All across Poland’s front, the Germans maintain the pace of the offensive, ignoring the British and French ultimatum. Bombs rain down on Warsaw that Sunday morning, adding a cacophony to church services.
The Luftwaffe attacks the undefended Polish town of Sulejow, where a peacetime population of 6,500 Poles and Polish Jews are swelled by 3,000 refugees. The Luftwaffe sets the town ablaze and strafes the area for good measure. “As we were running to the woods,” a young boy, Ben Helfgott recalls, “People were falling, people were on fire. That night the sky was red from the burning town.”
Polish determination is not enough against German firepower. The Poles hold on grimly, but take heavy casualties in the initial fighting. But the German bombardment of the Polish communication lines means that the Poles cannot move reserves and supplies forward easily or effectively. The situation is rapidly growing critical.
In the north, the German army succeeds in bursting through the Polish Corridor and achieving a land link with East Prussia. “Fast Heinz” Guderian’s tanks cut off the Polish Corridor. In the center in Silesia, infantry and artillery make the gains in old style, and the Poles, after two days of fighting while encircled, begin to surrender.
In the south, General Gerd von Rundstedt’s tanks drive on Cracow and Lodz, with Gen. Walter von Reichenau’s 10th Army seizing Czestochowa, between the two major cities.
Polish troops continue to battle the Germans in and near East Prussia. Near Frankowo in East Prussia, a retreating regiment of the Mazowiecka Cavalry Brigade decided to turn against the German 1st Cavalry Brigade, instead of retreating. The Poles overrun and disperse a German cavalry regimental headquarters, halting the German advance. The Poles then break contact and withdraw at their own pace.
In the mountainous Carpathians, General Wilhelm von Thoma’s tanks rumble over a ridge and descend into a valley. Von Thoma says later, “I arrived in a village to find the people all going to church. How astonished they were to see my tanks approaching! I had turned the enemy’s defenses without losing a single tank.”
German naval units sink the Polish minelayer Gryf and the destroyer Wicher while bombarding the Polish port of Gdynia.
Through numbers, technology, and professionalism, the Luftwaffe has gained air superiority, and bombs targets in the Polish rear.
For the Polish population, there is nowhere to hide. Villages are burning, roads are jammed, and larger cities are increasingly full of refugees fleeing battle zones and troop transports heading in every direction. Owners of country estates and merchants open their homes and shops to the refugees, willing to do their part.
The Polish air force is in disarray, too – its airmen struggling against heavy numbers and superior aircraft. Inch by inch, the Luftwaffe gains air supremacy, not by bombing planes on the ground, but in wild battles in the air.
The Polish air force makes itself felt. Over Lodz, fighter aircraft shoot down German Fieseler Storch observation planes.
The Polish air force is also introduced to German brutality. In a dogfight, 112 Squadron’s CO, Zdzislaw Krasnodebksi bails out of a cockpit in flames. He watches in horror as a German fighter turns and strafes his slowly-falling parachute. Krasnodebski prepares for death, but a Polish plane zooms in and sends the German fleeing, enabling him to land safely. But other Polish pilots are less fortunate.
All of Poland is learning that the Germans are waging a war of annihilation. Across the nation, German planes machine-gun everything and everyone they see – women and girls picking potatoes in fields…churches and maternity hospitals…even strafing toddlers being herded to safety after their nursery school is hit. In one raid, the Luftwaffe dives low over a Warsaw cemetery and machine-guns mourners attending funerals for victims of a previous raid.
German troops approach Bydgoszcz, but encounter tough resistance from the 15th Infantry Division. In the town itself a critical situation develops when the small but well-organized German minority tries to seize power by force. The Polish civilian population quashes the uprising.
On the right bank of the Vistula, Polish troops defend their positions east of Grudziadz for the third straight day against the German 21st Corps, but finally face facts: they have suffered a heavy defeat in the Polish Corridor. General Bortnwoski reports to Smigly-Rydz: “The situation is such that all the cut-off units must be regarded as lost…Perhaps with this situation I feel it my duty to put myself at your disposal, Marshal. I accept the blame and ask you to deal with my case at any time you wish.”
Smigly-Rydz answers: “General, it’s too bad…Nothing can be undone, but we must hold out. We shall have to face more than one bad experience. We shall have to hold out, and we shall.” The Commander-in-Chief then orders the immediate deep withdrawal of the Pomorze Army, which takes place on the 4th and 5th, without enemy interference – mostly because the German Fourth Army is headed for East Prussia, to continue the grand encirclement of the Poles.
At Hel Peninsula, Jedrzej Giertych, now lacking a ship, is assigned to the “Yougan Company” of Polish Marines and shipwrecked sailors. Over the radio, they hear that France and Britain are at war with Germany.
Hel is at the head of a peninsula that contained a mostly German population up to 1914; though originally Dutch, they became German. Between the wars the population became predominantly Polish. Now it is the major Polish naval base and commercial port, defended with artillery, naval guns, and AA guns. The Germans invest the peninsula and seal off its 3,000-man garrison. The German bring up the two antique battleships, Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein, to bombard the fortress.
Giertych’s company is assigned to defend the peninsula against possible German landings. The Germans shell the fortress, but don’t land.
In Palestine, the Jewish Agency publishes a declaration offering unlimited support for the anti-Nazi war.
At 4 a.m., Nevile Henderson asks to meet with Ribbentrop. The Nazi Foreign Minister tells his interpreter, “Really, you could receive the Ambassador in my place. Just ask the English whether that will suit them, and say that the Foreign Minister is not available at nine o’clock.” The message is given to the British, and interpreter Paul Schmidt goes home for a few hours of sleep.
In Washington, FDR is playing poker with his key aides when the dispatch arrives at midnight from London. Roosevelt reads it and says, “War will be declared by noon tomorrow.” The poker game is over, with FDR the big loser ($35) and Harold Ickes the big winner ($53.50).
At 4 a.m., Washington time, US Ambassador to England Joseph Kennedy phones the White House, telling Roosevelt that Chamberlain is about to make a speech declaring war. “It’s the end of the world, the end of everything,” the hysterical Kennedy says. “The Dark Ages are returning.”
Paul Schmidt wakes up late in Berlin – everybody is exhausted – and races over to the Foreign Ministry just in time to meet Sir Nevile Henderson, who is emerging from his car. The two men shake hands, and Schmidt offers Henderson a seat in his office. Henderson declines and stands in the center of the room. Schmidt remains standing.
Henderson says, “I regret that on the instructions of my government I have to hand you an ultimatum for the German government,” Henderson reads. “More than 24 hours have elapsed since an immediate reply was requested to the warning of September 1, and since then the attacks on Poland have intensified. If His Majesty’s government have not received satisfactory assurances of the cessation of all aggressive actions against Poland, and the withdrawal of German troops from that country by 11 o’clock, British Summer Time, from that time a state of war will exist between Great Britain and Germany.”
After reading the statement, Henderson hands it to Schmidt. Henderson is very sorry. Schmidt repeats Henderson’s comment and offers his own farewell.
With the ultimatum, Schmidt goes posthaste to the Reich Chancellery, to present it to Hitler, who is sitting at his desk. Ribbentrop is there, facing the window. Schmidt reads it out. “Hitler sat immobile, gazing before him,” Schmidt later says. “He sat completely silent and unmoving.”
