Second world Polish army supply. Tours to Poland
How the Poles did not fight the Nazis, or the treacherous Anders Army.
Good, reference material about the contribution of the Poles to ... not even to the Victory. Just go to war.
On numerous politicized TV shows, going on all programs in today's Russia, there are always representatives of Poland. Such ardent anti-Russian political scientists and journalists like Tomas Maciejchuk, Yakub Koreiba, Pieter Moran and several others. Brazen, aggressive, impudent, constantly rude to the TV presenter, constantly insulting the past Soviet and current Russian people, constantly urging us to repent to the Poles for our historical crimes against them, and calling the liberation of Poland from the Nazis in the Second World War the military and political occupation of their country by Soviet troops.
Several times this deliberately defiant behavior on our TV shows led to fights between Russian and Polish journalists, to an elementary scuffle between them, and even to their physical expulsion from the TV show.
Why are the Polish journalists and political scientists who are invited to our TV shows behaving so vilely and ugly? The answer is simple - they are allowed to behave this way. Who is allowed? How by whom? The current leadership of our TV channels, consisting of radicals of the Gaidar type and openly hating not only everything Soviet, but everything our Russian.
Everyone knows the historical hatred of the Poles towards the Russians. And Stalin's attempt to make Poles our friends failed completely and completely back in Soviet time. More precisely, back in the days of World War II, when Poland made unprecedented attempts to become an ally of Nazi Germany and even annexed the Teszyn region of Czechoslovakia. Naturally, with the consent of Germany. However, Germany did not allow Poland to become an ally. She did not deign to recognize Poland as her ally. It did not deign for a number of reasons.
And even more - Germany occupied Poland, although the Poles practically did not resist the onslaught of the Nazi troops and massively surrendered to them. And Poland became the usual "Polish Governor General" of Greater Germany. Moreover, it became part of Greater Germany almost voluntarily. Don't believe? This means that you are still under the influence of myths about powerful anti-fascist resistance unfolding throughout the territory of occupied Poland.
And the real truth is that there was no state on the territory of Greater Germany called Poland, even if it was recently occupied, but there was a new one territorial entity entitled " Polish General Government of Germany located in the former territory of Poland. And in this new general government there was no anti-fascist resistance.
Yes! Did not have! And what then served as the basis for these fantastic myths? Nothing special! There was a wounded pride of the nationalist-minded part of the Polish people, who once again lost their national state, moreover, lost it in a short and helpless war that was humiliating for themselves, and therefore strenuously attributing to themselves what they never had.
I'll try to explain.
Few people know that in Poland, during the Second World War, there were several underground military formations of the resistance forces. More precisely, the so-called resistance forces. It was Home Army, led from the outside by the London government of Poland; it was Army Ludov, created under the leadership of the Workers' Party of Poland; It was Polish Army created on the territory of the USSR and hosted Active participation in combat operations in the Soviet Army. These were Polish SS troops in the form of three separate brigades that fought against Soviet army with a total number of about thirty thousand soldiers and officers. And ... perhaps everything!
Moreover, Home Army And Army Ludov fought not so much against the Nazis as against each other, as well as against the Soviet troops and the troops of the Polish Army. They continued their fighting even after the end of the war until the fifties.
In addition, there was also Anders Army created from Polish prisoners of war in 1942 year, taken from the Soviet camps. This army was to be used in Battle of Stalingrad and therefore its formation took place in the area of the city Buzuluk. However, these Poles, and according to various estimates, there were about 60 thousand of them, did not want to fight on the side of the Soviet Union and in the midst of Battle of Stalingrad through the London government Sikorsky demanded that they be sent to the Allied forces.
Stalin, fearing that the Poles would rebel and strike at our Stalingrad grouping of troops from the rear, agreed and, I emphasize again, in the midst of the Battle of Stalingrad, in the autumn of 1942 organized their dispatch to Tehran. First by trains to Krasnovodsk, from there by steamboats to Iran and then to Tehran.
Moreover, the Polish troops were well armed, well equipped and supplied with food much better than the Soviet troops! And all this happened, I emphasize once again, in the midst of the Battle of Stalingrad, when every soldier and every cartridge counted for us! How to call these actions of the Anders Army? Except as treacherous, no other word comes to mind here! And none of our leadership has ever made any claims to the Poles for the anti-Soviet behavior of the Anders army on the territory of the USSR in 1942! But in vain! In vain!
And, be that as it may, but after the expulsion of the Anders Army from the USSR, Stalin realized that the Poles would not fight on the side of the USSR - the Poles' hatred of Russia was too great. But it would not hurt to organize the Polish Army for the liberation of Poland. At least for purely political and purely international reasons.
Therefore, Stalin creates conditionally the Polish army under the name Polish Army, where mostly Soviet people fight, but in Polish uniforms. The well-known film "Four Tankers and a Dog" is just about such an army. There were, of course, also Poles, but few! Few! And in Poland itself, no one ever considered this Army to be Polish! They even marshal Rokossovsky, appointed by Stalin Minister of Defense of Poland shortly after the war, was not recognized as his minister. And Rokossovsky was forced to return to the USSR. But this is a personal matter for the Poles themselves.
Therefore, the Poles will never become a friendly people to us. I emphasize never. They did not even want to apologize to us for the attack on us in the difficult year for Russia in 1920 and for the complete annihilation in their camps of almost eighty thousand Red Army soldiers of Tukhachevsky's army surrounded by Pilsudski near Warsaw. Although they did not apologize, probably because the Soviet Union did not demand these apologies from them. But he didn’t demand it because Marshal Tukhachevsky was recognized by Stalin as an enemy of the people and shot in 1937. And if the enemy of the people is to blame for the defeat of the Red Army, then what is the point in demanding an apology from the Poles - after all, the culprit is punished.
P.S. In the 2000s, the Poles filed a lawsuit against Russia in the amount of more than two hundred billion dollars to the European Court of Human Rights for the Katyn massacre of Polish officers. European experts, after several years of research, recognized the materials handed over by Gorbachev to the Poles on the execution of Polish officers by the Soviet KGB as false.
And in June 2012, the European Court, in its decision, removed from the Soviet Union responsibility for the execution of Poles near Catan. Europe recognized that the execution of Polish officers near Catanya was carried out by the Germans in 1941.
P.P.S. In materials on Katyn handed over to the Poles by Gorbachev back in 1990, there were copies of papers signed by Stalin, Beria, Molotov and a number of other responsible persons of the Soviet Union in 1940. And hence the question - who and why prepared these false documents for Gorbachev?
And who should now apologize to Russia for such a shameless historical slander against the USSR by the Poles?
And lastly, the democratic media in Russia and the West are completely silent about the annulment of the Katyn case by the European Court! Isn't it strange?! For me personally, no! And you?!
V. Ovchinnikov
***********
And then they came from London to Stalin to "share the pie." How this meeting took place, see in the transcript:
— How Stalin politely "unhooked" the "Government of Poland in Exile" 02.08.44. Transcript of negotiations
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A very interesting article about Poland and the beginning of World War II in the middle of the last century. Thanks to the authors
Poland at that time was a rather strange public education, rather roughly sewn after the First World War from the fragments of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires with the addition of what she herself managed to grab in civil war and right after it (Vilna region - 1922), and even - the Teshin region, seized on the occasion in 1938 during the division of Czechoslovakia.
The population of Poland within the borders of 1939 was 35.1 million people before the war. Of these, there were actually 23.4 million Poles, 7.1 million Belarusians and Ukrainians, 3.5 million Jews, 0.7 million Germans, 0.1 million Lithuanians, 0.12 million Czechs, well and about 80 thousand others.
Ethnic map of Poland
National minorities in pre-war Poland were treated, to put it mildly, not very much, considering Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Germans, Czechs as the fifth column of neighboring states, I’m not even talking about the Poles’ love for Jews.
From an economic point of view, pre-war Poland was also by no means among the leaders.
But the leaders of the fifth largest country in Europe and the sixth largest in terms of population in Europe sincerely considered their state to be one of the great powers, and, of course, they tried to pursue a corresponding policy - a great power.
Polish poster from 1938
Polish Army at the pre-war parade
It seemed that geography itself suggests only two policy options - either to improve relations with at least one of its two strong neighbors, or to try to create a coalition of small countries to resist these terrible monsters.
It cannot be said that the Polish rulers did not try it. But the trouble was that, upon its appearance, the newborn state pushed its elbows so painfully that it managed to rob everyone, I repeat once again, all of its neighbors. The Soviet Union has “Eastern Kresy”, Lithuania has the Vilna region, Germany has Pomerania, and Czechoslovakia has Zaolzie.
Polish "Vickers E" enters the Czechoslovak Zaolzie, October 1938
With Hungary, too, there were no territorial disputes. Even with Slovakia, which was formed only in March 1939, they managed to quarrel, trying to chop off a piece from it, because of which Slovakia turned out to be the only power besides Germany that declared war on Poland on September 1 and sent 2 divisions to the front. Maybe Romania did not get it, but the Polish-Romanian border was somewhere on the outskirts. To give something to improve relations - well, it’s somehow completely un-Polish.
And if your strength is not enough, naturally, you need to turn for support to those who, after the First World War, helped create this “political news” - the Polish Republic.
But the pre-war policy of both France and Great Britain showed that in new war these countries do not want to get involved, and they want the east of Europe to figure it out themselves, without interfering in any way. The attitude of Western politicians towards the Soviet state was, how to put it more precisely, very nervous, and many of them saw in sweet dreams how someone would attack it. And then there is such a chance that the Germans will climb further east, or ours, without agreeing with the Fuhrer in advance, will rush to defend Western Belarus and Ukraine, who really dreamed of liberation from the Polish occupation. Well, as often happens in such cases, two armies moving towards each other will not be able to stop and fight.
Which means - Western Europe will be able to remain at peace for a while longer, watching their such restless eastern neighbors fight.
Although our future allies gave guarantees to Poland, and even confirmed that 15 days after the aggression of any power, they would valiantly defend Poland. And after all, what is interesting is that they fully fulfilled their promise, actually standing on the German-French border, and standing there until May 10, 1940, until the Germans got tired of it and they themselves went on the offensive.
Thundering solid armor of medals
The French went on a furious campaign.
Comrade Stalin was waiting for them for 17 days,
And the evil Frenchman does not go to Berlin.
But that's in the future. In the meantime, the task of the Polish leadership was to figure out how to protect the territory themselves from possible aggression from the west. I must say that pre-war Polish intelligence was at a fairly high level, for example, it was she who revealed the secret of the famous German Enigma cipher machine. This secret, along with Polish codebreakers and mathematicians, then went to the British. Intelligence was able to timely reveal the grouping of the Germans and even determine their strategic plan with sufficiently high accuracy. Therefore, already on March 23, 1939, covert mobilization began in Poland.
