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WWII On This Day: September 28

What happened on September 28 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1939, 1942 and 1943, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1939
Polish negotiators at the Skoda works during the capitulation of Warsaw, 28 September 1939.
Polish negotiators at the Skoda works during the capitulation of Warsaw, 28 September 1939. Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1976-032-19 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Source
Invasion of Poland 1939

Warsaw capitulates

Negotiations opened on 27 September and Warsaw's military capitulation was signed on 28 September. Bombardment, shortages of water and food, heavy casualties and the collapse of relief prospects shaped the decision. The agreement covered the defended city and its garrison. General Tadeusz Kutrzeba, who had escaped the Bzura battle into Warsaw, participated in the negotiations while Polish political and military continuity was already shifting abroad. Germany and the Soviet Union signed their Boundary and Friendship Treaty on the same day, revising the occupation line established by the August secret protocol.…

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1942
A German tank commander in southern Soviet territory in June 1942, shortly before the opening of Case Blue.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-218-0528-30 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Case Blue and the Drive to the Caucasus

The Terek offensive stalls short of Malgobek

SS Wiking crossed the Terek after dark on 25 September and attacked toward Malgobek the following morning. In about a day and a half the division reached to within roughly a mile of the town but failed to secure the heights needed for a clean breakthrough south. At the same time 13th Panzer Division was stopped around Elkhotovo. The Terek bend, ravines and ridge lines allowed Soviet formations to create a connected defensive problem out of ground that had looked open on the operational map. The failure did not end…

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1943
Danish Jewish refugees reach Sweden on 6 October 1943 during the rescue operation that followed warning of the planned German arrests.
Danish Jewish refugees reach Sweden on 6 October 1943 during the rescue operation that followed warning of the planned German arrests. Unknown photographer · Public domain Source
Occupation, Collaboration and Resistance in World War II

Warning of the deportation plan triggers the Danish rescue

On 28 September 1943 the German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz warned Danish contacts that an operation to arrest Denmark's Jews was imminent. Jewish families were alerted and began moving into hiding before German police started the roundup on the night of 1 October. The rescue did not depend on one organisation. Jewish community leaders, resistance members, police officers, hospital staff, clergy, private households, fishermen and other civilians moved people toward the coast and across the Øresund. Within weeks about 7,200 Danish Jews and roughly 680 non-Jewish relatives reached neutral Sweden.…

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