September Campaign
Tag
(19)1939
September
- 01
- Key eventGermany invades PolandAt dawn on 1 September 1939 the Wehrmacht attacked Poland from the north, west and south without declaring war. The Slovak army struck alongside the Germans.
- The defence of Westerplatte beginsAt 4.45 a.m. on 1 September 1939 the battleship Schleswig-Holstein shelled the Polish depot on Westerplatte. Its garrison beat off two assaults that day.
- The bombing of WieluńOn the morning of 1 September 1939 Luftwaffe dive-bombers destroyed central Wieluń, a town with no troops or air defences. The first bombs hit its hospital.
- The defence of the Polish Post Office in GdańskOn 1 September 1939 Polish postal workers held the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk for about 14 hours. After their surrender 38 were sentenced to death and shot.
- Operation TannenbergOn 1 September 1939 Security Police and SD Einsatzgruppen followed the Wehrmacht into Poland, carrying lists of names to “neutralise” Poland’s leading strata.
- 03
- Bloody Sunday in BydgoszczOn 3 September 1939 shooting broke out in Bydgoszcz amid retreating troops. Several hundred Germans died, and propaganda turned it into “Bloody Sunday”.
- The sinking of Wicher and GryfOn 3 September 1939 German dive bombers sank the destroyer Wicher and the minelayer Gryf in the naval port of Hel, Poland’s largest warships in the Baltic.
- The Legion of Czechs and SlovaksOn 3 September 1939 President Mościcki decreed a Legion of Czechs and Slovaks. Some 1,000 refugees from Czechoslovakia were to fight Germany beside the Poles.