 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Battle of Wizna" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Battle of Wizna | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theInvasion of Poland | |||||||
 Tactical map of the battle | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Germany |  Poland | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Heinz GuderianFerdinand Schaal | Władysław Raginis †Stanisław Brykalski † | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 41,000 infantry 350 tanks 657 artillery pieces | 900 infantry[1] 676 mm guns 42 MGs 2anti-tank rifles | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Heavy | ~660 casualties 40 captured | ||||||
TheBattle of Wizna (Polish: Obrona Wizny) was fought between September 7 and September 10, 1939, between the forces ofPoland andGermany during the initial stages of theinvasion of Poland, which marked the beginning of theSecond World War in Europe. According to Polish historianLeszek Moczulski, between 350 and 720 Poles defended a fortified line for three days against more than 40,000 Germans.[1] Although defeat was inevitable, the Polish defence stalled the attacking forces for three days and postponed the encirclement ofIndependent Operational Group Narew fighting nearby.[2] Eventually the tanks broke through the Polish line and German engineers eliminated all the shelters one by one. The last shelter surrendered around midday on September 10.[3]
Because the battle consisted of a small force holding a piece of fortified territory against a vastly larger invasion for three days at great cost before being annihilated, Wizna is sometimes referred to as the "Polish Thermopylae".[4][5] One of the symbols of the battle is CaptainWładysław Raginis, the commanding officer of the Polish force, who swore to hold his position as long as he was alive. When the last two shelters under his command ran out of ammunition, he ordered his men to surrender their arms and committed suicide by detonating a grenade against his neck.
Before the war, the area of the village ofWizna was prepared as a fortified line of defence. It was to shield the Polish positions further to the south and guard the crossing of theNarew andBiebrza rivers. The 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) long line of Polish defences stretched between the villages ofKołodzieje andGrądy-Woniecko, with Wizna in the centre. The line ran some 35 kilometres (22 mi) from the border withEast Prussia, along an elevated banks ofNarew andBiebrza rivers.[6] Units defending the line were subordinate to the PolishIndependent Operational Group Narew shieldingŁomża and providing defence of the northern approach to Warsaw.[6] The Wizna fortified area was one of the most important nodes in Northern Poland, providing cover of both the river crossings, and the roadsŁomża–Białystok and roads towardsBrześć Litewski on the rear of Polish forces.
Construction started in June 1939, only two months before the outbreak of World War II.[6] The spot was chosen carefully; most of the concretebunkers were built on hills overlooking a swampy Narew River valley. They could be reached either through direct assault through the swamps or by attack along the causeway leading from the bridge in Wizna. Before September 1, 1939, only 16 bunkers were built out of 60 planned.[6] Six bunkers were made of heavy concrete with reinforced steel cupolas weighing 8 tons each, armed with machine guns and anti-tank artillery.[6] Two were light concrete bunkers, armed with machine guns only.[6] The remaining eight were ad hoc machine gunpillboxes, protected mostly by sandbags and earthworks. Four additional heavy bunkers were under construction when World War II started. In addition, the area was reinforced withtrenches, anti-tank and anti-personnel obstacles,barbed wire lines andland mines. There were also plans to break thedams on theBiebrza andNarew rivers to flood the area, but the summer of 1939 was one of the driest seasons in Polish history and the water level was too low.
Although not all bunkers were ready by the beginning of the war, the Polish lines of defence were well-prepared. The walls of an average bunker, 1.5 metres thick and reinforced with 20-centimetre-thick steel plates, could withstand a direct hit from even the heaviest guns available to theWehrmacht at the time. The bunkers were situated on hills which gave good visibility of all the advancing forces.
The Polish defensive line was initially manned by a single battalion from the 71st Infantry Regiment, commanded by Major Jakub Fober. However, shortly before the outbreak of World War II it was reinforced with a machine gun company fromOsowiec Fortress under CaptainWładysław Raginis, as well as numerous smaller detachments from a variety of units.[6] On September 2, 1939, the III/71 battalion departed for Osowiec, and Fober passed command over Wizna to Raginis and his men. Altogether, the Polish defensive position was manned by 720 men: 20 officers and 700 NCOs and privates.[6] However, some sources claim that the Polish unit was even weaker, no more than 360 men strong.[7]
Although the Polish units were almost entirely composed of conscripts mobilised in August 1939 rather than professional soldiers, their morale was very high.[6] After the war, Guderian had trouble explaining why his corps was stopped by such a small force. In his memoirs he attributes the delay to his officers "having trouble building bridges across the rivers".[8] During theNuremberg Trials he remarked that Wizna was "well-defended by a local officer school".[8]
|
|
On September 1, 1939, thePolish Defensive War and World War II started. The German 3rd Army was to advance fromEast Prussia towardsWarsaw, directly through the positions of PolishNarew Corps. On September 2 CaptainWładysław Raginis was named the commander of the Wizna area. As his command post he chose the "GG-126" bunker near the village ofGóra Strękowa. The bunker was located on a hill in the exact centre of the Polish lines. His forces numbered approximately 700 soldiers andNCOs and 20 officers armed with 6 pieces of artillery (75mm), 24HMGs, 18machine guns and twoKb ppanc wz.35anti-tank rifles, with just 20 bullets.
After initial clashes at the border, thePodlaska Cavalry Brigade operating in the area, during the night of 3/4 September was ordered to withdraw and on September 5 it left the area and marched towardMały Płock to cross the river Narew. On September 3 Polish positions were spotted from the air and strafed with machine gun fire from enemy fighters.