It just didn't help either. The length of the Polish-German border was then almost 1,900 km, and the desire of Polish politicians to protect everything smeared the Polish Army, which was already almost twice inferior to the German troops (on September 1, against 53 German divisions, the Poles managed to deploy 26 infantry divisions and 15 brigades - 3 mountain infantry , 11 cavalry and one armored motorized, or a total of 34 conditional divisions) along the entire future front.
The Germans, on the contrary, having concentrated 37 infantry, 4 light infantry, 1 mountain rifle, 6 tank and 5 motorized divisions and a cavalry brigade near the Polish border by September 1, on the contrary, created compact strike groups, achieving overwhelming superiority in the directions of the main strikes.
Yes, and the military equipment of that, as it was then called in our press "landowner-bourgeois pansky" Poland, fully reflected the degree of development of the state. Some of the really advanced developments for that time were in single copies, and the rest were pretty well-worn weapons left over from the First World War.
Of the 887 light tanks and tankettes listed in August (Poland had no others), about 200 pieces were of some combat value - 34 "six-ton Vickers", 118 (or 134, here in different sources differently) of their Polish twin 7TP and 54 French Renault with Hotchkisses in 1935. Everything else was very old and fit only for police operations or display in museums.
Light tank 7TP release 1937
Here it is worth saying that in the second half of the thirties there was a qualitative revolution in tank building. Due to the anti-tank guns that appeared in the infantry, which were inconspicuous, small and could move around the battlefield on their wheels, all tanks built according to previous projects and having armor protection only from machine guns and infantry bullets suddenly turned out to be obsolete.
Designers and engineers from all leading countries set to work. As a result, slow, extremely inconvenient for their crews and clumsy, but well-armored French freaks appeared, although more convenient, but poorly armed and equally slow British Matildas and much more advanced Germans - Pz.Kpfw. III and Pz.Kpfw. IV. Well, our T-34 and KV.
The situation with aviation was no better for the Poles. 32 really new and very successful "Moose" (twin-engine bomber PZL P-37 "Los", 1938) were lost against the background of obsolete and took the brunt of about 120 "Karas" (light bomber PZL P-23 "Karas" 1934 with a maximum speed of 320 km / h, 112 aircraft died in battles) and 117 PZL P-11 - fighters developed in 1931-34 with a maximum speed of 375 km / h and two 7.7 mm machine guns - of which 100 aircraft died.
twin-engine bomber Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze PZL P-37 "Los"
Fighter Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze PZL P-11C
The speed of the then German "Dor" and "Emil" - Messerschmitt Bf109D and Bf109E fighters - was 570 km / h, and each of them was armed with a pair of cannons and machine guns.
True, it is worth saying that the Wehrmacht in 1939 could not particularly boast of the latest developments. There were only 300 new tanks (T-3 and T-4), and the T-1 and T-2, which constituted the main force of the German tank divisions, were pretty outdated by 1939. Rescued Czech "Prague" ("Skoda" LT vz.35 and LT vz.38 "Praha"), which the Germans got a lot.
But 54 not very successful "Frenchmen" (in the "Renault-35" and "Hotchkiss-35" there are only 2 crew members and the turret must simultaneously load and direct the cannon, shoot from it and the machine gun, observe the battlefield and command the tank) with anti-ballistic booking against 300 German - still not enough.
Light infantry escort tank Renault R 35
But the most important thing for any army is how it is led, and the troops were led in a typical Polish way, communication with the armies, corps and formations was constantly lost almost immediately after the start of the war, and the military and political elite were primarily concerned with their own salvation, and not leadership troops. How the Poles managed to resist here and there for a month under such conditions is a mystery of national character.
It is also a mystery how, in preparing for the war, the Polish leadership did not bother about how they, in fact, are going to lead. Not, command posts Of course, they were equipped, and the furniture was beautiful, but at the beginning of the war, the Polish General Staff had only two radio stations and several telephones for communication with the troops. Moreover, one radio station, which could hardly fit on ten trucks, was very large and very unreliable, and its transmitter was destroyed during an air raid on the second day of the war, while the second receiver was in the office of the Polish commander-in-chief, Marshal Rydz-Smigly, where it was not accepted to enter without a report
Marshal of Poland, Supreme Commander of the Polish Army Edward Rydz-Śmigly (1886 - 1941)
But something needs to be done, and the dashing plan “Zakhud” (“West” was invented in Polish, the plan “Vskhud” (East) was being prepared for the USSR, the military in all countries are not too inventive) according to which the Polish Army had to, stubbornly defending the entire western and southern borders, to carry out an offensive against East Prussia, for which to deploy 39 infantry divisions and 26 border, cavalry, mountain infantry and armored mechanized brigades.
Polish infantry on the defensive. September 1939
It was possible to deploy, as mentioned above, 26 divisions and 15 brigades. To strike at East Prussia, the operational groups Narev, Vyshkow and the Modlin army were assembled, a total of 4 divisions and 4 cavalry brigades, 2 more divisions were under deployment. The "Help" army was concentrated in the "Polish corridor" - 5 divisions and 1 cavalry brigade. Part of the forces of this army was intended to capture Danzig, 95% of the population of which were Germans. In the Berlin direction - the army "Poznan" - 4 divisions and 2 cavalry brigades, the borders with Silesia and Slovakia were covered by the armies "Lodz" (5 divisions, 2 cavalry brigades), "Krakow" (5 divisions, cavalry, motorized armor and mountain infantry brigades and border guards) and "Karpaty" (2 mountain infantry brigades). In the rear, south of Warsaw, the Prussian army was deployed (before the start of the war, they managed to assemble 3 divisions and a cavalry brigade there).
The plan of the Germans, which they called "Weiss" (white) was simple and effective - preempting organized mobilization with a sudden invasion, concentric attacks from the north - from Pomerania and the south - from Silesia to general direction to Warsaw, with two strike groups, called without any special fuss by the army groups "North" and "South", to surround and destroy the Polish troops located west of the Vistula-Narew line.
With the advance of mobilization, it did not work out very well, but in the directions of the main attacks the Germans managed to achieve overwhelming superiority in forces and means, which, of course, affected the overall result.
Dislocation of troops on 09/01/1939
With such a balance of forces, the Poles could only be saved by mobility and coordination, which, for example, were shown in 1967 by the Israelis. But mobility, with the famous Polish off-roads, the absence of vehicles and the dominance of German aviation in the sky, could only be achieved if the troops were not scattered along an endless 1,900-kilometer front, but were concentrated in advance in a compact grouping. There is no point in talking about any coordination under the then Polish leadership, which valiantly drove closer to the neutral borders at the first shots.
The President, in his own person, saving the most important asset of Poland - its elite, left Warsaw on September 1. The government held on longer, it left only on the 5th.
The last order of the Commander-in-Chief followed on September 10. After that, the heroic marshal did not get in touch and soon showed up in Romania. On the night of September 7, he went from Warsaw to Brest, where in the event of a war with the USSR, according to the Vskhud plan, the headquarters should have been located. The headquarters turned out to be unequipped, it was not possible to properly establish communications with the troops, and the dashing Commander-in-Chief went on. On the 10th, the headquarters was moved to Vladimir-Volynsky, on the 13th - to Mlynov, and on September 15th - closer to the Romanian border, to Kolomyia, where the government and the president were already located. In some way, this dragonfly jumper reminds me of Winnie the Pooh saving his pots of honey seven times during the flood.
Things were going badly on the fronts.
The first success was achieved by the German 19th mechanized corps, which struck from Pomerania to the east. 2 mechanized, tank and two infantry divisions attached to it, having overcome the resistance of the Polish 9th division and the Pomeranian cavalry brigade, had already covered 90 kilometers by the evening of the first day, cutting the “Help” army. It was in this place, near Kroyantsy, that the most famous case of a collision of Polish cavalrymen in equestrian formation with German armored vehicles took place.
At 19.00, two squadrons (approximately 200 horsemen), led by the commander of the 18th regiment of the Pomeranian Lancers, attacked the German motorized infantry, which had laid bare to rest, with sabers. The German battalion, which did not take proper precautions, was taken by surprise and scattered across the field in a panic. The cavalry, overtaking the fleeing, chopped them with sabers. But armored cars appeared, and these squadrons were almost completely destroyed by machine-gun fire (26 killed, more than 50 seriously wounded). Colonel Mastalege was also killed.
Attack of the Polish Lancers
The well-known legends about dashing cavalry attacks with drafts drawn on tanks are an invention of the fast Heinz (Guderian), propagandists of the Goebbels department and post-war Polish romantics.
Polish lancers in a dashing attack on September 19 under Vulka Venglova chop noodles from inopportunely turned up, but very scary German tanks
In 1939, the Polish cavalry actually made at least six attacks in cavalry, but only two of them were marked by the presence of German armored vehicles (September 1 near Kroyanty) and tanks (September 19 near Wulka Venglova) on the battlefield, and in both episodes there was direct the target of the attacking lancers was not enemy armored vehicles.
Wielkopolska Cavalry Brigade near Bzura
On September 19, near Vulka Venglova, Colonel E. Godlevsky, commander of the 14th regiment of the Yazlovets uhlans, which was joined by a small unit of the 9th regiment of the Malopolska uhlans of the same Podolsk brigade from the Poznan army surrounded to the west of the Vistula, hoping for a surprise effect, made a decision break through with a cavalry attack through the positions of the resting German infantry to Warsaw. But it turned out to be motorized infantry of a tank division, and artillery and tanks were nearby. The Poles managed to break through the dense enemy fire, losing 105 people killed and 100 wounded (20% of the regiment's personnel at that time). A large number of lancers were taken prisoner. The entire attack lasted 18 minutes. The Germans lost 52 killed and 70 wounded.
By the way, many laugh at the Polish passion for cavalry, but during this company, the cavalry brigades, due to their mobility in the conditions of the swampy-wooded Polish plain and better training and weapons than the infantry, turned out to be the most effective formations of the Polish Army. And they fought with the Germans for the most part on foot, using a horse as a vehicle.
Polish cavalry
In general, the Poles fought, where they managed to catch on, bravely, but they were poorly armed, they commanded them in such a way that there are simply no words. There is no need to talk about any centralized supply with German air supremacy and a mess in the headquarters. And the lack of a clear leadership of the troops rather quickly led to the fact that the initiative commanders subjugated everything they could reach, and acted according to their own understanding, not knowing either what his neighbor was doing, or the general situation, and not receiving orders. And if the order did reach, then there was no point or opportunity to carry it out due to the fact that the leadership, not receiving timely reports from the troops, had difficulty imagining the situation on the battlefield. Maybe it's very Polish, but that's not conducive to success.
Already on September 2, the “Help” army, which was guarding the “corridor” that became the reason for the conflict, was cut by counter attacks from Pomerania and East Prussia into two parts, moreover, the largest of them, the seaside, was in a double encirclement ring.
