Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stalin?

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Sid Guttridge
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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#61

Post by Sid Guttridge » 12 Jan 2011, 13:03

Michael,

Firstly, I have been looking through my books on Poland and it appears you are right: none of them contain any sourced evidence that Pilsudski approached the French in 1933 about possible pre-emptive action against Nazi Germany. The most forceful comment on the subject denies it: "The story that he (Pilsudski) was so prescient that he suggested to the French a preventitive war against Germany when Hitler became Chancellor is almost certainly a myth".

If Hitler couldn't be relied upon to keep to the terms of a Non-Aggression Treaty he had himself signed with Pilsudski, then there is a severe question mark against the likely durability of any other agreement he signed.

This is reinforced by his cavalier attitude to other agreements, such as Munich. With Hitler, it would appear that the durability of diplomatic agreements was directly related to the military strength available to him at any given time. The stronger he was militarily, the less binding he considered an agreement to be, even if signed by himself.

In the final analysis, Hitler must be judged by his actions when absolute power was in his hands, because then he had complete freedom to exercise his real wishes. Uniquely of all conquered countries, he refused to recognize any sort of Polish regime, either puppet, or in exile. This was made clear at least as early October 1939. If Hitler didn't have long term, ferocious intentions against Poland, then he must have had a truly dramatic change of mind in September 1939 that suddenly saw him converted from a supporter of an independent Poland allied against the USSR to someone who attempted to wipe the Polish people off the map as a political entity in a draconian manner that went further than he acted towards no other conquered territorial state. Such a "road to Damascus" scenario is deeply implausible.

Much more probable is that Poland was always his immediate target for lebensraum for the German people but that until 1939 Hitler trimmed his policies on this subject according to his military possibilities.

In these circumstances, yes, Pilsudski would have been deeply unwise to rely on any agreement with Nazi Germany.

I don't think one can accurately claim that Austria had no previous animus towards Poland. It had taken a full part in the dismemberment of an independent Poland along with Prussia and Russia. Furthermore, Hitler is on record in his "table talk" as expressing a low opinion of the value of military recruits from the area in WWI.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#62

Post by buba01 » 12 Jan 2011, 13:19

michael mills wrote:Would you be so kind as to provide details of that book, and whether it is available in English.
There are actually several books/articles.

The full text was published in the periodical Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny, nr 3/1964. An abbreviated version is presented in Wojna Obronna 1939. Wybór źródeł, MON 1968.

The book I had primarily in mind when writing my previous post was Studium planu strategicznego Polski przeciw Niemcom Kutrzeby i Mossora, Marek Jabłonowski, Piotr Stawecki. PAX 1987, ISBN 83-211-0863-6. This book does not deal in fact with study Niemcy but with the second document prepared by Mossor/Kutrzeba, which had the same title as the book. This was an expanded version of the "war plan" outlined in study Niemcy, allthough it was still not a proper war plan. The text is reproduced in full, however, there are no maps. Not sure why, maybe they did not survive, maybe they were misplaced in the archives and the authors couldn't find them or maybe it was simply uneconomical to reproduce them.
michael mills wrote:That is not the point. The conclusions of the study, regardless of its actual name, indicate that the Polish military leaders believed that Poland was capable of waging a successful war against Germany, provided it was acting in alliance with France. That means that they were not afraid of war with Germany, since they believed they would win it, and therefore were willing to risk such a war.
Under what circumstances were they willing to risk such a war? And for what reason/goal?

Mr Mills, I personally own a firearm and I am perfectly "willing" to use it. However, this does not mean that I have any plans or intensions to shoot anybody, or even to shoot a stray dog. My "willingness" is strictly limited to self-defense situations.
michael mills wrote:That belief might explain why there was so much internal opposition on the part of elements in the Polish military and associated with it, such as General Sikorski, to Pilsudski's pro-German policy as continued by Beck as executor of Pilsudski's political legacy. Since they believed a war against Germany could be won in alliance with France, they pushed for a policy of total rejection of all German proposals for resolution of the outstanding issues between germany and Poland.

