As a result, there were two incidents that made up the "Westerplatte affair". The Treaty of Versailles allowed the Polish side to use the port of Danzig as a “port d'attache / home port” for their warships. However, when a fleet visit by British destroyers took place on June 14, 1932 , the Danzig Senate refused the Polish Navy the right to have one of its warships docked there. In response, the Polish destroyer ORP Wicher entered the port of Danzig without notifying the Senate as usual. This was followed by mutual courtesy visits between the Polish and British officer corps . In addition, the Westerplatte security team was put on alert. This show of force initially prevented the Senate from further curtailing the rights of the Polish side.
The second part of the "Westerplatte Affair" took place on March 6, 1933, after the Danzig Senate had previously excluded the Poles from the port police, which had previously been jointly formed, contrary to the provisions of the treaty. In response, the Polish troop transport ORP Wilia landed a reinforced company of Polish marine infantry and thus strengthened the garrison there, contrary to the provisions of the treaty . The League of Nations forced Poland to withdraw this reinforcement.
Marshal Józef Piłsudski wanted to achieve two things with this action: he wanted to make Hitler inclined to hold talks with Poland and, above all, to weaken the ruling German National People's Party , which had a strong anti-Polish attitude and vehemently made revisionist demands. However, the action had an unexpected result for Piłsudski: With the election of May 28, 1933, the National Socialists (NSDAP) obtained an absolute majority in the People's Day with 50.03% of the votes, and from June 1933 Danzig had a National Socialist government.
Expansion of the Westerplatte since 1933
In Gdynia (Gdynia), which, in contrast to Westerplatte, lay in the Polish Corridor established in 1920 , Poland built its own industrial and military port at the same time .
In March 1933, the Polish marines began to fortify the ammunition depot in Danzig territory. In response to a complaint from the Free City, the League of Nations decreed that Poland should abandon this project and grind down the field fortifications that had been built. The Polish side initially complied with the order. In the years to come, however, it created a fortified defense system by tearing down old buildings and building new accommodation and guard houses with machine gun positions in the basement . This happened secretly - mainly at night - in the period from 1933 to 1936 under the direction of Major (Ing.) Mieczysław Kruszewski, the chief of the naval fortification department.
After Germany broke the Treaty of Versailles and other international treaties in several cases from mid-1935 onwards , the German occupation of the rest of the Czech Republic increased the mistrust of its neighboring states towards Germany. In Danzig, the Poles began to prepare for a German attack on the Polish fortifications on the Westerplatte. In March 1939, the fortifications were further strengthened and the strength of the crew was secretly increased to around 218 men by August 31. A 7.62 cm field gun , two 3.7 cm anti-tank guns , 18 heavy and 23 light machine guns as well as rifles, pistols and hand grenades were available.
Outbreak of the Second World War
Starting position of the defenders
The original order for the crew was to hold the position for six hours in the event of a German attack. By then, Polish troops would have entered Danzig and liberated the occupation. Colonel i. G. Hoszowski given to the assembled team during a visit in the summer of 1939. However, the situation had since changed. On August 31, Lieutenant Colonel Sobocinski, head of the military department at the Polish Embassy in Danzig, visited the Westerplatte and informed the commandant Henryk Sucharski of the hopeless situation of the defenders. The Einsatzkorps created to relieve the Westerplatte, consisting of the 13th and 17th Divisions of the Pomeranian Army, had been disbanded; the two divisions had been withdrawn to the Skierniewice area on August 31st . The promise made to the crew could therefore not be kept. Sobocinski ordered the transit camp to offer twelve hours of resistance instead of the six previously ordered. The commander kept this information to himself.
The arrival of the training ship Schleswig-Holstein in the port of Danzig
On August 25, the "Schleswig-Holstein", used as a training ship, made an alleged peaceful visit to Danzig. Among other things, she was commissioned to conquer the Westerplatte at the start of the war. The first plans for the invasion of Poland saw the August 26, 1939 as a deadline before. On August 24, 1939, German naval shock troop soldiers (MSK soldiers) were picked up on boats of the 1st minesweeping flotilla and transferred in the evening to the Schleswig-Holstein ship of the line, which was used as a training ship, on the high seas near Stolpmünde . This was done in order to keep the intended use of the Naval Shock Troop Company MSK secret. It consisted of four officers, a doctor and 225 men. The commandant of Schleswig-Holstein , Sea Captain Gustav Kleikamp , called on the morning of August 25 after registering with the Polish port authorities for an alleged friendship visit to the port of Danzig in the Neufahrwasser district opposite the Westerplatte . The captain received high dignitaries from Danzig, including the League of Nations Commissioner Carl Jacob Burckhardt , the German Vice Consul and the Polish envoy on his ship. The MSK soldiers dressed in field gray had been hidden below deck. On the afternoon of August 25th, Major General Eberhard and his staff officer came on board for a briefing to discuss how to proceed when taking the Westerplatte. Hitler withdrew the order to attack the following day at 3:02 p.m. at 8 p.m. after he had learned of the British-Polish assistance pact and Mussolini's non-participation in a war. On August 28th, Captain Kleikamp received sharp aerial photos of the Westerplatte from Gauleiter Albert Forster .
