Berlin, Aug 30 (DPA) Wreath laying and remembrance ceremonies are to be held throughout Europe Sep 1 to mark the outbreak of World War II 70 years ago.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Premier Vladimir Putin are due to join Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk for a commemorative ceremony at Westerplatte near the Polish city of Gdansk, formerly Danzig.

The shelling by a German warship of a Polish military depot at the Westerplatte peninsula was one of the first episodes in Nazi Germany's aggression on Poland that led to the war. For five days the small Polish garrison held out against the eleven-inch guns of the battleship Schleswig-Holstein and Stukas dropping 500-pound bombs.

William L. Shirer, an American correspondent based in the German capital at the time Nazi troops invaded Poland, described the events in his Berlin Diary of Sep 1, 1939.

'At dawn this morning Hitler moved against Poland. It's a flagrant, inexcusable, unprovoked act of aggression. But Hitler and the German High Command call it a 'counter-attack'!'

Shirer recalled that at the start of World War I in 1914 there had been tremendous excitement in Berlin on the first day of hostilities.

Twenty-five years later, however, things were different. 'Today there is no excitement, no hurrahs, no cheering, no throwing of flowers, no war fever, no war hysteria,' Shirer wrote.

'There is not even any hate for the French and British -- despite Hitler's various proclamations to the people, the party, the East Army, the West Army, accusing the 'English war-mongers' and 'capitalistic Jews' of starting this war.'

Shirer also described seeing 250 people standing about in the sun on Berlin's Wilhelmplatz square Sep 3, 1939, when loudspeakers announced that Britain had declared war on Germany.

'They listened, there was not a murmur. They just stood there as they were before. Stunned. The people cannot realise yet that Hitler has led them into a world war,' wrote Shirer, who later went on to pen the best-selling book, 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'.

Although the war officially began with the German invasion of Poland, Hitler had earlier already seized Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia, with no intervention by other nations. By June 1940, Germany had conquered not only Poland, but also Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and France, leaving Britain alone to battle on against the fascist forces.

That same month the German army launched its Operation Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union. Not until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 would the US be drawn into the war alongside Britain.