Download Lecture notes 8

Jakub Basista, PhD, D.Litt
Institute of History,
Jagiellonian University
[email protected]
Poland in Europe in the 20th Century
Meeting 8 - Poland and the coming of the Second World War.
1939
April 16 – Soviet Alliance Proposal with Britain and France. The Soviet government
approached the British and French governments with an alliance proposal to stem
German aggression in Eastern Europe.
April 28 – German Renunciation of Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1935. In a speech in
the Reichstag, Chancellor Adolf Hitler officially renounced the Anglo-German Naval
Treaty of 1935, which had restricted the German navy to one-third the size of the Royal
Navy, as well as the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934, accusing the British
and Polish governments of attempting to "encircle" Germany.
August 20-September – The Danzig-Polish Crisis. After months of agitation and
recrimination between the Polish and German governments, and a number of border
incidents between the two countries, the long-expected crisis came to a head when Albert
Forster, the National Socialist leader in Danzig, proclaimed that the hour of deliverance
was at hand.
August 20 – Soviet-German Trade Agreement. The world was shocked when the German
and Soviet governments announced a trade agreement between the two states. Both
countries had been mortal enemies ideologically and the conclusion of a trade agreement
caught the world unaware.
August 22 – British Support for Poland. The Chamberlain government publicly renewed
Britain's pledge to Poland, but also appealed to the German government for a truce to
stave off a war. The British were willing to negotiate German claims in return for peace
in Eastern Europe.
August 23 – Belgian Appeal for Peace
August 24 – U.S. Arbitration Proposal
August 24 – Anglo-Polish Mutual Assistance Pact .The British parliament met in a
special session and voted the Chamberlain government almost dictatorial powers to deal
with the Danzig-Polish crisis. At the same time, British and Polish representatives signed
a mutual assistance pact. The British government wanted to demonstrate its support of
Poland to deter a German invasion and the Polish government began to call up reserves.
August 1939, British-French-Soviet Talks in Moscow
According to retired Russian foreign intelligence service Major General Lev Sotskov, who sorted the 700
pages of declassified documents.
"This was the final chance to slay the wolf, even after [British Conservative prime minister Neville]
Chamberlain and the French had given up Czechoslovakia to German aggression the previous year in the
Munich Agreement," said Gen Sotskov, 75.
The Soviet offer - made by war minister Marshall Klementi Voroshilov and Red Army chief of general
staff Boris Shaposhnikov - would have put up to 120 infantry divisions (each with some 19,000 troops), 16
cavalry divisions, 5,000 heavy artillery pieces, 9,500 tanks and up to 5,500 fighter aircraft and bombers on
Germany's borders in the event of war in the west, declassified minutes of the meeting show.
The Telegraph, By Nick Holdsworth in Moscow (18 Oct 2008)
The September Campaign
Nazis – total military campaign; Nazi armies did not make any differentiation between
the military and civilians. Air attacks were directed both at army groups, but also
fugitives fleeing towards the east. Hospitals, schools, factories were bombed. Civilians
were arrested and shot on spot. Nazi planes bombed over 160 towns and town districts.
476 villages were burnt to ground. In some centres 50-70% of all buildings were
destroyed.
In the defence of Warsaw 6 thousand soldiers and 10 thousand civilians were killed.
Soviets – it is extremely hard to determine the real size of destruction. Soviet army did
not apply total warfare. On the other hand they opened the possibility of revenge and
plunder on behalf of the local Byelorussian and Ukrainian peasants. Thousands of people
were interned and arrested.
Army losses: on west front – 67,000 dead, 134,000 wounded, 420-580,000 taken
prisoner (40,000 in Hungary; 30,000 in Romania; 14,000 in Lithuania; 1,500 in Latvia).
It is estimated that 250,000 soldiers were taken prisoner by the Red Army (18,000
officers).
28/29 September – division of Polish territories in Nazi-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and
Borders (Germany 187 Th. Sq. Km.; Soviet Union 192 Th. Sq. Km.; Lithuania 8 Th. Sq.
Km.; Slovakia 752 Sq. Km.)
Occupied Poland
8 Oct. 1939 part of Polish territory incorporated into III Reich; General Government
formed (12 Oct.)
III Reich
Germanisation; elimination of “Polish Leading Elements”
Terror
Extermination of Jews and Roma in the first stage
Expelling from III Reich to General Government (close to 1 mln.)
“Sonderaction Krakau” – 6 November 1939 (arrest of 183 Polish Professors)
Executions
Attempts to get rid of Polish culture and educated elite; elimination of ALL POLISH
SOCIAL and CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS. Confiscation (i.e. robbery) of objects of art.
