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• September 1939 marked the beginning of the German occupation (...)
• The task of the elimination (...)
• It would need to be considered (...)
• A place of execution of the Polish elites (...)
• Many Greater Poland insurgents (...)
• Leon Kmiotek, the commandant (...)

The task of the elimination of “elements hostile to the Reich” was entrusted to several institutions. However, the most criminal activity in this area was demonstrated by special groups (Einsatzgruppe) and operational units (Einsatzkommando), which functioned in parallel with the structures of the German police and Wehrmacht. The operational groups formed, for the most part before the beginning of the military operations against Poland, followed the armies which invaded the Republic of Poland spread over the controlled territory. The elimination actions in the Greater Poland region were the responsibility of Operational Group VI (Einsatzgruppe VI - EG VI) commanded by SS-Oberführer Erich Naumann. It consisted of three operational units labelled with numbers: 11, 14 and 15. EG VI arrived in Poznań on 12 September and within less than two weeks it took over the entire operational area which covered more or less the pre-war Poznań province. The action aimed at murdering the Polish leadership class was codenamed ”Tannenberg” and was conducted according to the guidelines of the above-mentioned Reinhard Heydrich. Over 240 Poles were killed in public executions alone, which took place on 20, 21 and 23 October 1939 in 14 towns of Greater Poland. A considerable percentage of the victims were participants of the Greater Poland Uprising. 

On 21 October 1939, during the second day of mass shootings, the Special Operational Unit No. 14, commanded by SS-Sturmbannführer Gerhard Flesch arrived in Leszno early in the morning. It is well known that this unit was part of Operational Group VI. The unit’s officials formed a martial court, before which about 50 previously arrested people were brought. Local Germans known for their anti-Polish inclinations were typified as trial witnesses. The accused were deprived of any possibility to defend themselves and the trial, in principle, boiled down to the verification of their personal details. After short consultations among the judges, it was announced that 20 people would be sentenced to death. On that very same day, immediately after the closure of the court proceedings, the Germans shot the sentenced people at 10.45 a.m. Several former Greater Poland insurgents were among the victims. The same procedure was repeated in other towns.

In the executions organised in Leszno, among others, Wacław Kęsicki, who took an active part in the Greater Poland Uprising along the Wągrowiec and Leszno sections and was then involved in the Polish-Bolshevik war faced his death. After his return from the front, he was a soldier in the 55th Infantry Regiment in Leszno. He was the president of the Association of Former Soldiers of the 1st Greater Poland Rifle Regiment and secretary of the local Insurgent and Soldier Club. One day before his death, Kęsicki managed to bid farewell to his family, making a note on a small piece of paper: ”My Dears, in this last moment I wish to bid farewell to all of you. This is tough, but apparently such is our destiny, though I did not do any harm to anyone. Do not be desperate and do not grumble against God’s will, because you could face the same doom. May God be with you. Send my love to my brothers and that they may not grumble either.". As well as Kęsicki, Bronisław Kotlarski, yet another insurgent and a well-known political and economic activist also died. He was one of the founders of the People's Bank in Leszno, and also took part in fighting against the Bolsheviks. During the inter-war period, he ran a haberdashery shop in Leszno and was active in the Association of Independent Christian Merchants. As he had been mobilised in August 1939, he participated in the September campaign. 7 more former insurgents and politically and socially active inhabitants of Leszno were also shot dead. The participants of the Uprising also died in other executions. For example in Śrem, on 20 October 1939, an industrialist and political activist Franciszek Malinowski was murdered. Also, the deputy mayor of Śrem, Antoni Muślewski, shot during the same execution, was an insurgent. On the same day in Kórnik, Alfons Ellmann was killed. As a young boy he took part in insurgent fighting in Poznań, and was later the president of the Club of Greater Poland Insurgents in Kórnik. Also some victims of the execution carried out in Gostyń on 21 October 1939 had a history of participation in the Uprising. Two days later, among 15 victims shot in Śmigiel, there were six other former insurgents.