#232: The Secret of Westerplatte
Not every heroic narrative survives closer inspection
This review was originally posted to Twitter on March 26, 2020
Initial release: February 15, 2013
Director: Paweł Chochlew
Every Allied nation that participated in World War II tends to romanticize specific moments important to national history. Russia has the battle of Stalingrad, the US has the beaches of Normandy. In this environment, it’s always risky to offer a revisionist take, as Paweł Chochlew learned the hard way in his film The Secret of Westerplatte.
While there’s some debate as to the specifics of when and where the first shots fired in World War 2 actually took place, the prevailing stance is that the distinction goes to the Battle of Westerplatte, one of the opening salvos in Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939. (This is, of course, not counting earlier conflicts such as Japan’s invasion of China, but this isn’t really the thread for a discussion of the Eurocentrism that’s in a lot of analysis of the war. At the very least, this is the opening of the European theater.) Situated on a peninsula in northern Poland, Westerplatte was once a resort near Danzig (present-day Gdansk.) In the interwar period, it became the site of a Polish military depot, which was controversial with the independent but increasingly German-allied Danzig Free City. This conflict, among others, served as part of the pretext behind Germany’s invasion of Poland one late summer morning in 1939. For seven days, the garrison at Westerplatte, with only 200 men, held out against the invading forces, becoming a sort of national symbol of resistance.
In the decades since the war, this single battle has become a point of pride for Poland. With its status as the “official” start of World War 2, the legend presents a noble story of heroic defenders against Nazi Germany who fought to the last. But how true is it?
Chochlew’s film attempts to find an answer to that. It starts off simply enough, with the garrison commander, Major Henryk Sucharski, being told on August 31st that the backup he was promised in case of invasion — an invasion everyone was anticipating — would come at 12 hours, not 6 as he was originally told. Early the next morning the invasion begins. Though the garrison manages to repel the initial attacks it’s clear that the men are really not ready for a full-scale war. Over the course of a week, unit cohesion begins to break down amidst mounting casualties and dwindling supplies.
Morale begins to seriously tank around the third or fourth day; some of the men desert, others attempt to kill each other, and still others have begun spreading terrifying rumors that necessitate their being isolated from the others. Sucharski and his deputy, Captain Franciszek Dąbrowski, soon are at odds over the proper course to take. Sucharski is aghast at the number of dead and wounded; he soon becomes shell-shocked, and suffers an epileptic seizure. Upon recovery he begins pushing for surrender. Dąbrowski, for his part, winds up taking informal command while Sucharski is recuperating. As the other officers begin to agree with Sucharski on the need for surrender, Dąbrowski remains the last holdout, slowly turning into a harsh, unforgiving commander.
What’s interesting about this film is how little we actually see the enemy. They’re always at a distance, borderline faceless. In fact, in the early battle scenes, we don’t even actually see them for a few minutes. It creates a separation between them and the Polish troops. This separation is brought to its logical conclusion towards the end, when a small group of soldiers defending a beach ignore the order to surrender and charge the wire, only to find that all the Germans they’d been shooting at all week are dead — and they didn’t even know.
In spite of its two hour runtime, this is a stark, expertly paced tale of a very human response to one of the great traumas of human history. It’s a complex film that seeks to take away some of the mystique behind the legend of Westerplatte to reveal the human tale underneath. In spite of weak CGI and the occasional overuse of shakycam, this is a tense, expertly-acted film that tells a powerful story of strength in the face of despair. Chochlew particularly seems to enjoy utilizing stunning establishing shots.
Neither of the two officers are exactly good at their jobs under pressure. Sucharski spends several days being largely useless as he breaks down from the losses of his men; Dąbrowski’s demand to continue fighting trades heroism for suicide, and he becomes borderline abusive. Between this, and other scenes of various soldiers cracking under the strain, even to the point of one man attempting to kill a messenger bringing the order to surrender, it paints a picture that one might consider unflattering.
And indeed, there was some controversy over this film (similar to how City of Life and Death drew controversy in China over its sympathetic depiction of a Japanese soldier coming apart from the strain of being surrounded by so much human misery.) But this isn’t a work of anti-Polish propaganda. (Really, if it were, who is being propagandized?)
This is why the film has at least three names. Originally titled Secret of Westerplatte, the name seemed to imply some dark truth — which directly goes against nationalist narratives. The most common version in English seems to be the more neutral 1939 Battle of Westerplatte. But this isn’t any less a heroic tale of resistance than the popular legend of the battle goes. It just tries to show a more realistic depiction. The Westerplatte garrison weren’t superheroes; but they acted with superhuman inner strength when it was needed. Even Dąbrowski eventually found the strength to agree to capitulate, at great emotional cost to himself, knowing that in the end Sucharski was right, and saving what was left of the men was more important than fighting a pointless, suicidal battle against the Nazi war machine.
Nationalism often feels like a death cult. Self-sacrifice is the guiding principle in nationalist narratives. We love soldiers when they’re dead more than we do when they’re alive. We build our national histories on a mountain of dead heroes, and forget that they too were human. Films like this are a necessity; myths are made to be busted, and realism and heroism aren’t mutually exclusive. The world deserves to hear the story of Westerplatte in as close to the truth as possible.
