Operation Tannenberg

Operation Tannenberg (German: Unternehmen Tannenberg; Polish: Operacja Tannenberg) was one of the first anti-Polish mass murders by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from September 1939 to January 1940.^[4] The operation was conducted based on the Special Prosecution Book – Poland (German: Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen), a list with the names of over 61,000 Poles chosen for execution.^[5][6]

Operation Tannenberg Unternehmen Tannenberg
The mass murder of Polish townsmen in Reichsgau Wartheland (western Poland) during Operation Tannenberg on October 20, 1939.
Location	Nazi-occupied Poland
Date	September 1939–January 1940
Target	Poles
Attack type	Mass shooting, summary execution and genocidal massacres
Weapons	Firearms Gas vans
Deaths	20,000 deaths in 760 mass executions by SS Einsatzgruppen in the first phase;[1][2] 100,000 deaths in the second phase[3]
Perpetrators	Nazi Germany
Motive	Anti-Polish racism

Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen. symbols

Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen. Page with names under the letter "G" with abbreviations. EK stands for Einsatzkommando and EG represents an escaped prisoner.

Events

About 20,000 Poles were killed in the first phase of Operation Tannenberg,^[7] which involved the shooting and gassing of hospital patients and disabled people as part of the operation Aktion T4.^[7]

The second phase of Operation Tannenberg saw the mass murder of 36,000–42,000 in Pomerania by the end of 1939 under the codename Intelligenzaktion ("Actions against the Intelligentsia").^[7] The victims included children, doctors, priests etc.^[7][3] The Intelligenzaktion is estimated to have ultimately killed 100,000 Poles.^[3]

Polish teachers from Bydgoszcz guarded by members of Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz before execution.

In occupied Poland, on September 9, 1939, the Germans publicly executed twenty-five prominent citizens, before the Municipal Museum, in the Market Square of Bydgoszcz, as part of the mass shootings of Polish intelligentsia.^[8][9] To terrorise the townsfolk, the Germans displayed the bodies for six hours.^[10]

Germans murdered Polish civilians in Leszno, Poland dated October 21, 1939.

Intelligenzaktion in the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia (1939-1940).^[11]

Mass murder of hospital patients

Further information: Ableism § Mass murder

The mass murder of hospital patients was led by the SS commander Herbert Lange,^[12] who was later appointed as Chełmno extermination camp's commandment.^[12] By mid-1940, Lange was responsible for the death of at least 1,100 patients in Owińska,^[13] 2,750 patients at Kościan,^[13] 1,558 patients at Działdowo,^[13] and hundreds of Poles at Fort VII where the mobile gas chamber (Einsatzwagen) was made along with the first gassing bunker.^[13]

Related pages

• Wola massacre
• Genocides by the Soviet Union
• Mass murders by Nazi Germany