10 minute read
World War II in Gdańsk
German troops storming the Westerplatte Peninsula on September 1st, 1939.
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-E10718 : Haine : CC-BY-SA 3.0
PRELUDE
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The city had long been caught in a tug-of-war between Germany and Poland, and the decision by the League of Nations to make it a Free City State following World War I left neither side happy. Though the two communities continued to live together as they had for centuries, the Germans now controlled the State senate, the police and much of the business, while the Poles dominated the railways, port authority and had their own postal service. After the election of Hitler in neighbouring Germany, bitter rivalries came to the surface, anti-Polish sentiment spread rapidly, and by 1935 the local police force had started keeping tabs on any Pole seen as a threat to German interests.
The rise in tensions wasn’t a shock to Poles. In 1925 the League of Nations had bowed to pressure and consented to the deployment of a token 88-man Polish force across the water from the Free City on the Polish-controlled Westerplatte Peninsula. As Hitler’s posturing became ever more threatening, the Poles continued to covertly strengthen their foothold, smuggling in military hardware and secretly building fortifications in breach of League of Nations decrees.
OUTBREAK
On August 31, 1939, Nazi units dressed in Polish uniform infamously staged a mock attack on a radio tower in the German border town of Gleiwitz (now Gliwice). Photos of the charade were flashed across the world, with Hitler claiming a provocative attack by the Polish army. The following dawn, Germany launched a strike on Westerplatte (p.43), an attack that would ultimately kick off World War II.
Popular theory asserts the first shots of the war were fired from the German warship the SMS Schleswig Holstein, supposedly visiting Gdańsk on a goodwill mission. Wrong. Logbooks recovered by the Nowy Port Lighthouse across the water from Westerplatte prove beyond doubt that the German battleship was pre-empted by a matter of three minutes by a Nazi gun emplacement halfway up the lighthouse. Shocked, but ready, the Poles scored a direct hit on the lighthouse, thus in all likelihood making the German lighthouse gunners the first casualties in a war that would go on to claim 55 million lives.
The German shelling of Westerplatte was simultaneously supported by infantry attacks on the Westerplatte gateway, with the Polish defenders repelling repeated advances by the navy storm troopers. At precisely the same time, another equally ferocious battle was being waged at the small post office (p.43)in the city’s then-named Hevelius Square. Detachments of German police and SS laid siege to the 50 Polish post workers inside, who put up a brave struggle for over 17 hours until casualties became intolerable, part of the building collapsed and the Germans began to attack with flamethrowers.
SIEGE
Yet while the post office capitulated, the garrison at Westerplatte held on. The plan was simple: in the event of an attack in Gdańsk, the Polish navy - stationed in nearby Gdynia (Poland) - would sail in to help, aircraft from Puck would be scrambled, and the bridge in Tczew would be blown to stop a German advance into what was the demilitarized zone of the Free State. As it transpired, nearly everything that could go wrong, did. The navy was caught out in the Bay of Gdańsk, while the air force was destroyed while still on the ground. Polish customs officers did succeed in blowing the bridge at Tczew, crucially slowing the German advance whose armour was gathered over in Szymankowo; they paid for their bravery with their lives.
Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3rd, but hopes of outside help being directed to Poland proved ill-founded. On the morning of September 7, Major Henryk Sucharski took the decision to raise the white flag. Gdynia surrendered two weeks later, and then Hel - the final Polish stronghold in Pomerania - fell on the 2nd of October, by which time Poland had been invaded from the east by the Soviet Union. Ironically, Hel, the final stand for the Poles, would also be the last place the Nazis would relinquish in 1945.
UNDER THE REICH
Hitler had always made much of incorporating Danzig into the Reich, yet somewhat surprisingly he only made two visits to the city - a deep-held suspicion of Danzigers, and a fear of assassination explaining such apathy. The second of these visits came on September 18, 1939, with an exultant Fuhrer arriving to Sopot via his armoured train, and checking into the Kasino Hotel (today the Sofitel Grand, see p.60). His stay lasted a week, during which time he received a delegation from Japan, visited the Schleswig-Holstein, Westerplatte and inspected a parade outside Dwór Artus on Gdańsk’s Dlugi Targ.
