Friday, September 1, 2017

Germany started WWII with a war crime. Why wait?!

On September 1st, 1939, the first day of World War II German Luftwaffe bombed a totally civilian target, the town of Wieluń. The Luftwaffe started bombing Wieluń at 04:40, five minutes before the shelling of Westerplatte, which has traditionally been considered the beginning of World War II. The air raid on the town was one of the first aerial bombings of the war. It killed an estimated 1,300 civilians, injured hundreds more and destroyed 90 per cent of the town center (see the picture).  The casualty rate was more than twice as high as Guernica. After the bombing Nazi propaganda claimed that there was a cavalry unit in the city, Polish historians say that there was no military units in this town at all.

The very first target of the bombing was the hospital, though it had Red Cross markings. 26 patients and 6 nurses were killed.