Battle of Westerplatte

Battle of Westerplatte Part of Invasion of Poland German soldiers on Westerplatte after the battle Date September 1 – 7 1939 Location Westerplatte, Free City of Danzig 54°24′27″N 18°40′17″E / 54.4075°N 18.67139°E / 54.4075; 18.67139 Result German victory Belligerents Poland Germany Commanders Henryk Sucharski Franciszek Dąbrowski Friedrich Eberhardt Gustav Kleikamp Strength 205 Est. 3,400 Casualties and losses 15-20 killed and about 53 wounded, all remaining alive taken prisoner Est. 200-400 killed and wounded[1]

v • d • e Invasion of Poland Westerplatte – Danzig – The Border - Krojanty – Chojnice – Grudziądz – Lasy Królewskie – Mokra – Danzig Bay – Pszczyna – Mława – Tuchola Forest – Jordanów – Borowa Góra – Mikołów – Węgierska Górka – Tomaszów Mazowiecki – Wizna – Łódź – Przemyśl – Piotrków – Różan – Radom – Łomża – Wola Cyrusowa – Warsaw – Gdynia – Hel – Bzura – Jarosław – Kałuszyn – Węgrów – Wilno – Lwów – Modlin – Kobryń – Brześć – Kępa Oksywska – Tomaszów Lubelski – Wólka Węglowa – Kampinos Forest – Janów, Wereszyca, and Hołosko – Krasnystaw – Grodno – Łomianki – Sarny – Cześniki – Krasnobród – Władypol – Szack – Wytyczno – Parczew – Kock

The Battle of Westerplatte was the very first battle that took place after Germany invaded Poland and World War II began in Europe.

During the first week of September 1939, a completely surrounded Military Transit Depot (Wojskowy Skład Transportowy, WST) on the peninsula of Westerplatte, manned by only less than 200 Polish soldiers, held out for seven days (several times longer than they were ordered to) in the face of an overwhelming force of thousands of German troops attacking from land, sea and air.

The heroic defense of Westerplatte served as an inspiration for the country when the successful German advances continued elsewhere in Poland and nowadays is still regarded as a symbol of the invasion^{[citation needed]}.

Polish military transit depot

In 1925 the Council of the League of Nations allowed Poland to keep only 88 soldiers on Westerplatte, but secretly the garrison was gradually expanded to 176 men and six officers. The WST was separated from Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk) city by the harbour channel, with only a small pier connecting them to the mainland; the Polish-held part of the Westerplatte was separated from the territory of Danzig by a brick wall. Fortifications built at Westerplatte were in fact not very impressive: there were no real bunkers or underground tunnels, there were only five small concrete outposts (guardhouses) hidden in the peninsula's forest and the large barracks prepared for defense, supported by a network of field fortifications such as trenches and barricades.^[2] In case of war, the defenders were supposed to withstand a sustained attack for 12 hours.

Prelude

Model of the aerial view of Westerplatte and Danzig's New Port on September 1, 1939, with the position of Schleswig-Holstein

At the end of August 1939, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein sailed to Danzig (Gdańsk) under the pretext of a courtesy visit and anchored in the channel near Westerplatte. On board was a Shock troop (Stoßtruppen) assault company with orders to launch an attack against the Westerplatte on the morning of August 26. However, shortly before disembarkation, the order to attack was rescinded. As a result of Britain and Poland having signed the Polish-British Common Defense Pact on August 25th, and also being informed that Italy was hesitant in fulfilling its obligations regarding the Pact of Steel, Adolf Hitler postponed the opening of hostilities.^[3]

The battle

Schleswig-Holstein firing at Westerplatte

On September 1, 1939, at 0445 local time, as Germany began its invasion of Poland, the Schleswig-Holstein suddenly opened broadside salvo fire on the Polish garrison. German forces (Lt. Willhem Henningsen’s naval infantry storm unit from the Schleswig-Holstein' and the Wehrmacht's combat engineers) advanced expecting an easy victory over the surprised Poles.^[4] However, soon after crossing the artillery-breached brick wall, the attackers suddenly came into a well-prepared ambush. German soldiers found themselves caught in a kill zone of Polish crossfire from concealed firing points (the Germans believed they were also fired on by snipers hidden in the trees, but it was really not a case), while barbed wire entanglements effectively blocked quick movements:

"The tactics of outpost commanders, who lured the Germans into a fire trap, letting them advance into the line of fire, contributed to these heavy losses. The Polish mortar fire, guided precisely by observers from protruding positions, added to the destruction. The system of barriers secretly prepared by the WST soldiers in the spring and summer of 1939 made it difficult for the Germans to move around the park that was Westerplatte (once a popular spa)."^[5]

