Defence of the Polish Post in Gdańsk

An FDC from Poland 🇵🇱  commemorating an important anniversary of Polish history 

80th anniversary of the Defence of Polish Post in Gdańsk 

Date of issue : 1-9-2019

The Defence 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. 

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. Tensions started brewing between Germany and Poland by 1939. The Polish high command sent Konrad Guderski to organise and prepare the Polish post office employees for possible hostilities. 

In the Polish Post Office complex on 1 September 1939 there were 56 people: Guderski, 42 local Polish employees, ten employees from Gdynia and Bydgoszcz, and the building caretaker with his wife and ten-year-old daughter, Erwina, who lived in the complex. 

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. Danzig Police also drew up plans for attacking the post office. During the attack , Konrad Guderski was killed while he detonated his own grenade to prevent the Germans advancement. 

Frustrated by the Poles' refusal to surrender, Bethke requested a rail car full of gasoline. Danzig's fire department pumped it into the basement, and it was then ignited by a hand grenade. After three Poles were burned alive (bringing the total Polish casualties to six killed in action), the rest decided to capitulate. The first two people to leave the building, director Dr. Jan Michoń, carrying a white flag, and commandant Józef Wąsik, were shot by the Germans. The rest of the Poles were allowed to surrender and leave the burning building. Six people managed to escape from the building, although two of them were captured in the following days.

Sixteen wounded prisoners were sent to the Gestapo hospital, where six subsequently died (including the 10-year-old Erwina). The other 28 were first imprisoned in the police building and, after a few days, sent to the Victoriaschule, where they were interrogated and tortured. Some 300 to 400 Polish citizens of Danzig were also held there. The prisoners were mostly executed by firing squad led by SS-Sturmbannführer Max Pauly (later commandant of the Neuengamme concentration camp) on 5 October and buried in a mass grave at the cemetery of Danzig-Saspe (Zaspa).

The families of the postmen were also persecuted. A similar fate awaited eleven Polish railway workers from Tczewsouth of the city, who were executed by the SA after they foiled a German attempt to use an armoured train in a sneak attack.

In Poland, the episode has become one of the better known episodes of the Polish September Campaign and it is usually portrayed as a heroic story of David and Goliath proportions - 10 postmen against the mighty German Nazi army ! 

Dark days of Europe !! 

Thanks Wojtek for this FDC ! The stories of World War Two are quite overwhelming for me :(