On September 7, 1939, the reconnaissance units of the10th Panzer Division of GeneralNikolaus von Falkenhorst captured the village of Wizna. Polish mounted reconnaissance squads abandoned the village after a short fight and retreated to the southern bank ofNarew. When German tanks tried to cross the bridge, it was blown up by Polish engineers. After dark, patrols of German infantry crossed the river and advanced towards Giełczyn, but were repelled with heavy casualties.
On September 8, GeneralHeinz Guderian, commander of theXIX Panzer Corps, was ordered to advance throughWizna towardsBrześć. By the early morning of September 9, his units reached the Wizna area and were joined with 10th Panzer Division and"Lötzen" Infantry Brigade already present in the area. His forces numbered some 1,200 officers and 41,000 soldiers and NCOs, equipped with over 350tanks, 108howitzers, 58 pieces of artillery, 195 anti-tank guns, 108mortars, 188 grenade launchers, 288heavy machine guns, and 689machine guns. Altogether, his forces were some 60 times stronger than the Polish defenders.
In the early morning, German planesdropped leaflets that urged the Poles to surrender and claimed that most of Poland was already in German hands, and that further resistance was futile. In order to strengthen the morale of his troops, Władysław Raginis and Lieutenant Brykalski swore that they would not leave their post alive and that resistance would continue.[1] Soon after that a German artillery barrage and aerial bombardment started.[8] The Polish artillery was much weaker and was soon forced to retreat towardsBiałystok. After preparation, the Germans attacked the northern flank of the Polish forces. Two platoons defending several bunkers located to the north of Narew were attacked from three sides by German tanks and infantry. Initially the losses among German infantry were high, but after heavy artillery fire, the commander of the Giełczyn area, First Lieutenant Kiewlicz, was ordered to burn the wooden bridge over Narew and withdraw toBiałystok. The remnants of his forces broke through the German encirclement and reached Białystok, where they joined the forces of GeneralFranciszek Kleeberg.
At the same time, an assault on the southern part of Polish fortifications became a stalemate. The Polish bunkers lacked adequate anti-tank armament, but were able to rake the German infantry with machine gun fire. However, at 6 o'clock in the evening, the Polish infantry was forced to abandon the trenches and field fortifications and retreat into the bunkers. The German tanks could finally cross the Polish lines and advance towardsTykocin andZambrów. However, the German infantry was still under heavy fire and was pinned down in the swampy fields in front of the Polish bunkers.
Although Raginis was subordinate to Lieutenant Colonel Tadeusz Tabaczyński, commander of theOsowiec fortified area located some 30 kilometres to the north, he could not expect any reinforcements. On September 8, theMarshal of Poland,Edward Rydz-Śmigły, ordered the 135th Infantry Regiment, which constituted the reserves of both Osowiec and Wizna, to be withdrawn to Warsaw. When the order was withdrawn and the unit returned to Osowiec, it was already too late to help the isolated Poles at Wizna.
Heavy fighting for each of the now isolated bunkers continued. Several assaults were repelled during the night and in the early morning of September 10.[9] At approximately 11 o'clock, German engineers, with the help of tanks and artillery, finally managed to destroy all but two of the Polish bunkers. Both of them were located[10] in the centre of Strękowa Góra and continued fighting despite having much of the crew wounded or incapacitated and most of their machine guns destroyed. After the war, the Poles insisted that Guderian, in an attempt to end the Polish resistance, threatened the Polish commander that he would shoot thePOWs if the remaining forces did not surrender.[11] The resistance, however, continued for another hour, when a German envoy arrived carrying aflag of truce and proposed acease fire.[6] It lasted until approximately 1:30 p.m. Raginis, realising that all of his men were wounded and his ammunition was almost depleted, ordered his men to surrender their arms to the Germans. He himself – seriously injured at the time – refused to surrender and committed suicide by detonating a grenade against his neck.[9]
After the Polish resistance ended, the XIX Panzer Corps advanced towardsWysokie Mazowieckie andZambrów, where it fought theBattle of Zambrów against thePolish 18th Infantry Division, finally encircling and destroying the Polish division during theBattle of Andrzejewo. Later it advanced further southwards and took part in theBattle of Brześć.
Although all the bunkers were destroyed and the Polish resistance was finally broken, the fortified area of Wizna managed to halt the German advance for three days.[9] The heroic struggle against overwhelming odds is one of the symbols of thePolish Defensive War of 1939 and is a part of Polish popular culture.
Exact Polish losses are unknown, mostly because very little is known of the soldiers that were taken asprisoners of war by the Germans. Out of 720 Polish soldiers only approximately 70 survived.[9] Some successfully withdrew and reached the Polish lines, others were taken prisoner. Some of the prisoners were subsequently killed by the Germans, others were beaten and abused but survived and were eventually taken to POW camps.[12]
German losses are not known either. An official release by the Wehrmacht mentioned "several dozen dead".[13]
TheWehrmacht lost at least 10 tanks and several otherAFVs in the struggle.[14][citation needed]
The history of the 10th Tank Division for September 8 mentions 9 killed and 26 wounded in action for the ALA.[clarification needed] The I./IR 86, which was the main unit of the capture of the bunkers reported on September 9 at 17:00 the loss of 40 men.[15] There are some losses of the Tank Regiment 8 reported as well. The following fighting at Wysokie-Mazowieckie and Andrzejewo make it difficult to differentiate the losses.
The Battle of Wizna is the theme of the song "40:1", on the albumThe Art of War by the Swedish metal bandSabaton.
Do tej pory uważano, że Raginis dysponował 720 żołnierzami. Analiza nowych źródeł skłoniła nas do przekonania, że nie miał nawet tego. Pod jego komendą mogło znajdować się góra 360 ludzi