History of Pomerania (1933–1945)
[13] Following negotiations with Hitler for the Munich Agreement, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain reported that, "He told me privately, and last night he repeated publicly, that after this Sudeten German question is settled, that is the end of Germany's territorial claims in Europe".
[15] In November 1938, Danzig's district administrator, Albert Forster reported to the League of Nations that Hitler had told him Polish frontiers would be guaranteed if the Poles were "reasonable like the Czechs."
[15] At the same time, Hitler also offered Poland additional territory as an enticement, such as the possible annexation of Lithuania, the Klaipėda Region, Soviet Ukraine and Czech inhabited lands.
However, the Poles distrusted Hitler and saw the plan as a threat to Polish sovereignty, practically subordinating Poland to the Axis and the Anti-Comintern Bloc while reducing the country to a state of near-servitude.
Warsaw refused this in order to retain its independence....Polish acceptance of Germany's demands would have rendered the application of any braking machinery in the East impossible.
Nevertheless, at midnight on August 29, Joachim von Ribbentrop handed British Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson a list of terms which would allegedly ensure peace in regard to Poland.
In Stettin-Bredow, at the site of the bankrupt Vulcan-Werft shipyards, the Nazis set up a short-lived "wild" concentration camp from October 1933 to March 1934, where SA maltreated their victims.
The Confessing Church maintained a preachers' seminar headed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Zingst, which moved to Finkenwalde in 1935 and to Köslin and Groß Schlönwitz in 1940.
[40] After the failed assassination attempt of Hitler on July 20, 1944, Gestapo arrested thirteen Pomeranian nobles and one burgher, all knight estate owners.
General Guderian's 19th army corps attacked from the Schlochau (Człuchów) and Preußisch Friedland (Debrzno) areas, which since 1938 belonged to the province ("Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen").
After defending Toruń for several days, the army withdrew further south under pressure of the overall strained strategic situation, and took part in the main battle of Bzura.
The Polish Post office was held by 52 employees led by Konrad Guderski against the German Danzig police, Home Guard (Heimwehr) and SS, which after 14 hours of battle set the building on fire with flamethrowers.
The Polish Military Transit Depot (Polska Wojskowa Składnica Tranzytowa) on the Westerplatte repelled countless attacks by the Danzig Police, SS, the Kriegsmarine and the Wehrmacht.
Finally, the Westerplatte crew surrendered on 7 September, having exhausted their supplies of food, water, ammunition and medicines, becoming one of the symbols of Polish resistance to the German invasion.
[51] Before the war, activists from German minority organisations in Poland helped to organize lists of Poles who later were to be arrested or executed in Operation Tannenberg.
Bernhard Chiari and Jerzy Kochanowski state estimates of an overall death toll ranging from 2,000 to 3,841 West Prussian ethnic Germans who lost their lives in the context of the invasion.
[53] Historian Tomasz Chinciński gives a total of 3,257 deaths, 2000 of them being victims either of the normal wartime conditions (including civilians incidentally killed by advancing German army), or of participation in diversionary actions organized by Nazi sympathetics.
[58] Wehrmacht, Selbstschutz, Einsatzgruppen of Sipo and SD, and Danzig NSDAP units were involved in a series of atrocities committed during and after the invasion, including murder primarily of Polish intelligentsia, Jews, and the extermination of mentally and physically disabled,[59] most notably at the massacres in Piaśnica forest.
In October 1939, the Polish intelligentsia of Toruń was imprisoned in "Fort VIII" under harsh conditions, before being executed in Barbarka forest (several hundreds), the local airport, and Przysiek.
[62] Some Poles and Kashubians of Pomerelia organized an anti-Nazi guerrilla resistance group called "Pomeranian Griffin" (TOW Gryf Pomorski).
In September 1939, the persecution of Poles from pre-war German Pomerania reached its climax with mass arrests of Polish activists, teachers etc., who were then sent to concentration camps.
On August 17/18, the British RAF launched an attack on Peenemünde, where Wernher von Braun and his staff had developed and tested the world's first rockets.
[73] Despite these raids, the province was regarded "safe" compared to other areas of the Third Reich, and thus became a shelter for evacuees primarily from hard hit Berlin and the West German industrial centers.
[73] After the war had turned back on Germany, the Pomeranian Wall was renovated in the summer of 1944, and in the fall all men between sixteen and sixty years of age who had not yet been drafted were enrolled into Volkssturm units.
On February 24, the Second Belorussian Front launched the East Pomeranian Offensive and despite heavy resistance primarily in the Rummelsburg area took eastern Farther Pomerania until March 10.
On March 1, the First Belorussian Front had launched an offensive from the Stargard and Märkisch Friedland (Mirosławiec) area and succeeded in taking northwestern Farther Pomerania within five days.
The roving cauldron of Hans von Tettau's corps was defended by some 10,000[78] to 16,000[78][79] troops, stemming primarily from the remnants of the "Holstein" and "Pommerland" Panzer Divisions,[78] taking with them about 40,000 civilians.
[78][79] East of the Oder river, Wehrmacht's 3rd Panzer Army had set up the Altdamm (Dąbie) bridgehead between Gollnow (Goleniów) and Greifenhagen (Gryfino).
On March 15, Adolf Hitler ordered some of the defending units to reinforce the 9th Army near Küstrin (Kostrzyn nad Odrą), seriously weakening the Altdamm bridgehead.
[81] This was fueled by atrocities – rapes, pillage and executions committed by Red Army soldiers until the city commander had the access to the rivers blocked on May 3.