They got the war they wanted, but it did not turn out the way they expected.
Mr Mills, nobody with a sane mind in Poland 1939 wanted war. The reason why war did breakout was that the Polish leaders understood that cutting a deal with Hitler or Stalin would, sooner or later, lead to a vassalisation of Poland and embroil her in a different war, in which she would be an "ally" of somebody she did not wish to ally herself with. Some people think that, because there were more people talking about making a deal with Hitler and because of Beck's political meandering, Poland, at some stage, became "pro-German". This is a grave mistake, whatever the number of people favouring a deal with Germany really was, it was marginal and these people had little influence on Polish decision-making.

There were several reasons why Poles were a bit more sympathetic to Germany than to the USSR. One of them was that Germany was clearly a more advanced, more "civilised" country that the USSR, therefore she was seen as a significantly more attractive partner. Another reason was that Nazi ideology was far less expansive that Soviet ideology at the time. The publicly stated goal of the USSR was to "export" communism to the rest of the world. After Trotsky was ousted and Stalin came to power, the methods used to achieve this goal became more subtle, but the goal remained the same. Wherever the USSR gained a foothold, they worked to expand it with the ultimate goal of replacing the local political regime with a communist one, stricitly controlled from Moscow. Hitler did not put much emphasis on spreading nazism. And later events showed that he was more pragmatic in this regard, so long as a country remain a solid ally he did not meddle to much in its internal affairs. For this reason, Germany was generally regarded as a safer partner from the point of view of maintaining Poland's independence and self-governance.

However, Germany was still viewed as a serious threat to Poland. Allied with Germany, Poland would also be forced to support the realisation of Germany's goals, something that was viewed as harmfull for Poland and Europe as a whole. So the vast majority were against any deals with Germany, to the extent that they preferred to fight a difficult (from today's perspective hopeless) war, allied to powers which were not in a position to effectively help Poland, rather than "sell-out" to Hitler or Stalin.
michael mills wrote:A primary motivation for war with Germany on the part of the opposition to Sanacja, provided it could be waged successfully, was the seizure of German territory east of the Oder, and even to the west of it. That was a goal of many of the opponents of Sanacja; they believed Poland had not been granted enough German territory by the Treaty of Versailles.

The "Piast" variant of Polish nationalism, espoused in particular by Endecja, was to "regain" the 10th-Century border of the Polish state, which had then lain on or to the west of the Oder-Neisse Line.
Ah, so now we get to the opposition. What influence did the oppostion have on what the Sanacja governments actually did? Simple and short answer - none.

Another thing about opposition in general - what they say and what they actually do when elected to power are somewhat different things. Even in totalitarian regimes you need more support than just a few people to implement something really big.

And a third issue - Poland was well aware that her chances in a one-on-one war with Germany were very slim. Implementing any such plans would require convincing, at least, the French. I don't see any possibility of this happening and don't think anybody in Poland seriously believed it could happen.

michael mills wrote:Although General Sikorski was not an adherent of Endecja, he was certainly a supporter of the idea of Polish westward expansion to the Oder-Neisse Line, and even before the War he openly advocated an alliance with the Soviet Union for the purpose of achieving that aim.
Any material support for this thesis Mr Mills?

It is true that Sikorski was not a fan of Pilsudski's "federation" concept. Not because he was opposed to creating a buffer zone between Poland and the USSR, in fact he supported it. But he was opposed to that buffer zone being part of Poland proper. Sikorski favoured a smaller, ethnically more coherent and, therefore, stronger Poland. I have great difficulty in reconciling what Sikorski wrote with what you claim he was advocating - grabbing a sizeable piece of basically 100% ethnically German territory. I am also not aware of any proposals by Sikorski to ally, for any purpose, with the USSR, he was a strong supporter of the French connection.


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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#63

Post by michael mills » 14 Jan 2011, 07:18

Why has Smitty1998 been banned?