The initial assault was crushed and second attack that morning (after an artillery barrage of 90 280 mm shells, 407 170 mm shells and 366 88 mm shells) was repelled as well, with the Germans suffering unexpectedly high losses. A group of defenders also counter-attacked and destroyed a police guard post on the other side of the wall; however, two of them were mortally wounded in this action. The Poles eventually retreated from the Wał and Prom outposts (and for a time also from Fort), tightening the ring of defence around the New Barracks in the centre of the Peninsula. Their only field gun was also put out of action after firing 28 shells at German positions across the channel (silencing several gun emplacements and hitting a German field command post).^[6] On the first day of combat, the Polish side lost one man killed and seven wounded (three died later, including two of them who were captured and died in a German hospital). On the other side, the German naval infantry lost 16 killed in action and some 120 wounded (injuries of various gravity), the majority out of the 225 men deployed,^[7] including its commander (Lt. Henningsen was mortally wounded and died the next day).^[8] The German losses would have been even greater if not for the order by the Polish commander, Mjr. Henryk Sucharski, for the mortar crews to cease fire in order to conserve ammunition, issued after firing just a few salvos (because of this order only 104 out of their 860 shells were spent when the mortars were destroyed on the next day).

Over the following days, the Germans bombarded the peninsula with naval and heavy field artillery, including a 210 mm howitzers, turning it into World War I-style a moonscape. A devastating two-wave air raid by Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers on September 2 (the total of 26.5 tons of bombs) took out the Polish mortars, directly hit one guardhouse (destroying it completely with a 500 kg bomb) and killed at least eight Polish soldiers; the air raid covered the whole area of Westerplatte in enormous clouds of smoke; German observers believed that no one could possibly have survived such bombing.^[6] This attack also shell-shocked Sucharski who then broke down and attempted to surrender Westeplatte; his deputy, Cpt. Franciszek Dąbrowski, briefly took over command. Several cautious probing attacks by the German naval infantry, Danzig SS and police and Wehrmacht were again repulsed by the Poles; during one of these attacks, a German armoured draisine was hit and destroyed by one of the two Polish anti-tank guns. In the meantime, Polskie Radio continously broadcasted the message "Westerplatte still fights on" in each morning of the battle.^[9] In all, approximately 3,400 Germans (including support troops) were tied-up by being engaged in the week-long action against the small Polish garrison.

On September 7, Mjr. Sucharski decided to leave what he decided was the hopeless fight. The besieged garrison lacked sufficient water and medicine supplies; Cpt. Mieczysław Słaby, the WST medical officer, was unable to maintain basic care of wounded soldiers. Even though many of his officers and soldiers were against the idea, Sucharski surrendered the Military Transit Depot on the same day. The Polish defense impressed the Germans so much that the German commander, Gen. Friedrich Eberhardt (who later became the military governor of Kiev during the Soviet-German War), allowed Sucharski to retain his ceremonial szabla (Polish sabre) in captivity (it was apparently confiscated later). At the same time Polish wireless operator Kazimierz Rasiński was murdered by Germans after the capitulation; after brutal interrogation, he refused to hand over radio codes and was shot.^[10]

Forces involved

Polish soldiers being taken into captivity after the capitulation of Westerplatte. Danzig, September 7, 1939

German

Kriegsmarine ships:

• Battleship Schleswig-Holstein
• Two torpedo boats: T-192 (Von der Groeben) and T-963

Eberhardt group:

• 3. Marine-Stoßtrupp-Kompanie (elite naval infantry company, later renamed Marine-Artillerie-Abteilung 531) and an attached Pioneer platoon from Dessau-Roßlau
• An independent howitzer battalion (Haubitzen-Abt.)
• Küstenschutz der Danziger Polizei (a coast guard unit of the Danzig police) and Ordnungspolizei's Landespolizei Regiment
• SS Heimwehr Danzig (the local SS militia force), including SS Wachsturmbann Eimann (already part of the forming 3rd SS Division Totenkopf)
• Other forces

Luftwaffe:

• II & III Gruppe StG 2 Immelmann
• 4.(St)/TrGr 186

In all, some 40-60 Junkers Ju 87 Stuka bombers and seven other aircraft (Heinkel He 51 and Junkers Ju 52) were involved in the siege of Westerplatte.

German land forces were armed with several ADGZ heavy armoured cars, about 65 artillery pieces (2 cm FlaK 30 anti-aircraft guns, 3.7 cm PaK 36 anti-tank guns, 10.5 cm leFH 18 light howitzers and 21 cm Mörser 18 heavy howitzers), over 100 machine guns, an unknown number of medium mortars and Flammenwerfer 35 flamethrowers.

Polish

By August 1939, the garrison of Westerplatte had increased to 182 soldiers (there were also 27 civilian reservists (they were conscripted into service after the breakout of hostilities)).

