Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 141 - The Last Stand of the Danzig Mailmen

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

One the nazis stormed into Poland at the opening stages of World War II it was not soldiers, trench lines, or pill boxes that they had to conquer first. Instead, it was the Danzig Post Office. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/employees-danzig-post-office-fought-germans-15-hours-invasion-poland-captured htmlhttps://libcom.org/history/defence-polish-post-office-danzig https://web.archive.org/web/20060502021616/http://www.1939.pl/epizody/poczta_gdansk.htm

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow today. And now, back to the show. Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of Lines Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me today is Jack Trumbull, host of the Let's Talk About War Games podcast, crafter of words. And I'm trying to think of another super glorious title to give you. That's it. Yeah, you did it. That sums it up. Games journalist, I think, is a little bit of what it is. It's all about ethics in game journalism, Jack.

I have heard that a lot. And, you know, I think we should be more unethical actually. I stand unethical journalism all day, which is why I've accepted a new position as the head editor of Quillette. My family has disowned me and that's why Nick is gone.

In case anybody's curious, I'm kidding. This is a cover for using dog shampoo, isn't it? For 10 years. For 10 years. I had no idea. Jack, I wanted you to come into this episode completely blind because it's fucking wild. Yeah, I was looking things up trying to figure out what this could be, and I have no idea. I gave you a bit of a hint that I said that we're gonna get to talk about killing

nazis uh which i know is a pastime for both of us this this is something that i do enjoy very much i well in minecraft in minecraft um in minecraft in in whatever video game we're streaming together um so i have before before we go in to uh the topic hand, I have to ask you a question that you're not prepared for. If you were to rank civil service employees on a March Madness scale of who would be the best group of people to fight or defend something... Let's cut out cops entirely because they actually have training and stuff to shoot your dog um uh like but if you're you know you're you're state employee accountants you're fucking uh bureau of land management people your local paramedics like what does this bracket look like for you it's post office workers 100 like i'm so happy you said that yeah um now got it in one baby let's go you got it in one now in america we know mailmen for being the one federal institution that kind of works

uh but they also occasionally go nuts and shoot up a post office or two every now and then as you do as you do um uh you know a pastime that has since been taken up by the school children of america um but they are also the people who will rain or shine deliver your mail and that one time in a window ever so brief that america remember they existed enough to make a democratic election possible but what if i told you the mailman of poland more specifically the city of Danzig, excel at something other than delivering your mail? They were really good at killing Nazis. And you know what? I love that about them.

But Jack, they're not just Nazis. They're Nazi cops. Nazi cops? Fuck. That's my least favorite kind of Nazi next to all of the other kinds of Nazis. It's a flat plane that I hate them all. This is true. Now, the city of Danzig had a very interesting history to begin World War II, and we do have to take

kind of a knee on the mailman story to figure out why this fucking happened and why exactly Polish mailmen were the first people to pull triggers of World War II. So why did World War II happen, Joe? So it all started when Hitler didn't get into art school. No, I'm just kidding.

Anyway, History Channel, if you're listening, I am available. Now, we do have to figure out why exactly there were a bunch of Polish postal employees in what was previously a German city. And that is we have to talk about the free city of danzig um danzig is a pretty weird history that i was not in complete i was not totally aware of before i started researching this um at various sporadic times throughout its history it had weird differing differing forms of independence. As a city-state, like back when the Prussian Confederation was squaring off against the Teutonic state of Prussia.

It doesn't sound good. Also, Napoleon... It's never good when someone's Teutonic. Or Prussia. The Teutons and Prussia, those adjectives frequently go hand-in-hand with mass murder at the minimum. Sorry to any Prussians listening to this. the tunes in prussia like those adjectives frequently go hand in hand with like mass murder at the minimum yeah sorry to any prussians listening to this there's no such thing as

prussians anymore they're all just germans well anybody who's still claiming to be prussian is holding up to some very weird historical ties that that's a that's a dog whistle right there yeah it's a dog whistle that makes me very uncomfortable so then that little thing called german unification occurred after uh kicking france in the teeth and then we had the empire of germany uh you know and thankfully nothing ever bad happened from germans getting together uh all over europe ever again um yeah now the empire of germany got shit kicked in during the great war, leading to the empire being picked apart by the victors. Uh,

one American president, a guy named president Woodrow Wilson had something called the 14 points, which we won't get entirely into. Um, but it's not the first time 14 words will be used negatively in this. Oof. Nope. Yeah.

Sorry. Um, now one of the points were self-determination um assuming that you're white anyway uh sorry vietnam uh enjoy the french um now uh one of the things that he backed was polish independence because even woodrow wilson while a massive fucking racist still considered polish people worthy of independence But in order for this new Polish state to be economically viable to a lot of these people, they needed an access point to the sea. This meant that Danzig would be separated from Germany and given to Poland. And I have to point out that every time I say the word Danzig during this episode,

I am also thinking of Glenn Danzig. I know everybody else is too. We're moving on. We all know this uh yes the intro will probably be the misfits um they don't they don't seem like they would sue me i you know you never know that's the only one way to find out i don't know sabaton hasn't sued me yet and i've used their intro like a dozen times. Well, I mean, they're all over the place now. They've got bigger fish to fry. Yeah.

