The battle of Westerplatte, day by day

The battle of Westerplatte was fought over a small Polish military depot inside the Free City of Gdańsk. In 1924 the League of Nations Council decided to give Poland the peninsula, from 1926, as a base for unloading arms and ammunition.⁹ The Polish garrison was meant to be a guard, not a fortress: an 88-strong unit whose men changed every half year.¹⁰ What happened there in September turned a quiet harbour enclave into a place Poland has remembered ever since.

Building fortifications was forbidden, so the works went ahead in strict secrecy.¹¹ In 1933 and 1934 the Poles put up 4 reinforced-concrete guardhouses, and a barracks building followed 2 years later.¹² As war came closer in the summer of 1939, the garrison was reinforced to about 217 soldiers and reservists drawn from the civilian workers, in the count of the Museum of Gdańsk.¹³ Barbed wire, obstacles hidden in the grass and timber-and-earth positions were added, and trees were felled to open fields of fire.¹⁴

On 25 August 1939 the German training battleship Schleswig-Holstein sailed into Gdańsk on what was announced as a courtesy visit, in place of the light cruiser Königsberg.¹⁵ It moored in the port canal 150 m from the peninsula.¹⁶ The German plan had first set the attack for 26 August; Hitler moved it to 1 September at the last minute.¹⁷ For almost a week the ship lay opposite the depot, its guns within close range of the Polish positions.

The defence rested on a ring of concrete posts around fortified barracks. The guardhouses had machine-gun positions, and the barracks had a reinforced-concrete shelter in an underground storey.^40,41 Guardhouse No. 1, by the base of the peninsula, was a key point for the whole week: fire from its cellar and windows kept the Germans away from the canal side and the neck of land.⁴² In September 1939 the barracks held the command post, the main dressing station, the radio room and the combat power plant.⁴³

The Polish arsenal was light. The City of Gdańsk lists 1 field gun of 75 mm, 2 anti-tank guns of 37 mm, 4 mortars of 81 mm, 42 machine guns, 160 rifles, 40 pistols and 560 grenades of each kind.³⁵ Facing the depot, the battleship carried 4 guns of 280 mm, 10 of 150 mm and 4 of 88 mm.³⁶ The heritage institute puts the whole German force sent against the peninsula at around 3400 soldiers and police.⁵

The mortars mattered more than their number suggests. Their fire helped turn back the first German infantry attack, and 104 rounds were fired before bombs damaged them on 2 September.⁴⁴ In recent excavations the museum's archaeologists turned up the base plate of a mortar from that set of 4, beside the barracks' north wing.⁴⁵ It is only the 4th piece of Polish weaponry from 1939 found on the battlefield among more than 110,000 artefacts.⁴⁶

From 3 to 6 September the depot held under heavy shelling while German patrols probed the lines and fresh forces gathered for a final blow.²² Water, medical supplies and any hope of relief were running out, yet the men kept fighting.¹⁰² The garrison's original task had been to hold for 6 hours, then 12, until a relief force arrived.¹⁰³ That force was disbanded before it could come, which, in the city's account, made the outcome certain from the first day.¹⁰⁴

Outside the peninsula, the struggle became a symbol while it was still going on. Radio announcements that the defence of Westerplatte continued carried real weight amid news of retreat elsewhere.³⁹ Italians were the first to call the garrison the Lions of Westerplatte, during the fighting.¹⁰⁵ German reporters expected a quick win and watched it from the far bank in Nowy Port, while a radio van broadcast the fighting live.^56,57

German reporting slowly changed its tone. Stories of a quick win gave way to tales of strong fortifications, and the peninsula was called a little Verdun.¹⁰⁶ Drzycimski argues that the battle did not matter for the course of the war, yet the defenders won against the Reich's propaganda machine.¹⁰⁷ For 8 September the Germans had planned a massive air attack.¹⁰⁸

Polish losses are given consistently: 15 soldiers were killed in the fighting.⁸ Wounded figures vary, from about 40 in the city's timeline to 50 in other accounts.^111,119 German losses are uncertain; the Museum of Gdańsk says they are still unknown.⁸ Older figures spoke of about 300 killed, while newer research cited by the city puts German dead at 30 to 50 and wounded at 120 to 150.¹²⁰

Even the size of the garrison is counted in different ways, depending on who is included. The heritage institute's monument record writes of 200 infantrymen, the defence ministry's magazine of 210, the city's timeline of about 215 soldiers and civilian workers, Drzycimski of about 216, the Museum of Gdańsk of about 217 and the same institute's anniversary article of about 220.^{5,32,33,34,13,6}

Today the battlefield is protected by law. A presidential decree of 22 August 2003 declared it a Monument of History.¹²¹ A new museum is rising here, and its archaeologists are still searching for missing defenders who may lie in the ground.^76,122 What happened at Westerplatte in 1939 is still being uncovered, one excavation season at a time.^123,124 Walk it with that in mind: this is a battlefield and a war grave, and the museum asks every visitor to behave with gravity and respect.⁹³