Polish weapons and militaria - got any?

It was a real honour.
Stefan Baluk was 93 when I first met him. He once told me that when he was parachuted into Poland the plane was at such a high altitude that his nose started bleeding heavily in the unpressurised cabin of the RAF plane and the whole of the front of his jump-overalls was covered in blood by the time he landed...it was so bad thathe looked as though he had been shot!

That really must of sucked,I have allergies and 2 years ago my whole shirt was covered in blood from a nose bleed.

Henry thank you soo much for the medals!

Emil,

My pleasure - if they are not the ones your Grandfather earned... at least you a little piece of Polonia at home. Again, sorry it took a while to get them in the mail and I think you for the paper money, it is a nice addition to my collection of Polish money.

If you ever need anything, drop me an e-mail. Good luck with all of the research on your family.

Henry.

Does anybody have a list of side arms used by Poles in 1939 and in the Resistance?
Thanks

My great great great gramps sword from the 1920 war.

Wow do you mind posting pics of it???

Just won a Polish 3rd class cross of merit its a pre war version or the same as the pre war design but used from 1945-1952 ill post pics of it when i get it in the mail!

This is just one of a number of declassified 'Secret' British Foreign Office documents (this one dated 5 March 1945) I found in London PRO archives that clearly shows that the British Foreign Office were willing to do anything it took (even working against prime-minister Churchill) to stop Gen. Anders from stationing the entire Polish Forces of the West and Anders' Army in occupied Germany in readiness for a push through Germany to liberate Poland from the Soviets.

The views and policy expressed in this document by F.O. officials was in my opinion heavily influenced by the infiltration of the British F.O. by Soviet agents such as Kim Philby, George Blake and other members of the 'Cambridge Five' who held senior positions of power in the British establisment.

The highlighting in the document is mine.

Interesting. It would have been a blood bath though.

It's more like "be aware"

Yes, a lot of blood would have been spilt.
It is a very interesting subject, well to me at least, because I believe Anders contemplated that what would happen on the push towards Poland is that the ranks of a 'united' liberation Polish Forces would have picked up hundreds of thousands of new recruits from the liberated Polish POWs, forced workers and DPs that were also in Germany and also by the desertion of 150,000 plus Poles conscripted into the Red Army including those that were former prisoners in USSR but did not leave with Anders during the evactuations after the 'amnsety'.

There is every reason to suppose that this plan could have worked as this was what happened with the Polish 2nd Corps in Italy which was reinforced substantially by Poles conscripted into the Wermacht and were taken prisoner in Italy who after screening joined Anders' Army in the liberation of Italy.

I also have a declassified secret US Office of Research Intelligence (precursor to CIA) report in which Anders is recorded as telling the US ambassador in London that he anticipated that 95% of Poles in Poland would rise up against the Soviet army occupying Poland to support his Polish army in the liberation of Poland. Given the anticommunist resistance by the majority of the Polish population this is not an unreasonable assumption for Anders to have made at the time.

Source:
General Wladyslaw Anders' Polish Second Corps as a source of international misunderstanding : Department of State (US). Office of Research Intelligence R&A;;3522, 1 1946 (Microfilm).

"Poles" conscripted to the Wehrmacht had to bring evidence that they were ethnic Germans.
More possible they didn't want to risk death and treatment as enemy soldiers in running over to the polish side.
I wouldn't give much about them if I were you.

Something similiar happened to the alsatian Germans who became POW's by the french who generously provided them with the choice to become enemy prisoners or admitting their "frenchness". What do you think most of them did choose in that situation?

(A good read about what happened to those alsatians at the end of the war)

amazon.com/Forgotten-Soldier-Guy-Sajer/dp/1574882864


Where were the 95% as it was about fighting the Germans?
Highly doubtful, especially as Uncle Joe and Uncle Sam were if not allies anymore not in a hot war with each other...

According to Stefan Korboński (a Polish statesman and a leader of the underground resistance against the Germans in World War II) in 1942 all Poles of military age in the western territories that had been incorporated into the Reich were rounded up and placed on the Volksliste , and automatically drafted into the German Army.

90,000 of these press-ganged Wehrmacht conscripts later served with the Polish Forces.

In Gdańsk (Danzig) and Pomerania all Poles were automatically registered as German by Gauleiter Forster. By end of WWII there were 400,000 Poles conscripted into German Army and Organisation Todt (a technical paramiltary organisation). Such was the scale of Gualiter Forster's registration policy for all Poles in his juristriction that Gauleiter Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland complained to Himmler that Forster was indescriminately allowing Poles with no claim to German ethnicity on the Volksliste!


This bit seems lost in translation to me?

Of course, officially all people in those territories were counted as Poles by the polish officials. :)
But the Volksliste was exactly for that, to separate the ethnic Germans from the ethnic Poles. Nobody was forced to subscribe and only ethnic Germans were allowed into the Wehrmacht. This policy was for all, not only Poles. The Wehrmacht wasn't a multi-national force contrary to the SS.

(And yes there were also the so called Osttruppen or Hilfsfreiwillige, Hiwis,..made up by eastern, mostly russian, volunteers..but they too were also declared as such, never as Wehrmacht!)


97% of the citizens of Danzig were ethnic Germans so....:)

PS: Lot's of soldiers later claimed to be "press ganged" by the Germans (after they lost the war)...me thinks had the Germans won they wouldn't had complained!


My english sucks, sorry!


See? As I said..."allowing" instead of "forcing" or "press ganging".
Most of them were probably of mixed heritage and just chose the german horse...

I repeat: Such was the scale of Gualiter Forster's registration policy for all Poles in his juristriction that Gauleiter Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland complained to Himmler that Forster was indescriminately allowing Poles with no claim to German ethnicity on the Volksliste!

