The Gathering Storm. Geirr Haarr
in Sengwarden near Wilhelmshaven under the command of Generaladmiral Alfred Saalwächter. Naval Group Command East – Marinegruppenkommando Ost – covering the Baltic from headquarters in Kiel, was led by Generaladmiral Conrad Albrecht until late October 1939, when Admiral Rolf Carls took over as Albrecht retired. The Naval Group Commands were on paper given operational control within their areas of command, but in reality the OKM and SKL would intervene frequently, either through strict operational orders or directly. When at sea beyond the coastal areas, the fleet was, in theory, directly subordinated to the OKM. Where and how this occurred was unclear, though, giving rise to serious disputes between the commanders, Naval Group Command West and the OKM/SKL during long-range operations of the larger ships in 1939 and 1940.
On the eve of WWII, the Kriegsmarine had in commission two battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, two old battleships – Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein, three Panzerschiffe – Admiral Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer and Deutschland, one heavy cruiser – Admiral Hipper, six light cruisers – Emden, Leipzig, Nürnberg, Köln, Karlsruhe and Königsberg, thirty-four destroyers and large torpedo boats, fifty-seven U-boats, and some forty other small vessels. Within weeks, virtually all building of large surface ships, except those near completion, was suspended in order to focus on U-boats and smaller vessels. Eventually, Bismarck, Tirpitz, Blücher and Prinz Eugen were the only ships larger than destroyers to be commissioned by the Kriegsmarine after the outbreak of the war.
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At 04:45 Next Morning
ON 13 MARCH 1938, German troops crossed the border to Austria, bringing 6 million German-speaking people into the Reich. The Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia was next and, in spite of the agreement in Munich, Hitler let his soldiers continue into Prague on 15 March 1939. Two weeks later, as a direct result of the German violation of the Munich Agreement, Britain and France guaranteed the independence of Poland, Greece, Belgium, Romania and Turkey. The policy of appeasement had failed.
In the late hours of 23 August 1939, a Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union was signed in Moscow by Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov and his German counterpart, von Ribbentrop.1 The news of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was met with stunned disbelief by politicians and people worldwide, but in Berlin an assertive Hitler gave orders for the long-planned attack on Poland to commence in the morning of the 26th. He was certain that Britain and France, facing the German pact with Russia, would not honour their promises to Poland other than verbally. Days of hectic diplomatic activity ensued. When Mussolini revealed that Italy ‘was not ready for war’, Hitler lost his nerve. On 26 August, he ordered the attack on Poland, which he had already set in motion a few hours earlier, to be postponed.2 Two days later, although tense and visibly tired, Hitler had regained his confidence and decided the attack on Poland should start in the early morning of Friday 1 September. Directive No. 1 for the Conduct of the War, issued in eight copies, stated that it was:
important that the responsibility for the opening of hostilities should rest unequivocally with England and France. [. . .] The German land frontier in the west is not to be crossed at any point without my express orders. The same applies to warlike actions at sea – or any which may be so interpreted. (Pencil note in SKL copy: According to this, Atlantic U-boats must remain in their waiting positions for the time being.) If England or France open hostilities against Germany [. . .] damage should be done to enemy forces and their economic sources of supply as far as resources allow. [. . .] In its warfare on merchant shipping, the navy is to concentrate on England.3
In the evening of 31 August, Hitler confirmed that the invasion of Poland should commence at 04:45 next morning.4
‘. . . Am Under Fire’
After WWI, the Prussian city of Danzig was made a semi-autonomous, demilitarised city-state under the protection of the League of Nations, with international representatives taking on the role of high commissioner. Although it was officially independent from both Germany and Poland, German influence remained strong and, with an overwhelmingly German population, Danzig was to become the catalyst for releasing Nazi aggression on Poland.5
The Military Transit Depot (Wojskowy Skład Transportowy or WST) on the Westerplatte Peninsula outside Danzig had been established during the Russian attack on eastern Poland in 1919–20. The Polish-held part of the sandy headland, separated from the Neufahrwasser suburb of Danzig by the Harbour Channel, a widened tributary of the Vistula River, was closed behind a high brick wall. There were no real fortifications, just a number of concrete blockhouses and some large barracks, supported by a network of trenches and barricades. To the east, the headland was connected to the mainland via a narrow neck, over which a railway line connected it to the rest of Poland. In September 1939, the depot was held by some 220 men. Besides handguns, they were armed with one 75-mm field gun, two 37-mm Bofors antitank guns, four mortars and a number of medium machine guns. The commanding officer of the garrison, Major Henryk Sucharski, knew it was expected of him to withstand a German attack for up to twelve hours. By then they would all, according to plan, either be evacuated, relieved or dead.6
On 24 August 1939, the German pre-Dreadnought Schleswig-Holstein secured in the Harbour Channel, off Neufahrwasser. She was one of the original battleships retained by the Reichsmarine in 1918, now used for gunnery training, and her arrival in Danzig was officially to commemorate the twenty-five-year anniversary of the victory at Tannenberg and the sinking of the cruiser Magdeburg in August 1914.7 During the 25th, dignitaries from Danzig were received by Kapitän zur See Gustav Kleikamp as part of the protocol for visiting warships.8 Unknown to all of them, Oberleutnant Wilhelm Henningsen and 225 men of 3rd Marine-Stoßtrupp-Kompanie, a naval assault company, were kept out of sight below decks.
Kapitän zur See Gustav Kleikamp (left) taking Gauleiter Albert Forster, the Nazi leader in Danzig, on a tour of inspection around Schleswig-Holstein in the last days of August 1939. (Author’s collection)
After the guests had left, the ship was darkened and made ready for battle. At 21:00, however, a brief signal arrived, cancelling the attack without further explanation. Days of tension and confusion followed until, on the 30th, new orders arrived and Schleswig-Holstein was made ready for battle once again.
At 04:47 on 1 September, Kapitän Kleikamp gave the orders to open fire in earnest, releasing the carnage that was to become WWII.9 In the next six minutes, fifty-nine regular and eight armour-piercing 28-cm shells slammed into Westerplatte from the battleship’s forward turret. Some of the 15-cm guns joined in, quickly silencing the Polish 75-mm gun which tried to respond. At point-blank range the trajectories of the German shells were almost flat and it appears that few actually exploded. Still, most of the wooden buildings collapsed and large holes were made in the brick wall protecting the perimeter. Meanwhile, Henningsen and his men landed on the headland and, as soon as the fire from Schleswig-Holstein lifted, they advanced, expecting an easy victory. Major Sucharski radioed ‘. . . am under fire’ to his superiors and ordered the men into the trenches.
Schleswig-Holstein opening fire on Westerplatte at point-blank range in the morning of 1 September 1939. Note the horizontal guns. (Author’s collection)
Men of Oberleutnant Wilhelm Henningsen’s 3. Marine-Stoßtrupp-Kompanie (naval assault company) advancing on Westerplatte. (Author’s collection)