| Operation Tannenberg Unternehmen Tannenberg | |
|---|---|
| Part of Generalplan Ost | |
 Operation Tannenberg, 20 October 1939. The mass murder of Polish townsmen in Reichsgau Wartheland (western Poland) | |
| Location | German-occupied Poland |
| Date | September 1939 – January 1940 |
| Target | Poles |
Attack type | Genocidal massacre, mass shooting |
| Weapons | Firearms |
| Deaths | 20,000 deaths (during 1–2 months)[1][2] in 760 mass executions by SS Einsatzgruppen |
| Perpetrators |  Nazi Germany |
Operation Tannenberg (German: Unternehmen Tannenberg) was a codename for one of the anti-Polish extermination actions by Nazi Germany.[3] The shootings were conducted with the use of a proscription list (Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen) targeting Poland’s elite, compiled by the Gestapo in the two years before the invasion of Poland.[4]
The secret lists identified more than 61,000 members of the Polish elite: activists, intelligentsia, scholars, clergy, actors, former officers and others, who were to be interned or shot. Members of the German minority living in Poland assisted in preparing the lists.[4]
Operation Tannenberg was followed by the shooting and gassing of hospital patients and disabled adults, as part of the wider Aktion T4 programme.[5][a]
- ^ Lazar, Seth (2015). Sparing Civilians. Oxford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 9780198712985.
- ^ Bloxham, Donald; Gerwarth, Robert, eds. (10 March 2011). Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 71. ISBN 9781107005037.
- ^ Brewing, Daniel (2022). In the Shadow of Auschwitz German Massacres against Polish Civilians, 1939–1945. Berghahn Book. pp. 141–142. ISBN 9781800730892.
- ^ a b Unternehmen Tannenberg - August 1939: Wie der SD den Überfall auf Polen vorbereitete (III) bei wissen.spiegel.de (PDF file, direct download). Archived 2009-07-06 at the Wayback Machine (in German)
- ^ Semków, Piotr (2006). "Martyrologia Polaków z Pomorza Gdańskiego w latach II wojny światowej" (PDF). IPN Bulletin (in Polish) (8–9). Institute of National Remembrance: 46–48. ISSN 1641-9561. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-09-17.
- ^ Semków 2006, pp. 42–50.
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