MikaelM

Jozef Unrug, heres a link to the wikipedia article about him: Józef Unrug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why was he so loyal to Poland despite being a Prussian aristocrat?
Lets here some opinions

Mosquito

There were many people of German descent who felt to be Polish and many of Polish descent in Germany who felt to be German. His familly had Polish roots.

Mangekyou

Interesting op. Thanks for that article!

There are many unsung/unheralded heroes from the war. Most of the time they do the boring, backroom work, or the silent missions that are not particularly big, but important nonetheless.

A nice name from this topic is George Jellicoe. The guy captured a town, riding in on a bicycle, for crying out loud

Mosquito

Or this Polish citisen and Austrian Archduke, who was tortured by Germans for refusing to sign volksliste:

Ashiusx

W ( Wikipedia links on some website seem to have a hard displaying the full name due to foreign language diacritical marks.) Anyway this valiant Polish officer lead a heroic defense against impossible odds (58:1) in the early years of the World War 2. Their defiance allowed the Wehrmacht blitzkrieg to be repulsed for three days.


We also both share the share birthdays. So that is a coincident privilege.

Edward

Wladislaw Anders, The commander of II Polish Corps in Italy at the time of Monte Cassino , later the Commander of Polish Army on the west at the end of WWII, was an ethnic German. His parents were Baltic German but Wladislaw was a true Polish Patriot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Anders

beorna

But you know, that the circumstances for his death are not as sure as these myth says, do you? Perhaps he was even shot by his own soldiers, because he rejected to surrender.
BTW, the whole battle is a myth.

Mosquito

The whole battle did take place, what is uncertain are numbers of engaged forces and circumstances of the death of Raginis. For sure there fought much less soldiers on the both sides than it was originally stated. today maximum number of Polish soldiers defending Wizna is estimated on 320 but it is even possible that there was much less of them (considering numbers of casualties and PoWs captured by Germans). And of course the story that 40.000 Germans were attacking them is a myth. But it is still fact that they were heavilly outnumbered.


However the story about Raginis who was shot by his own soldiers is only one of the versions of the story.

beorna

Yes, there was some fighting. That is certain. Uncertain are indeed the numbers, both of Poles and Germans and uncertain is how raginis died. I wrote it aboe, perhaps he was shot by his own people. As it seems are there many versions and no version is supported by hard facts.
True is indeed, that the Poles were outnumbered by the germans. We talked about it. I suppose there were more Polish units than claimed around Wizna, but probably less soldiers than claimed in the bunker line. During the final attack - the participation of Lötzen is still not sure, Guderian and Schrick contradict each other here - there were 1 Infantry batallion, 3 tank companies and parts of a Anti-Air battery. These battle lasted only 4 hours untill the most bunkers were taken. Only one resisted till the next day, short to noon. But at those time, the divisions were rolling already to Bialystok. The"battle" of Wizna is overestimated, compared with the battles at Zambrow, Novgorod and Andrzejewo.

Edward

From pure military point of view, there was no physical possibility to deploy 40000 strong corps on so narrow front so the 40k number is a certain myth.
The fact is that the Wizna fortifications were positioned on the main route of Guderian Corps and the defence of Wizna line caused significant delay in Guderian advance to the degree that it required personal intervention of Guderian, who threated defenders with summary execution. It was only a threat but it shows haw important the positions and the delay inflicted by defenders was for Guderian planning.