Now, so obviously Woodrow Wilson wanted this to be given to Poland. Other people did as well. Some people didn't. And one of the more unifying facts is like if we took Danzig away from the Germans, it would punish them some more. So that's a good thing. We should move on with that. Just a great mentality in general yeah because that certainly didn't come back to bite everyone at play in the ass um it was the entirety of the treaty of versailles was like let's just fuck them over and then

look away for 30 years yeah nothing bad could happen um no nothing bad could happen uh but then you know someone pointed out to wilson again because poles are whites that um part of the 14 points is self-determination and you know uh this does it this kind of violates that since 90 percent of danzig's population was german not polish so they're like well you can't just give all these Germans the Poland. That would violate your own rules. So they went for a compromise.

Danzig would become a semi-free city-state once again. Now, despite agreeing on most of this, almost nobody thought it would work. European leaders correctly point out that giving German land to the Poles would create a deep hatred for the Poles within Germany and would almost certainly lead to another

war. I don't know about that. Yeah, weird how that happened. This was bookended by the French and British leaders openly talking about how they wouldn't really care enough about it in order to defend it should that happen. Oops. Now, credit where credit's due, I suppose.

That was later changed. That they did recognize an attack on Danzig as an attack on Poland. But by then, it was far too little too late. But the English didn't want to give Poland to Danzig. And the French and Americans didn't want to give it to or allow Germany to keep it. So that was why the compromise was, we need to fuck over Germany. Let's make this work.

And, you know, another problem with all of this was absolutely nobody consulted the people that lived within the city about any of this. Nobody was happy. The Germans wanted to be... That's a classic move. Yeah, it's a classic German, or sorry, French, British, and american sitting around a

table how can we fix this problem without ever like referencing or asking any of the people that it might impact there are so many straight lines on a map that like come from this mentality yeah um thankfully america england and france would never do that again. Isn't that right, Northern Ireland? Or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the Central African Republic. Or the entire Middle East. Whoops. The list goes on. Now, the Germans within the city wanted to be part of Germany.

The Polish in the city wanted to be part of Polandand and the problem was is that they couldn't be those things anymore because they are citizens of the city of danzig so they're all stripped of their citizenship fuck it's just an absolute dick move all the way down i just hate it when i'm living somewhere and then suddenly i don't exist yeah i'm sitting somewhere where that happened not that long ago. Fuck. And just to piss the people off even more, the city had to have its own government, right? But it was a semi

free city-state. Nobody was willing to be like, you're fuck it, you're a country now, right? They had to have some level of authority over it. Well, it's post-World War I. What do you think that very dumb authority is? Oh, they're bringing back the Holy Roman Emperor. The League of Nations.

Ah, close enough. About as useless, yeah. Oh, fuck. For people who are unaware, the League of Nations is probably the most useless and most powerless international body to ever exist. It's like a worse UN. It's exactly what that is.

It was completely toothless, had no ability to enforce anything. I mean, ask Ethiopia. It didn't work. And it would fail and eventually become the UN. I mean, you know that the League of Nations was such a giant piece of shit that it was Woodrow Wilson's idea. And then the US didn't even vote to join it. Woodrow Wilson noted shithead. It was his idea.

It's one of those things that's good in paper. But then once you try to do it, you realize it's like doing a group project, but nobody has any onus to work together. Kind of like the UN. Yeah, exactly like the UN, except somehow the UN still exists. Well, for now. I mean, it does exist in good ways when it comes to The Who and stuff like that. Yeah, I love that band. As a peacekeeping body, mixed bag. Mixed that. Yeah, I love that band. As a peacekeeping body, mixed bag.

Mixed bag. Yeah. Big L on the league. Yeah. Now, Danzig was only ever a free city in name only, in the fever dreams of the League of Nations, I guess.

The politics were very much dominated by the demographics, which were Germans, and German political parties within the then Weimar Republic. And, like the Republic, the Nazi Party was there, but largely unpopular. But then the economy

imploded. In 1933, the Nazis took control of the only technically independent sovereign entity they would ever take control of through a popular vote and won 50 of the danzig senatorial election fuck well at least that means 40 of the germans didn't vote for him i guess so that's kind of good i think it may have just been a bad voter turnout like most things. No. I mean, were they running against like Biden? It was mostly like the Christian Democratic Union and like other it was other Weimar parties,

which is like the polls only controlled about 10 percent of the vote. So, yeah. So, I mean, I guess it's like the Nazis are who? Yeah. Good thing no one else has ever had to face this voting dilemma. Now, let me know if you've heard this one before. Because history repeats itself, the centrist and liberal parties sided with the Nazis in order to box out leftist parties like the communists and socialists, who were then immediately ousted from power. Oh, God. I'm having flashbacks. Fuck. and socialists who were then immediately ousted from power oh god

I'm having flashbacks fuck yeah like the there was like the German communists and the German socialists who were trying to bind their power together to win some seats within the senate and the

centrist and liberal parties some of them withdrew their party candidates in order to back the Nazis, thinking that because they had the senatorial president who also backed the Nazis, who was a centrist-type conservative, that they would be able to control the Nazis. Well, as soon as the Nazis came to power,

they got rid of that guy. And then that guy began pleading with everybody who would never listen to him ever again to not vote for the Nazis. He ended up having to flee Danzig to save his own life. Oh, what a king. Yeah. Fuck that guy. He ended up dying in Portland, Oregon. Oh, what's up, Portland?

Yeah. Good job, guys. Like a lot of people don't understand a lot of weird nazi sympathizers end up in portland oregon so like it's portland and argentina huh yeah i guess uh though that one guy uh john john de moniuk the death camp guard ended up in cleveland ohio which as a person from Michigan, I'm like, yep. Cleveland. I have too many friends that live in Ohio to say anything bad about it, so sorry.

