19-Sep-39: Hitler Triumphantly Enters Danzig, Declares It Will Be German Forever; Wilno Falls to Soviets; 100,000 Poles Surrender at Bzura
Today is 19-Sept-1939, the 19th day of World War II; there are 2,174 days left in the conflict.
German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler arrives in Danzig for a triumphant parade and speech commemorating its return to the Reich. In his speech, he celebrates the return of the city, claims that it will be forever German, and ends on a note of defiance towards Britain and France, invoking God’s blessing on the German cause:
“But there should be no doubt about one thing: England’s goal is not ‘a fight against the regime’ but a fight against the German people, women and children. Our reaction will be compatible, and one thing will be certain: This Germany does not capitulate. We are determined to carry on and stand this war one way or another.
“We have only this one wish, that the Almighty, who now has blessed our arms, will now perhaps make other peoples understand and give them comprehension of how useless this war, this debacle of peoples, will be intrinsically, and that He may perhaps cause reflection on the blessings of peace which they are sacrificing because a handful of fanatic warmongers, persons who stand to gain by war, want to involve peoples in war.”
As Hitler speaks in Danzig, the Red Army ends its advance through Poland at the Hungarian border. After three days of battle, Wilno (Vilna) finally falls to the Soviets. And at Brest-Litovsk, the Soviet army links up with the German Wehrmacht. Since the secret protocols of the 1939 Nonaggression Pack of 23-Aug calls for Brest-Litovsk to be in the “Soviet sphere of influence,” the Germans vacate the city and the Red Army marches in.
After fighting their way out of the city of Kutno, some 30,000 Polish troops join the fighting around Warsaw, while the German Luftwaffe continues to pound the capital, especially public utilities and facilities.
Units of two Polish brigades and pieces of other forces escape from the Battle of Bzura and also make their way to Warsaw. But the battle ends today with 150,000 Polish troops from the Pomorze and Poznan armies prisoners of the Wehrmacht, which has also now surrounded the city of Lvov.
In Berlin, the new era of cooperation and alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union is underscored by a telegram sent from German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop’s special train to Ambassador to Moscow Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenberg. Ribbentrop instructs the ambassador to convey to Soviet General Secretary Josef Stalin that Germany will be standing by her obligations under the Nonaggression Pact:
“I request that you tell Herr Stalin that you reported to Berlin about your conference with him, and that you are now expressly directed by me to inform him that the agreements which I made on the authorization of the Fuehrer at Moscow will, of course, be kept, and that they are regarded by us as the foundation stone of the new friendly relations between Germany and the Soviet Union.”
Von der Schulenberg scrambles to comply with Ribbentrop’s instructions.
18-Sep-39: U-Boat Sinks SS Kensington; Scandinavian Countries Say Trade Will Go On Unimpeded; Battle of Wilno (Vilnius) Begins Between Poles and Red Army
Today is 18-Sept-1939, the 18th day of World War II; there are 2,175 days left in the conflict.
Seventy miles from the Sicily Islands in the North Atlantic, a German U-Boat shells the British merchant ship SS Kensington Court. The 4,863-ton ship was laden with wheat form Argentina and was bound for Birkenhead. The ship is hit with five shells, but sinks slowly, allowing the crew to send out an S.O.S. and take to the lifeboats.
The S.O.S. is picked up two Royal Air Force Sunderland flying boats (from numbers 228 and 204 Squadrons) on patrol in the area; they arrive on the scene, land and subsequently rescue all 34 of the sailors on board. The Sunderland will later, after several losses on rough seas, be supplanted by the PBY Catalina, which has a thicker hull more suitable for exposed water landings.
Meanwhile, the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland decide that, in order to “protect their economic existence,” they will continue to trade with both sides in the quickly broadening European conflict. The coordinated announcement is made simultaneously in the national capitals, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm and Reykjavik. Three of the five will soon discover that their neutrality is illusory.
In Poland, Warsaw’s defiant resistance continues, so the German Third and Tenth armies begin attacking the capital city. Polish President Ignacy Mościcki and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces General Edward Rydz-Śmigły, escape Poland and flee to Romania, where they are disarmed and interned as the Romanians had previously announced would happen to fleeing Polish nationals fleeing the fighting onto Romanian soil. The two Polish leaders leave behind messages urging the remaining Polish forces to continue to fight both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army.
In a crucial development for the future of the war, members of Poland’s Cipher Bureau, charged with intercepting enemy communications and breaking their codes, escape Poland to the south and begin a long and arduous journey to France, and then on to Britain. They carry crucial information about the German Wehrmacht’s “Enigma” code, which will be vital to the later successful breaking of the code, a famous episode of the war.
On the second day of the Soviet invasion in the east of Poland, the Red Army continues to meet very little resistance and successfully advances 100km into Poland.
However, at Wilno (present day Vilnius, Lithuania), later in the day (at 17:00 hours), Polish Colonel Jarosław Okulicz-Kozaryn, in command of the garrison there, receives reports of Red Army armored scouts approaching from Oszmiana (present day Ashmyany). These scouts are engaging Polish infantry units as they advance. Col. Okulicz-Kozaryn orders all units to fall back on the Lithuanian border, with the most experienced units of the Polish Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza screening the retreat.
Col. Okulicz-Kozaryn sends a Lt. Col. Podwysocki under a flag of truce to tell the Red Army that the Poles will not defend Wilno; however, he is shot at and forced to retreat behind Polish lines. Col. Okulicz-Kozaryn evacuates the city with most of the Polish forces, but Lt. Col. Podwysocki decides to defend the city anyway, even with few troops.
The Poles actual succeed in repulsing the first Soviet attack on the city in the evening hours, but the Red Army continues its push and rapidly encircles the city. By nightfall, they have captured the airfield and the Rasos Cemetery, and entered the city at several points. The battle will continue the next day.
On the propaganda front, a momentous occasion in Berlin happens which will propel an obscure American to infamy. The American, named William Joyce, had moved to Ireland and then Britain after his birth in Brooklyn in 1906. He subsequently became a member of the British Union of Fascists (led by Oswald Moseley and referred to as the Blackshirts), then fled to Germany in August, 1939, with his wife as war became imminent.
Having served in propaganda capacities for the British Union of Fascists, the Germans decided Joyce might be of some use in the same guise in Berlin. A week previously, the Germans had allowed Joyce to make a radio broadcast to the British; it so impressed the Germans that they give him a long-term radio contract. He will go on to broadcast throughout most of the war under an assumed (and now famous) pseudonym, Lord Haw-Haw (which had previously been used by three other German radio personalities for similar purposes). He would be known for his now famous opening salutation of his broadcasts: “Germany calling! Germany calling!”