But a real catastrophe was brewing in the center, where on the second day of the war, German tankers managed to find the junction of the Lodz and Krakow armies and the 1st Panzer Division rushed forward through the “Czestochowa gap” uncovered by the troops, reaching the rear defensive line before those Polish units who were supposed to take it ...
Not many people understand what a tank breakthrough is. Here is the best, from my point of view, description of what happens to the defending army:
“The enemy has clarified to himself one obvious truth and is using it. People take up little space in the vast expanses of the earth. It would take a hundred million to build a solid wall of soldiers. This means that gaps between military units are inevitable. As a rule, they can be eliminated by the mobility of troops, but for enemy tanks a weakly motorized army is, as it were, immobile. So, the gap becomes a real gap for them. Hence the simple tactical rule: “A tank division acts like water. It exerts light pressure on the enemy's defenses and advances only where it meets no resistance." And the tanks put pressure on the line of defense. There are always gaps. Tanks always pass.
These tank raids, which we are powerless to prevent due to the lack of our own tanks, cause irreparable damage, although at first glance they cause only minor destruction (seizure of local headquarters, breakage of telephone lines, burning of villages). Tanks play the role of chemicals that destroy not the body itself, but its nerves and lymph nodes. Where tanks swept like lightning, sweeping away everything in their path, any army, even if it seemed to have suffered almost no losses, had already ceased to be an army. She turned into separate clots. Instead of a single organism, only unrelated organs remained. And between these clusters - no matter how brave the soldiers were - the enemy advances unhindered. An army loses its combat effectiveness when it turns into a bunch of soldiers.”
This was written in 1940 by the pilot of the air group No. 2/33 of long-range reconnaissance captain French army Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
German tanks T-1 (Light tank Pz.Kpfw. I) in Poland. 1939
And this is exactly what the Poles were to experience first in the 20th century. Having received a message that German tanks were already 40 km from Czestochowa, deep in the rear of his troops, on September 2, Commander-in-Chief Rydz-Smigla ordered the troops of the Lodz Army, which was defending in the central direction, to be withdrawn to the main line of defense.
It was decided to withdraw to the east and southeast beyond the line of the rivers Nida and Dunajec (100-170 km) and the Krakow army. Its open northern flank was bypassed by the 16th motorized corps, from the south, the 22nd motorized corps, which broke through the covering troops on September 2, was moving towards Tarnow, and the 5th Panzer Division of the 14th Army captured Auschwitz (about 50 km from Krakow) and the army warehouses located there .
This made the defense of the central positions on the Warth pointless, but it was already impossible to fix something. It is easy to give an order, but to execute it, when the troops are slowly moving on foot under the blows of German air power along the famous Polish roads, is very difficult. The troops defending in the center simply could not retreat faster. The desire to protect everything played a bad joke - there were simply no reserves to plug all the holes, and those that were did not keep up with the rapidly changing situation and most of them were defeated on the march or during unloading, without having time to join the battle.
It can be stated that by the evening of the second day of the war, the border battle was won by the Germans. In the north, the “Help” army located in the “Polish corridor” was cut and partially surrounded, a communication between Germany and East Prussia was established. In the south, the Krakow army, outflanked from two flanks, leaves Silesia, effectively eliminating the southern sector of the Polish front and exposing the southern flank of the main defensive position, which the central group had yet to reach.
The 3rd Army advancing from East Prussia, breaking on the third day the resistance of the Modlin army (two divisions and a cavalry brigade), which had been literally crushed by the Germans in these battles and had lost its combat capability, formed a thirty-kilometer gap in the Polish defense. The army commander, General Przedzimirsky, decided to withdraw the defeated troops beyond the Vistula and try to put them in order there.
The pre-war Polish operational plan was thwarted.
Nothing else could be offered by the command and political leadership of Poland, and one could only hope that the allies would be ashamed, and they would still help.
But after all, the allies - for no reason at all for some Poles, they will not shed their blood, they need to prove that you are not a freeloader, but a partner. And this doesn’t really reach the modern leaders of the “newly formed” states, and there’s no need to even talk about the politicians of the “Second Poland”. By that time, they were going “into exile” in order to heroically “lead” the Polish resistance from comfortable Parisian, and then London mansions.
The Polish army and the Poles themselves were not going to surrender yet, and although the retreat that had begun on almost the entire front affected the mood, the troops continued to fight.
Tired of marches, the central grouping, which managed to retreat to Warta by September 4, without having time to gain a foothold, was subjected to flank attacks. The Kresovaya Cavalry Brigade, which was covering the right flank, was knocked out of position and retreated from the line. The 10th Division held out longer, but was also defeated. On the southern flank, the German 1st Panzer Division disorganized the makeshift defenses and moved to Piotkow, in the rear of the main position. Both flanks were exposed.
On September 5, at 18.15, the chief of staff of the Lodz army reported: “The 10th Infantry Division has scattered, we are gathering it in Lutomirsk. Therefore, we leave the line Warta - Vindavka, which cannot be held ... The situation is difficult. This is the end".
The army began to withdraw what was left to Lodz. The battle on the main position, so, practically, and without starting, ended.
The main Polish reserve is the Prussian army (three divisions and a cavalry brigade), having found the Germans in Piotkow, in its rear, due to conflicting orders that sent its divisions in parts in different directions, and the panic that seized the troops simply disappeared into the thick of events without having any effect on their course.
With her disappearance, the last hope of the Polish command to seize the initiative disappeared.
All Polish troops entered the battle. They were crushed by German tanks, aviation and infantry. There were no more reserves. Hopes to gain a foothold on some lines for a long time were fading, the enemy's losses were not so great as to cause a crisis. The allies, not intending to move anywhere, valiantly stood on the Maginot Line.
In the evening, the Polish Commander-in-Chief sent directives to the troops on a general retreat along the entire front in a general direction to the southeast, to the borders of allied Romania and Hungary, which was favorable to the Poles. The Polish president, government and deputies also rushed there.
I have always been touched by the position of such politicians, who have brought the country to ruin and are rushing into exile to “lead” the underground struggle, in the hope that they will be allowed to steer one more time. And after all, there are those who want to transfer power to them again.
Polish propaganda sounded like a fanfare: "Polish air raid on Berlin", the Siegfried Line was broken in 7 places "...
But almost on September 5, the war was lost by the Poles. However, the Germans had yet to complete it.
First, the encircled part of the “Help” army was defeated. On September 5, Grudzienzh was taken, on the 6th - Bygdosch and Torun. 16 thousand Polish soldiers were taken prisoner and 100 guns were captured.
When the Germans entered Bygdoszcz (Bromberg) and Schulitz, it turned out that the Polish authorities had massacred the Polish citizens of German nationality who lived in these cities. With this, the Poles opened another sad page of World War II, the first to organize atrocities against the civilian population. Even on the eve of the defeat, the Polish Nazis proved incorrigible.
German residents of Bygdoszcz (Bromberg) - victims of the Polish genocide
There was no longer an organized Polish front in front of the 10th Army, which was striking through the Chenthov Gap. After leaving on September 6 to Tomausz-Mazowiecki, she received an order to break through to the Vistula line. Having discovered a concentration of significant forces of the Poles south of Radom (these were the retreating units of the Prussian and Lublin armies), the army, having regrouped its forces, struck from its flanks by two motorized corps that met east of Radom on September 9, surrounded this grouping and destroyed it by September 12. 65 thousand people were taken prisoner, guns were captured 145. The 16th motorized corps, advancing to the north, without encountering resistance by September 8, reached the southern outskirts of Warsaw.
In the south, having passed Krakow, surrendered by the Poles without a fight, on September 5, the 14th Army reached Tarnow near the Dunajewiec River.
At the headquarters of Army Group South, the impression was that the Polish troops west of the Vistula were giving up the fight, and on September 7 all the corps of the group received orders to pursue the Poles as quickly as possible. On the 11th, the 14th Army of this group crossed the San River at Yaroslav and advanced on its right flank to the upper reaches of the Dniester.
Covering the northern flank of the 10th Army, the 8th Army occupied Lodz and reached the Bzura River.
German infantry crossing the river Bzura
The 3rd Army, advancing from East Prussia to the south, overcame the resistance of the Polish troops opposing it, crossed the Narew River. Guderian rushed to Brest, and the Kempf group covered Warsaw from the east, capturing Sedlice on September 11.
Based in Pomerania, the 4th Army went to Modlin, surrounding Warsaw from the northeast.
It was a rout...
Poland. September 1939
POLAND DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Plan
1. Defensive War 1939
2. The resistance movement of the Polish people
3. Polish-Soviet relations during the war
4. Establishment of dual power
1. Defensive War 1939
On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland without warning. This date is considered to be the beginning of the Second World War. On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The balance of power in the Polish campaign was clearly in favor of Germany: more than double the population, developed economic and military potential, mobilized and well-trained army in advance. 1.8 million soldiers, 11 thousand guns, 2.8 thousand tanks, 2.6 thousand aircraft were concentrated against Poland.
During the covert mobilization carried out in Poland before the announcement general mobilization On August 30, about 70% of the reservists provided for by the plan were called up for service. The Polish army numbered 1.2 million servicemen and was armed with more than 3 thousand guns, about 600 tanks and 400 aircraft. It seemed that these forces were sufficient for the defensive actions of the Polish army before the active operations of France and England began. The war plan adopted by the Polish General Staff proceeded from the fact that the main battles would unfold in the west, in Greater Poland. The Polish troops, resisting, had to gradually retreat east, to the line of the Vistula, in order to take up a long-term defense here and wait for France and England to enter the war. In accordance with the Polish-French agreements of 1939, France was to launch offensive operations with its main forces on the fifteenth day after the German attack on Poland. Poland had no other plan for the war with Germany.
However, events developed according to a different scenario. The main blow in the first days of the war was delivered by German troops not from the west, but from Pomerania, East Prussia, Silesia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. On the third day of the war, the Polish troops defending the border were defeated by powerful armored and air strikes. On September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, hastily abandoned by the president, government and high command.
The defense of the capital by troops and civilians continued until September 27. An example of courage was demonstrated by the small garrison of the Polish military base Westerplatte in the vicinity of Danzig, which for more than a week repulsed the attacks of superior German forces from land and sea. Only on September 29, the defenders of Modlin laid down their arms, on October 2 - units on the Hel Peninsula, and the Polesie task force fought a successful battle with the Germans on October 2-4, but due to lack of ammunition was forced to capitulate on October 5.
But these were all isolated manifestations of heroism. The main forces of the Polish Army suffered defeat after defeat and randomly retreated to the east. By mid-September, it became obvious that Poland alone would not be able to resist Germany. England and France, on the eve of the war, agreed that there was no point in helping Poland. Therefore, they did not start hostilities on the promised dates on Western front, preferring the so-called "strange war" to them.