Sorry to Cleveland. I have a lot of friends in Ohio, and I am duty-bound to shit-talk Ohio. This is fair. I cannot join, but I will respect your shitting. So once the Nazis took control of the city, total Nazification began to occur. Unions were banned because Nazis aren't socialists, and the police were turned into an arm of state oppression, hunting down and killing political opponents. Leftist political parties were outlawed, and soon any opposition newspapers were shut down. By 1935, the police's official uniform was changed

to display the Totenkopf on their headgear. Oh, shit. Do they know that the Nazis wore that? Guys, you think we might be the baddies? Like, we have skulls on our hats. Oh. You gotta know that at least one, like, police officer who hadn't really been keeping up with politics,

like, got his new uniform, and he's like, hey, wait a minute. Yeah, like the police chief gave a big speech about how if anybody doesn't support the Nazi party and the Nazi party aims, they have no right to be a cop in the city,

which I assume is actually the same speech given at Seattle police graduations. You're saying the things that are almost too spicy for me to say, so I appreciate you just saying these things out loud. They might have to edit these things out.

Loyalty to the fatherland, etc, etc. Now, the Polish nations, when I said like the polish nation nothing polish people but like their rights within the free city were laid out in the treaty of paris um but the poles wanted to control the entire city and they but they wanted to expand their their power they didn't want this free city bullshit uh but the germans were also doing the same thing at one, this led to a German worker strike because they refused

to unload ammunition that was going to the Polish army during the Polish-Soviet War of 1920. Yay, direct action? No, food direct action. Yeah. So this, in 1920, this led to the Polish government

saying, okay, fuck it it we'll just build our own Polish ammunition depot guarded by Polish soldiers and that employs blackjack and hookers with Polish blackjack and Polish hookers and like so that was like you know if the Germans have a problem with us they can't strangle

off our army and they built it on the vester plot which is like a peninsula that jutted out from the city's territory um now obviously having um polish soldiers um staring down over the city guarding a polish military installation really pissed off the germans in the city and the city government itself. Now, this anger was vented in the most normal way possible by a city ran by Nazis, and that is harassing Polish people in the streets with racial slurs and physical violence, none of which were stopped by the cops. Yeah, that sounds about right. Who were literal Nazis at the time.

You know that saying, like, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes? I'm thinking about that a lot right now, and I don't like how much I'm thinking about it. It's not good. No, it's not. You know, I always joke that history is a big, dumb, flat circle, and that's not entirely true. However,

it's like, you know, when you watch like a remake of a movie, like, oh, I've seen this before. remake of a movie like oh i've seen this before it's slightly different but i've seen this before oh i i don't like this movie yeah i don't like this movie at all i don't like where this is going now uh unfortunately for the entire world next door in germany hitler came to power um relations between the city and Germany actually improved at first, you know, because the Nazis were in charge.

Yeah, exactly. And Hitler was, if anything, a fucking bastard, but also kind of slick. He told the Danzig Nazis to stop, you know,

murdering people in the street. And for now, for now. And in return, Poland would not help a burgeoning anti-nazi movement forming within the city so

you want to guess what happens next I have some ideas the cops immediately swoop in and arrest all of the anti-nazi movement once they stop organizing and having weapons hooray all pretty much all of them would be disappeared hooray uh and i mean there's a good chance this is gonna happen either way uh but without you know daddy poland's help they had no support whatsoever i guess they were just putting off the conflict because Hitler was very like, let's just hold this off as long as we can.

Kind of a guy. Yeah. And Poland's understanding of Germany's intentions were not always that good. They were more, Poland was much more worried about another Soviet war than they were about the Germans. Because remember they had an agreement with England and France that if Germany fucked

with them they would defend Poland right so before after Czechoslovakia we're not quite there yet but okay so yeah they they didn't know what was coming yeah Hitler wasn't quite so like honest

about his intentions quite yet when you know when he takes over the Sudetenland, everybody's like, oh, fuck, okay. But this improvement in relations would change pretty rapidly. Once the Nazis centralized their power in Germany, they began to push for the return of Danzig. In October 1938, Nazi minister Joachim von Ribbentrop

made an official demand for Danzig to be placed under the control of Nazi Germany, not just Nazis in Danzig. Obviously, Poland had a bit of a problem with that. Józef Lipski, the Polish ambassador to Germany, pointed out that if Germany retook Danzig by force, the military dictatorship, I believe it's called the Sanitation or something like that, of Poland. The Sanitation? Yeah. Like, trash men i guess honestly if it was a yunta of trash guys that would be kind of rad that would rule that would rule make this an episode about like postal workers and trash guys fighting off nazis uh it was it was a form of a weird form of military dictatorship um that could currently control Poland. They would almost certainly resort to war to reclaim Danzig.

That may have not been the best thing to tell Germany. I think Lipski was attempting to threaten them with military force. Not a good call. Threaten the Nazis, like, we're going to get you. And, well, we see how that plays out. Yeah. And the Nazis like, all right. Yeah.

All right, bet. See what happens. Yeah. Now, while all this was going on, the containment policy towards Hitler was in full swing by Neville Chamberlain. That's, you know, the British prime minister, as well as the French and the Soviets were attempting what they called the Peace Front. And that is, give the Nazis what they want, maybe they won't start a war. And Poland

didn't really see... If Poland was thinking about a war with Germany at this point, it was mostly over Danzig. It wasn't like they're going to take over all of Poland and start killing people. It was like they might take over our city. And they were much more worried about the USSR coming back to finish the job.