The WST was armed with one 75 mm 75 mm wz. 02/26 field gun, two Bofors 37 mm wz. 36 anti-tank guns, and four Stokes 81 mm wz. 31 medium mortars. The strong side of the garrison was a disproportionately large number of machine guns at their disposal (41 machine guns, including 16 heavy machine guns). They had also 160 rifles, 40 pistols and over 1,000 hand grenades.

Casualties

The exact figures of German losses remain unknown, but are now often estimated to be in range of 200-400 killed and wounded or sometimes more (for example an estimate of 300 killed and 700 wounded, which was official in the times of the People's Republic of Poland). Some of them might be actually hit by friendly fire, in particular from the battleship which was initially anchored too close to its target. About 40-50 German troops were reportedly killed.^[11]

Polish casualties were much lower - 15-20 killed and some 53 wounded. There's a controversy regarding the burial site discovered in 1940, containing the bodies of five unidentified Polish soldiers who were possibly executed by their comrades for attempted desertion. Eight of the prisoners of war also said to have not survived German captivity.

List of the Polish soldiers killed in action: Private Jan Ciwil, Corporal Jan Gebura, Działonowy (cannon commander) Władysław Jakubiak, Private Konstanty Jezierski, Private Józef Kita, Corporal Andrzej Kowalczyk, Private Mieczysław Krzak, Sergeant Wojciech Najsarek, Private Władysław Okraszewski, Corporal Bronisław Perucki, Master Corporal Adolf Petzelt, Private Antoni Piróg, Sergeant Kazimierz Rasiński, Private Bronisław Uss, Private Ignacy Zatorski, Private Zygmunt Zięba.

Controversy

Maj. Sucharski (with a sabre) surrendering Westerplatte to Gen. Eberhardt (saluting)

The Polish garrison's commanding officer was Major Henryk Sucharski and the executive officer was Captain Franciszek Dąbrowski. Major Sucharski, who survived the war but died in 1946, was promoted to the rank of generał brygady and given the highest Polish military award of Virtuti Militari, although he became a very controversial figure more recently as the previously-unknown account about his role in the battle were uncovered in the 1990s (after the death of Captain Dąbrowski, as the other Polish officers vowed among themselves for their honor to not disclose in their lifetimes that their nominal commander was shell-shocked for the most of the battle). The Westerplatte became the subject of a quasi-historical dispute, which Dr. Janusz Marszalec from the Institute of National Remembrance summarized with the following:

"It (the dispute)centres on the question of who commanded the defence of Westerplatte, Maj. Henryk Sucharski or Cpt. Dąbrowski? Interestingly, this dispute does not involve historians since it is not taking place as an academic debate. It is the domain of disputes of people passionate about history on the internet and in the press, in an atmosphere of gradual and consistent repetition of various unconfirmed sources. They tend to fall into emotional states of elevation and passion, during which it is difficult to apply the principles of sine ira et studio. This dispute has gone so far beyond its narrow circle of fans of the internet, moving into the mass media as a dispute over a film script and the spending of public money on a film which aims to show the new 'truth' about the defence of Westerplatte. Without a detailed analysis of this project, one can only stress that it has nothing in common with the confirmed state of knowledge about the history of the defence of the WST Westerplatte in September 1939....Regardless of the disputes, Sucharski and the two hundred other defenders of the WST will remain in the circle of good memory, regardless of whether they wanted to defend it to their last bullet, or whether they contemplated putting down arms already after 12 hours of the first shot of the Schleswig-Holstein on 1 September 1939."^[2]

Aftermath

The Polish poet Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński wrote a widely known poem about this battle, Pieśń o żołnierzach Westerplatte ("A Song of the Soldiers of Westerplatte"). The poem reflected a widespread Polish myth of the later years of the WWII that all of defenders died in the battle, fighting to the last man.

A Polish People's Army military unit was named in 1943 in memory of the soldiers (Polish 1st Armoured Brigade of the defenders of Westerplatte). In the years after war, several dozen schools and several ships in Poland were also named after the "Heroes of Westerplatte" or "Defenders of Westerplatte".

The ruins of the peninsula's barracks and guardhouses still survive. After the war one of the guardhouses, which had actually been moved several hundred yards inland, was converted into a museum; two shells from the Schleswig-Holstein's 280 mm guns prop up its entrance.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Westerplatte

• Battle of Hel
• Bombing of Wieluń
• Defense of the Polish Post Office in Danzig

References

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External links

• The Battle of Westerplatte
• Westerplatte ruins today
• Map of events concerning Battle of Westerplatte
• (Polish) Vortal Westerplatte
• (Polish) Westerplatte broni się jeszcze