Poland was attacked in the early hours of September 1. At around 0445 hours, the guns of the battleship Schleswig Holstein opened up on the tiny Polish Garrison at the military transit post in Westerplatte in Gdańsk. A few minutes earlier though Wieluń tasted total war.

Wieluń itself was a small town of about 16,000 in 1939, whose history stretched back to the 13th century. Although located around 20 kilometers from the then border of Germany, it was of no military significance. No major unit was stationed within the town or its immediate environs.

An easy target for the Luftwaffe to identify and attack.

Blooding the Luftwaffe

The Luftwaffe had been perfecting the art of urban bombing in the Spanish Civil War: Germany’s proxy force, the Condor Legion, had flattened the northern Spanish town of Guernica in 1937. German crews could be let loose in the short trip over Wieluń to get valuable operational experience without much hindrance from the Polish air force or the negligible anti-aircraft defences.

A fleet of Dornier reconnaissance aircraft, Ju87 Stuka dive bombers and their escorting fighters took off around 0440 hours (the exact time is the subject of much later debate). Crews reported the weather to be ‘blue skies’ and there was no reported presence of the enemy.

The town was easily identified and attacked. Its center consisted of a large town square, ringed with churches including the church of St Nicholas to the south, a Protestant church and a clearly marked hospital, All Saints.

The Stuka dive bomber earned a dreaded reputation in its early years in Spain. It was developed as a precision ground-support dive bomber, descending at a steep angle to hit ground targets ahead of any advance. Sirens had been added to increase the psychological effect as it dived onto its target. This became the sonic calling card of the Luftwaffe.

Twenty-nine aircraft took off and returned successfully. Meantime, the hospital was hit and around 30 were killed.

Succeeding waves took off and struck town until the early afternoon. Reconnaissance aircraft in the meantime had reported Polish units 12 kilometers or so from the town. Four waves in total hit the town.

The attack – balance and damage

The damage caused was considerable. A textbook attack. As usual in wartime cases the estimates of the human casualties were difficult to verify and ranged from 132 to several hundred, even a couple of thousand. The lower estimates may be more credible, but the actual level is still debatable. A large portion, estimated at 70% of the town and 90% of the town center, was destroyed. Wieluń was to all intents and purposes, flattened.

The tradition of Guernica continued

German ground forces captured the defenseless town later on that first day. But the Luftwaffe continued to pound places like Tczew and its bridges, and sources say that this was a few minutes earlier than Wieluń. Towns such as Frampol were pounded into rubble. Warsaw too, was hit on that first day but it was not until September 25 that the city suffered its heaviest mass attack.

German crews and pilots in the meantime strafed refugee columns and as well as gunning down anyone who tried to flee the buildings in places like Wieluń.

The myth of an evil SS and clean Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe was a fiction from day one as military prisoners and civilians alike were bombed and murdered in cold blood. Any semblance of adherence to the Hague rules of Land Warfare was well and truly thrown out of the window. Indeed, this was to be a new kind of war, deliberately total and ruthless.

Debates over times and purpose

Who received the first shots of the war, Westerplatte, Wieluń or indeed Tczew? Debate has been conducted over the matter of five minutes. Was it Westerplatte at 0445 or Wieluń at 0440, or Tczew at 0434? For those on the receiving end, this was academic. Given what Poland experienced that September and for the following six years, it seems like splitting hairs.

The town of Wieluń itself has been rebuilt over the post-war decades although not to the pre-war style. Each year it commemorates its dead and receives national dignitaries including, this year President Duda.

Sowing the wind, reaping the whirlwind

The theory of strategic bombing, i.e. bombing civilians to force a country into submission and to break its will to fight, was not new. It was formulated by British, American and Italian theorists in the 1920s. But it remained a theory until the destruction of Geurnica. It started to be refined by the Luftwaffe in Poland and later in the West.

But by 1945, RAF Bomber Command and the USAF could roam at will over Germany and destroy any city they pleased, culminating in the incineration of Dresden. German critics have posed as victims of an allied war crime of terror-bombing, even genocide in the case of Dresden. But, despite the horrors experienced by civilians cowering in their shelters, there is one caveat, summed up in one word: Wieluń.

You reap what you sow.