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#64

Post by LWD » 14 Jan 2011, 13:53

Check the usual thread.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#65

Post by michael mills » 15 Jan 2011, 04:10

And a third issue - Poland was well aware that her chances in a one-on-one war with Germany were very slim. Implementing any such plans would require convincing, at least, the French. I don't see any possibility of this happening and don't think anybody in Poland seriously believed it could happen.
I agree totally that the Polish Government and military leadership knew that once Germany had rearmed (say from 1936 onward) Poland would be unable to defeat it by itself, if war broke out between them for any reason.

But as you will notice from what you yourself have read about the 1936 study and subsequent studies, Polish military planning for the possibility of a war with Germany was based on the assumption that the war would be fought in a coalition with France, and that the French army would launch a large-scale offensive against Germany from the west. leading to a victory for the allies.

That condition was fulfilled in April 1939, when France confirmed its 1921 alliance with Poland. Subsequently, discussions were held between Polish and French military leaders, in the course of which the French promised that the army would launch a full-scale offensive in the west at the latest two weeks after the commencement of fightiirng between German and Polish forces.

On the basis of that promise, the Polish military and Government did not fear war with Germany, since they believed it could be won.

Furthermore, the Government and military leaders believed that war with Germany would not begin with a massive German invasion, but rather as a gradual escalation, beginning with the entry of German forces into Danzig, to which Polish forces would retaliate, leading to the breaking out of more generalised fighting. That meant that the promised French offensive would negin before Poland had suffered too much damage. It was also the reason why such large Polish forces were stationed in the Corridor, contrary to strategic reality.

Finally, the Polish Government, like those of France and Britain, believed that the National Socialist regime in Germany was in a deep political and economic crisis, facing a lot of internal opposition, in particular from the military leadership, and might well collapse once faced with the reality of war on two fronts.

The confidence of the Polish leadership was reflected in what the Polish Ambassador in Berlin, Lipski, stated to Ogilvie-Forbes of the British Embassy on 30 August 1939. He stated that Poland did not fear war, since there would be an uprising in Germany as soon as the war broke out, and the Polish cavalry would ride into Berlin within a week. There is no reason to believe that Lipski did not believe what he was saying, although he may have been indulging in a bit of exaggeration; it accorded with what the Polish military leaders had told their French counterparts.
......nobody with a sane mind in Poland 1939 wanted war.
Then there were a lot of temporarily insane people in Poland in the summer of 1939.

In August there was a veritable war hysteria in Poland, with crowds in the streets calling for Poland to take the initiative and invade Danzig, East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia, to "regain" those territories. Mass media aligned with the Endecja opposition spread stories that the German was starving and on the point of mutiny.

Once Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 september, the war hysteria in Poland rose to a fever pitch. I have seen a television documentary on the outbreak of war in which a Pole living in Britain, who was then a young boy living in Warsaw, gave a vivid description of the scenes of mass rejoicing that he witnessed.

But I would agree that the members of the Sanacja Dovernment did not desire war with Germany. Their hope was that the National Socialist Government of Germany would collapse under the strain before large-scale fighting broke out.
What influence did the oppostion have on what the Sanacja governments actually did? Simple and short answer - none.
While Pilsudski was still alive, his prestige was sufficient to suppress the opposition. Nevertheless, there was a lot of opposition to him, mainly from Endecja and other right-wing elements, but also to some extent from the left.

After his death, his successors, who did not have his prestige, were too weak to suppress the opposition, which began to assert itself. In order to stay in power, the Sanacja regime had to make concessions to the opposition, and it began to move closer to the anti-German and anti-Jewish position of Endecja. That is why the Polish Government became progressively more tolerant of the anti-Jewish measures of non--government organisations.

By early 1939, the opposition had grown in strength to the extent that the Sanacja regime could not afford to be perceived as caving in to German demands, since that would have made it even more unpopular, perhaps leading to its overthrow. The Polish Government had to adopt a position of total obduracy and rejection of even the most modest German proposals, even though that course risked war.
I have great difficulty in reconciling what Sikorski wrote with what you claim he was advocating - grabbing a sizeable piece of basically 100% ethnically German territory.
But that is precisely what Poland did after the defeat of Germany. It grabbed territory that was almost 100% German in population, and converted it to Polish by expelling the remaining ethnic German population and settling ethnic Poles in its place.

