Grudziądz (Graudenz) 1939.

[Huball]

Orginal cup from XXI AK:

http://bastion.szczecin.pl/phpbb/files/ ... _2_584.jpg

http://bastion.szczecin.pl/phpbb/files/ ... _1_985.jpg

http://bastion.szczecin.pl/phpbb/files/ ... _5_899.jpg

[tigre]

Hello to all ; Huball, thanks for sharing it here . Cheers. Raúl M .

[Huball]

Cup was found in the forest on Pommeren area near Stettin (Szczecin) - present after 1945 in Poland..

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

In a situation report of Army "Pomorze" in the morning on 03.09., casualties of 16. Inf.Div. are given as ca. 500 wounded on 01.09. & 02.09., as well as impossible to precisely establish number of "killed, missing, etc.".

[tigre]

Thanks Peter . Cheers. Raúl M .

[norman0303]

My Father Bruno Witkowski was born on a farm in the village of Zakzewo, he used to tell us how at 04:00 on the morning on 1st September 1939 they were woken to the sound of German Artillery fire, his father a WW1 veteran and a farmer was well aware of the situation that was developing and had already pre loaded the farm cart with all their most personal and useful possesions. My father at the time was 16 years old. My father told me that on the morning of the 1st September they set off heading away from the fighting, two days later after being straffed by German aircraft on numerous occasions and due to the roads being clogged up with fleeing refugees they decided to return home.

After returning home father told us that there were both dead German troops and Polish troops around the village of Melno and towards the area of Gruta.

Father was conscripted into the German Army in 1942 under threat of his family being persecuted if he did not report for military service. Father was sent to Pilsen for Artillery Training and after completion of his training he was sent to St Nazare on costal defence duties for 3 months, then onto Zlooten in Holland and eventually sent to the Russian front in Feburary 1942 with the 38th Inf Div, whilst in Russia father talked about the great withdrawals of the German Army and he was eventually severly wounded by a Russian shell, he had severe wounds to his head, legs and back.
Father was sent back to hospital in Brunswick to recover, by the time he was fit for duty the 38th Div did not exist as it was destroyed in Russia, father was posted to 276 Inf Div in Southern France until they were moved to take part in the Normandy battles, father escaped from the German Army during the chaos of the withdrawal fo Falaise and on the 20 Aug 1944 they escaped and gave themself over to the British 50th Div where he returned to UK and joined Polish army and was retrained as a Sherman Tank driver but happily never went back to war as they were not needed.

My father settled in Scotland as many Polish troops did as they knew the fate that awaited them if they went back to the Russians in Poland even though he was forced to join the German Army.

My Father was an outstanding man, standing over 6ft 1 in in height and of great farming stock never managed to ge back to Poland ontil 2003 where he was able to back and visit some of his family who by this time had moved north to the city of Elblag.

[tigre]

Hello to all ; thanks for sharing your history with us norman0303 . Cheers. Raúl M .

[norman0303]

My father was born and lived in the village of Zakzewo, midway between Melno and Radzyn (see map number 12) in the post post. My father was 16 when the Germans invaded and remembers my Grandfather waking the family up at 05:00 on the day of the invasion and he remembers the sound of Artillery fire.

Later that morning they all left the farm on horse and cart and tried to make there way towards Warsaw, they returned to the farm the next day after being attacked constantly by the Luftwaffe and the roads being chocked with refugees. My father told me that there were dead polish army troops scattered all around the farm and they had been over run by the German Army, they were made to bury the polish soldiers.

My father was conscripted into the German Army in 1942, 38th Infantry Division (Artillery Regiment) and served in France St Nazir, and in Holland and then sent to Ukraine in Jan 1943, he served during the German Army retreat, was badly wounded in Ukraine, He was sent to Brunswick to recuperate, his division was eliminated in Ukraine.

After he was fit for service again he was posted to 276 Inf Div in the south of France until the invasion on 6 June, during the later half of June they were transferred to the Normandy front around the are of Villiers Bocage, he was caught up in the German Retreat and managed to escape and give himself up to British Troops of the 50Inf Div on 20 Aug 44.

He was sent back to England as a POW for a short time and the Polish 1st Armoured Division.

[tigre]

Hello to all ; a little complement..........

"Heim ins Reich" - Graudenz 1939.

"Heim ins Reich" was the slogan under which Nazi Germany carried out a recovery policy of the areas bordering the German Reich and in which (mostly) the population belonged to ethnic Germans..........................

In this case we see some Pz Kw IV Ausf. B of the I./ PR 10 (Zinten) which fought in that area, being effusively greeted by the local population ............................. ....

Source: http://odkrywca.pl/panzer-1939-czesc-11 ... tml#687400.

Cheers. Raúl M .