The Wawer massacre refers to the execution of 107
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
civilians on the night of 26 to 27 December 1939 by the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
occupiers of
Wawer
Wawer is one of the districts of Warsaw, located in the south-eastern part of the city. The Vistula river runs along its western border. Wawer became a district of Warsaw on 27 October 2002 (previously it was a part of Praga Południe district, a ...
(at the time a suburb and currently a
neighbourhood
A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural are ...
of
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
), Poland. The execution was a response to the killing of two German soldiers in a shootout by two petty criminals. An order to arrest at random any men inhabiting Wawer and the neighboring
Anin between the ages of 16 and 70 was given and, as a result, 120 men, who were unrelated to the shootout, were gathered, and a
show trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
was hastily organized. 114 were declared "guilty" and sentenced to death, the others were spared to bury the dead. In total, 107 were killed and 7 survived, as they withstood the gunfire and were not finished off later.
It is considered to be one of the first
large scale massacres of Polish civilians by Nazi Germany in
occupied Poland
' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...
.
Background
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
invaded and occupied Poland in September 1939. From the start, the war against Poland was intended to be the fulfilment of a plan described by
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
in his book ''
Mein Kampf
(; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germ ...
''. The main gist of the plan was for all of
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
to become part of a
Greater Germany
Pan-Germanism (german: Pangermanismus or '), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also Germanic-speaking ...
, the German ''
Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imperi ...
'' ("living space").
On the evening of 26 December, two known Polish criminals,
Marian Prasuła and
Stanisław Dąbek
Stanisław Dąbek was a Polish infantry colonel in the Polish Armed Forces, he was commander of the Marine Brigade of National Defense and acting commander of the Land Defense of the Coast during the Invasion of Poland; posthumously promoted to t ...
, killed two German non-commissioned officers from Baubataillon 538.
[Zbrodnia w Wawrze]
/ref>[ ] After learning of it, the acting commander of the 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 ...
in Warsaw, colonel Max Daume
Max or MAX may refer to:
Animals
* Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog
* Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE)
* Max (gorilla) (1 ...
ordered an immediate reprisal, consisting of a series of arrests of random Polish males, aged 16 to 70, found in the region where the killings occurred (in Wawer
Wawer is one of the districts of Warsaw, located in the south-eastern part of the city. The Vistula river runs along its western border. Wawer became a district of Warsaw on 27 October 2002 (previously it was a part of Praga Południe district, a ...
and the neighboring Anin villages).
Massacre
After a kangaroo court
A kangaroo court is a court that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides, and is typically convened ad hoc. A kangaroo court may ignore due process and come ...
presided over by Major General Friedrich Wilhelm Wenzel, 114 of the 120 people arrested - who had no knowledge of the recent killings, many of whom were roused from their beds - 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 ...
. They were not given the opportunity to plead their case. Of the 114, one managed to escape, 7 were shot but not killed and managed to escape later, and 107 were shot dead. The dead included one professional military officer, one journalist, two Polish-American citizens and a 12-year-old boy. Both Jews and Christians were massacred along with some Russians. Some of the executed were not locals, but merely visiting their families for Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
.
Aftermath
It was one of the earliest massacre
A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
s (probably the second, after the Bochnia massacre
Bochnia (german: Salzberg) is a town on the river Raba in southern Poland. The town lies approximately halfway between Tarnów (east) and the regional capital Kraków (west). Bochnia is most noted for its salt mine, the oldest functioning in Eu ...
of 52 civilians on December 18) to occur in occupied Poland
' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...
. It was also one of the first instances of the large scale implementation by Germany of the doctrine of collective responsibility
Collective responsibility, also known as collective guilt, refers to responsibilities of organizations, groups and societies. Collective responsibility in the form of collective punishment is often used as a disciplinary measure in closed insti ...
in the General Government
The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...
in Poland since the end of the invasion in September.Jerzy Jan Lerski
Jerzy Jan Lerski (''nom de guerre'': Jur; also known as George Jan Lerski; 1917-1992); was a Polish lawyer, soldier, historian, political scientist and politician. After World War II he emigrated to the United States, where he became a full profes ...
