Germany soldiers loading artillery, September 1939.A trumpet call sounded at 04.45 CET at Westerplatte this morning, marking the exact time of beginning of the Second World War in Poland, 70 years ago today.
Present were President Lech Kaczynski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and various government ministers.
Pawel Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdansk opened the ceremony to mark the 5.8 million who died during the war in Poland and those who fought on two fronts – the Nazis to the west and Soviets to the east.
President Lech Kaczyński then spoke of the crimes done against the nation and the bravery in which it fought.
“Why did Poles defend Westerplatte? The Polish patriot does not know the concept of peace at any price. Honor is priceless. Such was the attitude of our country,” he said.
President Kaczynski also fired a shot at Russian statements recently, which argued that it was the Treaty of Versailles not the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which was the cause of WW II. “The Treaty of Versailles gave Poland its independence,” he said. He then compared the Katyn massacre, when over 20,000 Polish officers were murdered by the Soviet NVKD in 1940, to the Holocaust.
“What is the comparison between the Holocaust and Katyn? Jews died because they were Jews. Polish officers were killed because they were Polish officers,” he said.
“Polish memory is the best way towards an understanding among the nations which lived through WW2 in conflict,” said Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “ Well-considered memory without falsity, without blanks, silences, forgetting is the condition sine qua non of understanding for the future.”
A ceremony was also held at the town of Wielun, western Poland, which was neavily and indiscrimatly bombed by Luftwaffe five minutes before the shelling of Westerplatte, near Gdansk.
A plaque was unveiled there this morning, commemorating the bombing. Speaker of the Sejm Bronislaw Komorowski stood outside what is now a teachers college, but 70 years ago was a hospital that was bombed, despite a large Red Cross painted on the roof.
Later this afternoon, an international ceremony will be held with leaders from Europe and beyond in attendance. One of the guests, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will give a joint press conference with PM Tusk at 0.11.00 this morning on Sopot pier. (pg)
Timeline - invasion of Poland, September 1 - 29, 1939
September 1
German planes bomb the western Polish town of Wielun at 04.40 CET. First shots are fired from 280mm guns on the Battleship Schleswig-Holstein, anchored off the coast of Westerplatte at 04.45 CET.
Luftwaffe destroys vital communications and smashes Polish air force planes still on the ground.
Panzer and motorised divisions blitzkrieg Poland’s land forces making rapid inroads into territory.
Lieutenant Wladyslaw Gnys of the Second Krakow Air Regiment shoots down two Dornier 17 German Bombers, the first to be shot down by Polish during the war.
September 2
The Luftwaffe bombs Warsaw. Nazi troops capture the Jablunka pass in the Tatra mountains. Fighting continues in Westerplatte.
September 4
German troops cross the River Pilica in southern Poland. In Bydgoszcz, 1000 Poles are murdered, including several dozen Boy Scouts, by German troops.
Polish anti-tank gunnersSeptember 5
Polish Army withdraws behind the Vistula river, but the German troops gain bridgeheads on the opposite bank. 06/09/1939
September 6
German troops advancing through Poland occupy Upper Silesia.
September 7
Krakow surrenders to German troops. The German 10th Army closes in on Warsaw.
September 8
Polish troops surrender at Westerplatte. The Polish government leaves Warsaw for Lublin.
September 9
Lodz and Radom falls as the 4th Panzer Division reaches the outskirts of Warsaw.
September 17
A million Red Army troops invade Poland under the pretext of protecting Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities in the east.
September 18
Wehrmacht and Red Army stage a joint parade in Brest Litovsk.
September 19
NKVD sets up a Directorate for Prisoners of War and establishes camps for 240,000 Polish POWs - about 37,000 will be used as forced-labour.
September 20
German troops in eastern Poland withdraw to the line agreed upon in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Polish troops at Grodno kill 800 Red Army soldiers and destroy ten tanks.
September 21
Around 217,000 Polish troops surrender to the Red Army in Lvov. The NKVD begins rounding up thousands of Polish officers and deporting them to Russia where they will be executed a year later in the forests of Katyn.
September 24 - 25
Luftwaffe continues to bomb Warsaw, causing around 40,000 casualties.
September 27
Warsaw finally falls under massive air and artillery bombardments.
September 29
The remaining government in Warsaw capitulates.