Polish German Collaboration Against Soviet Partisans

[wm]

Well, Otto Skorzeny and his people were acquitted of all charges (of violating the Hague Convention of 1907 during Operation Greif, "by entering into combat disguised therewith") so that was a war crime.

[history1]

[...]
The author Norman Davies in his book RISING 44 “The Battle for Warsaw” gives on pages 676 to 678 the full text of the capitulation agreement signed on October 2 1944.

Part I article 5 - “From the moment of surrendering arms, Home Army soldiers will be treated in accordance with the regulations for the treatment of prisoners-of-war of the Geneva Convention of 29 VII 1929. Home army soldiers captured in the city of Warsaw during the battle from I VIII 1944 will also be subject to the same regulations.

Part II article 9 –Home Army soldiers will be identified by red and white armbands or badges with a Polish eagle, regardless of whether they are uniformed or in civilian clothing.
[...]

And here you go. What do you consider a AK fighter who is NOT wearing one of the mentioned signs as we see them in the photos? Unlikely a AK-soldier and hence it/they can not be a POW.

[history1]

[...]
The AK respected the Hague Conventions during their military operations, they were commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates, they wore a distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance, they carried arms openly.

According to Hague IV, carrying arms openly was sufficient to be a soldier.

[...]

Absolute nonsense! Everyone can see it in the photos that your claim is BULL!
And as quoted, to be considered a lawful combatant of partisan units the fulfilling of all FOUR requirements need to be exercised.
AK partisan "general" Komorowski and his staff "officers" during the Warsaw Uprising:

https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Wa ... iewicz.jpg
I guess they forgot their signs in their trousers pockets!

[gebhk]

Exactly why do you feel the need to put these men's recognised titles in inverted commas? Gen Komorowski was a general and all 4 men who are the subject of the photo were officers, career officers at that. The one thing they are not is Gen Komorowski's staff officers and, apart from the man on the far left of the picture, not staff officers at all.

[wm]

Why the scare quotes?
General Tadeusz Komorowski fought in three wars, including four years as a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army.
German commanders would treat him with full honors even if naked.
Not because of soldierly comradery but because he was their fricking comrade in arms.

It's not a battle, or the frontline, the enemy is far away so it's of no importance what they were wearing.
In that case, raincoats because obviously, it was raining.

As the judges in the Dachau Trials said, as long as you not fighting you could wear whatever you want.

[Steve]

Maybe my previous post did not make it clear that the parts of the surrender document I presented only refer to the surrender on October 2. When the AK units surrendered and marched out as long as they were wearing a sign that signified membership of the AK they were treated as legitimate combatants. What went on before the agreement of October 2 is something else.

Hitler had ordered that no prisoners were to be taken and it seems that during August whether you qualified as a combatant or not made no difference, the Germans killed everyone. There was a meeting on September 10 between General Rohr commander of German forces on the southern side of Warsaw and representatives of the AK to discuss surrender. The AK asked for combatant status if they surrendered and this was agreed to. However, they did not surrender and on September 28 another meeting took place this time between General Von dem Bach and Polish representatives. One of Von dem Bach’s proposals was to give combatant status to all AK men and women fighters. This seems odd if combatant status had already been granted to the AK by Rohr.
From the book Poland and the Poles in the Second World War by Halik Kochanski.

Part 1 article 1 of the surrender document defines who the Germans will regard as being in the AK ……………………. All Polish formations tactically subordinated to the Home Army Commander during the battle from I V111 44 until the day of the signing are to be regarded as Polish units. Henceforth these units will be called “Home Army Units”.

Presumably if you had fought from the start wearing nothing but your underpants as long as your unit had been tactically subordinated to the AK Commander you would qualify as a member of the AK.

All the rights granted to the surrendering Poles in the October 2 agreement would also apply to men who had been captured from August 1 onwards. At the end of September probably to encourage the Poles to surrender the Germans were taking AK prisoners. When the Jolibord district surrendered on 30 September 800 were taken.

[gebhk]

It was perfectly normal for combatants fighting behind enemy lines to have a “fantasy name.”

Not only behind enemy lines. If you are engaged in fighting two murderous regimes, whose security personnel have access to your families, only a complete idiot would reveal his true identity. For this reason, for example, Polish pilots who fought in the BoB, usually appear in newspaper reports and contemporaneously published books under pseudonyms.

[SloveneLiberal]

Interesting topic. The question of legality of resitance movements according to international law in the time of WW2 is not debated enough i think. I posted this topic concerning the situation in Yugoslavia and Slovenia.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=237043&p=2155723&hi ... l#p2155723

Maybe somebody will comment?

As i already mentioned in my posts i see the situation in Slovenia and Poland as quite similair in the way of illegality of the behaviour of occupation force. Likely it was even worse in Poland.

