History / WAS KATYŃ GENOCIDE? Polish officers were killed [237]


Not at all.

I recently posted an English translation (not available on the internet) from the original Soviet document (as supplied from Moscow state archives and notarised as an authentic copy taken from the originals) which was subsequently deleted by the PF moderators for reasons best known to whomever deleted my post but which unequivically showed that those prisoners from Poland, Ukraine, and Belorussia were recommended to be executed were considered 'enemies' of the people, members of anti-soviet organisations, etc and not because they were ethnic Poles. FYI the recommendation for execution came from NKVD to Stalin not Stalin to the NKVD. Stalin did not initiate the executions but certainly did not disagree with the NKVD execution request and signed the paperwork along with Molotov and others.

I think Seanus was the only person who got to read it before it was removed but I am certainly not going to waste my time re-typing and re-posting it to have it deleted again.

History / WAS KATYŃ GENOCIDE? Polish officers were killed [237]

Below a translation (Note to Moderators: it is not online) of the 1940 Katyń document signing the death warrant for the execution 27,500 mainly Poles considered counter-revolutionary and being enemies of Soviet power.

IMO this document clearly demonstrates that the killings were not part of a genocidal policy against Poles—as not all Poles were thus executed or deported from Eastern Poland.

An interesting adjunct to the Katyń story and what the Allies knew or did not know.

In the USA, a secret document (no. RA No. 35221) dated 15 March 1946 by the Department of State Office of Research and Intelligence (a foreunner of CIA) entitled: General Anders' Polish Second Corps as a Source of International Misunderstanding it states on page 9:


The question is, in March 1946 did the US Department of State Office of Research and Intelligence really believe the Germans were responsible? Or were they trying to convince the President that the Soviets did not murder the Polish officers knowing full well that the Soviets were responsible? If so to what end? Was the ORI infiltrated by the Soviet intelligence?

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Memorandum from the Head of the NKVD of the USSR L.Beria for Stalin (March 1940)
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USSR
People’s Commissariat Top Secret
For Internal Affairs 5 iii 1940
March 1940
No. 794/5
Moscow

Committee Of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)

To Comrade Stalin

At the present time a great number of former officers of the Polish Army, former employees of the Polish police and intelligence services, members of Polish nationalist (counter-revolutionary) parties, members of declared (counter-revolutionary) insurgent organisations, fugitives and others are being held in NKVD POW camps in the USSR and in prisons in the western districts of the Ukraine and Belorussia. They are all fervent enemies of Soviet power and filled with hatred for the Soviet system.

The POWs, the officers and the policemen in the camps are trying to continue counter-revolutionary activities. Every one of them is only waiting to be freed in order to take an active role in the struggle against Soviet power.

In the Western districts of the Ukraine and Belorussia operatives of the NKVD have uncovered a number of insurrectionary organisations. Former officers of the former Polish Army, former policemen and gendarmes have been playing a leading role in these organisations.

Amongst the detained deserters and other persons who have violated state borders a considerable number of people have been discovered who are members of counter- revolutionary espionage and insurrectionary organisations.

Altogether 14,736 former officers, civil servants, landowners, policemen, gendarmes, prison guards, settlers and intelligence agents (not counting private soldiers and NCOs), over 97% of them Polish, are being held in the POW camps.

They include:
Generals, colonels and lieutenant colonels - 295
Majors and captains - 2,080
Lieutenants, second lieutenants and officer cadets - 6,049
Officers and junior leaders in the police, frontier guards
and gendarmerie - 1,030
Policemen, gendarmes, prison guards and intelligence agents - 5,138
Civil servants, landowners, Roman Catholic priests and
military settlers - 144

Altogether 18,632 people (including 10,685 Poles) are being held in prisons in the western districts of the Ukraine and Belorussia.

They include:
Former officers - 1,207
Former policemen, intelligence agents and gendarmes - 5,141
Spies and saboteurs - 347
Former landowners, factory owners and civil servants - 465
Members of various counter-revolutionary and insurrectionary organisations
and various counter-revolutionary elements - 5,345
Deserters - 6,127

Taking into account that they are all hardened opponents of Soviet power showing no signs of changing, the NKVD of the USSR considers it essential to:

I. Recommend to the NKVD of the USSR:

1). That the cases of the 14,700 people held in POW camps, the former Polish officers, civil servants, landowners, policemen, intelligence officers, gendarmes, settlers and prison guards,

2). As well as the cases of all those 11,000 people held in prisons in western Ukraine and Belorussia, members of various counter-revolutionary, espionage and sabotage organisations, former landowners, factory owners, former Polish officers, civil servants and deserters

— be reviewed as a matter of urgency and that the supreme penalty—death by shooting—be imposed.