JEWS
1939 – forming of the first ghetto in Piotrkow Trybunalski
1940 April – Łódź (200 thousand)
1940 Sept. – opening of ghetto in Warsaw (360-450 thousand)
1941 – opening of ghetto in Krakow
Soviet Union
Terror against educated and wealthy Poles
Favouring local peasants/poor population
Imprisonment of Polish soldiers, civic population – mass transports Eastwards
“Elections” to new local authorities in October
Execution of Polish officers in Katyn, Charkow, Miednoye – about 15 thousand (April
1940) Polish officers murdered in cold blood – shot at the back of their heads
Nationalisation of industry (all companies employing over 40 people)
NAZI EXTERMINATION POLICY
Sonderaktion Krakau - 6 Nov. 1939 - An operation directed against Polish professors
and academics. On November 6 Obersturmbannfuhrer SS Bruno Muller ordered
university professors to attend a lecture. When 144 of them were present in room 56 of
Collegium Novum, no lecture was given, but they were arrested and – together with a
group of professors from other universities – taken to Sachsenhausen and Dachau
concentration camps. 183 in all. 101 were released due to bad health upon loud
international protest. 15 died in camps and another 5 on the day of release.
Catholic University in Lublin - 11 Nov. 1939 - 14 professors arrested
May,June 1940 - over ten thousand Poles arrested and sent to concentration camps
14 June 1940 - first transport arrives in Auschwitz (only Poles)
Nazi policy against the Catholic Church - all priests’ seminars were closed
Educational and cultural policy towards Poles.
AB Action, Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion July 1940
A Nazi action carried out between May and July 1940 by the police and secret police
intended at extermination of Polish intellectual elite. An estimate 3,500 people were
murdered as a result of the action (politicians, teachers, priests, artists, writers).
16 April 1942 – “Plastyków” coffee shop action
A Nazi action directed against artists in the Kraków artists’ coffee shop on Łobzowska
street. In all 168 eminent artists were arrested (both in the coffee shop and in other places
in Kraków) and sent to KL Auschwitz. On May 27th all 168 were executed in the camp.
Gestapo and NKVD cooperation
27 September 1939 – Brest on Bug – discussion of methods to cut any attempt of
opposition under the occupation.
November 1939 – Przemyśl – devoted to the exchange of political prisoners and methods
of extermination of civilian population.
February 1940 – Zakopane – final protocol stated, that the Polish population should be
exterminated by 1975. (This is a hypothesis which can be found on the web. No sources
are available to verify this statement.)
March 1940 – Kraków
Auschwitz and other Concentration/extermination camps
Ever since the beginning of WW II, Nazis sent political prisoners to special concentration
camps, often connected with labor camps. Similar policy was carried out by Soviets. In
course of the occupation Nazi methods became crueler, larger numbers of accidentally
rounded up people ended in concentration camps. When “final Solution” of the Jewish
question was proclaimed, concentration camps became extermination camps with special
gas chambers and furnaces to burn the bodies of the killed.
Jews
First ghetto organized in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939.
1940/41 - about 300 ghettos and 200 camps for Jews are organized in General
Government
October 1940 - biggest ghetto organized in Warsaw
May 1943 - facing the regular and systematic extermination of Jews, an uprising breaks
out in the Warsaw ghetto
85-89% of Polish Jews were murdered on Polish territory during WW II
SOVIET EXTERMINATION POLICY
Terror, Sovietization and Russification.
March 1940 - 18,622 prisoners in NKVD prisons (10,685 Poles)
June 1941 - number grows to 39,653
September 1939-June 1941 - according to NKVD 107,140 people were arrested (40%
Poles; 23% Ukrainians; 22% Jews; 8% Byelorussians)
1939-41 - an assumption is made that 30-40,000 Poles were detained in labor camps
deportations - according to Andrzej L. Sowa, the number of deported into USSR did not
pass the Soviet data speaking about 325,000 Polish citizens (210,000 Poles) deported
5 March 1940 - decision is taken that 14,700 Polish p.o.w. will be executed along with
11,000 other Poles (at least 21,857 were murdered).
KATYŃ
A place of mass murder of Poles by NKVD. An estimated 21000 Polish officers of the
reserve were murdered in cold blood by Soviet secret forces most probably in April 1940.
Katyn, as a place discovered first, became a synonym, a key-word for the Soviet crimes
against the Polish intelligentsia during World War II. Of course many more thousands
perished in other places: Kharkiv, Kalinin, Gnezdovo and many Soviet concentration and
labor camps.
USSR denied having committed the crime until 1990, when Boris Yeltsin handed
documents concerning crime to Lech Wałęsa. Until today Russian authorities deny this
massacre to be manslaughter, Stalinist, or genocide. Russians also do not want any
investigation to be carried out and fail to provide any documents referring to the
massacre.