Operation Tannenberg

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This article relates the anti-Polish action of German forces at the beginning of World War II. For related activities see: Gleiwitz incident

Operation Tannenberg (German Unternehmen Tannenberg) was the codename for one of the extermination actions directed at the Polish people during World War II, a part of the Generalplan Ost. Conscription lists (Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen) listed more than 61,000 Polish activists, intelligentsia, actors, former officers, etc., who were to be arrested and interned or shot in mass executions. Members of the German minority living in Poland assisted in preparing those lists.

The plan was created in May of 1939. Following the personal orders of Adolf Hitler, a special unit dubbed Tannenberg was created within the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt). It commanded a number of Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD formed of Gestapo,Kripo and SD officers who were theoretically subordinate to local Wehrmacht commanders. Their task was to systematically arrest all the people listed on the proscription lists repared before the outbreak of World War II.

First, in August 1939 about 2,000 activists of Polish minority organisations in Germany were arrested and murdered. The second part of the action started September 1, 1939 and ended in October resulting in at least 20,000 murdered in 760 mass executions by special units, Einsatzgruppen, in addition to regular Wehrmacht units. In addition to them a special formation was created out of the German minority living in Poland called Selbstschutz, whose members trained in Germany prior the war in diversion and guerilla fighting. The formation was responsible for many massacres and due its bad reputation dissolved by Nazi authorities after September Campaign.

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