Unless you are saying Gauleiter Greiser was a Pole ;-)

No hard feelings but I am inclined to believe Korbońnski rather than you ;-)


Maybe this is lost in translation also?

What I mean is...that especially calling onto ex-Wehrmacht soldiers to trust them with your fight is not a good idea.
No REAL Pole nor a REAL french nor any other REAL non-German was allowed into the Wehrmacht regardless what they tell you afterwards to save their skins and faced with either death or a gulag as enemy POW.


If I were you I would rather trust a German on german matters! No hard feelings...

No, none at all..

But if you are saying that Gualiter Forster was not persuing (in Gdansk Pomerania ) the compulsorily regististration of all Poles as German, and that all men of military age were not subsequently conscripted into the German Army then we have learnt something new from you. I expect Gauleiter Greiser would also have been surprised to learn Forster was not persuing the compulsorily regististration of all Poles to Volksliste as he had complained to Himmler!

I don't know about this special issue, but maybe he just wanted to avoid paper work as nearly 100 percent of the citizens were at that time ethnic Germans anyhow...:)


There was no "registration of Poles to Volksliste", that is an oxymoron!
(Or you mean maybe "passport Poles"?)

That maybe, but if Stalin so much as suspected this, he would have turnesd Poland in to a grave-yard before any such uprising could occur.

And the West would had just looked on too as If I in my mangled english tried to say before Uncle Joe and Uncle Sam were if not comfy with each other anymore they were hardly open enemies already again.

Anders plan had no chance!

Okay accepted :-)


I believe Stalin was aware of Anders plan, afterall he had the 'Cambridge Five' and other agents in place within the British F.O. hence why the F.O. did their utmost to make sure the Polish forces were not united as one in Germany as Anders had wanted. This is clear from the document link. Also Anders' 2nd Corps was infiltrated by Soviets in fact one of his A.D.C's was discovered to be a Soviet agent and punished for it; the British also had their agents with the 2nd Corps. At this time however Stalin had not yet got the atomic bomb so was not ever going to take any overt military action that would really upset his allies the USA and UK. Anyway he didn't need to as the British F.O. did his job for him. IMO.

The British government already saw the dangers of mutiny in Anders' 2nd Corps after Yalta and had been gradually working towards neuturalising Anders since he asked for his troops to be withdrawn from the Italian front after the Yalta announcement. Whether the plan had any merit is almost irrelavant as we will never know how it might have worked out; the fact that Anders had a plan to liberate Poland from Germany is very little known or mentioned in literature about Anders even though it is alluded to in declassified secret Allied documents.

Thanks Sjam

That is all very interesting.


I honestly don't think he cared. Britain and the USA never used the threat of the Atom bomb in the way that they could have. Having said that, it wasn't yet a bargaining tool at Tehran or Yalta. Churchill considered imposing the Allied will on Stalin, but this would not have been possible with the support of the USA who had conflicting objectives, which they viewed as more important.

Anders was a man to be admired, but this would have been suicide imo.

The period in question is really much later from mid-1945 to 1946/7 and before the British plan to demobilise Polish Forces via Polish Resettlement Corps. According historian to Dr. Józef Garlińksi there was apparently a widely used saying amongst Polish 2nd Corps along the lines of "Give us one atom bomb and we could again return to Lwów!" which kind of summed up the sentiment of the Poles that had experienced Soviet hospitality in the Russian camps in the Siberian artic regions.

Of course, but the deals were made with Stalin prior to this period... at a time when The Allies would have done anything to please him. Once the red army occupied Eastern Europe again it was game over. Any Allied mission which didn't involve the use of several Atom bombs would have been a disaster.

Theres a Polish collectables show with militaria here in Canada and im sure i wont come back empty handed :P Ill post pics if i get any militaria

I came back with a Polish pre-war boy scouts cross which was awarded to scouts in Lwows defense and during the 30s and in ww2 some remaining ones were given in the AK and Polish bank note from 1919 and a Cross with a Polish Eagle in the center

Hey that picture down there with the rows of bayonets. the farthest left one on the top row, what is that?

Apr 23, 09, 23:13 - Thread attached on merging:

Edit

I have what looks to be a german bayonet but im not quite sure. There is a picture of it two pages back on this topic. There are two different stampings on it. The first is on the hilt that reads AS. FA and the second on the cross bar that reads 38318. Any ideas?

You are more likely to get an answer here:
feldgrau.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=44&sid=26cbb25136fd3171c24620161d2b739e

Well i think us stealing and decoding the enigma machine is enough of us in WWII but yet not many people know we did it and how much of a contribution that was

Rather than stealing a machine, I believe Polish cryptographers built replicas of the German Enigma machine based on their decoding material and using information given to them by the French. The Polish cryptographers did what was thought to be impossible and built two copies of the German Enigma machine and gave one to the French and the other to the British at the begining of WWII and they also handed over the details of the Cyclometers, Bombas and Zygalski sheets. I have seen one of these original Polish built Enigma encoding machines in the museum collection of the Sikroski Institute in London.

In 2000 Britain gave the Polish government an Enigma machine in belated recognition of the importance of the work of Polish cryptographers and their vital role in WWII. Also 43% of all intelligence reports received by Britain regarding Europe during WWII came from the Polish Intelligence Bureau.

you're both collecting something so why can't he ask what he's looking for.

You sure you're thinking 'Polish'? Sounds Western to me. Because, y'know, I don't recall having heard much about Poland's unwillingness to fight.

My father's got my great-grandfather's old saber apparently from the Polish-Soviet war in his basement... or rather, the blade, since it was broken off at the hilt during use.

Not sure if it counts, but I've been trying to obtain a 1996 Mini-Beryl, for... sporting purposes. Legally, which is the hard part. =/