II. That the cases be reviewed, without calling the accused, without presenting accusations, or the decisions to end interrogations or guilty verdicts for the following:

(a) those held in POW camps based on the information provided by the NKVD Committee for POW Affairs of the USSR.

(b) those held based on information provided by the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR and the Belorussian SSR.

III. To empower a three-person panel composed of comrades (NN crossed out by hand), Merkulov Kabulov [?] (added by hand), and Bashtakov (Head of the NKVD of the USSR 1st Special Department).

The People’s Commissar
For Internal Affairs of the USSR

(signature)

L. Beria
P13/144
5 iii 1940

Handwritten
For action
(signature: Beria)

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Diagonally across the page are Stalin’s, Voroshilov’s, Molotov’s and Mikoyan’s signatures. In the margin of the official document are Comrade Kalinin’s and Comrade Kaganovich’s signatures.

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History / WAS KATYŃ GENOCIDE? Polish officers were killed [237]


Katyn was a war crime not genocide.

History / Polish hatred towards Jews... [1290]

Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland
Author: Genevieve Zubrzycki
ISBN: 9780226993041

Excerpts of Chapter One from Bookdaily.com



Below: University of Chicago Press synopsis of Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland.[/url]


press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=184952

The Crosses of Auschwitz received the ASA's Distinguished Book Award in the Sociology of Religion, and the Orbis Books Prize, awarded annually by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies to "the best book in any discipline, on any aspect of Polish affairs."

History / Polish hatred towards Jews... [1290]


Anybody know where the original German language speech document (or recording) of this often quoted section of Hitler's August 22, 1939 speech is archived?

The earliest reference I can find is in "Poland under Nazi Occupation" by Janusz Gumkowski and Kazimierz Leszczynski 1961 by Polonia Pub. House (Warszawa) but I don't have a copy to see if this speech is correctly identified in a German archive by the authors.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]

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.

History / Why will Poland always be the puppet of America? [159]


Polish politics are just as simple. There are only the communists but since they are all in disguise things look more complicated than they are to 1jola :-))

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


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.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


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.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


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!

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


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?

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


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?

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


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).

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


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.

News / Poland Should Beef Up Military [286]


Amen to that.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


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!

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


I think you are right :-)) The gen. Baluk I met in Warszawa was a former cichociemni

History / Unusual soldier (The bear - named Voytek) [71]


Your friend should contact either The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum which produced a small booklet about "Woytek" and cost £1.50, they also house the life-size bronze statue of "Woytek" sat amongst ammunition boxes.

They don't have email so address is:

The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum
20 Princes Gate
London SW7 1PT
Great Britain.
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7589 9249

For information about the regiment your friend should contact:

The Polish Ex-Combatants Association (SPK)
(Stowarzyszenie Polskich Kombatantow)
240 King Street
London W6 0RF
United Kingdom

To allow "Wojtek" into Great Britain the British Army gave the bear his own Polish soldier's number so he officially became a serving soldier just as the other Poles. So he was entitled to soldiers pay and pension.

• 
  Wojtek
  

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


Do you remember if the seller sold this medal with the correct award document as I am surprised gen. Stefan 'starba' Baluk would let someone sell one of his medals? I know he has a lot of medals on his uniform though :-)

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]

Nor me ;-)

This is also current Allegro auction : Legitymacja krzyża Monte Cassino 4 pułk pancerny

This must end at 450-650zl ?

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


Today, if you come across an WWII A.K. cap for less that $350 you would find a bargain ;-) Polish/German helmets from Warsaw Rising $600 +

Look at this single 'Skorpion' regiment collar badge recently on eBay:
cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX: IT&item=200291345944

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


Mainly Poland. I have been collecting for some years so other collectors often contact me when they find interesting militaria ;-) but it is much more difficult to collect such items these days as many find homes in museum exhibits! Which I guess is as it should be.

There are many fake items around which makes things difficult unless you are careful.
I have also been collecting Polish forced worker <P> badges, photos and documents and even these cloth <P> and "OST" badges are now being faked.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]

A couple more A.K. caps in my collection (if the URL link works?):

Biege cap is from thornb2b.co.uk/UPLOADS/AK_Barbara.jpg - Batalionu “Barbara” 16 pp Armii Krajowej formation from Tarnów.

