![Stamps of polish post in gdansk](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Stamps_of_polish_post_in_gdansk.jpg)
The Polish Post Office (''
Poczta Polska
Poczta Polska ( lit. ''Polish Post'') is the state postal administration of Poland, initially founded in 1558. It is the largest mail-handling company in the country, which additionally provides courier, banking, insurance and logistics serv ...
'') in the
Free City of Danzig
The Free City of Danzig (german: Freie Stadt Danzig; pl, Wolne Miasto Gdańsk; csb, Wòlny Gard Gduńsk) was a city-state under the protection of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gda ...
(Gdańsk) was created in 1920 and operated until the
German invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...
that marked the beginning of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
History
The post was established in
Danzig (Gdańsk) under the provisions of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
, and its buildings were considered
extraterritorial
In international law, extraterritoriality is the state of being exempted from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations.
Historically, this primarily applied to individuals, as jurisdiction was usually cla ...
Polish property.
The Polish Post Office in Danzig comprised several buildings, originally built as a German military hospital. In 1930 the "Gdańsk 1" building on ''Hevelius Platz'' (square) in the ''
Danziger Altstadt'' (Old Town) became the primary Polish post office, with a direct telephone line to Poland. In 1939 it employed slightly over 100 people. Some employees at the Polish Post Office belonged to a self-defence and security organization, and many were also members of the Polish ''
Związek Strzelecki
The Polish Riflemen's Association known as ''Związek Strzelecki'' (or more commonly, in the plural form as ''Związki Strzeleckie'') formed in great numbers prior to World War I. One of the better known associations called "Strzelec" (Riflemen's ...
'' (Riflemen's Association). According to the testimony of
Edmund Charaszkiewicz
Edmund Kalikst Eugeniusz Charaszkiewicz (; Poniec, 14 October 1895 – 22 December 1975, London) was a Polish military intelligence officer who specialized in clandestine warfare. Between the World Wars, he helped establish Poland's interbellum ...
, the Polish Post Office was from 1935 an important component of the
Polish Intelligence
This article covers the history of Polish Intelligence services dating back to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Commonwealth
Though the first official Polish government service entrusted with espionage, intelligence and counter-intelligence w ...
organization, "Group Zygmunt".
As tensions between
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
and Germany grew, in April 1939 the Polish High Command detached
combat engineer
A combat engineer (also called pioneer or sapper) is a type of soldier who performs military engineering tasks in support of land forces combat operations. Combat engineers perform a variety of military engineering, tunnel and mine warfare ta ...
and Army Reserve
Sublieutenant
Sub-lieutenant is usually a junior officer rank, used in armies, navies and air forces.
In most armies, sub-lieutenant is the lowest officer rank. However, in Brazil, it is the highest non-commissioned rank, and in Spain, it is the second high ...
(or
2LT)
Konrad Guderski to the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
coast. With
Alfons Flisykowski and others, he helped organize the official and volunteer security staff at the Polish Post Office in Danzig, and prepare them for eventual 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
Gdynia ( ; ; german: Gdingen (currently), (1939–1945); csb, Gdiniô, , , ) is a city in northern Poland and a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. With a population of 243,918, it is the List of cities in Poland, 12th-largest city in Poland and ...
and
Bydgoszcz
Bydgoszcz ( , , ; german: Bromberg) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more ...
(mostly reserve
non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not pursued a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. (Non-officers, which includes most or all enli ...
s).
In the building of the Polish post on 1 September there were 57 people: Konrad Guderski, 42 local Polish employees, 10 employees from Gdynia and Bydgoszcz, and the building keeper with his wife and 10-year-old daughter who lived in the building. Polish employees had a cache of weapons, including three
Browning wz.1928
The Browning wz.1928 is a Polish version of the M1918 BAR. It was a light machine gun used by the Poles in World War II.
History
After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the Polish Army was equipped with all sorts of machine guns inherite ...
light machine gun
A light machine gun (LMG) is a light-weight machine gun designed to be operated by a single infantryman, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. LMGs firing cartridges of the same caliber as the other riflemen of the sam ...
s, 40 other
firearm
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions).
The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...
s and three chests of
hand grenade
A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...
s.
[OBROŃCY POCZTY GDAŃSKIEJ: CHWAŁA I ZBRODNIA]
, Bogusław Kubisz, ''Mówią Wieki
''Mówią Wieki'' (meaning ''Centuries Speak'' in English) is a monthly popular science and history magazine published in Poland since 1958.
Editors in chief:
* Maria Bogucka (1958–1976)
* Bożena Krzywobłocka (1976–1977)
* Eugeniusz Duracz ...
'' The Polish defence plan assigned the defenders the role of keeping Germans from the building for 6 hours, when a relief force from
Armia Pomorze The Pomeranian Army ( pl, Armia Pomorze) was one of the List of Polish armies, Polish armies defending against the 1939 Invasion of Poland. It was officially created on March 23, 1939. Led by Generał dywizji, General dywizji Władysław Bortnowski, ...
was supposed to secure the area.
The German attack plan, devised in July 1939, stipulated that the building 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.
On September 1, 1939, Polish
militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
men
defended the building for some 15 hours against assaults by the ''
SS Heimwehr Danzig
SS Heimwehr "Danzig" was an SS unit established in the Free City of Danzig (today Gdańsk and environs, Poland) before the Second World War. It fought with the German Army against the Polish Army during the invasion of Poland, and some of its mem ...
'' (
SS of the city Danzig), local
SA formations, German ''
Ordnungspolizei
The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction w ...
'', and special units of Danzig police. All including four of the defenders who escaped from the building during the
surrender
Surrender may refer to:
* Surrender (law), the early relinquishment of a tenancy
* Surrender (military), the relinquishment of territory, combatants, facilities, or armaments to another power
Film and television
* ''Surrender'' (1927 film), an ...
were
sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
by a German
court martial
A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...
as
illegal combatant
An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions.
The Internati ...
s on October 5, 1939 and executed. For embarrassing german SS unit and his commander director of Danzig post office Jan Michoń was shot dead on place and post master Józef Wąsik was burned alive by flamethrower. Sentence on rest of the defenders has been passed in few days and whole group was executed by the wall by gun fire.
In Poland, the whole 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
Goliath ( ) ''Goləyāṯ''; ar, جُليات ''Ǧulyāt'' (Christian term) or (Quranic term). is a character in the Book of Samuel, described as a Philistine giant defeated by the young David in single combat. The story signified King Saul's ...
proportions. In this view, it was a group of postmen who held out against German SS troops for almost an entire day.
Present
![Defenders of the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Defenders_of_the_Polish_Post_Office_in_Gda%C5%84sk.jpg)
After World War II, Danzig was transferred to Poland. Currently, the building is the site of the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk and the
Museum of the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk. In front of the Post Office there is the
Monument of the Defenders of the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk (unveiled in 1979).
See also
*
Defense of the Polish Post Office in Danzig
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 September Campaign.Zaloga, S.J., 2002, Poland 1939, Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., On 1 September 1939 the Invasion o ...
*
Postage stamps and postal history of Free City of Danzig
References
Further reading
* Jank, Janusz. ''Działalność usługowa poczty polskiej w wolnym mieście Gdańsku w latach 1920-1939 = The Polish postal service in the Free City of Danzig between 1920-1939''. Gdansk: Dyrekcja Okręgu Poczty, 1999 143p.
{{Authority control
Buildings and structures in Gdańsk
Free City of Danzig
Government buildings completed in 1920
Danzig