But there was an increasing amount of tension between all sides that eventually lead to the outbreak of World War II. Germany would go on a PR push, claiming they just wanted Danzig, not Poland. And this did find some purchase with members of the future Allied government. This included Canadian Prime Minister at the time,

William Leon Mackenzie King, who would eventually lead Canada to war, but would blame Poland for the war general for not giving them Danzig. Fuck. Yeah. Now, after this, Hitler would go and take the Sudetenland after demanding freedom for the Germans there and then using that freedom to force

a vote to then steal the entire chunk of land. Now this made the Poles and Danzig pretty goddamn nervous. They were doing the same blueprints to take over Danzig. Before too long,

the Nazis and Danzig were bringing guns from Germany and beginning to fortify German-owned buildings within the city. Oh, boy. Yeah. It's always a good thing when you see the other ethnicity in your city just suddenly becoming extremely armed for some reason. Yeah, it's not a good sign. Heavily armed Germans anywhere should make people nervous. Especially in Danzig.

Yeah. Now in July, the British changed their promise that before this, the British did not consider Danzig part of Poland. Therefore they wouldn't defend Poland if they went to war over Danzig. But that changed in July of that year. Then to prove that the Nazis actually didn't care all that much in August, the Nazis of the Danzig Senate that much in August, uh,

the, the Nazis of the Danzig Senate said they would no longer recognize Polish custom laws within the city. Uh, the polls retorted by saying if custom laws were ignored, the air force would bomb the fucking city. That's a rational response. Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's escalation that I believe the Nazis knew that the polls had no chance, you know? Um, like it's it's escalation that i believe the nazis knew that the polls had no chance you know um like it's brinksmanship but they want the end goal and i i do truly believe that that the nazis didn't think that france and england would throw in with poland like they probably like at this point they've given them so much. They're like, they'll probably fucking dip out, you know? I mean, yeah, they pussyed out so much. Like, what's different about Danzig?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, at this point, if you're going to go to war over anything, like the Sudetenland made much more sense. Or Austria, for that matter. Or re-militarizing the rhine yeah or literally any of these things they're willing to overlook but no no literally anything else yeah yeah or i don't the condor legion all of these things they're willing to overlook and at this point i think poland was starting to think they might be on their own, uh, which is why they started flexing hard. Um,

and maybe Poland, remember Poland is still more worried about the Soviet union. Um, I don't think they think that the Germans are so ready and already planning to go to war against them. And, uh, their plan white,

which would terribly named plan in retrospect. Uh, but you know, their plan to invade Poland was pretty much already made by this point this is july they would invade in september so like the plan's already done and poland has no idea uh call that an oopsie yeah uh and then the senate of danzig said fuck it and then voted just straight up voted to rejoin germany entirely, disregarding Poland and all of their other agreements. Now, remember, we've already talked about the League of Nations.

The city is under the command or administration of the League of Nations, which actually had the power through the Constitution to depose the Nazi government of the city when they violated the agreement like they did by first ignoring Polish custom law and then voting to rejoin Germany. But France and the UK pressured them not to depose the Nazi government, hoping that they'd be able to leverage the city to cut a deal between the Poles and the Germans to avert war. Well, we need unity right now, Joe. Yeah. Thankfully, this worked. The end. Yeah.

Hitler was like, that's it. You're right thank you for negotiating with me you don't need to burn down my entire country and corner me in a basement until i shoot myself he did say that actually yeah yeah he it was the small print yeah now in case anybody has never heard of world war ii before this had failed entirely uh instead the newly empowered nazi government of the city fired every Polish worker that worked for them, passports were revoked,

and the Senate confiscated Polish goods. The Germans, then to support their bros, sent the battleship, the Swischwig Holstein, to park at the Danzig port. Its guns pointed directly at the Polish installation on the Westerplot. It's fine. This is fine, normal. pointed directly at the Polish installation on the Westerplot. Now... It's fine.

This is fine, normal. It's just a friendly drive-by wave with cannons. Giving us a salute. In the 30s at this point, you'd just be like, yeah, this tracks. Yeah. Now, while all this was going on,

obviously all hell was breaking loose in the city as the Polish citizens began to panic. Within the city, there were several polish institutions that held sovereignty kind of like an embassy uh but not an embassy um one of those things was the polish postal service like this was not a part of the city of danzig this is a sovereign entity of the republic of poland so they assumed like while all this wildness is going on, no one's going to attack the post office because that's Poland. I already am just envisioning the action movie just based on this premise alone. I love this already.

Knowing this, Poles in the city that couldn't leave Danzig to a different country or get back to Poland or just flee entirely fled to the post office, hoping to be protected by the government that they recognized. It's the one time anyone's ever been happy to be at the post office. Right, right. Someone someone in the lobby as like people are kind of like, can I still send out my mail? He hasn't seen the battleship in the harbor yet. send out my mail he hasn't seen the battleship in the harbor yet now the polish government knew that people were asking for help but they didn't have a whole lot to spare uh so instead they sent a single polish army officer a combat engineer named conrad guderski and a couple dozen weapons

to the polish uh post office in danzig now there, Conrad met a couple dozen postal workers, a lot of civilians, and mostly the postal workers' families. They hid themselves in these post offices, hoping to flee the roving gangs of literal brown shirts and cops in the streets who were now just committing murder. And they found protection. At first, the SA and SS militias and the found protection like at first the sa and ss militias and like the cops did not fuck with the post office um because war hadn't started yet uh like

at this point it was you know they were edging war like that that was coming just it's edging war see you tune in for the lions led by donkeys podcast so I can compare all war to coming. So it really hadn't ejaculated into... No, we're at the vinegar strokes of war right now. I see. It's inevitable. You can't stop it. Like, the cops and the SA and SS and all that were like

they didn't want to start the war by attacking the post office so instead they were just kind of lurking now Conrad was sent to the post office with the idea that in a worst case scenario if all hell broke loose the people in the post office would only have to

sit in there for a couple of days after which the Polish army of Pomerania would be able to charge through the city and secure it. That was the plan. The post office, yes. Yeah. But Conrad had no soldiers. Instead, he had mailmen, none of which who had undergone any kind of military service before. So he asked if anybody there would like a weapon.

