Early in September 1939 war arrived from the west and, sixteen days later, from the east. An early taste of war came to Winna Góra later that month when Lieutenant Andrzej Mańkowski (as her husband had by now become) was seriously shot and for the time being immobilised by his own subordinates because he had angrily upbraided a group of Polish soldiers for mistreating a captured German officer in ways that would have offended his own conscience and breached the Geneva Conventions. The German prisoner had been stabbed in the eye with a bayonet. At this stage they were playing host to two "old school" German officers who had arrived on a couple of motor bikes six days after the launch of the German invasion, and who were surprised to find Klementyna Mankowska and her children ensconced in the castle. Others, elsewhere in the area, had already fled. Beyond the estate, the village was deserted. The officers assured the Mańkowskis they would need only one of the three floors of the castle, modestly furnished. There are powerful indications of a brief but intense romance involving one of them. A month later the Gestapo arrived and the family were thrown out of their Winna Góra. The castle had been selected as a present/trophy for Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.