And that was by no means a new idea in 1945. Polish advocates of the "Piast" version of Polish nationalism had been advocating the annexation of German territory even before the Second World War. There were even maps published showing the Polish western border reaching almost to Luebeck on the Polish coast, almost to the suburbs of Berlin in the middle, and curving westwards to take in all of the Lusatian region.

Once Sikorski took control of the the Polish Government-in-Exile, after its retreat to London in 1940, he began to advocate the war-aim of annexation of German territory up to the Oder-Neisse Line and even beyond it. Such annexation was not proposed as "compensation" for the Eastern territories that had been annexed by the Soviet Union, but in addition to them, since it was hoped to regain those territories. Sikorski also at that advocated a rapprochement with the Soviet Union, for a common war against Germany, with the formation of Polish units on Soviet territory from the POWs held there, to fight as part of the Red Army.

I suggest consulting the following books:

Josef Korbel: "Poland between East and West: Soviet and German diplomacy toward Poland, 1919-1933" ( Princeton, N.J., Princeton U.P., 1963)

Shows Polish plans to occupy Danzig and East Prussia in 1923, in cooperation with the actual French occupation of the Ruhr.

John Coutouvidis and Jaime Reynold: "Poland 1939-1947" ( Leicester University Press, 1986)

A lot of information about Sikorski's pro-Soviet attitude in 1940, in opposition to the anti-Soviet attitude taken by most of the Poles in exile.

Peter Stachura: "Poland, 1918-1945 : an interpretive and documentary history of the Second Republic" ( London ; New York : Routledge, 2004)

Contains a pre-war document showing Sikorski advocating Polish alignment with the Soviet Union against Germany, in opposition to the policy of the Sanacja Government.

Sarah Meiklejohn Terry: "Poland's place in Europe : General Sikorski and the origin of the Oder-Neisse line, 1939-1943"
( Princeton University Press, c1983 )

Shows how Sikorski was the prime advocate of pushing the German-Polish border to the west, to the oder-Neisse Line.

Wolfgang Wagner: "The genesis of the Oder-Neisse line : a study in the diplomatic negotiations during World War II" ( Stuttgart : Brentano-Verlag, 1964)

Includes a copy of the pre-war map published by the Polish post office, showing the entire territory claimed by Poland, with the Polish-German frontier situated to the west of the Oder-Neisse Line.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#66

Post by Artur Szulc » 15 Jan 2011, 16:13

Mills wrote:
The confidence of the Polish leadership was reflected in what the Polish Ambassador in Berlin, Lipski, stated to Ogilvie-Forbes of the British Embassy on 30 August 1939. He stated that Poland did not fear war, since there would be an uprising in Germany as soon as the war broke out, and the Polish cavalry would ride into Berlin within a week. There is no reason to believe that Lipski did not believe what he was saying, although he may have been indulging in a bit of exaggeration; it accorded with what the Polish military leaders had told their French counterparts.
Why would Polish military leaders say anything else other then that the Polish army was strong in discussions with French counterparts? If you use a bit of common sense, you would realise that they could not have said anything else. So of course they said that the Army was strong.

And of course, Polish ambassadors said such things, it is called: PROPAGANDA. (Do you really belive that they should have said things like, "We have no chance" or "German army will reach Warsaw in seven days"?)

But one also have to check Polish documents, reports and discussions within its own ranks and not revealed to neither the French nor the British. And they speak an entirely different language. The Polish Military leaders in the General Staff knew that the Polish army would not be able to stop a German offensive without assistance from France. Nobody spoke of any "march towards Berlin" behind closed doors.