And pretty much everybody volunteered to grab a weapon. I mean, hell yeah, dude. Like, there's Nazis outside. I'm getting a gun. Yeah, and Conrad, being the only trained soldier there, decided he needed a second in command that could talk to these people he did not know so he named alphonse flakowski a 40 year old postal supervisor without a single day of military training his second command oh do you think this is like his best

day of work ever like fuck yes i've been waiting for this moment i have been wanting to shoot nazis for so long i've been wanting to lead my my underlings into battle for years i've been fantasizing about this like on my postal route gonna sling some blood like i sling fucking stamps bro now when we envision a post office i know me i think of like what our post offices look like which admittedly in hawai, they all look like brutalist concrete squares, so they'd be a pretty good pillbox, admittedly. Yeah, they're like that everywhere. Yeah, you don't think that this is our armored redoubt.

This is not our final stand fortress. But this post office was built differently. It was just built differently. This post office was built different. Yeah, it's talking with the money phone. It's rise and grind all day. It was just built different. This post office was built different. It's talking with the money phone. It's rise and grind all day. The rise and grind post office.

It was a huge multi-building compound made out of thick brick, and then it had a retaining wall. How many Cs are in this thick, Joe? At least two. At least two. This post office? Damn. It's thick.

Like Resident Evil 8, like Vampire Mom thick? Oh, man. Vampire Mom definitely does business. I mean, I think Vampire Mom is from what? Romania? That's nearby. She goes to Poland for post does business. I mean, I think vampire mom is from what? Romania? It's nearby. She goes to Poland for fucking post office business. This is her

post office. Yeah. It was built for her. Oh, God. Anyway. If nobody's seen the nine foot tall Resident Evil vampire lady, they're not going to get any of that. Nine foot six. It's got Salvin Tangibles. Might be in the NBA one day.

She doesn't need to jump the dunk. The rims at eye height, come on. Eat your fucking heart out, LeBron. At one point, someone tried to do some landscaping in this post office, so they planted a whole bunch of trees and bushes everywhere.

So one of the first things Conrad did was him and his post office bros went out there and started cutting all of that shit down because he wanted to make the perfect kill zone so easy that untrained mailmen would be able to take advantage of it. So this would force anybody attacking the post office to advance over totally open ground. Oh, he was the combat engineer, right? Yeah. Yep. He's literally the perfect person they could have sent to go do this. Yeah, he put him in a good position. Now, most people didn't think that any of this would be used.

Now, most people didn't think that any of this would be used. Like, Conrad and most of the defenders assumed that even if the idea of war with Germany was looming, most figured the combined powers of the French and the British would convince them that, like, maybe don't do that, or would buy Poland enough time where, you know, four to six days would elapse where the Polish army could come and save them. They didn't see themselves as targets in that post office. Now, unfortunately for Conrad and the mailman, the Nazis in the area

were prepping at the same time that they were cutting down trees. The Danzig police teamed up with local Nazi paramilitaries like the SS and the SA to figure out which buildings the Poles had been held up in and zero in on the post office. Because remember, they just wanted to kill all the Poles. I think that's something that a lot of people...

I mean, because who would think that, right? The reason why a lot of people didn't see the Holocaust coming or just the wanton violence against the Poles or bella russia and stuff is that you don't assume that mass murder is the goal you assume it's like military conquest yeah they didn't do this shit in europe to eat other white people much i mean like you know turkey and armenia like that that was a thing but that wasn't europe europe you know yeah so that so no one even like conceived of this happening i mean the last main genocide in europe of like a major population happened in like what the 1300s or something like that before the armenian genocide um it would have been quite some time it was like well i guess also

with the spanish inquisition but that was like the 1400s so yeah they didn't there's not really a precedent yeah and like hitler himself pointed out like who remembers the armenians like he knew people didn't remember like 20 years before this yeah it wasn't that long ago um so like the you know the the civilians within the post office probably didn't assume that like

we're a legitimate target because like we're a fucking post office um but then on september 1st at 4 in the morning danzig police cut the power and water to the post office. But then on September 1st at 4 in the morning, Danzig police cut the power and water to the post office. 45 minutes later, the Sweschwig Holstein opened fire on the Polish outpost at the

Westerplot, meaning that in reality, the first actions of World War II had been carried out against a small group of Polish mailmen held up in a post office before anybody opened fire officially against Poland. I love it. That's something that blew my like obviously there's um like the nazis rolled out some false flags and stuff against poland to build up their reason for war but like the first action really was an offensive by cops against mailmen.

Just blows the mind. It's just like everyday life in Poland, though, isn't it? Just the constant tug of war between postal worker and cop. Ah, there's two wolves within you. What is a postal worker and what is a cop? Now, the Danzig police, flanked by their SA and SS comrades, calmly walked up to the post office, assuming that there wouldn't be a fight. They demanded that everybody inside surrender and come out unarmed.