Under these conditions, the USSR, which remained neutral in the first weeks, considered that the time had come to restore historical justice and return those captured by Poland in 1919-1920. Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. On September 17, a note from the Soviet government was brought to the attention of the Polish ambassador in Moscow, which stated that since the Polish state and its government had practically ceased to exist, all treaties concluded between the Soviet Union and Poland ceased to be valid. Therefore, the USSR will no longer remain neutral. Also used was the argument used by the Poles and Germans to justify their aggressive actions against Czechoslovakia in 1938: the Soviet government cannot be indifferent to the fact that Ukrainians and Belarusians living in Poland are left to fend for themselves. Therefore, the order was given to the Red Army to cross the border and take under its protection the life and property of the fraternal population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.
On the same day, the invasion of Soviet troops into Poland began. The commander-in-chief of the Polish army ordered the troops not to resist the Red Army, so the battles in the east were of a local nature. The garrison of Lvov, stubbornly defending the city from the Germans, surrendered it without a fight to the approaching units of the Red Army.
In the second half of September, no one doubted the outcome of the war. On the night of September 17-18, the civilian and military leadership left the country. The President, the Government, the Commander-in-Chief went to Romania and were interned there. In the fighting, the Polish army lost more than 65 thousand killed, about 400 thousand were captured by the Germans, 240 thousand were interned by the Red Army. About 90,000 servicemen managed to escape to neutral countries.
September 28, 1939 in Moscow was signed Soviet-German treaty on friendship and borders, which made adjustments to the August agreements on the territorial division of Poland. In return for the inclusion of Lithuania in the sphere of its interests, the USSR abandoned Lublin and part of the Warsaw voivodeships. Of the territories that in 1944 became part of Poland, the USSR in 1939 established its administration only in the western part of Eastern Galicia and in the Bialystok district. Stalin did not agree with Hitler's proposal to create a puppet state on part of the German-occupied Polish lands, declaring that the fate of Poland could be finally decided only after the war, which had just begun.
Hitler took the path of dismembering the occupied Polish lands. The western, part of the central and northern regions of Poland were included in Germany (a territory of 92 thousand square kilometers with a population of more than 10 million people, the vast majority of Poles). Here, terror immediately began against part of the Polish citizens. First of all, the intelligentsia, participants in the national liberation uprisings of 1918-1921, and activists of political parties were subjected to repression. Poles were deprived of their property, evicted from their homes, sent to concentration camps, forced labor in Germany, deported to areas not included in the Reich. Germans from Germany and repatriates from the Baltic states and Ukraine were settled in their place. The same Poles who agreed to be included in various Volkslists received German citizenship with all the ensuing consequences for them (service in the army, etc.).
Of the remaining areas occupied by Germany, a general government was created with a center in Krakow. In 1941, after the start of the Great Patriotic War, Eastern Galicia was annexed to it. The General Government was considered by Berlin as a reservoir of cheap labor and a place for resettlement of Poles deported from territories included in the Reich. The Poles could keep the means of production limited and controlled by the Germans, the initial and professional schools. In 1941, Polish local economic self-government bodies were established. The Polish criminal police continued to operate. But the Germans in the general government did not agree to the creation of other authorities. The population was subjected to severe repression and persecution. Especially ruthless was the attitude of the Nazis towards the Jews and Gypsies, driven into the ghetto and for the most part destroyed. Poles were taken hostage, sent to forced labor in Germany, imprisoned in concentration camps, the largest of which in Poland were Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek, and shot.
The position of a significant part of the Polish population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which formally became part of the USSR in November 1939, was difficult. Vilna and the adjacent region, contrary to the wishes of the Belarusian leadership, were transferred to Lithuania in October 1939 and became part of the Soviet Union together with the latter in 1940. With regard to the Poles, as well as other national groups living in the former eastern regions of Poland, the following was applied: called the class approach. Bourgeoisie, landowners, wealthy peasants, small businessmen and merchants, civil servants, colonists from among the participants in the Polish-Soviet war of 1920 (siegemen), members of political parties, including Trotskyists, were deported to remote regions of the USSR, imprisoned and concentration camps , and other "class alien elements". In total, more than 400 thousand Poles were deported. By decision of the top leadership of the USSR in 1940, 21,857 people were shot in Katyn, Starobelsk, Medny from among the Polish officers of the army, gendarmerie and police, siegemen, landlords, etc., who were kept in internment camps, as well as in prisons in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.
As for the Poles who escaped repression, the authorities, especially since 1940, tried to win their sympathy and turn them into loyal Soviet citizens. Some well-known Polish politicians were left at large (for example, the repeated Prime Minister of Poland after the 1926 coup, Professor Lvovsky polytechnic institute Kazimierz Bartel), cultural figures (in particular, a famous poet, translator, theater and literary critic Tadeusz Boy-Zhelensky), professor of higher educational institutions in Lviv. All of them were destroyed by the Germans and Ukrainian nationalists after they captured Lvov in 1941.
The total human losses of Poland during the Second World War amounted to more than 6 million people, more than 3 million of them were Jews. During the hostilities, 644 thousand of its citizens were killed, including 123 thousand military personnel. In terms of human losses, Poland ranked first among all German-occupied European states: 220 people per 1,000 inhabitants.
2. Polish People's Resistance Movement
The defeat of the army did not break the will of the Polish people to continue the struggle for independence against the aggressors. The first priority was to ensure continuity state power. Interned in Romania, President I. Mościcki sought to keep power in the hands of the former ruling group. Using his constitutional powers, he appointed Vladislav Rachkevich as his successor. However, the opposition, supported by France, opposed these plans. The representative of the liberal forces, General Vladislav Sikorsky (1881-1943), became Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief. On September 30, 1939, the Polish government in exile was established in Paris. The leading positions in it were occupied by representatives of the four main anti-rehabilitation parties (peasant, socialist, national democratic and labor parties). The opposition managed to significantly limit the president's powers in favor of the prime minister. In the West, the Polish army was formed, numbering in 1940 more than 84,000 servicemen. After the defeat of France, the government and part of the army (about 20 thousand) moved to Great Britain.
The Treaty of Versailles severely limited Germany's military capabilities. In the spring of 1922, an international conference was held in the northern Italian city of Rapallo, the main theme of which was the mutual refusal to put forward claims for compensation for damage caused during the fighting in the First World War. The result of the conference was the conclusion of the Treaty of Rapallo on April 16, 1922 between the RSFSR and the Weimar Republic. The treaty provided for the immediate restoration of in full diplomatic relations between the USSR and Germany. For Soviet Russia, this was the first international treaty in its history. For Germany, which until now has been outside the law in the field of international politics, this agreement was of fundamental importance, since in this way it began to return to the ranks of states recognized by the international community.
Shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo, on August 11, 1922, a secret cooperation agreement was concluded between the Reichswehr and the Red Army. Germany and Soviet Russia now have the opportunity, at least slightly, but to maintain and mutually develop the military-technical potential accumulated during the First World War. As a result of the Rapallo agreements reached and subsequent secret agreements, an aviation training center was established in Lipetsk in 1925, in which German instructors trained German and Soviet cadets. Near Kazan in 1929, a training center for commanders of tank formations (the secret training center "Kama") was established, in which German instructors also trained German and Soviet cadets. During the functioning of the school, 30 Reichswehr officers were trained for the German side. In 1926-1933, German tanks were also tested in Kazan (the Germans called them "tractors" for secrecy). In Volsk, a center was established for training in handling chemical weapons (the "Tomka" facility). As a result of cooperation, the Red Army gained access to the technical achievements of the German military industry and the methods of work of the German General Staff, and the Reichswehr could begin training pilots, tankers and chemical weapons specialists in three schools on the territory of the USSR, and introduce future officers on the basis of subsidiaries of the German military industry Wehrmacht with new models of weapons banned in Germany.
With the coming to power of the National Socialist Workers' Party led by Adolf Hitler in 1933, Germany, without encountering any special objections from Britain and France, and in some places with their support, soon begins to ignore many of the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles - in particular, restores conscription into the army and is rapidly increasing the production of weapons and military equipment. October 14, 1933 Germany withdraws from the League of Nations and refuses to participate in the Geneva Disarmament Conference.
In October 1938, as a result of the Munich Agreement, Germany annexed the Sudetenland that belonged to Czechoslovakia. England and France give consent to this act, and the opinion of Czechoslovakia itself is not taken into account. March 15, 1939 Germany, in violation of the agreement, occupies the Czech Republic. A German protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is created on Czech territory. Hungary and Poland participate in the partition of Czechoslovakia, and Polish troops enter the vicinity of the city of Český Teszyn.
Until now, the aggressive actions of Germany have not met with serious resistance from Great Britain and France, who do not dare to start a war and are trying to save the system of the Versailles Treaty with reasonable, from their point of view, concessions (the so-called "appeasement policy"). However, after Hitler violated the Munich Treaty, both countries began to realize the need for a tougher policy, and in the event of further German aggression, Great Britain and France give military guarantees to Poland.
On March 21, 1939, Ribbentrop demanded in an ultimatum from his Polish colleague Beck to satisfy all the demands of Germany, after which "to pursue a joint anti-Soviet policy with Germany." Poland categorically rejected the German demands, and on March 31, Chamberlain announced on behalf of England and France that guarantees would be provided to Poland in the event of aggression. On April 6, these guarantees were formalized into a Polish-British military convention. In a speech to the Reichstag on 28 April, Hitler announced the rupture of the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 26 January 1934 and the Anglo-German Naval Convention. It was again noted that Hitler in his speech "avoided the traditional attacks on the Soviet Union." On May 23, Hitler announced to the military elite about his firm intention to attack Poland and get "living space in the East." At the same time, England was called the main enemy of Germany, the fight against which was "a matter of life and death." As for Russia, Hitler did not rule out that “the fate of Poland will remain indifferent to her.
Poland was important to Hitler. Influenced by unpleasant memories of the First World War, he decided to avoid a war on two fronts with a non-aggression pact concluded with Poland in 1934. Hitler thought that Poland, in fear of Soviet Russia, would willingly become a satellite of Germany.
However, there was one obstacle: in the minds of the Germans there lived a discontent, much deeper than that which was associated with an independent Austria or the German-speaking population of Czechoslovakia. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Gdansk (German Danzig) became a free city and the so-called Polish Corridor separated East Prussia from the Reich. Hitler had to remove this discontent in order to maintain his prestige, especially in front of the German generals. He expected that the Poles would voluntarily make concessions in the hope of subsequently obtaining Ukraine.
He was very mistaken because the leaders of Poland considered their country a sovereign power and wanted to maintain independence from both Soviet Russia and Germany and not yield to anyone. As Poland became stubborn, Hitler tried to influence the negotiations in the usual way, with a vague threat of military action.
