Polish Post Office
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Transcript
On 1 September 1939 German forces attacked the Polish Post Office in the Free City of Danzig. The postal workers defended the building for hours before surrendering.
At roughly the same time, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military depot at Westerplatte. These attacks are among the opening actions of the Second World War in Europe. It is better to say “among the first” than to stage a pointless competition for the exact first shot while a continent was being invaded.
After the Post Office defenders surrendered, many were later executed after a German court proceeding now recognised as a judicial crime.
The site matters because the Free City arrangement had made the Post Office more than a workplace. It was an expression of Polish state presence inside a politically volatile city.
The cheerful administrative phrase “postal rights” becomes much less cheerful when the building has to defend itself with rifles.