And that is when they met a full slate of gunfire. Fuck. Yes. Like that, there was a one machine gun within the post office. It was the Polish... They had a machine gun? It was the Polish version of a BAR. And a whole bunch of rifles and pistols and stuff. Fuck. And the guy using the BAR was Conrad because he didn't have enough

time to train everybody on it. So he just stood in a window and started hosing people because in front of them is like an open field, but also a city street like there's nowhere for these guys to run so they just get hosed down in the middle of the street and like they the the nazis thought that this was going to be such a like a cakewalk that the local party leader a guy named albert forster showed up to watch the event like a high school football game or something. Like some random Germans in the city came to like, watch the spectacle of, man.

And then they just watch all these dudes get obliterated by gunfire. God, it never ends. Well, like first bull run during the civil war, like civilians showed up to watch the battle. Like, cause I thought it was going to be a cakewalk.

And then they caused a mass stampede that blocked half the army from escaping back to dc right and then i think this happened in world war one also like some civilians just got shattered by artillery when they were going to go look at the trenches in france like towards the start of it people don't learn they're like oh a war yeah like israelis were doing that during the syria uh during the worst part of the syrian civil war because they could like watch the artillery strikes from like the rooftops and stuff. It's not a spectator sport, guys. Go home. Now, obviously, walking into machine gun and rifle fire at pretty close range convinced the Nazis to scatter, leaving their dead and wounded behind.

They tried to return fire and eventually brought in three armored cars to support them. And one of those armored cars, like one of the mailmen got close enough to destroy it with a hand grenade. He blew up an armored car with a hand grenade? What? Yeah, like I really want to think that he said some like action movie shit beforehand. He's like, I i gotta deliver one last package here's your fucking mail you ugly son of a bitch uh and like they use the armored car as cover to like you know try to advance on the post office but whenever they got too close the mailman would

fight them off and kill them once again um during the second large push against the post office, Conrad found himself getting wounded. He was shot in the chest. Now, Conrad knew he was fatally wounded. He was not going to be able to get medical care, and Nazis were starting to come directly into the post office. So he ordered the postmen to fall back, and then he pulled the pin on a grenade

and jumped into the door that the Nazis were coming into, suicide bombing them. Fuck, that's some I Am Legends shit right there. I got this. That chased off the Nazis for the second time, probably assuming like, ha ha, we wounded him. Oh God, he's attacking us still. Do you think that he was like, do you think that he said the same thing the guy with the grenade and armor car did?

Like, here's your fucking mail. Packages for you. Yeah. And they chased them off. Now, Conrad was dead, leaving the entire defense of the post office to the not trained second command, Flakowski. Now, at this point, they collected groups of cops and militias thought that since the mailmen were shooting back and like until then they had only been shooting like unarmed people until now they said that they're like fuck this this sucks let's just blow up the post office right uh like we have enough explosives we could just blow the whole fucking thing down

but that post office was sick though wasn't it it would require a lot of explosives um like two c's minimum sick yeah the the nazi party leader was like no no no you can't blow up the post office it'd make us look bad like we should just be able to march into that fucking post office you you may execute unarmed civilians but i draw the line to blowing up the post office. I think that's a bridge too far. Yeah, I think he was just worried that like we had to resort to something so drastic to defeat mailmen will make us really look bad when the real Nazis show up. You know, I mean, I don't know. It would be embarrassing. Yeah.

We got our asses kicked by one dead soldier and a bunch of mailmen. got our asses kicked by uh one dead soldier and a bunch of mailmen yeah like at this point like in all of the lulls and fighting um the cops demand that the mailmen surrender and every time the mailmen shoot at the guy who orders their surrender king shit like come closer we can't hear uh by 11 got another one fucking idiots uh by 11 regular army units of the wehrmacht had shown up to reinforce the gathering of cops and random shitheads that joined together now by this point the danzig police sa and ss had also been joined by random german civilians who were fervent nazi supporters and wanted to join in on the race war happening down the block um so just like random people with like 100 year old shotguns were showing up yeah pretty much uh and then they would they'd get scared off by a burst of the bar fired by an angry polish mailman now that's when the wehrmacht saw that you know the Danzig cops were really bad at their job and

they would just wheel up a 75 millimeter gun to blow apart the post office now Forrester didn't want this to happen but when the Wehrmacht showed up yeah we're not gonna fucking clear this goddamn post office we'll just blow it up this succeeded on blowing a hole in the post office wall and as soon as the cops and the militias got all whipped up and excited, thinking that the mailman have to surrender. Now they realize we have fucking field guns and they charged into this breach in the post office. But the mailman were not scared off. In fact, they were waiting on the other side of the new breach to point blank them with machine gun and rifle fire again. Fuck yes, dude.

And then close combat. And they also booby trapped, like when a mailman would fall in combat, they would booby trap their corpse with a hand grenade, knowing that the- How did they figure out how to do that? I don't know. They're fucking natural fighters.