So, I suggest, Mills, that You stop writing nonsense and check your facts. What ever You may think, the Polish military may have been reckless, but they where certainly no idiots.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#67

Post by Kelvin » 15 Jan 2011, 16:57

With a population of 35 million, and successful campaign of 1920 against Russia, a huge army, Polish military should be confident that they could resist the German invasion. Polish 's Plan Z was able to resist German forces in first six months until French mobilized her troops for opening the western front.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#68

Post by Led125 » 15 Jan 2011, 21:52

The source of the quote by Lipski to Ogilvie-Forbes comes from Dahlerus who wrote it in his account of his activites in 1939. Ogilvie-Forbes did not report it to anyone in London if memory serves and I am not aware if he actually wrote about it himself. Lipski more or less denied he made the comment after the war. Here is a bit more context for the benefit of readers:
Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe: Now, I just want to ask you one word about an interview which took place on the 31st of August. You will find it at Page 87. It is the interview at which Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes gave you an account of what M. Lipski had said. I want you just to tell me this: You did meet M. Lipski, did you not?
Dahlerus: Yes.

Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe: And, of course -- obviously, the same could be said of everyone, I am sure of yourself also -- M. Lipski was suffering from considerable strain in that most critical time?

Dahlerus: He was very nervous.

Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe: Very nervous. And did not Sir George Forbes tell you that M. Lipski made his opinion quite clear that the German offer was a breach of Polish sovereignty; and that, in his view, Poland and France and England must stand firm and show a united front; and that Poland, if left alone, would fight and die alone? That was M. Lipski's mood, was it not, at the time?

Dahlerus: Yes

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#69

Post by Artur Szulc » 16 Jan 2011, 00:45

Kelvin,
With a population of 35 million, and successful campaign of 1920 against Russia, a huge army, Polish military should be confident that they could resist the German invasion. Polish 's Plan Z was able to resist German forces in first six months until French mobilized her troops for opening the western front.
Plan Z was never fully developed when the war broke out. Only two of four phases where actually developed.

But the fact remains, the Polish military leaders where confident that the French army would act according to the French-Polish aggrement and attack Germany in case of a German offensive against Poland.

In closed meetings within the General staff Polish military leaders realised that the Polish army would be meeting a German army which where equipped with more advance technology and that the Polish army would not be able to stop this offensive, only to reduce its speed. And they were wrong. Warsaw was reached within eight days. But nobody can blame the Polish leaders that they where not able to foresee such a fast advance. Nobody in Europe had any experience of this kind of War fare.

So, indeed, Polish military leaders where confident but they also realised the limitations of the army.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#70

Post by michael mills » 16 Jan 2011, 06:52

Artur Szulc wrote:
But the fact remains, the Polish military leaders where confident that the French army would act according to the French-Polish aggrement and attack Germany in case of a German offensive against Poland.
That is exactly what I wrote.

The reason why the Polish military leaders were so confident is that during talks with the French commanders in May 1939, the latter had promised that the French Army would launch a large-scale offensive against Germany in the west at the latest two weeks after the commencement of fighting between German and Polish forces.

But the French military leaders had deliberately deceived their Polish counterparts. French and British planning for the coming war never included a land offensive against Germany, or any other active help for Poland. Rather the French Army planned to sit tight behind the Maginot LIne, while the British and French navies blockaded Germany; that strategy was based on the belief that economic warfare would soon bring a vulnerable Germany to its knees.

The role foreseen for Poland in British and French war-planning was as a sort of "punching bag" for Germany. A war between Germany and Poland was expected to last several months, and end with an inevitable Polish defeat; however, during that period the German forces would be fully occupied in Poland, and would be unable to take action in the west, giving Britain and France additional time to build up their defences.

Furthermore, it was expected that once Germany had fully suppressed Polish resistance, a large part of the German forces would be tied up in occupying Polish territory, and in particular in guarding the Polish-Soviet frontier against a Red Army that was expected to be still hostile to Germany.

The best-case scenario envisaged by the British and French planners in the summer of 1939 was that hostilities would break out between German and Soviet forces along the Soviet-Polish border, and that Germany and the Soviet Union would then fight each other to the point of mutual destruction. In the meantime, Britain and France would continue their blockade of Germany, until its economy and political system collapsed, leaving Britain and France free to walk in and impose a political system that suited their interests, without having suffered huge casualties from land warfare.

