Germany in August 1939: It is warm, even hot in places. Germans are enjoying the summer, whether at home or traveling. The beaches of Europe are bustling.
- Doesn't sound like it was 85 years ago.
On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty including a secret additional protocol, the so-called Hitler-Stalin Pact. Among other things, the pact paved the way for the German invasion of neighboring Poland.
In the summer of 1939, the Germans wanted nothing to do with big politics. They would much rather continue to enjoy their lives and the summer. Weeks full of sunshine, dreams, and joie de vivre.
Looking back, we can say that on September 1, 1939 and the beginning of the Second World War, a carefree and joyful summer finally came to an end.
At 4.45 a.m. 85 years ago today, German units attacked the Polish army on the Westerplatte near Danzig. At Hitler's behest, Germany began a criminal war of unimaginable proportions.
Andrej Reisin reports on how the people of northern Germany were involved in the events of September 1, 1939:
“September 1, 1939 is a glorious late summer day in northern Germany with temperatures around 27 degrees and a balmy wind from a northwesterly direction. Those who can afford it go to the coast for the weekend or visit the parks and swimming pools in the cities. Of course, this only applies to those inhabitants who are of “Aryan descent” according to the Nuremberg Race Laws: Jews were banned from visiting spas and health resorts as early as 1937.
Battleship sails to Poland under false pretenses
In the seaside resort of Swinemünde on Usedom, people boasted that they had already hoisted swastika flags in the 1920s and gradually “cleansed” the town of Jews. On August 24, 1939, the German warship and training ship “Schleswig-Holstein” set sail from the port there - officially to pay a “friendly visit” to the free city of Danzig. Unofficially, the ship takes 225 East Prussian marines on board on the high seas during the night of August 24-25. Captain Gustav Kleikamp had already been called to the High Command of the Navy in Berlin on August 16 and briefed there on the attack plans against Poland.
“Home to the Reich": the ‘liberation’ of Danzig
After the First World War (1914-1918), Gdansk, with its majority German population, was declared a free state under the protection of the League of Nations and since then has been enclosed by Polish territory between the provinces of East Prussia and Pomerania, which belonged to the German Reich.
The city's status had long been a thorn in the side of the National Socialists and the focus of a propaganda battle led by Joseph Goebbels, who loudly demanded that Gdansk should be “returned to the Reich”. Hitler had already made it clear to leading officers on May 23, 1939 on the Obersalzberg that this was only a pretext for an attack: “Gdansk is not the object in question. It is about the expansion of living space in the east.”
-I have just read an interesting text by A. Barder on this subject today. Barder claims that from 1941 at the latest, Hitler was not waging a war in the sense of international relations to expand power, but rather a war of races. Even if I do not share all his views, the text is worth reading, as it offers an additional view of things (Chapter 5, Global Race War, https://academic.oup.com/book/39899 ). -
But back to 1939 and Reisin's report:
Course of the invasion of Poland: The first shots
On the morning of August 25, 1939, the “Schleswig-Holstein” reaches the port of Gdansk. Hans Lots from Edemissen near Peine, who was on board as an engineer at the time, later recalled: “Nobody was allowed ashore, not the marines anyway. If they even wanted to go on deck, they had to borrow clothes from us to disguise themselves. After a few days, we were told: 'Everybody out, we've been deployed to liberate Gdansk!” At 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, the attack on Westerplatte, a peninsula off Gdansk where the Polish army maintained a fortified ammunition depot with a garrison of around 218 men, began. The shots fired by the “Schleswig-Holstein” are still considered the beginning of the Second World War today.
"Seit 5.45 Uhr wird jetzt zurückgeschossen!"
“We have been shooting back since 5.45 a.m.!”
In Germany, the population is called on the radio to gather in front of the radio receivers for a speech by the Führer. At around ten o'clock in the morning, Adolf Hitler is driven to the Reichstag in Berlin. He then speaks the now infamous sentences, which represent a complete reversal of real events and are intended to make the Germans believe that a just defensive war is being waged: “I do not want to fight against women and children. I have given my air force the order to limit its attacks to military objects. But if the enemy believes that this gives him carte blanche to fight using the opposite methods, then he will receive an answer that will leave him speechless! Tonight, Poland fired on our own territory for the first time, even with regular soldiers.
They have been firing back since 5.45 a.m.!” (https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/chronologie/Ueberfall-auf-Polen-1939-Beginn-des-Zweiten-Weltkriegs,kriegsausbruch102.html).
I have decided to retrace the events here because I simply think it is worth remembering them. Not only because it's a kind of sad anniversary (85 years on), but also because so many people know so little. So, if I have provided anyone here with additional information or reminded them of something that was long forgotten, then the text has served its purpose for me.
So much for the historical review.
And what about today? Elections are being held in two federal states today. A historian colleague, Peter Oliver Loew, has criticized the election date for the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia on the 85th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 with the following words: “Whoever thought it was a good idea to hold elections on 1 September did not have a good sense of history,” the director of the German Poland Institute told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. With regard to the AfD, which has been classified as “definitely right-wing extremist” by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in both countries, Loew said: “This can lead to very unpleasant associations if a party whose relationship to the Nazi era is anything but clear wins in Dresden and Erfurt.” (https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Historiker-empoert-ueber-Wahltermin-article25196212.html)...
Although it is believed today that this picture is fake and just propaganda...
