|
The Defense of the Polish Post Office in Danzig (Gdańsk) was one of the first acts of World War II in Europe, as part of the Invasion of Poland.〔Zaloga, S.J., 2002, Poland 1939, Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., ISBN 9781841764085〕 On September 1, 1939, Polish personnel defended the building for some 15 hours against assaults by the ''SS Heimwehr Danzig'' (SS Danzig Home Defense), local SA formations and special units of ''Ordnungspolizei'' (Danzig police). All but four of the defenders, who were able to escape from the building during the surrender, were sentenced to death by a German court martial as illegal combatants on October 5, 1939 and executed. == Prelude == The Polish Post Office (''Poczta Polska'') in the Free City of Danzig was created in 1920 under the Treaty of Versailles, and its buildings were considered extraterritorial Polish property. The Polish Post Office in Danzig comprised several buildings. As tensions between Poland and Germany grew, in April 1939 the Polish High Command detached combat engineer and Army Reserve Sublieutenant (or 2LT) Konrad Guderski to the Baltic Sea coast. With Alfons Flisykowski and others, he helped organize the official and volunteer security staff at the Polish Post Office in Danzig, and prepared them for possible hostilities. In addition to training the staff, he prepared the defenses in and around the building: nearby trees were removed and the entrance was fortified. In mid-August, ten additional employees were sent to the post office from Polish Post offices in Gdynia and Bydgoszcz (mostly reserve non-commissioned officers). In the Polish Post Office complex on 1 September 1939 there were 56 people: Konrad Guderski, 42 local Polish employees, 10 employees from Gdynia and Bydgoszcz, the building keeper with his wife and 10-year-old daughter who lived in the complex. Polish employees had a cache of weapons, consisting of three Browning wz.1928 light machine guns, 40 other firearms and three chests of hand grenades.〔 (OBROŃCY POCZTY GDAŃSKIEJ: CHWAŁA I ZBRODNIA ), Bogusław Kubisz, ''Mówią Wieki''〕 The Polish defense plan assigned the defenders the role of keeping Germans from the main building for 6 hours, when a relief force from Armia Pomorze was supposed to secure the area. The German attack plan, devised in July 1939, determined that the main building and its defenders would be stormed from two directions. A diversionary attack was to be carried out at the front entrance, while the main force would break through the wall from the neighbouring Work Office and attack from the side. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Defense of the Polish Post Office in Danzig」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|