Maybe it could be one of those things that Conrad taught them how to do. I guess. He was like, chop down these trees. Here's how to booby trap your friend's corpse. Alright, go. I think Flakowski knew that we're trophies now. We've become

such a thorn in the side of these people that they're going to drag us out. Because now journalists and shit are outside. There's a ton of pictures of this random fucking battle at a post office because so many members of the press

showed up and the mailman knew like they could see them from the window and they're shooting at them too it's about ethics and post office journalism yeah so like they're like they're gonna try to use our bodies as trophies and they're gonna try to use our bodies as trophies and they're gonna try to grab them and pull them out if they come in so they started putting hand grenades under

them because like one of the things they had was a whole crate of hand grenades uh so like that happened quite a few times the nazis would come back in the breach grab a body blow themselves up and you know again the nazis demanded a surrender and again the mailman shot the guy that has surrendered how long has this been going on for because you said this is like around 11 but like this sounds like they've been shooting nazis for like yeah they started at 4 a.m it is now 4 a.m yeah they've been doing this for like eight hours just shooting nazis trying to come into the post office just shirting nazis into fucking jelly yeah oh dude these are the best post office workers ever now forrester was getting pissed he was beyond frustrated so he asked the germans at the vester plot

for indirect fire support hoping they could drop artillery onto the post office and finally end this bullshit. So the Nazis at the Westerplot agreed and they began to fire shells into the city. Unfortunately for everyone but the mailman, the cops had no idea how to correctly call for fire support. So the incoming shells landed wildly all over the city blowing up random buildings and one shell landing directly

in the midst of a group of Nazi supporters who had gathered to watch the show fuck just an incredible self own like yeah we're gonna go watch the glorious Wehrmacht take over the post office and then just get rocked by a fucking naval shell you know in terms of like an anecdote that perfectly sums up german

performance in world war ii this is it right here just like oh yeah we're gonna curb stomp these fools and then a bunch of post office workers kick their asses and they shell themselves well welcome to antifa polish postal service welcome to the resistance yeah uh now the wehrmacht finally got fully involved because they were getting shelled by their own guns and corrected the shell fire before they accidentally got blown to shit now once accurate shell fire began falling onto the post office. The post office did not stand much of a chance, but it also had a basement. So the mailman and the refugees they were protecting retreated down to the basement as the entire building got blown to shit above them. Smelling victory, the cops rushed in again, making their way downstairs and running directly in to that goddamn BAR.

Fuck. Littering the stairs with dead and wounded Nazis, who I'm pretty sure the Poles then beat to death. Like, if they fell into the basement, they'd just get their shit kicked in. They keep falling for it. Like, ugh. I mean, the Nazis don't always, like,

they're not known for being very intelligent, but, like, come on. Like, come on i like come on yeah i think at this point like the polls realize that like they're not gonna let us surrender like we're and remember a lot of these mailmen are literally defending their families who are with them they're like they're not just fighting for a post office they're like kids and wives are in the basement with them um so after that, once again, the Nazis demanded a surrender and the mailman refused, though this time it's noted that the Nazis were smart enough to do this out of eyesight. So they did get shot just around the corner of the stairs.

Yeah, exactly. They're like, nope, nope. Don't go near the don't go near the stairs. They'll just shoot you. don't go near the don't go near the stairs they'll just shoot you um now the local police commander ordered a local fueling truck to be brought over to the building when it arrived the fire department of the city of danzig jumped in to aid the cops then pumping fuel down the basement before setting it on fire with a hand grenade even then the poles tried to hold on for as long as they could uh uh, firing at Nazis.

They could see, but as the fire encroached on them, three people were burned to death and they realized that they were fucked. They finally decided to surrender to spare their families, you know, burning to death. While this was going on,

uh, six people saw an opening and fled out of the back window and into the city, escaping the hands of the Germans. Oh, well, at least some people got out that's cool yeah by the end what were you saying

it's just like a Wile E. Coyote like level like thing you know it just started out so small but they keep like having to call in Acme to like you know oh yeah bring in the fucking naval gun bring in the fucking fire truck filled with gasoline I'm surprised like fuck it bring in the fucking fire truck filled with gasoline I'm surprised like fuck it bring in the tanks like they brought

in field guns of soldiers fucking straight up street fighting Nazis and the polls are like no pause around bitch and then they just painted like what looked like a breach in the wall on the wall of the compound and then they ran into it thinking

it was a hole but they ran into the side of the mountain i just this this post office is just a painting on a mountain the whole time that one's actually in there uh i i just want to have a an america like a postal service sticker now but instead of like usps it just says no Pazeran now about 50 or so mailmen held off hundreds of Nazis outgunned and outnumbered for 15 hours non-stop 15 hours Jesus Christ

now rightfully the mailmen were employees of the Polish state and defending sovereign Polish territory and should have been held as POWs but the Nazis were, well, Nazis. Also, they had been fucking embarrassed by what they thought would literally take 10 minutes. So within a week,

the defenders are tried in a kangaroo court as illegal combatants and bandits and found guilty. Though, I think legal, like, to be fair, if they were legally kept as POWs, then I don't think they really would have helped them at all due to all of the murder the Nazis visited upon Polish POWs. Yeah, that would be

more like a formality at that point. Yeah. They were all quickly executed via a firing squad. Though, of the six that escaped the burning basement, four survived the war entirely, and I believe what is still alive today. Um, now we rarely lean on karma as a concept of this show,

but in order to end on a bright note here, stir bonfure, Max Polly, the SS officer who ordered the executions of the post office fighters that day would eventually be found guilty of war crimes and would find himself swinging by the end of a rope on October 8th, 1946. Get fucked. Oh, hell yeah.

Now, Jack, we do a thing on the show. So this is how we're going to end it. Actually, I should say, do you have any closing thoughts on the brave fighters of the Polish post office? I do actually have a thought about this. They made a board game out of this. I looked it up just now.