Hitler expected that Britain and France would do the same with Poland as they had done with Czechoslovakia the previous year—they would force her to make concessions. This time, his expectations were in vain. The Poles did not want to give up an inch. They learned a lesson from the Czech crisis: there is one way not to give up too much - not to give up anything.
During the political crisis of 1939, two military-political blocs emerged in Europe: Anglo-French and German-Italian, each of which was interested in an agreement with the USSR.
Poland, having concluded allied treaties with Great Britain and France, which were obliged to help it in the event of German aggression, refuses to make concessions in negotiations with Germany (in particular, on the issue of the Polish Corridor). Undoubtedly, Poland overestimated its strength. In addition, of course, the Poles thought that the Western powers would honor their obligations, and this would ensure victory.
On August 23, 1939, Joachim Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the German Reich, flew to Moscow and on the same day reached an agreement with Stalin. The USSR and Germany sign the Non-Aggression Pact. The secret additional protocol to the treaty provided for the division of spheres of interest in Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states and Poland. The secret protocol pinpointed areas of interest. Finland, Estonia and Latvia were included in the Soviet sphere of interests, Lithuania - in the German one. If, as has been formulated, changes take place in Poland, the division of the spheres of interest should approximately correspond to the ethnic division.
Hitler believed that now the resistance of England and France to the seizure of Poland would cease, that they had lost all hope of Soviet help. Emboldened by his success, he set the date for the attack on Poland as August 26, even though Germany could not complete military preparations by that date. On August 25, he postponed the start of hostilities. Perhaps he was stopped by the official signing of an alliance agreement between England and Poland. But most likely he simply understood that the army was not yet ready. 6 days of energetic negotiations followed, the British tried to get concessions from Poland, the Poles refused to give in. Hitler could not wait any longer. On August 31, Hitler ordered the offensive to begin at dawn the next day.
On September 1, 1939, the troops of the Third Reich invade Poland. On September 1, dawn in Eastern Europe came at 4:45 am. A German ship, the battleship Schleswig-Holstein, which arrived in Gdansk on a friendly visit and was enthusiastically greeted by the local population, opens fire on the Polish fortifications on Westerplatte. The German armed forces invade Poland. Slovak troops are taking part in the fighting on the side of Germany.
Geographically and militarily, Germany had all the prerequisites for a quick victory over Poland. German lands - East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia surrounded most of Poland from the north and west. The collapse of Czechoslovakia expanded the areas of strategic deployment of the German armed forces, allowing the use of Slovakia, friendly to Germany.
In total, 44 German divisions were deployed for the war against Poland (including 6 tank and 2 motorized divisions), the 1st Air Fleet (Aviation General Kesselring) and the 4th Air Fleet (Aviation General Löhr) - a total of about 2 thousand aircraft.
The German Army Group South (Colonel General von Rundstedt) consisted of the 8th, 10th and 14th armies. It was to advance from Silesia in the general direction of Warsaw (10th Army - 2 tank, 8 infantry, 3 light divisions, Colonel General von Reichenau). The 14th Army (2 tank, 6 infantry, 1 light, 1 mountain divisions, Colonel General List) - in the direction of Krakow, it was supposed to be supported by the armed forces of Slovakia. The 8th Army (4 infantry divisions, 1 regiment of SS troops, Colonel General Blaskowitz) aimed at Lodz.
The German Army Group North (Colonel General von Bock) consisted of the 3rd (1 tank, 5 infantry divisions, Colonel General von Küchler) and the 4th (1 tank, 2 motorized, 6 infantry divisions, Colonel General von Kluge) armies. Its goal is to defeat the Polish forces in the region of the northern Vistula with a simultaneous strike from East Prussia and Pomerania.
In total, the Polish armed forces included 39 infantry divisions, 2 motorized brigades, 11 cavalry brigades, 3 mountain brigades. The commander-in-chief of the Polish forces was Marshal Rydz-Smigly. His plan is to defend western border Poland and conduct offensive operations in East Prussia.
On the border with East Prussia, the Modlin army (4 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades) was deployed, as well as 2 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades in the Suwalki region. In the Polish corridor - the Pomorie army (6 infantry divisions).
Against Pomerania - the army "Lodz" (4 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades).
Against Silesia - the army "Krakow" (6 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry and 1 motorized brigades).
Behind the armies "Krakow" and "Lodz" - the army "Prussia" (6 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry brigade).
The southern border of Poland was to be defended by the Karpaty army (from reserve formations).
Reserves - 3 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry brigade - near the Vistula in the region of Warsaw and Lublin.
On August 31, the German press reported: "... on Thursday at about 20 o'clock the radio station in Gleiwitz was seized by the Poles." No evidence has been provided to support these allegations, either then or since. In fact, they were SS men dressed in Polish uniforms (terrorist police of "black shirts"), led by Otto Skorzeny.
On September 1 at 10 am, Hitler addressed the Reichstag in military uniform, and, as usual, in the role of a victim. He sought a peaceful settlement through negotiations with the Poles, but they allegedly ignored his proposals. In justifying the attack on Poland, Hitler refers to the Gleiwitz incident. At the same time, he carefully avoids the term "war", fearing the entry into the conflict of England and France, which gave Poland the appropriate guarantees. The order he issued spoke only of "active defense" against Polish aggression. Until the last day, Hitler and his entourage hoped that the Allies would not dare to enter the war and the matter would end with a second Munich.
The invasion of Poland provokes a declaration of war on Germany by England, France and other countries that had an alliance with Poland. September 3 at 9 o'clock England, at 12:20 France, as well as Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany. Canada, Newfoundland, the Union of South Africa and Nepal join within days. World War II has begun.
The offensive of the German troops developed according to plan. Polish troops were weak military force compared to coordinated tank formations and the Luftwaffe. However, on the Western Front, the allied Anglo-French troops do not take any active action. On the western front, "the Strange War is going on." Only at sea, the war began immediately: already on September 3, the German U-30 submarine attacked the English passenger liner Athenia without warning.
Thus the Poles were left to fight alone. The delay in mobilization to please the Western powers led to the fact that more than half of the Polish divisions were never completed. In addition, the Germans had 6 armored divisions and 2,000 aircraft, while the Poles had few tanks and aircraft. The Poles, in order to protect their industrial regions, located mainly in the west, placed their armies at the forefront. Two German armies, one from East Prussia and the other from Silesia, penetrated the rear of the Polish positions and disrupted communications. The German armored divisions rushed forward, relying more on their speed than on firepower. The infantry only consolidated what had been achieved. Chaos broke out in the Polish armies.
On September 7, German troops under the command of Heinz Guderian launch an attack on the Polish defensive line near Wizna. 720 Polish soldiers and officers held back the 40,000 enemy grouping until September 10.
On September 8, the Polish troops retreating to the east ran into the German flank near the Bzura River. Until September 14, a heavy battle continued for six days. The Battle of Bzura was the largest battle in Europe for all the time before the German attack on Soviet Russia in 1941. German command was very alarmed: this is an indicator of how it can fail tank attack if the advance rate is lost.
In Poland, during the first week of fighting, German troops cut through the Polish front in several places and occupy part of Mazovia, western Prussia, the Upper Silesian industrial region and western Galicia. By September 9, the Germans managed to break the Polish resistance along the entire front line and approach Warsaw.
On September 10, the Polish commander-in-chief Edward Rydz-Smigly orders a general retreat to southeastern Poland, but the main part of his troops, unable to retreat beyond the Vistula, is surrounded. By mid-September, having not received support from the West, the armed forces of Poland cease to exist as a whole; only local centers of resistance remain.
September 14, Guderian's 19th corps captures Brest from East Prussia. Polish troops under the command of General Plisovsky defend for several more days Brest fortress. On the night of September 17, its defenders leave the forts in an organized manner and withdraw beyond the Bug.
On September 16, the Polish ambassador to the USSR was told that since the Polish state and its government had ceased to exist, the Soviet Union took under its protection the lives and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.
On September 17 at 6 o'clock in the morning, fearing that Germany would refuse to comply with the terms of the secret additional protocol to the non-aggression pact, the USSR began to send troops into the Eastern regions of Poland. Soviet troops cross the state border in two military groups and occupy Western Belorussia and the Ukraine. On the same day, Molotov sent congratulations to the German Ambassador to the USSR Schulenburg on the "brilliant success of the German Wehrmacht."
On September 19, Polish President Ignacy Mościcki and the Polish government, who had fled to Romania on the night of September 18, were interned.
On September 28, the Germans occupy Warsaw. On the same day, the Treaty of Friendship and Border between the USSR and Germany was signed in Moscow, which established the line of demarcation between German and Soviet troops on the territory of former Poland approximately along the "Curzon Line".
On October 2, in the Kock area, the last major Polish formation, the grouping of General Kleeberg, entered the battle with the German (13th and 29th motorized divisions) and Soviet troops approaching from the east. Although these battles were generally successful for the Poles, the lack of food and ammunition forced them to capitulate to the Germans on 5 October.
But that last battle of the regular units of the Polish army was not. Until April 30, 1940, the "Special Detachment of the Polish Army" under the command of Major Henryk Dobzhansky (pseudonym "Hubal") actively fought. One of the first (if not the very first) partisans of World War II.
Continuing to fight, Dobzhansky inflicted significant losses on the Germans. In March 1940, he defeated the Wehrmacht infantry battalion near Khutsiski, a few days later he badly battered another German unit near Shalasy. To destroy the detachment of the "mad major", the Germans formed a special anti-partisan group of SS, infantry and tank units. In the operation against the partisans, of which there were no more than 300, the Germans involved 8,000 soldiers. At the end of April 1940, the Dobzhansky detachment was surrounded and defeated after a hard battle, and Dobzhansky died with a weapon in his hands. The remnants of the Dobzhansky detachment fought until June 25, after which they were disbanded.
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The German occupation of Poland was particularly brutal. Part of the western Polish lands that were previously part of Prussia (Poznanshchina, Pomerania) were directly annexed to the Third Reich. These lands are subject to "Germanization". The Polish population is deported from here to the central regions of Poland, where a governor-general is created in which an occupation administration is organized.
All industrial and agricultural production in Poland was subordinated to the military needs of Germany. Polish higher educational institutions were closed, and the intelligentsia was persecuted. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to work or imprisoned in concentration camps. Massive repressions are being carried out against the Polish people. In the former territories of Poland, completely occupied by the Germans, the Polish language was banned, the entire Polish press was closed, almost all the clergy were arrested, all Polish universities and secondary schools were closed, Polish cultural institutions were liquidated, a systematic policy was carried out to replace Polish names, and the Polish intelligentsia and civil servants persecuted and methodically destroyed. The Poles lost about 2 million people who were not military personnel, including 45% of doctors, 57% of lawyers, 40% of university professors, 30% of engineers, 18% of priests, almost all journalists. It is believed that during the Second World War, Poland lost more than 20% of its population - about 6 million people.