By this time fervent Nazis were already clamouring to rid the region of all traces of Polonization. The Intelligentsia and other political targets were arrested and incarcerated in numerous camps and prisons, including the Victoriaschule (ul. Kładki 1. B-5), which was used as a interview and processing centre, the city jail (now replaced by a newer model) and Stutthof - later to morph into a notorious concentration camp. Flags, signs and anything else remotely Polish was destroyed.
Governor and Gauleiter of the region was Albert Forster, and his reign still arouses controversy and debate among both scholars and survivors. Unlike other Gauleiters in annexed and occupied territories, Forster followed a program of assimilation, granting thousands of locals German citizenship if they swore German heritage. Even more remarkably, those Poles rounded up and persecuted in the first wave of arrests could seek German citizenship, and even pursue compensation and restitution for any property originally seized. Benign by some benchmarks, Forster was a model Nazi on others. Jews faced merciless persecution, Stutthof emerged as a true place of terror and he is personally thought to have given the order for the murder of over 2,000 Poles executed between 1939 and 1940. Eventually caught on the Hel Peninsula while trying to flee westwards, even his death remains a mystery - some claim he was hung in Biskupia Góra after the war, while others insist it was his body double who faced the hangman. Yet more sources claim he was taken to Warsaw’s Mokotów Prison and beaten to death. The truth, it appears, will never be known.
FINALE
For ordinary Danzigers the quality of life remained relatively good for much of the war. Zoppot/Sopot was a favourite stomping ground for soldiers on R&R, and in spite of rationing and occasional shortages, life didn’t get worse until the closing stages. The first signs that all was not well came with Allied air raids on the shipyards - home to munitions factories producing U-Boats and V1 and V2 rockets - and the Zaspa Airfield. The war still seemed far off, even in 1943 when work commenced on whisking cultural treasures to locations west.
By 1944 a different picture had emerged; Danzig had become a major transit point for swarms of refugees fleeing from the east, as well as a regular target for bombing raids. By March 1945, with the Red Army fast approaching, the population had reached 1.5 million and the city stood on the precipice of chaos. Suspected deserters were strung up from the lampposts and trees of al. Zwyciestwa (or Hindenburg Allee as it was then known), and the city descended into a Dantean vision. Historian Antony Beevor writes of the ensuing siege: ‘Fighter bombers strafed the towns and port areas. Soviet Shturmoviks treated civilian and military targets alike. A church was as good as a bunker, especially when it seemed as if the objective was to flatten every building which still protruded conspicuously above the ground... Tens of thousands of women and children, terrified of losing their places in the queues to escape, provided unmissable targets.’
Danzig had been designated a closed fortress, or Festung, and the defence proved bitter and bloody. Zoppot/ Sopot fell on March 23, Gotenhafen/Gdynia on March 28, and both faced the full wrath of an avenging army, spurring the defenders of Danzig to fight even harder to grant the remaining civilians the chance of evacuation. Encircled and out-powered, even when the opportunity to surrender was offered the Germans continued fighting; that fires were burning a month after Danzig was captured is testament to the ferocity of the siege. Polish and Red Army troops finally entered the city on March 30; Gdańsk, scene of the first shots of the war, now lay ablaze in rape and ruin.
WHAT TO SEE
WORLD WAR II MUSEUM
Exhibition at the WWII Museum in Gdańsk
As World War II officially began with the simultaneous German attacks on the Westerplatte Peninsula and the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk, it’s fitting that this superlative museum dedicated to WWII should be built just nearby the latter. Opened in 2017, this is Gdańsk’s top museum, and as such, you need to plan your visit. Entrances are timed and tickets should be bought in advance from their website. Those interested in the topic can easily spend a whole day there, and we recommend you don’t allot yourself anything less than 3 hours. Our other advice is to spend the extra 5zł for the excellent multilingual audioguide, which senses where you are and tells you what you are looking at.
The heart of the museum is the permanent exhibition which is split into three parts – The Road to War, The War’s Long Shadow and The Horrors of War. Within these three areas there are a total of 18 rooms or thematic sections covering different aspects of how World War II came about and developed and the suffering it caused. While the numerous films, photographs and excellent translations mark this museum as one of the best we’ve ever visited, it is the collection of artefacts, many of them personal effects donated by private individuals, that really bring the personal tragedies of World War II to life.
