Westerplatte- A German Vet's Account

Nothing really new, but nice to hear a first-hand account
"The German gunner who fired the first shots of the Second World War claims the conflict began 55 minutes than Hitler claimed.
Hermann Gerdau, now 100 years old, was a gunner aboard the Nazi battleship Schleswig Holstein whose big guns opened up on Poland in the early hours of September 1 1939.
Speaking for the first time of his part in the conflict he said: 'Hitler told the world that the bombardment began at 5.45am, but this was untrue.
'It began at 4.50am. I know because I was there.'
It was the first of the many thousands of lies Hitler would tell the German people throughout the conflict.
Gerdau, now a resident of an OAP home near Hamburg, was 26 on the morning the world changed forever.
He said: 'We knew nothing of Hitler's war plans, but immediately before the invasion of Poland, strange things happened.
'At night we took 225 marine infantry, machine guns and ammunition on board a feeder ship and early the next morning came the order to open fire on the Westerplatte Polish naval base that was only 500 metres away from us.
'The call to battle stations came and I jumped out of the hammock and ran to my post. We fired the first shots of the war. We were so close it was impossible to miss.
'I was bound up in the euphoria of victory. We were all seized by the Nazi regime. But I was not enthusiastic about the war in general. And soon there was only horror.'
He lost countless comrades in the battles to come. Some 800 men from the Schleswig-Holstein - which was sunk by British bombs in 1944 - were transferred in 1941 to the battleship Bismarck, which was sunk with the loss of nearly all hands in May that year."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402032/WWII-started-55-minutes-earlier-Hitler-claimed-Extraordinary-confession-Nazi-battleship-gunner-fired-shots-Polish-Naval-base.html#ixzz2d5BIQIDS

 

the strange things could be the Gleiwitz incident

On the night of 31 August 1939, a small group of German operatives, dressed in Polish uniforms and led by Naujocks,[2] seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcast a short anti-German message in Polish (sources vary on the content of the message). The Germans' goal was to make the attack and the broadcast look like the work of anti-German Polishsaboteurs.[2][3]
To make the attack seem more convincing, the Germans brought in Franciszek Honiok, a German Silesian known for sympathizing with the Poles, who had been arrested the previous day by the Gestapo. Honiok was dressed to look like a saboteur; then killed by lethal injection, given gunshot wounds, and left dead at the scene, so that he appeared to have been killed while attacking the station. His corpse was subsequently presented as proof of the attack to the police and press.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident

 

Good story Gordon. The fellow looks good for 100 as well -- hopefully someone has taken down his story in more detail before its lost to history.

 

This has always been a question for me.
Allowing for the passage of 75 years...and the "fanaticism" of some of the German Elites.....did it seem believable to Germany... that the attack on the radio station was reason for their Army to invade Poland.?
Or maybe the first military actions taken by Germany were smaller than I presume.?
I have the impression that there was a "small attack" on a German radio station...and then the German Army went full force into Poland and Warsaw.
Thank You

 

First you must set aside much of what you understand about the way people get information nowadays. No Internet, Cell Phones, or 24 hour news programs, but this was just the beginning as those sources available to the average German (newspapers, periodicals and radio) were strictly controlled by the Nazi regime.

From what I have read and seen the common German did not want a war and was deeply apprehensive about the start of hostilities on September 1, 1939. German propaganda used a mixture of the truth, exaggeration and outright lies to condition the people into the belief that outside forces, bent upon the destruction of a revitalized Germany, was ever in motion and that only the wise and determined efforts of Hitler had persevered the peace of Europe so far.

The concept that Hitler was manipulating existing discord or manufacturing them from whole cloth got very little purchase in the minds of the German people. He had delivered order, prosperity and national pride (or so it appeared), so they were willing to put their faith in his hands. People were considerably more trusting of their governments then.

From what I can glean, most average Germans thought the radio station attack was real and a act by radical Polish Army officers to create trouble and to either force Germany to step back or bring about a general European conflict in the same manner as Serbia's manipulation of the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Arch-Duke in 1914.

 

Yeah...Thanks.
I kind of forgot about the government just telling outright lies to the people...and exaggerating the facts to justify an invasion of another country.
You think I would be hip to that by now
Thanks Again for putting things into perspective.