On this date, October 20, 1939, a mass execution of 15 local residents was carried out, part of Operation Tannenberg. I will post information about this Nazi War Crime from Wikipedia and other links.
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Symbol of Einsatzgruppen [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Einsatzgruppen/3540390745] |
Operation Tannenberg Unternehmen Tannenberg | |||
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Location | German occupied Poland | ||
Date | 1939 | ||
Target | Polish people | ||
Attack type | Genocidal Massacre, mass shooting | ||
Weapons | Automatic weapons | ||
Deaths | 20,000 deaths in 760 mass executions by SS Einsatzgruppen | ||
Perpetrators | Nazi Germany | ||
Operation Tannenberg (German: Unternehmen Tannenberg) was the codename for one of the extermination actions directed at the Polish people during World War II, part of the Generalplan Ost. Proscription lists (Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen), prepared by Germans before the war, identified more than 61,000 members of the Polish elite: activists, intelligentsia, scholars, actors, former officers, and others, who were to be interned or shot. Members of the German minority living in Poland assisted in preparing the lists.
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Polish teachers from Bydgoszcz guarded by members of so-called "Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz". Photo taken before the execution in the "Valley of Death" near the Bydgoszcz |
Implementation
The plan was created in May 1939. Following the orders of Adolf Hitler, a special unit dubbed Tannenberg was created within the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt). It commanded a number of Einsatzgruppender Sicherheitspolizei und des SD formed with Gestapo, Kripo and SDofficers who were theoretically subordinate to local Wehrmachtcommanders. Their task was to arrest all the people listed on the proscription lists prepared before the outbreak of World War II.
First, in August 1939 about 2,000 activists of Polish minority organisations in Germany were arrested and murdered. The second part of the action began on September 1, 1939, and ended in October, resulting in at least 20,000 deaths in 760 mass executions by Einsatzgruppen special task units with some help from regular Wehrmacht (armed forces) units. In addition, a special formation was created from the German minority living in Poland called Selbstschutz, whose members had trained in Germany before the war in diversion and guerilla fighting (see: Deutscher Volksverband, the German People's Union in Poland). The formation was responsible for many massacres and due to its bad reputation was dissolved by Nazi authorities after the September Campaign.
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