One event that is often over looked in the wider context of WWII is one of the first actions of the war.

On September 1,1939 the Germans cut the phone and electricity lines to the Post office of Gdansk. At the time there were 56 people in the building. Combat engineer and Army Reserve 2nd lieutenant  Konrad Guderski. 42 Gdansk postal employees, ten postal employees from  the cities of Gdynia and Bydgoszcz, the building keeper with his wife and a 10-year-old daughter who lived in the complex.

Konrad Guderski had been dispatched to  Gdansk  earlier in 1939.His task was to help organize the official and volunteer security staff at the Polish Post Office in Gdansk, because of the imminent threat of a German invasion.

Guderski was sent by the Ministry of Military Affairs in April 1939, to Gdansk.He was an engineer by trade but joined the army in 1934.