The German Kriegsmarine (War Navy) had deployed the old and obsolete battleship Schleswig-Holstein to the Polish free city of Gdansk in late August 1939 under a courtesy visit pretext. It lay ...

The eerie images were collated by a seaman on the German battleship that shelled a Polish harbour at dawn on September 1, 1939. The vessel, the SMS Schleswig-Holstein, is recognised as firing the ...

The Schleswig-Holstein battleship that had arrived in Gdansk on an allegedly peaceful visit opened fire at Polish soldiers. I recall these basic facts on the 83rd anniversary of the outbreak of ...

Sailor Hermann Gerdau, now 100, was a 26-year-old gunner on Nazi battleship Schleswig-Holstein when it targeted a Polish navy base on September 1, 1939. Speaking for the first time of his role ...

On September 1, 1939, the Germans cut the building’s electricity and phone lines shortly before the battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein open fired on the Polish garrison on the city’s peninsula ...

On Sept, 1, 1939, German battleship Schleswig-Holstein is shelling the Polish Army military outpost at Westerplatte, in Danzig (Gdansk, Poland), the Second World War begins. (Fox/Movietone) ...

At 4.45 am on 1 September 1939 the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish garrison of the Westerplatte Fort, Danzig (modern-day Gdansk), in what was to become the first ...