Yes, it's called Soldiers in Postmen's Uniforms. That is amazing. You play as the Polish. It's like a single player game, but you play as the Polish gunning down all of the Nazis. And it's basically like a how long can you hold out kind of thing. But it's a board game. It's a board game, yeah. And is this board game

easily available? I'm looking at it right now on boardgamegeek.com. They're selling it. Yeah, it lists places you can buy. It looks like the only place they're listing right now is eBay, but... I'm going to have to look this uh like it doesn't look like it's on ebay right now damn it fuck i'll send you the link that reminds me there's a um there yeah and that is the uh

monument to the postman uh that's on the cover there. But there's a board game. That Nick and I joked about getting one time. But we could never find it. Because it's so rare. It's almost like a D&D type game. With all of the in-depthness of it. But it's about the. I believe the African campaign.

Of World War II. More specifically. The Italian component of it. it's like well known for being the most ridiculous board game ever to the point that like the italian soldiers in order to eat need pasta points and shit like that fuck it's absolutely ridiculous um it's been out of print for years because like it's almost unplayable like a single round takes days if you can like find anything about this

I will do a deep dive on this fucking thing I need to know about this I will find it and I will let you know because it is the probably one of the weirdest board games I've ever found I found a YouTube video of a group of people playing like a single round of it

and it was several hours long and it was cut together because it took so long. Jack, we do a thing on this show called Questions from the Legion. Now, if you would like to ask us a question from the Legion, you could slide in my DMs,

message me on discord or patreon or email or whatever um message in a bottle uh you know homing pigeon um you could tie it to a brick and throw it through my window um smoke signal uh morris code i'm running out of means of communication here uh regular mail delivered by Polish Postal Service, man. Yeah, if you get me a letter delivered by the Polish Postal Service, that would be amazing. So today's question from the Legion is, obviously you're on the show,

so I wanted it to be tailored towards war games, which is the thing that you do. What is your favorite war game? Fuck. There's so many of them. I'm a basic bitch and mine's like just a total war series. Oh, man. So what I will say about that,

I'll just give you my favorite recent one is Field of Glory 2. Medieval is actually one that released like to tomorrow i think is when it releases um i got a preview code of it and uh it's super good it's like one of those miniatures games that like you know us nerds will go and paint the little miniatures and push them around on the field oh okay yeah it's like that but it's digital so uh clumsy fucks like me who don't know how to paint can get it in on the fun especially when i don't want to get you know covet and die by seeing anyone in person right now that is a problem yeah yeah i uh i streamed it the other week actually and uh i got my ass stomped because i was fighting the mongols so i never that's fun i never got into

the miniature thing mostly because the barrier of cost that's fun i never got into the miniature thing mostly because the barrier of cost i remember like i never got into warhammer miniatures i only got into warhammer because like books uh but i did play a terrible game called mage knights forever mage knights it probably doesn't exist anymore um but it had miniatures it was like you didn't paint them they just came as they were they had like little spinning dials on the bottom for like life points it was like I think someone saw Warhammer like okay

what if that but much easier because it even had some of the same races like orcs goblins humans and shit like that I think actually my parents several times tried to like when i was a kid get me into war games and they would buy me the like the most off-brand things i had never heard of it would never see again like there was like a little ship where you would

build paper ships and then send them against each other and then like there was this one game that was kind of like football but it wasn't it wasn't Blitzball either. It wasn't the popular one. And I would go to school and be like, hey, does anyone want to play this shitty paper ship game? And everyone would be like, we have Pokemon cards. What the fuck are you talking about? I never heard of that one. Yeah.

I don't know. So Jack, thank you for joining me as I await the return of Nick from the United States military. And this is the part of the show where the guests get it's the plug zone. So you have projects that you do and this is where you can plug them and people should go and listen to them. Please. So I, as Joe mentioned earlier, run a podcast called Let's Talk About War Games. We do what the title says. It's with another freelance writer, friend of mine, also named Joe.

So it's kind of easy. If you're listening to this episode, you don't have to remember any more names. Joe's all the way down. Yeah. And we also have a blog. It's Let's Talk About War Games at the it's a wordpress and we write about games and stuff there and that's pretty much it you can follow me on twitter it's at jack underscore trumbull um i shit post a lot uh yesterday i just wrote the tweet muppet boobs because that's the thing right now that's some high quality posting sir well there's there's a, there's a new D&D show coming out where they have Muppets.

It's like a Muppet-based D&D show, but one of the Muppets just has huge tits. That's deeply disturbing. It's not fun to look at, I'll tell you that. I don't like it. I remember, so I found your, well, it wasn't your blog. I believe it was a website you were writing for at the time. And you wrote a review of a game that, in my opinion, correctly pointed out that a game developer

was peddling in the clean Vermocht theory. Yes. And they posted, a game developer posted a long screed, pretty much personally attacking you, which is how I knew I was into your brand. Yeah. And then I did an episode about Clean Vermacht, also kind of like the one you did here after that,

because I was so pissed off about it. It was kind of weird having that experience, but I think that due to UK libel laws where this was posted, I'm OK. And the article doesn't exist anymore due to some changes with the site. So I'm basically scot free. So nice. Fuck off, I guess. I don't accidentally, you know, support Nazi theories.

Yeah, I don't think it wasn't intentional, but you still did it. Sorry. Yeah. So I guess we can close out that um until next time obviously Jack thanks for coming on love to have you on again and uh until next time don't accidentally do clean veramok theory

hell yes