Attack on September 1, 1939
On August 31, the encrypted radio message came with the request to attack Poland at 4:45 a.m. On the night of September 1 verholte the Schleswig-Holstein to another location of the canal port, about 400 meters from the Westerplatte removed to a better field of fire have on Westerplatte. The location and strength of the Polish fortifications were not known to the German side. They could also not be viewed from Schleswig-Holstein .
On the night of September 1, the MSK soldiers were deployed so that they could position themselves in front of the fortress to begin the attack. At 4:47 am, the attack that marked the beginning of the attack on Poland began . After a fire from the Schleswig-Holstein 's ship artillery from the land side, the naval shock troop company under Lieutenant Henningsen attacked with two infantry platoons and a pioneer platoon and an observation team led by Lieutenant Harny. The Polish garrison was also under fire from the SS Heimwehr Danzig and Lieutenant Hartwig, who was in command of the machine gun platoon on the ship of the line. The Westerplatte was stubbornly defended. During the fighting, First Lieutenant Henningsen was fatally wounded, and First Lieutenant Schug took over command. Obviously the attack was poorly prepared, because the Polish defenders succeeded in stopping the attack of the MSK and the advance of the engineer unit by land despite the devastating artillery fire from Schleswig-Holstein .
The first attack remained in defensive fire with heavy German losses. The losses of the MSK amounted to 13 dead and 58 wounded, of whom four more died the following day. Overall, the losses were estimated at 40 to 50 deaths. With Wojciech Najsarek, the Polish defenders had one fatality and seven injured, three of whom died in the following days. After the defenders were able to repel the German attacks on the second day of the war, bombing attacks were requested, which were carried out on September 2 by Stuka units.
On the evening of September 2, between 6:05 p.m. and 6:45 p.m., a dive attack aircraft was flown on the Westerplatte. About 60 aircraft of the Battle Squadron 2 "Immelmann" attacked with explosive bombs and on-board weapons , caused serious damage to the fortifications and demoralized the crew. The commandant, Major Henryk Sucharski , wrote in his memoirs that the crew would probably not have been able to withstand an attack that followed immediately, especially since the communication channels had also been destroyed. Due to the lack of coordination between the German associations, however, a subsequent infantry attack failed to materialize. Meanwhile, to strengthen one was pioneer company of the Wehrmacht been brought, which was led by Lieutenant Colonel Henke. He advised against a further attack as long as the enemy situation was not investigated.
The shelling and bombardment of the Westerplatte dragged on until September 7th, when an (unsuccessful) armed reconnaissance took place. It was only after the defenders had halted this advance that they capitulated. German officers saluted the withdrawing Polish soldiers, the saber was returned to the commanding officer "with the right to carry it during captivity". The radio operator Kazimierz Rasiński was murdered after a brutal interrogation in which he refused to reveal radio codes.
The Polish losses were relatively small in view of the heavy fire from 28 cm and 15 cm ship guns and the attack by aircraft: a Polish source puts them at 15 dead, 13 seriously and 25 to 40 lightly wounded. The number of German soldiers tied up during the week-long attack on Westerplatte is estimated at 3,400.
See also the articles on Hitler's speech to the German Reichstag on September 1, 1939 and on Henryk Sucharski (commandant, 1898–1946), Franciszek Dąbrowski (deputy commandant, 1904–1962)
Symbolic meaning
This defense became a symbol of resistance against Germany in Poland after the war. In television interviews on the anniversary, German war veterans reported that the German soldiers' hard fight for the Westerplatte was soon dubbed the battle for “Klein- Verdun ”. A memorial can be found today on the Westerplatte, which has kept this German name in Poland.