Polish Jews were subjected to particular cruelty, who were first concentrated in several large ghettos. When in 1942 the leaders of the Reich took the "final solution" of the Jewish question, Polish Jews were deported to death camps. The largest and most infamous Nazi death camp in Poland was the camp near the city of Auschwitz, where more than 4 million people died.
The territories that fell into the zone of influence of the USSR were included in the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR (partly also independent at that time Lithuania). In the occupied territories included in the USSR, Soviet power is established, "socialist transformations" are carried out (nationalization of industry, collectivization of the peasantry), which is accompanied by deportation and repressions against the Polish population. Ethnic Poles living in these territories in 1939-1941. were partially deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia.
Struggle in occupied Poland
The Polish people offered both civil disobedience and military resistance to the Nazi occupiers. The resistance of the Poles began already from the first days of the German occupation. A "Secret Fighting Organization", "Polish Organization of the Fight for Freedom", "Organization of the White Eagle" arose. Later, the underground People's Party created the People's Battalions (NB) and the People's military organization(NVO). People's battalions attacked economic objects in occupied Poland, destroyed the administrative apparatus of the Germans, set up ambushes on the roads. The maximum number of fighters of the People's Battalions reached 100 thousand. In February 1942, General Sikorsky ordered the creation of the Home Army, under the command of General Rowiecki. It was assumed that the NB and NVO would enter the AK, but a partial unification with them was carried out only in 1943.
Active actions of the Home Army (AK) began in 1943. AK organized sabotage on railways, passed on to the Western Allies information about the German Peenemünde missile range (as a result, the Allies bombed the range), released prisoners from a prison in Warsaw, killed high-ranking Germans, including the German general Kuchera.
The Polish Home Army became the strongest resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe.
In addition to the AK, during the Second World War, other resistance organizations operated on the territory of Poland, which often had opposite goals and were subordinate to different leading centers. The Guards of Ludow (since 1944 - the Army of Ludow) was created as a military organization of the Polish Communist Party, and the Chlopske Battalions were created by the peasant party. There were also Jewish militant organizations that organized the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. When the deportation of Warsaw Jews to the death camps began in April 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto (350,000 Jews) revolted. After a month of hopeless struggle, without any outside help, the uprising was crushed. The Germans destroyed the ghetto, and the surviving Jewish population was deported to the Treblinka extermination camp.
Warsaw Uprising
the largest military action AK became the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. When parts of the Red Army were already approaching Warsaw, on the orders of the “London government”, an uprising began, led by the Home Army and led by its commander, General Bur-Komorowski, in order to liberate the capital of Poland before the arrival of Soviet troops.
Meanwhile, the Germans launched a counterattack near Warsaw, and Rokossovsky (a few hours before the start of the uprising in Warsaw) was forced to order the 2nd Panzer Division advancing on the city to go on the defensive. For his part, Stalin disregarded the Zhukov-Rokossovsky plan, which assumed the resumption of the offensive after the regrouping, and after an appeal from Churchill, who supported the "London government", did not allow the use of Soviet airfields to help the rebels.
The uprising began on August 1, 1944. The AK had about 50,000 fighters in the Warsaw area, but due to difficulties with mobilization, about 25,000 participated in the beginning of the uprising, of which about 10% had weapons. By the beginning of the uprising, the German garrison in Warsaw numbered about 20,000. From August 4, the German forces in Warsaw were increased to 50 thousand, due to parts of the German 9th Army, which occupied the defense in the east of Warsaw, as well as the Russian SS division, Cossack and Azerbaijani units of the Ost-truppen. SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach commanded the German forces in Warsaw.
The rebels managed to capture a number of German facilities in Warsaw and some parts of the city. However, the Germans retained their barracks and control of the transport hubs. On August 5, the Germans began to retake the districts of Warsaw. Soon the rebels were isolated in several separate pockets (Old Town, center, Mokotov, Zholibozh). The fighting continued, the number of civilian casualties increased, and there was a lack of food, medicine and water.
On October 2, 1944, Bur-Komorowski signed the surrender. Surrendered participants in the uprising were guaranteed the status of prisoners of war. The Germans brutally suppressed the uprising. Most of the city was destroyed (later, special German brigades destroyed the surviving buildings). During the 63 days of the uprising, 10 thousand rebels died, 6 thousand were missing, 20 thousand were injured (5 thousand seriously), 15 thousand were captured (including 2 thousand women). In addition, about 150 - 250 thousand civilians died, about 500 - 550 thousand residents of the city and 100 thousand residents of the surrounding area were expelled from their homes, and about 150 thousand of them ended up in concentration camps or were sent to forced labor to Germany. The Germans also suffered significant losses, about 10 thousand soldiers were killed, about 7 thousand were missing, and 9 thousand were wounded, German troops also lost 300 tanks, guns and armored vehicles.
The uprising did not achieve either military or political goals, but became for the Poles a symbol of courage and determination in the struggle for independence. Soviet propaganda interpreted these events as an ill-prepared adventure. All responsibility for the failure of the uprising rested with the government in exile in London. The offensive of the Red Army resumed on January 12, 1945, and on January 17 Warsaw was liberated by the Red Army.
Polish units in France
Polish military units in France began to form after the signing of the Franco-Polish Protocol on September 21, 1939. In total, at the end of June 1940, the Polish armed forces in France numbered about 85 thousand. General Władysław Sikorski became the commander-in-chief of the Polish forces in France. At the end of 1939, the Polish 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions were formed. In February 1940, a separate mountain rifle brigade was formed (commander - General Zygmunt Bohush-Shyshko). In early May 1940, the brigade was sent as part of the Anglo-French expeditionary corps to Norway to fight against the Germans. There, the Polish brigade successfully stormed the German-occupied villages of Ankenes and Nyborg in the battle for Narvik, the Germans were pushed back to the Swedish border. However, due to the advance of the Germans in France, the Allied forces, including the Poles, left Norway.
At a time when a separate mountain rifle brigade was sent to Norway, the Polish 1st Infantry Division (on May 3, 1940 renamed the 1st Grenadier Division), under the command of General Bronisław Dukh, was sent to the front in Lorraine. On June 16, the Polish division was almost surrounded by the Germans and received an order from the French command to retreat. On June 19, General Sikorsky ordered the division to retreat to the south of France or, if possible, to Switzerland. However, this order was difficult to fulfill, and therefore only 2 thousand Poles managed to reach the south of France, about a thousand left for Switzerland. The exact losses of the division are still unknown, but at least a thousand Poles were killed, and at least 3 thousand were wounded. The Polish 2nd Infantry Division (renamed 2nd Rifle Division) under the command of General Prugar-Ketling also fought in Lorraine. On June 15 and 16, this division covered the retreat of the French 45th Corps to the Swiss border. The Poles crossed into Switzerland on 20 June and were interned there until the end of World War II.
In addition to the infantry, the Polish armed forces in France included the 10th Armored Cavalry Brigade under the command of General Stanisław Maczk. She was stationed at the front in Champagne. From June 13, the brigade covered the withdrawal of two French divisions. Then, on orders, the brigade retreated, but on June 17 it was surrounded. Having managed to break through the German lines, the brigade was then evacuated to Britain.
In addition to the aforementioned Polish units, several Polish anti-tank companies attached to French infantry divisions took part in the fighting in France. The Polish 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions were in the process of formation in June 1940 and did not have time to take part in the battles.
When the defeat of France became apparent, the commander-in-chief of the Polish forces decided to evacuate them to Britain. On June 18, 1940, General Sikorsky flew to England. At a meeting in London, he assured British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that the Polish troops were not going to surrender to the Germans and wanted to fight until complete victory. Churchill ordered the organization of the evacuation of Polish troops to Scotland.
While Sikorsky was in England, his deputy, General Sosnkovsky, asked the French General Denin to help the Poles evacuate. The Frenchman replied that "the Poles themselves need to hire ships for evacuation, and you have to pay for it in gold." He also suggested that the Polish troops surrender to the Germans, as did the French. As a result, 17 thousand Polish soldiers and officers managed to evacuate to Britain.
Polish units in the Middle East
In April 1940, the Polish Carpathian Rifle Brigade was formed in Syria under the command of Colonel Stanisław Kopanski (from Polish soldiers and officers who fled through Romania). After the surrender of French troops in Syria to the Germans, the French command ordered the Poles to surrender to German captivity, but Colonel Kopansky did not obey this order and took the Polish brigade to British Palestine. In October 1940, the brigade was redeployed to Egypt. In October 1941, the Polish Carpathian Brigade was landed in the Libyan town of Tobruk, besieged by the Germans, to help the Australian 9th Infantry Division, which was defending there. In December 1941, the allied forces attacked the German and Italian troops, and on December 10 the siege of Tobruk was ended. On December 14-17, 1941, the Polish brigade took part in the battle in the Gazala region (in Libya). Of the 5 thousand fighters, the Poles lost more than 600 killed and wounded.
Polish units in Britain
In August 1940, British Prime Minister Churchill signed the Polish-British military agreement, which allowed Polish troops to be stationed in Britain. The Polish armed forces in Britain received the same status as the troops of the countries of the British Commonwealth, and received the right to form new Polish units. By the end of August 1940, the Polish ground forces in Britain consisted of 5 rifle brigades (3 of them were manned almost exclusively by command personnel, due to a lack of privates). On September 28, 1940, the Polish commander-in-chief, General Sikorsky, ordered the formation of the 1st Polish Corps. In October 1941, the 4th Rifle Brigade was reorganized into the 1st Separate Parachute Brigade (under the command of Colonel Sosnovsky). In February 1942, the formation of the Polish 1st Panzer Division (under the command of General Machka) began. After the death of General Sikorsky in a plane crash on July 4, 1943 near Gibraltar, General Sosnowsky became commander-in-chief of the Polish troops.
Anders Army
On July 30, 1941, General Sikorsky and the Soviet ambassador in London Maisky signed a Polish-Soviet agreement on joint military operations against Germany. On August 4, 1941, the Polish General Wladyslaw Anders, appointed by Sikorsky as commander of the Polish troops in the USSR, was released Soviet authorities from imprisonment in the Lubyanka prison. On August 12, 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR by its decree declared an amnesty for all Polish citizens who were imprisoned in the USSR. The USSR agreed to the formation of parts of the Polish armed forces - 2 divisions with a total number of 25 thousand. Then, at the request of Sikorsky, the numerical restrictions were lifted. By November 1941, the number of Poles gathered in the training camps had reached 44,000. On December 3, 1941, General Sikorsky, who arrived in the USSR, met with Stalin in the Kremlin. As a result of their negotiations, the number of the Polish army in the USSR was set at 96 thousand, and permission was received to evacuate 25 thousand Poles outside the USSR. In March 1942, the head of the rear of the Red Army, General Khrulev, informed General Anders that the Polish army in the USSR would receive only 26,000 food rations per day. Anders, at a meeting with Stalin, achieved the receipt of 44 thousand food rations per day and permission to evacuate Polish troops from the USSR. By April 1942, 33,000 Poles-military personnel, as well as almost 11,000 civilian Poles, including 3,000 children, were transferred to Krasnovodsk for evacuation to Iran. The second stage of the evacuation of Poles from the USSR took place in August 1942. In total, 78,600 military and 38,000 civilian Poles were evacuated from the USSR.
