Poland: Polish Post Office in Gdańsk

On Saturday I got a postcard from Poland.

It shows the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk. After World War I Gdańsk or Danzig in German was a semi-autonomous city state separated from both the newly independent Poland and the German Weimar Republic. It was under protection of the League of Nations and was put into a customs union with Poland. Also certain rights about communication, the port and the railway were given to Poland. While the free city also had its own postal service, a special Polish post office was created as well. Its building was considered Polish extraterritorial property and even had its own stamps, mainly Polish stamps overprinted with "Port Gdańsk". As tensions between Germany and Poland grew, the post office was prepared for hostilities and fortified. When World War II began on the 1st September 1939, the Polish Post Office was one of the first sites of fighting, but it was not as easily captured as the aggressors thought. In fact the Polish personnel defended the building for some 15 hours against units of the SS, the SA and the local police. After the defenders eventually had to surrender, all of them were sentenced to death by a German court martial as illegal combatants a month later and executed. Only four were able to escape during the surrender. In Poland the episode has become one of the better known episodes of the Polish September Campaign and it is usually portrayed as a heroic story of David and Goliath proportions, in Germany it is mainly known from The Tin Drum by Günter Grass. In 1979 a museum was established in the building and also it is still used as post office.

With a related stamp:
Sunflower (issued 26-06-2015)
Cornflower (issued 20-01-2016)
80 years Defense of the Polish Post Office in Gdańsk (issued 01-09-2019)

Thank You very much Doris!