The dark blue cap is I think from thornb2b.co.uk/UPLOADS/AK_KOT.jpg - A.K. unit 'KOT' which operated around Poznań circa 1946-47 but I am not 100% sure.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


I became interested in this very subject as I had read in Civil War or New Occupation, Poland after 1944. (Ajnenkiel, Andrzej, ed. 2001. Rytm.Warsaw) something dr. Józef. Garliński had written "......that a common slogan amonst the 2nd Corps was ‘One atom bomb and we could again return to Lwów." which I thought was a natural view to hold given the situation that many Polish forces had found themsleves in after it became clear that Poland's western allies were not going to stand in the way of Stalinist expansionism in eastern Europe.

Then I obatined a copy of a OSS (forrunner of CIA) secret report entitled 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). Which summarised the US intelligence reports about Anders views on a united Polish Armed Force that he wanted in Germany and his firmly held opinion that a WWIII between USA and USSR was likely to occur very soon after WWII and the Polish Forces outside of Poland should be held in readiness for this war and the liberation of Poland from USSR.

Will see what I can do re posting some examples ....I have about a dozen full DVDs of document photographs I have taken at PRO archive! I also have many connected to SOE and Poland especially cichociemni both during WWII and the efforts to return as many as possible from Soviet occupied Poland after WWII....ths is also a very interesting story that not many people are aware of. There were also stories of an anti-communist intelligence operation in Poland sponsored by OSS/CIA that was made up of former cichociemni working alongside former Gestapo officers but I have not yet found actual documents to support this...they may still be classified?

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


Not many are aware of this.

I have been conduction primary research this area for a while now using original papers from archives so I know that the sources are not secondary sources.

The British government of the time were very aware of Anders plans and made damn sure than everything was done by both Britain and US to stop Anders creating such a united Polish 'Free' Force on German soil whose purpose was liberating Poland from the Soviets. I have copies of most of the original secret papers by the British government and intelligence services that show just how seriously they took Anders plan. These documents are in Public Recourd Office in London where I took photographs of the actual wartime papers which have now been declassified. The Polish 2nd Corps was effectively infiltrated by NKVD (and the Brits had their own agents in 2nd Corps) so these plans were known by Soviets who again did their utmost to stop Anders using anti-Anders propaganda in US and British media and by the Soviet spy network operating in British Government and Foreign Office.

The Polish Airforce in Britain was deliberately grounded by the British authorities on several occasions just in case they were going to be used to support Anders plans.


Many thanks PolskaMan.......I found title on: worldcat.org

Zamojszczyzna by Zygmunt Klukowski


I think Polish is already in process of being produced (or would you prefer English?) I will ask.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


I have hardback copy. Available from Amazon. Not sure if paperback edition is available?
As historian I am not sure there is anything new here that is not in Red Star White Eagle but is for sure an easier writing style to read than N.D.

Warsaw 1920: Lenin's Failed Conquest of Europe
Adam Zamoyski
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: HarperPress (4 Feb 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0007225520
ISBN-13: 978-0007225521
Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.8 x 2.4 cm

There is a new Katyn book authored here in UK which contains newly researched archival documents. I cannot tell you too much right now as the author is still negotiating with a publisher (I know the author personally a Polish lady living in London). When the deal has been concluded I will let you know as I read this is an area of interest to you?

I am very interested in gen. Anders plan to unite the entire Polish Army from Italy and Germany as one force to be perpared for striking back into Poland against USSR and also Anders involvement in anti-communist resistance. There is not much published in English on this matter or the near mutiny of sections of 2nd Corps in Italy after Yalta declaration is also not much discussed even by Polish 2nd Corps veterans.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


I agree ;-) Zamoyski's Warsaw 1920: Lenin's Failed Conquest of Europe is an easier reading style, and I think a better book.


Totally agree! Poland saved Germany (and the rest of western Europe) from the Bolshevik repression that itself had to endure for so many decades....try getting that point across to some of the numbskull neo-nazi fantasists on this forum ;-)))

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


If you're fighting the war....my total respect!


No idea? Nobody still alive to ask :-(
The Polish-Soviet war is still little appreciated.

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


Many thanks ;-)
So grandfather was a soldier during Polish-Soviet war?

History / Polish weapons and militaria - got any? [153]


I havn't seen this medal before? What is on the other side of it and do you know what year was it awarded?