Key Facts
- Duration
- September 1939 – January 1940
- Poles killed
- ~20,000
- Proscription list size
- Over 61,000 names
- Perpetrating units
- Einsatzgruppen
- Targeting method
- Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen (proscription list)
Strategic Narrative Overview
Einsatzgruppen mobile killing units carried out mass arrests and shootings across German-occupied Poland from September 1939 through January 1940. Victims were seized from their homes, workplaces, and public institutions based on the proscription list and executed in numerous mass killings. The operation was coordinated and systematic, targeting educators, lawyers, priests, and other community leaders identified as threats to German occupation.
01 / The Origins
Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Nazi leadership sought to eliminate the Polish intelligentsia, clergy, nobility, and political figures to destroy the nation's capacity for organized resistance. A proscription list called the Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen, compiled before the invasion, identified more than 61,000 members of Poland's elite as targets for arrest, internment, or execution.
03 / The Outcome
By January 1940 the formal operation concluded, with approximately 20,000 Poles arrested and killed. It was followed by the murder of hospital patients and disabled adults under the Aktion T4 programme. Operation Tannenberg established a precedent for subsequent large-scale Nazi atrocities in occupied Poland and formed part of the broader campaign to annihilate Polish national identity.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Side B
1 belligerent