In September 1942, Polish units evacuated from the USSR were deployed in northern Iraq. They were consolidated into 3 infantry divisions and 1 tank brigade, which formed the 2nd Polish Corps. In July 1943 the corps was redeployed to Palestine. On December 7, 1943, the British command decided to send the 2nd Polish Corps to Italy.
On March 24, 1944, the commander of the 2nd Polish Corps, General Anders, received an order from the British command to break through German positions in the Monte Cassino area, storm the monastery and occupy the town of Piedimonte, and thereby clear the way to Rome. By this point, the Allied forces had stormed Monte Cassino three times without success. In April 1944, the 2nd Polish Corps consisted of the 3rd Carpathian rifle division(commander - General Duh), the 5th Kresova Infantry Division (General Sulik), the 2nd Tank Brigade (General Rakovsky) and the 2nd Artillery Group. The number of the corps is 46 thousand soldiers and officers. The 4th Battle of Monte Cassino began on 11 May. After fierce battles with the defending German 1st parachute and 5th mountain divisions, on the morning of May 18, the Poles took the monastery and raised the regimental banner of the 12th Podolsk Lancers and the flag of Poland over it (later, by order of General Anders, the British flag was hoisted) . On the morning of May 19, the entire Monte Cassino massif was cleared of German troops. The victory of the Poles provided the 13th British Corps with a passage to the Leary Valley. On May 25, Canadian, British and Polish units broke through the German "Hitler Line". In total, during the battle in the Monte Cassino area, the 2nd Polish Corps lost a thousand people killed and 3 thousand wounded. After a short rest, General Anders was ordered to move the Polish corps along the Adriatic coast to capture the port city of Ancona. Heavy fighting in this direction began on June 21. On July 17, the Poles launched an assault on Ancona. On July 18, the 2nd Tank Brigade cut off Ancona in the northwest, then the Carpathian Lancers entered the city. The port, as required by the command, was taken intact. In the battle for Ancona, the Poles lost more than 600 killed and almost 2,000 wounded. The capture of the port allowed the British 8th Army to continue their advance on Bologna. Then the Polish corps received an order to break through the German "Gotha line", which was completed in August 1944. By the end of 1944, the 2nd Polish corps was reinforced by two infantry brigades, the 2nd tank brigade was reorganized into the 2nd Warsaw tank division. In January 1945, the American commander of the 15th Army Group, General Clark, ordered the allied units to prepare for the last offensive in Italy. Since General Anders was appointed to the post of supreme commander of the Polish armed forces, General Bohusz-Szyszko became commander of the 2nd Polish Corps. The offensive began on April 9, 1945. On April 21, the Poles stormed Bologna, losing over 200 killed and over 1,200 wounded.
1st Panzer Division of General Macka
The Polish 1st Panzer Division under the command of General Stanisław Machka was landed in Normandy in July 1944 and took an active part in the liberation of Belgium and Holland. The main combat mission of the Canadian Corps in August 1944 was to capture the area around the city of Falaise and join with the American units advancing from Argentan. During the Battle of Falaise, the Polish 1st Panzer Division helped the Allied forces to surround significant German forces (the division itself captured more than 5,000 Germans). The losses of the Poles amounted to more than 400 killed and 1 thousand wounded. At the end of August 1944, the Polish division advanced, with heavy fighting, to the east. On September 6, the Poles crossed the Franco-Belgian border and took the city of Ypres. Then the Poles took the cities of Tilt, Ghent, Lokeren, St. Nicholas. On September 16, the Poles crossed the Belgian-Dutch border. General Maczek was ordered to take Antwerp. The task was completed, but then the Polish division fought for three weeks against the Germans who went on the counteroffensive. Then, in October, the Poles advanced into Holland and took the city of Breda (the city council of Breda declared all the fighters of the Polish division to be honorary citizens of the city, and after the end of World War II, many veterans of the Polish 1st Panzer Division settled there). On November 8, 1944, the Poles reached the banks of the Meuse River. There, the advance stopped - until April 14, 1945, when the Polish division, after five days of fighting, broke through the German defenses and entered German territory. On May 6, 1945, the Poles captured the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven.
Operation Market Garden
On September 17, 1944, the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, an airborne landing in Holland. On September 18, part of the Polish 1st Parachute Brigade was landed on the north bank of the Rhine to help the British 1st Airborne Division besieged in Arnhem. However, due to bad weather conditions, only a little over 1,000 Polish paratroopers managed to land. The rest of the brigade was landed on September 23, but 30 km from the first landing. Only a small part of the Poles managed to link up with the British. In general, this Allied operation was unsuccessful. The Poles lost more than 200 dead and missing and more than 200 wounded there.
Polish Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic
The Polish navy continued to fight in the west after September 1939, since even before the start of World War II, 3 (out of four) Polish destroyers - Bliskawitz, Grom and Buzha - were sent to Britain. After the start of the war, two of the five Polish submarines - "Wilk" and "Orzhel" - broke through from the Baltic to Britain. Cooperation between the Polish Navy and the British Navy was established by a naval agreement of November 1939. Shortly thereafter, the Polish Navy leased several ships from Britain - 2 cruisers ("Dragon" and "Konrad"), 6 destroyers "Garland ”, “Piorun”, “Krakowiak”, “Kujawiak”, “Shlenzak”, “Orkan”) and 3 submarines (“Falcon”, “Yastshemb”, “Dzik”). The submarine "Orzhel" in April 1940 sank the German transport "Rio de Janeiro", which participated in the landing of German troops in Norway. The destroyer Piorun, together with a flotilla of British destroyers, participated in 1941 in the pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck. In 1942, the destroyer Schlensack provided artillery support for the Canadian-British landing at Dieppe. The submarines "Falcon" and "Dzik" operated in the Mediterranean Sea and received the nickname "Terrible Twins". Polish warships ensured the landing of Allied troops in the Narvik operation (1940), North African (1942), Sicilian (1943) and Italian (1943). They also escorted Allied caravans bringing weapons, food and other supplies to the USSR. In total, Polish naval sailors sank several enemy warships (German and Italian), including 2 German submarines, shot down about 20 aircraft and sank about 40 transport ships. About 400 (out of a total of about 4 thousand) Polish sailors died. Most of the survivors of World War II ended up living in the West.
Polish aviation in the Battle of Britain
After the September campaign of 1939, many Polish military pilots tried to move to France. During the defense of France, Polish pilots shot down about 50 German aircraft, 13 Poles pilots died. Then the Polish pilots crossed over to Britain. The Battle of Britain (July-October 1940) involved 145 Polish fighter pilots. 2 Polish squadrons were formed as part of the British Air Force (302nd and 303rd, Poles also served in other British squadrons). Polish pilots achieved great success - 303 Squadron became one of the most productive among the British Air Force, shooting down 125 German aircraft. In total, during the Battle of Britain, the Poles shot down 201 enemy aircraft. In the summer of 1940, 2 Polish bomber squadrons were formed, soon total number Polish squadrons in Britain reached 15: of them 10 fighter, 4 bomber and 1 artillery guidance squadron. A group of Polish pilots fought in North Africa in 1943 (the so-called Skalsky Circus). Polish pilots bombed Germany (15 kilotons of bombs), including Berlin, the Ruhr and Hamburg, and dropped weapons and ammunition for partisans in Poland (426 sorties) and other countries (909 sorties). In total, during the war, Polish pilots made 73.5 thousand sorties from Britain. They shot down 760 German aircraft and 190 V-1 missiles, sank 2 submarines. The most productive of the Polish pilots were Stanislav Skalsky, Witold Urbanovich, Evgeniush Horbachevsky and Boleslav Gladysh, who each shot down 15 or more enemy aircraft. The loss of the Polish Air Force amounted to 2 thousand dead.
Winston Churchill, in a speech before the British Parliament on August 20, 1940, said this about the Polish pilots defending England - "Never before in the history of human conflicts did so many owe so much to so few" (Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few). After the end of World War II, most of the Polish flight and technical personnel (there were more than 14 thousand in May 1945) remained to live in the West.
Polish army on the eastern front
In March 1943 Soviet command decided to create new (pro-Soviet) Polish troops. In May 1943, the Stavka appointed retired (since June 1939) Lieutenant Colonel Zygmunt Berling as commander of this Polish army (as part of one infantry division), and Wanda Wasilewska as political commissar, who was promoted to the rank of colonel. (Berling was a prisoner of war, released under an amnesty in August 1941 from a Soviet prison, enlisted in the Polish army of General Anders, was appointed division chief of staff, in 1942 (when Anders left for the Western allies) remained in the USSR. Vasilevskaya, daughter of the minister of pre-war Poland, after Occupation of Lvov by the Red Army in 1939, she accepted Soviet citizenship, joined the CPSU (b), was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and became a Soviet writer).
1st Polish Infantry Division named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko ( Polish 1 Polska Dywizja Piechoty im.Tadeusza Kościuszki) was formed in June 1943. On August 10, the Supreme Commander (Stalin) ordered the formation of a Polish corps consisting of 2 infantry divisions, a tank brigade, an artillery brigade, an aviation regiment and corps units. On the same day, the command awarded Berling the rank of general and appointed him commander of the Polish corps.
As of July 5, 1943, the division consisted of 14,380 people (of which 13,520 Poles, 439 Jews, 209 Ukrainians, 108 Belarusians and 112 Russians). On July 15, 1943 (on the anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald), the fighters of the division took the military oath, on the same day the Union of Polish Patriots presented the division with a combat banner (red and white, with the motto "For your and our freedom!").
On August 10, 1943, the 1st Polish Corps was created, which included the existing Polish military units (including the 1st Polish Infantry Division) and the formation of new Polish units began. On September 1, 1943, the 1st Polish Infantry Division was sent to the front. October 12 - 13, 1943 near Lenino in the Mogilev region, the first battle of the 1st Polish Infantry Division took place. During the two-day battles, parts of the Polish division inflicted significant damage on the enemy. Three fighters of the Polish division were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 247 were awarded orders and medals. The division's own losses in the "Battle for Lenino" reached 25% of the personnel.
