Bombing of Wieluń

The bombing of Wieluń is considered by many to be the first major act of World War II, and the September Campaign. After German Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87 planes moved into Polish airspace in the early morning of 1 September, they reached the town of Wieluń by 04:40–45. Around this time, the first airstrikes on the town were conducted, with a total of 46,000 kg of bombs being dropped on civilian targets for nine hours. Elsewhere, the Battle of Westerplatte and Danzig clashes began around the same time (04:45), starting the well-coordinated Invasion of Poland.

Located near the German border, the town of Wieluń was completely undefended, lacking anti-air capabilities and a military garrison. Despite Wieluń having no military targets, airstrikes continued. German intelligence reports had stated there was a Polish cavalry brigade stationed in the town. The Luftwaffe had reportedly bombed a "clearly marked" hospital, and strafed fleeing civilians, and also bombed the nearby towns of Działoszyn, Radomsko, and Sulejów, which also had no military targets.

In the aftermath, 127 civilian casualties were reported – possibly "several hundred" – but the exact number remains unknown. 70% of the town (90 percent, in the city center) was destroyed.

As the attack on the town happened without a declaration of war, it constituted the first German war crime in World War II, because it violated the 1907 Hague Convention III - Opening of Hostilities prohibiting hostilities against neutral powers without notification of a declaration of war.

Timing

The exact time the first bombs fell on Wieluń on the morning of 1 September 1939 has been a subject of debate, particularly in reference to claims that the town's bombing was the first overt act of World War II, preceding by five minutes the shelling of Westerplatte at 04:45, which has traditionally been considered the opening of the war.

The time given by most Polish sources is 04:40, but this is an average of eyewitness reports on various phases of the initial bombing run, which likely lasted more than a minute. Polish historian Tadeusz Olejnik reports a number of accounts of the first bombs falling as early as 04:30. Another Polish historian, Jan Książek, described 04:40 as a "certainly confirmed" time. Other historians, such as Grzegorz Bębnik, disagree that there was a time difference and give the attack time as 05:40; he also cites an eyewitness account giving the attack time as "shortly before 6 a.m." and notes that the eyewitness testimonies are likely unreliable as they were collected in 1961, two years after a commemorative plaque was put up in the town, giving the time as 04:40. He concludes the eyewitnesses were likely influenced by the plaque, which "corrected" their memories.

Events

thumb|right|Aerial view of part of the city on 1 September

On 1 September 1939, 29 Junkers Ju 87B Stukas of I group Sturzkampfgeschwader 76, under command of Captain (Hauptmann) Walter Sigel, took off from Nieder-Ellguth airfield. Half an hour later they reached Wieluń unopposed and dropped 29 500-kilogram bombs and 112 50-kilogram bombs. 32 persons in the hospital were killed. After the hospital began burning, German pilots strafed patients trying to escape the building. Within the hour all 29 aircraft landed back at Nieder-Ellguth, where Sigel reported "no noteworthy observation of the enemy." After the initial attack, German pilots reported no enemy presence in Wieluń. Two Dornier Do 17 reconnaissance planes that had surveyed the area between 04:50 and 05:02 for Polish military units, reported locating several, the nearest to the town being in a forest southwest of Wieluń.

At 13:00 hours (or 14:00 Based on German documents, Bębnik concludes that three morning waves and one lighter, afternoon wave of bombing can be confirmed. as time went by they have been revised and lowered. Norman Davies, who cited the number of "1,290 townspeople killed", common in older research, still relatively often reported in modern media, called the casualty rate "more than twice as high as Guernica's or Coventry's". Several accounts state that the German command had received reports of the possible presence of Polish cavalry of the Wołyń Cavalry Brigade in the town's vicinity, and at least one German pilot described the bombing of cavalry targets in the town itself. However, other German pilots had reported no military targets present. This view has also been supported by Polish historians Tadeusz Olejnik and Bogumił Rudawski. Another view of a number of historians is that the destruction of the town infrastructure may have been the raids' aim, in order to test the tactics and firepower of the Luftwaffe, in particular of the new Ju 87B bomber. German historian Hans-Erich Volkmann notes that, for the German 10th Army, which was the critical military factor in this section of the front, Wieluń would have had no operational, let alone strategic, importance to justify its bombing. The commander responsible for the Luftwaffe, Wolfram von Richthofen, would have personally ordered the attack. Volkmann, like Böhler, observes that while Richthofen might not have intended it as a "terror attack", he had selected Wieluń as a target close to the border in order to test the capabilities and operational effectiveness of his dive bombers, if possible without losses to his own force. Volkmann characterizes the destruction of Wieluń as an attack on a non-military target and therefore as a war crime. Similar reasons for bombing a defenseless small town are given by historian Norman Davies for the bombing of Frampol two weeks later: "Frampol was chosen partly because it was completely defenceless, and partly because its baroque street plan presented a perfect geometric grid for calculations and measurements."

Piątkowski, analysing the bombing from the perspective of aerial bombardment and international law, concludes that the bombing constituted a violation of a number of war norms, in particular relating to humanitarianism and proportional force. He also discusses the applicability of the term "terror bombing" in the light of a never-adopted 1923 draft convention (The Hague Rules of Air Warfare) that introduced the term. He concludes that, in order to describe the Wieluń raids as terror bombing, documents would have to prove that the real reason for the bombing was the terrorizing of the civilian populace and not a misidentification of military targets.

<blockquote>Despite the aforementioned debates, Wieluń remains the first assault involving civilian casualties of the Second World War, and many see it as a symbol of Polish suffering during the war. As such, it is being compared to Guernica – a town destroyed in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, no less but by the same Luftwaffe forces under the command of the field marshal Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen.</blockquote>

Major landmarks, damaged or destroyed

Targets destroyed by German bombing included:

The , built in the 13th–14th centuries
The , with a clear Red Cross roof sign, whose bombing killed 32 persons, including 26 patients

The bombing of Wieluń is part of an exhibit at the German Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden.

Prosecution attempts

Two attempts, in 1978 and 1983, to prosecute individuals for the bombing of the Wieluń hospital were dismissed by West German judges when prosecutors stated that, in the morning fog, the pilots had been unable to make out the nature of the structure.

References

External links

Wieluń 4.40 – film dok. Video on Demand, TVP. Documentary about Wieluń
Summary of a German TV report making the case for the bombing of Wielun as a war crime