Westerplatte

For the 1967 Polish film, see Westerplatte (film).

Westerplatte (Polish pronunciation: [vɛstɛrˈplatɛ], [ˈvɛstɛrplatɛ], German pronunciation: [ˈvɛstɐplatə]) is a peninsula in Gdańsk, Poland, located on the Baltic Sea coast mouth of the Dead Vistula (one of the Vistula delta estuaries), in the Gdańsk harbour channel. From 1926 to 1939, it was the location of a Polish Military Transit Depot (WST), sanctioned within the territory of the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk).

The first shots of the Second World War were fired at the Battle of Westerplatte which began at 0450hrs on the 1 September, 1939. The fighting started when the German WWI battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein began shelling the Polish ammunition depot on Westerplatte. After a siege that lasted a week, the Polish garrison surrendered to German forces that were part of invasion of Poland.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.