, Piotr Wróbel, Richard J. Kozicki, ''Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996,
Google Print, p.645
/ref>[ Czesław Michalski, ''Wojna warszawsko-niemiecka'', Czytelnik, Warszawa 1974, as cited by Barbara Szpinda, ]
1999 - 60. ROCZNICA ...
', 1999Bernd Wegner
Bernd Wegner (born 1949) is a German historian who specialises in military history and the history of Nazism. Since 1997 he has been professor of modern history at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, Germany.
Wegner is a contributor to t ...
, ''From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia, and the World, 1939-1941'', Berghahn Books, 1997,
Google Print, p.54
/ref>
Soon after the massacre, a Polish youth resistance organization, "Wawer
Wawer is one of the districts of Warsaw, located in the south-eastern part of the city. The Vistula river runs along its western border. Wawer became a district of Warsaw on 27 October 2002 (previously it was a part of Praga Południe district, a ...
", was created. It was part of the Szare Szeregi
"Gray Ranks" ( pl, Szare Szeregi) was a codename for the underground paramilitary Polish Scouting Association (') during World War II.
The wartime organisation was created on 27 September 1939, actively resisted and fought German occupation i ...
(the underground Polish Scouting Association
, type = organization
, headquarters = ZHP Headquarters Warsaw
, location = Warszawa, Konopnickiej 6
, country = Poland
, f-date = 1 November 1918
, founder = Andrzej Małkowski, Olga Małkowska
, members = 138,112
, chiefscouttitle = N ...
), and its first act was to create a series of graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
in Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
around the Christmas of 1940, commemorating the massacre. Members of the AK Wawer "Small Sabotage
A minor sabotage (''aka'' little sabotage or small sabotage; pl, mały sabotaż) during World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland (1939–45) was any underground resistance operation that involved a disruptive but relatively minor and non-violen ...
" unit painted "Pomścimy Wawer" ("We'll avenge Wawer") on Warsaw walls. At first, they painted the whole text, then to save time they shortened it to two letters, P and W. Later they invented Kotwica
The ''Kotwica'' (; Polish language, Polish for "Anchor") was a World War II emblem of the Polish Underground State and ''Armia Krajowa'' (Home Army, or ''AK''). It was created in 1942 by members of the ''AK'' Wawer Minor sabotage unit, as an eas ...
-"Anchor" - the symbol, a combination of these 2 letters, was easy and fast to paint. Next kotwica gained more meanings - Polska Walcząca ("Fighting Poland") . It also stands for Wojsko Polskie ("Polish Army
The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stret ...
") and Powstanie Warszawskie ("Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occ ...
"). Finally "Kotwica" became a patriotic symbol of defiance against the occupiers and was painted on building walls everywhere.
On 3 March 1947, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal for the Trial of War Criminals (''Najwyższy Trybunał Narodowy'') sentenced Max Daume to death. Wilhelm Wenzel was extradited to Poland by the Soviets in 1950 and executed in November 1951.
There is now a monument in Wawer commemorating the massacre.
See also
* List of massacres in Poland
*Chronicles of Terror
Chronicles of Terror is a digital internet archive established by the in August 2016. Initially, it provided access to the depositions of Polish citizens who after World War II were interviewed as witnesses before the Main Commission for the Inve ...
References
Further reading
* Jan Bijata, ''Wawer'', Książka i Wiedza, Warszawa 1973
External links
Collection of testimonies concerning Wawer massacre in 'Chronicles of Terror' database
{{Coord, 52, 14, 02, N, 21, 09, 33, E, region:PL-MZ_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title
1939 in Poland
Collective punishment
Conflicts in 1939
December 1939 events
History of Warsaw
Massacres in Poland
Massacres in 1939
Massacres of men
Nazi war crimes in Poland
Ordnungspolizei
Police of Nazi Germany
Wawer
Violence against men in Europe