Operation Bürkl (''operacja Bürkl''), or the special combat action Bürkl (''specjalna akcja bojowa Bürkl''), was an operation by the
Polish resistance conducted on 7 September 1943. It was the second action of
Operation Heads, a series of
assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
s of notorious SS officers in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
carried out by the
Kedyw
''Kedyw'' (, partial acronym of ''Kierownictwo Dywersji'' ("Directorate of Diversion") was a Polish World War II Home Army unit that conducted active and passive sabotage, propaganda and armed operations against Nazi German forces and collaborat ...
's special group Agat ("Anti-
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
") between 1943 and 1944, and their first success.
History
The goal of the operation was to "liquidate"
Franz Bürkl Franz may refer to:
People
* Franz (given name)
* Franz (surname)
Places
* Franz (crater), a lunar crater
* Franz, Ontario, a railway junction and unorganized town in Canada
* Franz Lake, in the state of Washington, United States – see Fran ...
, a notorious
Sicherheitspolizei
The ''Sicherheitspolizei'' ( en, Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the ...
NCO who had been sentenced to death by the Polish
Underground courts for the murder of at least several dozen people. Bürkl was ambushed in broad daylight on the city's main
Marszałkowska Street by a group of five young
AK partisans armed with
Sten submachine gun
The STEN (or Sten gun) is a family of British submachine guns chambered in 9×19mm which were used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War. They had a simple design and very low production cos ...
s and
Filipinka
{{Infobox weapon, is_explosive=yes,
name=ET wz. 40
, image=Granat Filipinka.jpg
, caption=Filipinka in the Museum of the Warsaw Rising
, origin=Poland
, design_date=1942
, service=1942-1947
, type= Offensive fragmentation
, filling=ca. 250g of c ...
hand grenades. The assassins, led by 21-year-old
Jerzy Zborowski, were recruited for Agat from the underground scouting organization
Szare Szeregi. Bürkl and seven other German policemen were killed in the 90-second shoot-out. While the operation resulted in no losses for the resistance, the Nazis killed 20 inmates of
Pawiak prison
Pawiak () was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Congress Poland.
During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia.
During the World War II German occupation o ...
in a
public execution in reprisal.
[Strzembosz (1983), page 343-346.]
References
Bibliography
*
See also
*
Operation Kutschera
Operation Kutschera was the code name for the successful execution of Franz Kutschera, SS and Reich's Police Chief in German-occupied Warsaw, who was shot on 1 February 1944 by a combat sabotage unit of Kedyw of the Home Army (predecessor ...
External links
Specjalna operacja bojowa BürklSpecjalna operacja bojowa Bürkl (a different article)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Operation Burkl
1943 in Poland
Assassinated Nazis
Nazis assassinated by Polish resistance
Assassinations in Poland
History of Warsaw
Bürkl
Scouting and Guiding in Poland
General Government