The Battle of the Westerplatte peninsula is generally considered the opening act of WWIl and the first combat between German and Polish forces on September 1st, 1939. The Polish demanded a place to build an ammunitions depot from the League of Nations since 1920, and in March 1924, they were given an area on the Westerplatte peninsula to build such a depot. The League of Nations allowed 90 Polish soldiers to be stationed there.
On September 1st, at around 4:45 -4:48 am, the German ship Schleswig-Holstein, a line ship from 1906 which was used as a training ship and had officially been sent to a friendly visit to Danzig (but was intended to bomb the city when war broke out), attacked the Polish ammunition depot. Despite heavy bombardments by German ships and planes, the following German infantry attack was badly prepared, with heavy losses amongst the German naval infantry and SS-militia. The Polish Garrison capitulated on September 7th, having lost only 15 men, while inflicting around 300 casualties among the Germans.

Source: YouTube German WWII Archive





by Jeanmichel50

31 comments

  1. I didn’t know about this, cool history detail, thank you.

  2. Thanks for sharing. My son is a huge Polish history nerd, he’s gonna love this!

  3. Great footage, I’ve seen many documentaries of WW2 and the invasion of Poland, never seen this footage

  4. Dang they barley glossed over this in high school. Like 1 page german assault polish losses the end.
    Neat to see this nugget when a super power made an uh oh lol.

  5. At :31 is that soot from all the guns firing or that damage from being hit?

  7. there’s some fucking heavy machine gun just firing nonstop throughout the video.

    anyone got any cleu what it is?

  8. They used tugs to take the ships into small places to fire??

  9. I’m from Gdansk and I have never seen this video. I didn’t even expect that something like this could exist.

  10. Lol most of the shells bounced or didn’t detonate because they were too close

  11. Any videos/clips on the polish side. Lots of German perspectives, but not much on the polish side.

  13. The Poles lost around 20% of their population during WW2 only to be abandoned to the Soviets there after even though the invasion of Poland was the cassus belli for France and Britain to declare war against Germany. It is good to see some historical footage that at least involves them as their part in WW2 is sorely under represented.

  14. Does not look like combat. More like one sided shore destructio n

  15. “The battleship’s initial bombardment was not very successful, failing to inflict a single casualty among the defenders, as due to the battleship’s proximity to its target its heavier shells did not have time to arm and did not explode upon impact.”

  16. I was born in Poland and have never seen this amazing footage, thank you.

  17. The first combat of World War II is…. On film? Nuts

  19. Westerplatte 1967 ‧ War/Drama ‧ 1h 36m is a pretty good movie.

  20. That’s insane to see the ship so close to the city like that, essentially broadsiding everything. It was sudden as well so imagine waking up that morning to the beginning of THE war, right in your city.

  21. this is insane holy crap, soldiers look like its just another Tuesday…

  22. Point blank bombardment by a battleship would be terrifying to face…

  23. Funny how the Strawler is trying to drag the ship into the other direction

  26. And I thought seeing a tank come around the corner was bad. Holy S….

  27. WOW. I have never seen this footage before! That is fucking insane. Thanks for posting sir.

  29. Saw this so many times, but not the full version of it. What is the tugboat doing there?

  31. Its a great day when you randomly come across some of the most badass WW footage

    Thanks for digging this up little homie

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