Westerplatte

The resort was established on the Westerplatte peninsula around 1830 which had a beach, a forested park, a seaside bath complex and health spa facilities.

[6] On 6 March 1933, in what became known as the westernmost incident (or crisis), the Polish government landed a marine battalion, briefly strengthening the outpost to about 200 men.

This was done to demonstrate the Polish resolve to defend the outpost in response to recent comments by German politicians and media figures about the need of border adjustment and Poland and France were secretly discussing preventive war against Germany; on a local level this was also done to put pressure on the Danzig government which was trying to renounce prior agreement on shared Danzig-Polish control over harbor police and take sole control of that unit.

[6] These were not very impressive: there were no real bunkers or tunnels, but only five small concrete outposts (guardhouses) hidden in the peninsula's forest and a large barracks prepared for defence, supported by a network of field fortifications such as trenches and barricades.

[6] On 1 September 1939, only minutes after the German Luftwaffe (air force) had begun the invasion of Poland by dropping bombs in a series of raids on the city of Wieluń by Junkers Ju 87 Stukas, at 04:48[11] local time, the battleship Schleswig-Holstein, then on a courtesy visit to the Free City of Danzig, without warning opened fire on the Polish garrison.

Cut off, with no reinforcements or chance of resupply, he continued his defence, keeping the main German force stalled at Westerplatte and so preventing further attacks along the Polish coast.

As a sign of honour for the soldiers of Westerplatte, the German commander, Gen. Eberhardt, allowed Major Sucharski to keep his sword while being taken prisoner.