Inferno - Max Hastings [14]
Amid popular rage against the invaders of their homeland, there were scenes of mob violence which conferred no honour upon Poland’s cause. Mass arrests of ethnic Germans—supposed or potential fifth columnists—took place throughout early September. At Bydgoszcz on “Bloody Sunday,” 3 September, a thousand German civilians were massacred after allegations that they had fired on Polish troops. Some modern German historians claim that up to 13,000 ethnic Germans were killed during the campaign, most of them innocents; the true figure is almost certainly much lower, but such deaths provided a pretext for appalling and systemic Nazi atrocities towards Poles, and especially Polish Jews, which began within days of the invasion. Hitler told his generals at Obersalzberg: “Genghis Khan had millions of women and men killed by his own will and with a light heart. History sees him only as a great state-builder … I have sent my Death’s Head units to the east with the order to kill without mercy men, women and children of the Polish race or language. Only in such a way shall we win the Lebensraum that we need.”
When the Wehrmacht entered Łódź, thirteen-year-old George Slazak was bewildered by seeing some women throw flowers at the soldiers, and offer them sweets and cigarettes. Small children shouted “Heil Hitler!” Slazak wrote wonderingly: “Boys I was at school with waved swastika flags.” Though these welcoming civilians were Polish citizens, they were of German ancestry and now flaunted their heritage. Josef Goebbels launched a strident propaganda campaign to convince his own people of the justice of their cause. On 2 September the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter announced the invasion in a double-deck headline in red ink: “The Führer Proclaims the Fight for Germany’s Rights and Security.” On 6 September Lokal-Anzeiger’s headlines asserted: “Terrible Bestiality of the Poles—German Fliers Shot—Red Cross Columns Mowed Down—Nurses Murdered.” A few days later, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung carried the startling heading “Poles Bombard Warsaw.” The story below stated: “Polish artillery of every calibre opened fire from the eastern part of Warsaw against our troops in the western part of the city.” The German news agency denounced Polish resistance as “senseless and insane.”
Most young Germans, graduates of the Nazi educational system, unhesitatingly accepted the version of events offered by their leaders. “The advance of the armies has become an irresistible march to victory,” wrote a twenty-year-old Luftwaffe flight trainee. “Scenes of deep emotion occur within the liberations of the terrorised German residents of the Polish Corridor. Dreadful atrocities, crimes against all the laws of humanity, are brought to light by our armies. Near Bromberg and Thorn they discover mass graves containing the bodies of thousands of Germans who have been massacred by the Polish Communists.”
On 17 September, the date on which Poles expected the French to begin their promised offensive on the Western Front, the Soviet Union instead launched its own vicious thrust, designed to secure Stalin’s share of Hitler’s booty. Stefan Kurylak was a thirteen-year-old Ukrainian Pole, living in a quiet village near the Russian border. Retreating Polish troops began to trickle down its dusty main street on foot and on horseback, some crying out urgently, “Run—run for your lives, good people! Hide anywhere you can, for they are showing no mercy. Hurry. The Russians are coming!” Soon afterwards, the teenager watched a Soviet tank column clatter through the village: a child who lingered in its path, frightened