On March 13, 1944, the Headquarters decided to deploy Polish units on the territory of the USSR into the 1st Polish Army. The number of the Polish army was increased to 78 thousand. On July 20, 1944, units of the army crossed the Western Bug and entered the territory of Poland. On July 21, 1944, the 1st Polish Army was merged with the partisan Army of the People into a single Polish People's Army. In the Polish Army there were deputy commanders for political affairs and political agencies, but at the same time there were also chaplains in the units. As of July 22, 1944, the total strength of the 1st Army of the Polish Army was 100,000 servicemen. In late July - early August, the 1st Polish Army participated in the liberation of Deblin and Pulaw. The 1st Polish armored brigade participated in the defense of the Studzyansky bridgehead on the western bank of the Vistula south of Warsaw.
On September 14, 1944, the 1st Polish Army liberated the right-bank suburb of Warsaw - Prague and then undertook failed attempt cross the Vistula to help the Warsaw Uprising. In January 1945, the 1st Polish Army participated in the liberation of Warsaw, and then the Polish Army participated in the breakthrough through central Poland. On January 28, 1945, Bydgoszcz was liberated by them. Then the 1st Polish Army was transferred to the north, and the main forces of the army participated in the assault on Kołobrzeg (German Kolberg), and the 1st Polish armored brigade advanced on Gdansk (East Pomeranian operation). In April 1945 the 2nd Polish Army was organized. In 1945, the strength of the Polish Army reached 200,000 people (1st and 2nd Polish armies, 1st tank corps, 1st Air Corps and other units), amounting to approximately 10% of the total number of forces participating in the Berlin operation on the Soviet side. By June 1945, the Polish Army numbered about 400,000 people. It was the largest regular military force that fought alongside Soviet troops.
Handshake of Polish Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly and German attache Colonel Bogislaw von Studnitz at the Independence Day parade in Warsaw on November 11, 1938.
It would be interesting to understand on which side of the front line of the Second World War more Poles fought. Professor Ryszard Kaczmarek, director of the Institute of History of the Silesian University, author of the book "Poles in the Wehrmacht", for example, told the Polish "Gazeta Wyborcza" about this: "We can assume that 2-3 million people in Poland have a relative who served in the Wehrmacht. How many of them know what happened to them? Probably few. Students constantly come to me and ask how to establish what happened to my uncle, to my grandfather. Their relatives were silent about this, they got off with the phrase that their grandfather died in the war. But this is no longer enough for the third post-war generation.”
For 2-3 million Poles, a grandfather or uncle served with the Germans. And how many of them died "in the war", that is, on the side of Adolf Hitler, how many survived? “There is no exact data. The Germans considered Poles drafted into the Wehrmacht only until the autumn of 1943. Then, 200 thousand soldiers arrived from the Polish Upper Silesia and Pomerania attached to the Reich. However, recruitment into the Wehrmacht lasted for another year and on a much larger scale.
From the reports of the representation of the Polish government in occupied Poland, it follows that by the end of 1944, about 450 thousand citizens of pre-war Poland were drafted into the Wehrmacht. In general, we can assume that about half a million of them passed through the German army during the war, ”the professor believes. That is, the conscription was carried out from the territories (mentioned above Upper Silesia and Pomerania) annexed to Germany.
The Germans divided the local population into several categories according to the national-political principle. Polish origin did not prevent him from leaving to serve in the Nazi army with enthusiasm: “During the departure of recruits, which at first were carried out at railway stations with great fanfare, Polish songs were often sung. Mostly in Pomerania, especially in Polish Gdynia. In Silesia, in areas with traditionally strong ties with Polish speech: in the area of Pszczyna, Rybnik or Tarnowskie Góra. Recruits began to sing, then their relatives joined in, and soon it turned out that during the Nazi event the entire station was singing. Therefore, the Germans abandoned the solemn farewell, because it compromised them. True, they sang mostly religious songs. Situations when someone fled from mobilization happened extremely rarely.”
In the early years, the Poles were well served by Hitler: “At first it seemed that everything was not so bad. The first recruitment took place in the spring and summer of 1940. While the recruits went through training and got into their units, the war on the Western Front had already ended. The Germans captured Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Holland, defeated France. Hostilities continued only in Africa. At the junction of 1941 and 1942, the service was reminiscent of peacetime. I was in the army, so I can imagine that after a while a person gets used to new conditions and becomes convinced that it is possible to live, that no tragedy has occurred. The Silesians wrote about how well they lived in occupied France. They sent home pictures with the Eiffel Tower in the background, drank French wine, spent their free time in the company of French women. They served in the garrisons on the Atlantic Wall, which was rebuilt at that time.
I got on the trail of a Silesian who spent the whole war in the Greek Cyclades. Completely at peace, as if on vacation. Even his album, in which he painted landscapes, has survived. But, alas, this serene Polish existence in the German service with French women and landscapes was cruelly “broken off” by the evil Muscovites in Stalingrad. After this battle, the Poles began to be sent in large numbers to the Eastern Front: “Stalingrad changed everything ... that at one moment it turned out that conscription into the army meant certain death. Recruits died most often, sometimes after only two months of service ... People were not afraid that someone would pay them off for service to the Germans, they were afraid of sudden death. The German soldier was also afraid, but in the center of the Reich, people believed in the meaning of war, in Hitler, in the fact that some miracle weapon would save the Germans. In Silesia, with few exceptions, no one shared this faith. On the other hand, the Silesians were terribly afraid of the Russians... It is clear that the biggest losses were on the Eastern Front... given that every second Wehrmacht soldier died, we can assume that up to 250,000 Poles could have died at the front.
According to the director of the Institute of History of the Silesian University, the Poles fought for Hitler: “in the West and Eastern fronts, Rommel in Africa and the Balkans. In the cemetery in Crete, where the dead members of the German landing of 1941 lie, I also found Silesian surnames. I found the same names in military cemeteries in Finland, where Wehrmacht soldiers who supported the Finns in the war with the USSR were buried. Professor Kaczmarek has not yet provided data on how many Red Army soldiers, US and British soldiers, partisans of Yugoslavia, Greece and civilians were killed by Hitler's Poles. I guess I haven't calculated yet...
According to the military intelligence of the Red Army, in 1942 the Poles made up 40-45% of the personnel of the 96th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht, about 30% of the 11th Infantry Division (together with the Czechs), about 30% of the 57th Infantry Division, about 12 % of the 110th Infantry Division. Earlier in November 1941, intelligence discovered a large number of Poles in the 267th Infantry Division.
By the end of the war, 60,280 Poles were in Soviet captivity, fighting on the side of Hitler. And this is far from a complete figure. About 600,000 prisoners from the armies of Germany and its allies, after appropriate verification, were released directly at the fronts. “For the most part, these were people of non-German nationality, forcibly drafted into the Wehrmacht and the armies of Germany’s allies (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians, Bulgarians, Moldovans, etc.), as well as non-transportable disabled people,” the official documents say.
Poles as allies of the USSR
On August 14, a military agreement was signed in Moscow, which provided for the formation of a Polish army on the territory of the USSR for subsequent participation in the war against Germany on the Soviet-German front.
Already by August 31, 1941, the number of the Polish army exceeded 20,000, and by October 25 - 40,000 people. Despite the most difficult situation in which the USSR was at that time, it was generously supplied with everything necessary. The Polish ambassador in Moscow, Kot, in his reports to London, where the Polish emigrant government had settled since 1940, reported: “The Soviet military authorities greatly facilitate the organization of the Polish Army, in practice they fully comply with Polish requirements, giving the Army soldiers already mobilized into the Red Army in the lands of Eastern Poland.
However, the Poles were by no means eager to fight the Germans. On December 3, Sikorsky, who arrived in Moscow, together with the commander of the Polish army in the USSR, General Vladislav Anders and Kot, was received by Stalin. The Germans stood near Moscow, and Anders and Sikorsky argued that the Polish units should be sent to Iran (in August 1941, Soviet and British troops were sent to Iran to fight the pro-German regime of Reza Shah. - Note ed.). Outraged, Stalin replied: “We can do without you. We'll handle it ourselves. We will recapture Poland and then we will give it back to you.”
Colonel Sigmund Berling, one of the Polish officers who were committed to honest cooperation with the Soviet side, later said: Anders and his officers "did everything to drag out the period of training and arming their divisions" so that they would not have to oppose Germany, terrorized the Polish officers and soldiers who wished to accept the help of the Soviet government and, with weapons in their hands, go against the invaders of their homeland. Their names were entered in a special index called "file cabinet B" as sympathizers with the Soviets.
T. n. "Dvuyka" (the intelligence department of the Anders army) collected information about Soviet military factories, railways, field warehouses, and the location of the Red Army troops. It was simply dangerous to have such "allies" in one's rear. As a result, in the summer of 1942, Anders' army was nevertheless withdrawn to Iran under the auspices of the British. In total, about 80,000 military personnel and more than 37,000 members of their families left the USSR.
However, thousands of Polish soldiers under the command of Beurling chose to remain in the USSR. Of these, a division was formed. Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who became the basis of the 1st Army of the Polish Army, who fought on the Soviet side and reached Berlin.
Meanwhile, the Polish government in exile continued to harm the USSR as far as possible: in March 1943, it actively supported the propaganda campaign about the "Katyn massacre", raised by the Reich Minister of Propaganda Goebbels.
On December 23, 1943, Soviet intelligence provided the leadership of the country with a secret report by the minister of the Polish government in exile in London and the chairman of the Polish commission for post-war reconstruction, Seida, sent to President Benes of Czechoslovakia as an official document of the Polish government on post-war settlement. It was entitled: "Poland and Germany and the post-war reconstruction of Europe."
Its meaning boiled down to the following: Germany should be occupied in the west by England and the United States, in the east by Poland and Czechoslovakia. Poland must receive land along the Oder and the Neisse. The border with the Soviet Union was to be restored under the 1921 treaty.
Although Churchill was in solidarity with the plans of the Poles, he understood their unreality. Roosevelt called them "harmful and stupid" and spoke in favor of establishing a Polish-Soviet border along the Curzon line, which generally coincided with state border USSR, established in 1939.
The Yalta agreements of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill on the creation of a new democratic government Poland, of course, was not satisfied with the Polish government in exile. In the spring of 1945, the Home Army, under the leadership of General Okulicki, the former chief of staff of the Anders army, was intensively engaged in terrorist acts, sabotage, espionage and armed raids in the rear of the Soviet troops.
On March 22, 1945, Okulicki informed the commander of the western district of the Home Army, designated by the pseudonym Slavbor: “Considering their interests in Europe, the British will have to start mobilizing the forces of Europe against the USSR. It is clear that we will be in the forefront of this European anti-Soviet bloc; and it is also impossible to imagine this bloc without the participation of Germany in it, which will be controlled by the British.
These plans of Polish emigrants turned out to be unrealizable. By the summer of 1945, 16 arrested Polish spies, including Okulitsky, were brought before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and received various terms of imprisonment. However, the Craiova Army, formally disbanded, but in fact transformed into the organization "Liberty and Inconsistency", waged a terrorist war against the Soviet military and the new Polish authorities for several more years.