[wm]

The Laws of War didn't concern themselves with legality of resistance movements. They weren't forbidden and simultaneously weren't protected by the Hague Conventions.

[SloveneLiberal]

Ok but you can see from Nuremberg judgement of Hostage trial that partisans from Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece were mostly illegal fighters. Even if the war against kingdom of Yugoslavia is considered illegal agressive war from the German side according with the judgement. And even making repressions against civilian population because of the partisan activity was not illegal, but anyway German generals were found guilty because they were to harsh in their reprisals and the reprisals were motivated racially. Like killing the Jews as hostages. If resitance movement is legal than killing of hostages was of course forbidden.

But the judgement is also assuming that occupation would not mean nothing so special for people, the goal of occupying force was only to exploit occupied territories. However the court was against the establishing of so called NDH or ustasha state with arbitrary borders before the end of war in fact during the fighting. So establishing such puppet states was declared illegal. As i pointed out the judgement can not be applied to countries were occupying force was involved in illegal activity like for example to errase or expel one nation.

[wm]

Exploitation of occupied territories was a war crime, maybe even a hanging offense.
So it didn't matter if you killed people, hostages or you were too harsh too.
They could hang you only once.

The wasn't such a thing as illegal fighters, they were soldiers (judged according to the Hague Conventions) and non-soldiers (judged according to local laws - which invariably declared them criminals.)
The non-soldiers could have upgraded themselves easily to soldiers by simply respecting the laws of war.

But it could be argued the Germans by committing massive war crimes repudiated the Hague Conventions and you, in reciprocity, weren't bound by them either.

[SloveneLiberal]

Legal term for illegal fighters was Francs-tireurs. Judgement is talking about partisans in Balkans as mostly being Francs-tireurs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francs-tireurs

''But it could be argued the Germans by committing massive war crimes repudiated the Hague Conventions and you, in reciprocity, weren't bound by them either.''

Yes i agree! And that was also in the international law of that time. If occupying force is working in great violations of international law those who fight against them or are their victims could in reciprocity also act more without ''legal borders''.

And at least in places where Germans were trying to errase or expell whole nations that was surelly the case.

[history1]

[...]
But it could be argued the Germans by committing massive war crimes repudiated the Hague Conventions and you, in reciprocity, weren't bound by them either.

Incorrect. A war crime of your enemy doesn´t strip you from the duty to follow international treaties or rules of warfare.

[SloveneLiberal]

History1 thats how it is today. But international law in the time of ww2 was different. For example if one party was doing things much contrary to international law the other party who was the victim of it could declare army of the other and all its actions illegal.

You have to consider also this. When one side in conflict is totaly disrespecting the rules of combat it would be unjust and even not humane to put the burden of such rules on the victim. For example when Germans where exterminating Jews in Warshawa geto it would be really unfair that Jews can not defend themselves if they did not have for example enough uniforms. They are not illegal combatants because of this, but rather the German military was caring out an illegal operation and thus they could be deprived of their status of legal army fighters.

Even today are fighters of terror jihadi groups not seen as regular and legal fighters but rather as illegal combatants, because they play their war completly contrary to the rules of combat. Like deliberately killing civilians, killing POWs, not wearing uniforms, taking hostages, not respecting state borders and different states, making slaves out of civilians which they capture or got under their rule etc.

[Steve]

It would seem that there is an explanation as to why the leadership of the pro western resistance decided to walk into the arms of the NKVD (see previous posts) in March 1945.

At the Yalta conference February 1945 it was agreed that a Polish provisional government would consist of the PKWN aka the Moscow Poles, the London Poles and Poles in Poland. It was assumed by the London Poles and the non communist underground in Poland that the US and UK would support their inclusion in this government. Apparently the underground movement now hoped that they would be able to come out of hiding and participate in politics.

Before Yalta the British had requested the London Poles to give them a list of prominent underground leaders. Presumably this was for possible inclusion in a provisional government but the Poles did not give one. In early March after Yalta the British again asked and Foreign Secretary Eden told the Poles that by having such a list and presenting it to Stalin he would protect the Poles. Did the British really think that Stalin would not arrest people on a list they had provided? Again the London Poles did not give a list presumably because they did not trust the Soviets. However, it seems that they and the underground in Poland now thought that there would be a government set up with their representatives included and the British could give some protection.

Presumably when contact was made between the underground leadership and the NKVD in late March the leadership was told it was to do with the setting up of a provisional government with them in it. As they were possibly hoping for or expecting something like this they went along to the meeting. It is surprising that though the Poles did not want to give the Soviets a leadership list the leaders walked into an NKVD meeting.

Taken from Civil War In Poland by Anita Prazmowska p113 and 116