Iconic angles of the World War II Museum
While the museum takes a broad international scope, it also trains its lens locally of course, and the story of what happened to Poland and her people during and as a result of the war will no doubt leave an indelible mark on all visitors. There are so many of aspects of the museum to recommend that we’ve dedicated a separate feature to it, but to summarise, we feel this exhibit is so excellent that it alone justifies a journey to Gdańsk. Make the time, get your tickets and don’t miss this.Q D‑2, Pl. Władysława Bartoszewskiego 1, Gdańsk, tel. (+48) 58 323 75 20, www.muzeum1939.pl. Open 10:00-18:00; closed Mon. Admission 23/16zł, family ticket 55zł (2 adults and up to 3 children). Tue free.
POLISH POST OFFICE MUSEUM
Polish Post Office Museum
© Dariusz Kula
During the interwar era of the Free City of Danzig, the autonomous city state had two post offices - one municipal, and one run by the Polish government. As an extraterritorial property of PL, the Polish Post Office was a bit like an embassy, and surreptitiously served as the centre of the Polish government’s intelligence gathering services in the demilitarised zone of predominantly German Gdańsk. As hostilities between the two countries intensified, the Poles began to stock arms inside the building and train its employees to become a sort of civilian military unit if attacked.
That moment infamously came on September 1st, 1939, as the Nazi Battleship the Schleswig-Holstein shelled Westerplatte, and the SS simultaneously laid siege to this large brick building in the northern part of the Old Town, inside which 50-some heavily armed postal workers hunkered down. After a brave 17-hour struggle, the details of which are gory indeed, those that were still alive surrendered. After their capture, the 38 survivors were tortured and eventually executed by firing squad on October 5th. A truly impressive stainless steel monument outside the Post Office honours their sacrifice, which has become one of the most romanticised tales of heroism in Polish history.
Monument to the Defenders of the Polish Post Office
After its nearly total destruction, the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk was rebuilt after the war, and is today not only a functioning post office, but also a small, compelling museum dedicated to the events of September 1, 1939, as well as local postal history from the 18th century to the outbreak of WWII. If you can’t get into the WWII Museum, this is a worthwhile, if much less ambitious back-up option.Q C‑3, ul. Obrońców Poczty Polskiej 1 -2, Gdańsk, tel. (+48) 58 573 31 28, www.muzeumgdansk.pl. Open 10:00-16:00; Tue 10:00-13:00; Sun 11:00-16:00; closed Mon. Admission 8/4zł. Tue free.
WESTERPLATTE
Statue to the Defenders of Westerplatte
A large protective peninsula shielding Gdańsk’s Nowy Port to its south, Westerplatte first sprang to fame as a health resort in the mid-19th century, before achieving infamy as the military zone where the opening shots of WWII were exchanged.
After WWI, Poland was awarded Westerplatte as a location for bringing in military equipment and ammunition from abroad (Polish Military Transit Depot). Inaugurated in November 1925, over the next 14 years Westerplatte grew from a depot with an 88-man detail into a huge fort defended by 200 Polish soldiers, Hitler considered Westerplatte so strategically important that his invasion of Poland effectively started here. The ensuing battle - in which 200 Polish troops held out for seven days under heavy bombardment by air, sea and 3,500 ground troops before surrendering (with only 15 casualties) - may have ultimately had little strategic importance in the greater scheme of the war, but it is still a source of immense national pride for Poles.
Today, Westerplatte is essentially a historical park and memorial site featuring a scattering of shelled bunkers, burnt-out ruins, an enormous communist era monument, snack bars, souvenir stalls and a small seasonal museum in Guardhouse Number 1 (closed from October til April). There is also a permanent outdoor exhibit entitled ‘Westerplatte: Spa-Bastion-Symbol.’
To get to Westerplatte on public transport from the main train station in Gdańsk, catch bus 106 from outside of Gdańsk Główny. Q ul. Sucharskiego, Gdańsk.
