Operation Bürkl (''operacja Bürkl''), or the special combat action Bürkl (''specjalna akcja bojowa Bürkl''), was an operation by the
Polish resistance conducted on 7 September 1943. It was the second action of
Operation Heads, a series of
assassination
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
s of notorious SS officers in
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
carried out by the
Kedyw's special group Agat ("Anti-
Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
") between 1943 and 1944, and their first success.
History
The goal of the operation was to "liquidate"
Franz Bürkl, a notorious
Sicherheitspolizei
The often abbreviated as SiPo, is a German term meaning "security police". In the Nazi Germany, Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agency, security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of ...
NCO who had been sentenced to death by the Polish
Underground courts for the murder of at least several dozen people. Bürkl was ambushed in broad daylight on the city's main
Marszałkowska Street by a group of five young
AK partisans armed with
Sten submachine guns and
Filipinka
{{Infobox weapon, is_explosive=yes,
name=ET wz. 40
, image=Granat Filipinka.jpg
, caption=Filipinka in the Museum of the Warsaw Rising
, origin=Poland
, design_date=1942
, service=1942–1947
, type= Offensive fragmentation hand grenade
, filling ...
hand grenades. The assassins, led by 21-year-old
Jerzy Zborowski, were recruited for Agat from the underground scouting organization
Szare Szeregi
Grey Ranks () 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 in Warsaw until 18 ...
. Bürkl and seven other German policemen were killed in the 90-second shoot-out. While the operation resulted in no losses for the resistance, the Nazis killed 20 inmates of
Pawiak prison
Pawiak () was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Congress Poland.
During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia.
During the World War II German occupation of ...
in a
public execution in reprisal.
[Strzembosz (1983), page 343-346.]
References
Bibliography
*
See also
*
Operation Kutschera
External links
Specjalna operacja bojowa BürklSpecjalna operacja bojowa Bürkl (a different article)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Operation Burkl
1943 in Poland
Nazis assassinated by Polish resistance
Assassinations in Poland
Warsaw in World War II
Bürkl
Scouting and Guiding in Poland
General Government
September 1943 in Europe