Wawer massacre

The Wawer massacre refers to the execution of 107 Polish civilians on the night of 26 to 27 December 1939 by the Nazi occupiers of Wawer (near Warsaw), Poland. The execution was a response to the deaths of two German NCOs. 120 people were arrested and 114 shot, of which 7 survived. Among the dead were 11 Polish Jews.

It is considered to be one of the first large scale massacres of Polish civilians by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland.

Background

Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Poland in September 1939. From the start, the war against Poland was intended to be the fulfilment of a plan described by Adolf Hitler in his book "Mein Kampf". The main gist of the plan was for all of Eastern Europe to become part of a Greater Germany, the German "Lebensraum" ("living space"). The German Army was sent, as stated by Adolf Hitler in his Armenian quote: "with orders for them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish race and language".

On the evening of 26 December, two known Polish criminals killed two German non-commissioned officers from Baubataillon 538.pl icon [http://web.archive.org/web/20080213130306/http://powstanie-warszawskie-1944.ac.pl/zbrodnie_wawer.htm Zbrodnia w Wawrze] ] en icon cite book | author =Tadeusz Piotrowski | coauthors = | title =Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide... | year =1997 | editor = | pages= [http://books.google.com/books?id=hC0-dk7vpM8C&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Wawer+1939++-wikipedia&source=web&ots=vC8DQHO6Zn&sig=0WmHmwrkQdlePban-kujYMtPYck&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result p. 25] | chapter = | chapterurl = | publisher =McFarland & Company | location = | id =ISBN 0-7864-0371-3 | format = | accessdate = ] After learning of it, the acting commander of the Ordnungspolizei in Warsaw, colonel Max Daume [http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Daume] , ordered an immediate reprisal, consisting of a series of arrests of random Polish males, aged 16 to 70, found in the region where the killings occurred (in Wawer and the neighboring Anin villages).

Massacre

After a kangaroo court presided over by major colonel Wilhelm Wenzl, 114 of the 120 people arrested - who had no knowledge of the recent killings, many of whom were roused from their beds - were sentenced to death. They were not given the opportunity to plead their case. Of the 114, one managed to escape, 7 were shot but not killed and managed to escape later, and 107 were shot dead. The dead included one professional military officer, one journalist, two Polish-American citizens, a 12-year old boy and 11 Polish Jews. [Martin Gilbert, "The Second World War: A Complete History", Macmillan, 2004, ISBN 0805076239, [http://books.google.com/books?id=bt5kMbxqHTgC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=Wawer+1939++-wikipedia&source=web&ots=7aZaicEcWv&sig=E14iDhMsezOX9UK_i-BSeVYpHi8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result Google Print, p.36] ] Some of the executed were not locals, but merely visiting their families for Christmas.

Aftermath

It was one of the first massacres (probably the second, after the Bochnia massacre [http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbrodnia_w_Bochni] of 52 civilians on December 18) to occur in occupied Poland. It was also one of the first instances of the large scale implementation by Germany of the doctrine of collective responsibility in the General Government in Poland since the end of the invasion in September.pl icon Czesław Michalski, "Wojna warszawsko-niemiecka", Czytelnik, Warszawa 1974, as cited by Barbara Szpinda, " [http://bibliotekawawer.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=49&limit=1&limitstart=2 1999 - 60. ROCZNICA ...] ", 1999] Jerzy Jan Lerski, Piotr Wróbel, Richard J. Kozicki, "Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945", Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996, ISBN 0313260079, [http://books.google.com/books?id=FPxhOu_n1VYC&pg=PA645&lpg=PA645&dq=Wawer+1939++-wikipedia&source=web&ots=qddBEMyBe5&sig=3Q-Ks4i7c6dkB39Zahky1R-gdKk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result Google Print, p.645] ] [Bernd Wegner, "From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia, and the World, 1939-1941", , Berghahn Books, 1997, ISBN 1571818820, [http://books.google.com/books?id=aESBIpIm6UcC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=Wawer+1939++-wikipedia&source=web&ots=3EinCNhn-0&sig=rFcFGDV8weNFNUMOeAA2gCAZ3Bw&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA54,M1 Google Print, p.54] ]

Soon after the massacre a Polish youth resistance organization, "Wawer", was created. It was part of the Szare Szeregi (the underground Polish Scouting Association), and its first act was to create a series of graffiti in Warsaw around the Christmas of 1940, commemorating the massacre.

On 3 March 1947 the Polish Supreme National Tribunal for the Trial of War Criminals ("Najwyższy Trybunał Narodowy") sentenced Max Daume to death. Wilhelm Wenzl was extradited to Poland by the Soviets in 1950 and executed in November 1951.

There is now a monument in Wawer commemorating the massacre.

References

Further reading

* Jan Bijata, "Wawer", Książka i Wiedza, Warszawa 1973