The shooting by Schleswig-Holstein on September 1, 1939 at 4:47 a.m. on the Westerplatte is often cited as the beginning of the Second World War. A few minutes earlier, however, there had been a German air raid on Wieluń with around 1,200 victims.
filming
In 1967, under the direction of Stanisław Różewicz, the war drama "Westerplatte" was created, which is based on the seven-day defense of the base. This film received several national awards and prizes in the same year.
In 1988 a documentary was made with the same title. 30 Polish war veterans who fought on the Westerplatte took part in the shooting.
In 2013 the film "Tajemnica Westerplatte" (The Secret of the Westerplatte) was completed. In the run-up (2008) there were heated discussions in Poland about the film project “Tajemnica Westerplatte”. It was feared that the heroic struggle of the defenders should be portrayed too humanely.
And in 2014 the documentary by Mathias Haentjes and Nina Koshofer was made : Summer 1939. 90 min.
Westerplatte today
A flower-filled memorial commemorates 15 Polish soldiers, most of whom died on September 2nd. The destroyed three-story “barracks” can be entered and was secured against further deterioration by concrete arches. Three groups of large display boards commemorate the events on site and the surrender of Westerplatte on September 7, 1939.
Westerplatte Museum
In the city of Gdansk is to Westerplatte Museum arise that according to the plans of the government with the still of the Tusk government -designed Museum of World War II to be merged. Its founding director only found out about these plans through the Internet in April 2016. Following a ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court on January 24, 2017, the director received his notice on the same day. The day before, the concept of the 80 percent completed permanent exhibition was presented together with the international scientific advisory board at an unofficial opening . The people of Gdańsk had access to the museum for two more days.
Photo gallery
Graves of honor on the Westerplatte
The barracks
A memorial on the Westerplatte
See also
- Konrad Guderski , lieutenant, a defense attorney for the Polish Post
literature
- William K. von Uhlenhorst-Ziechmann: Westerplatte. 1939. A play in three acts. Exposition Press, New York NY 1955.
- Bertil Stjernfelt, Klaus-Richard Böhme: Westerplatte 1939. Rombach, Freiburg 1979, ISBN 3-7930-0182-2 . (Originally in Swedish: Vägen till Westerplatte. Militärhistoriska Avdelingen - Militärhögskolan, Kristianstad 1978 ( Militärhistoriska studier 2, ZDB -ID 764990-3 ; Marinlitteraturföreningen 65, ISSN 0348-2405 ))
- Karl-Heinz Janßen : War as a purpose in life . In: The time . No. 36/1989.
Web links
- Battle for the Westerplatte (Polish)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bertil Stjernfelt, Klaus-Richard Boehme: Westerplatte 1939. Rombach, Freiburg 1979, ISBN 3-7930-0182-2 , p. 18
- ^ Marian Wojciechowski : The Polish-German Relations 1933–1938. Brill Archive, p. 10 f.
- ↑ Bertil Stjernfelt, Freiburg 1979, p. 18.
- ↑ Horst Rhode: Hitler's first "Blitzkrieg" and its effects on Northeast Europe. In: Klaus A. Maier, Horst Rhode, Bernd Stegemann, Hans Umbreit: The establishment of hegemony on the European continent. DVA, Stuttgart 1979, here: Horst Rhode: The course of the Polish campaign from September 1, 1939 to October 6, 1939. P. 110.
- ^ Robert Jackson: Battle of the Baltic: The Wars 1918–1945. P. 55.
- ↑ Z. Flisowski: Westerplatte, Zebral, opracowal i wstepem opatrzyl. 7th edition. Warsaw 1974.
- ↑ The beginning of the war 70 years ago: It began with a massacre in Wielun. on: tagesschau.de. August 30, 2009. Retrieved August 30, 2009.
- ^ Gerhard Gnauck: Urine on the army? Poland argues over a film. In: The world . February 25, 2013, accessed September 2, 2014.
- ↑ The 90-minute film shows unusual archive material from everyday life in 1939 and reminds us of well-known contemporary witnesses: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (then 19); Andrzej Wajda, film director (then 13); Margarete Mitscherlich-Nielsen, psychoanalyst (then 22); Pavel Kohout, writer (then 10); Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, historian (then 17) and many others
- ↑ April 16, 2016 Museum Director Professor Paweł Machcewicz's announcement. ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. muzeum1939.pl (English, April 2016)
- ^ Martin Sander: The Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk - An undesirable historical image. In: Deutschlandfunk . January 24, 2017.
Coordinates: 54 ° 24 ' N , 18 ° 40' E