What upset the Franco-British strategy was of course the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, which allowed Germany, once Poland had been finished off, to move almost its entire military force to the west to confront France.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#71

Post by Curnoe » 16 Jan 2011, 10:47

Michael, you write:

"A war between Germany and Poland was expected to last several months, and end with an inevitable Polish defeat; however, during that period the German forces would be fully occupied in Poland, and would be unable to take action in the west, giving Britain and France additional time to build up their defences."

I accept that this is roughly the way it turned out, but what is the evidence that "The role foreseen for Poland in British and French war-planning was as a sort of "punching bag" for Germany"?

It is true that British and French planning initially anticipated a defensive war until 1941. This was because France alone had only half the population of the Reich and it needed time for the UK to raise a large enough army to share the burden of continental opertions. However, this initial planning did not presume Poland's presence in the war, or preclude an offensive to the Rhine, at the least.

(If you are right in your second to last paragraph, then the British, at least, were remakably prescient. The totalitarian powers Germany and the USSR did later tear each other apart and Britain was able to return to the continent without execessive casualties as a result. The only difference was that this was done with the US rather than the French taking the lead.)

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#72

Post by michael mills » 17 Jan 2011, 03:05

I accept that this is roughly the way it turned out, but what is the evidence that "The role foreseen for Poland in British and French war-planning was as a sort of "punching bag" for Germany"?
Check out this book:

" Facing the Second World War : strategy, politics, and economics in Britain and France 1938-1940", by Talbot C. Imlay
( Oxford University Press, 2003)

The book has a section on the perceived role of Poland in pre-war British military planning.

The term "punching bag" is mine. Imlay uses an expression along the lines of "absorbing the thrust" of the German Army. But the meaning is essentially the same. According to Imlay, the British military authorities believed that Poland would keep the German armed forces fully occupied in the east for a few months before finally going under, giving Britain and France a breathing space to continue the build-up of their forces and tighten the blockade. That role would then be taken over by the Soviet Union, either through a "Cold War" tying down the German Army on the Soviet frontier, or through an actual shooting war.

Again according to Imlay, the Franco-British pre-war planning was based on the concept of a long war, during which the two allies would adopt an impregnable defensive posture along the French frontier and wait for a German collapse resulting from economic warfare. What stymied that plan was the initial German success in overthrowing Poland very quickly and neutralising the Soviet Union, which had the effect of substantially blunting the effectiveness of the Allied blockade through imports from the Soviet Union coupled with the increased eagerness of the East European states (Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria) to comply with German demands for supplies. That led the Allied planners to look for ways of shortening the war by actively seeking out and attacking German economic weak points, eg the suggested air raids on Soviet oil fields and on shipping in the Black sea, and the actual expedition to Narvik.

It did not take any paranormal ability to forecast that Germany and the Soviet Union would eventually come to blows. What surprised nearly everyone was the Soviet-German detente, and the fact it lasted as long as it did.

In point of fact, Britain's involvement in warfare on the European Continent from D-Day to the end of the war was more costly than had been envisaged in the pre-war planning. That planning had assumed that France would not be conquered, and that therefore Germany would not have control over almost all the economic resources of Europe. It had assumed that Allied prestige would be sufficient to intimidate neutral nations into co-operating with the blockade, as had happened during the First World War, and that Germany would be limited to its own resources and those of a subordinated Czecho-Slovakia and a conquered Poland.

The end of the war was envisaged as a final advance from the defensive front held along the French-Belgian-Netherlands eastern frontier into a Germany that was already in a state of collapse and offering minimal resistance. As it was, Germany still had considerable fighting power in 1944, despite its enormous losses on the Eastern Front, with the result that the British Army's average daily casualty rate in Europe between D-Day and the end of the war was not substantially less than the average daily casualty rate on the Western Front 1914-1918. The only reason why total British casualties in Europe in the Second World War were less than in 1914-18 is that the actual land fighting lasted for a much shorter period.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#73

Post by Delwin » 24 Jan 2011, 16:29

Please read Butler on the actual outcome of the discussions between French and British military senior staff. You can be surprised how little Poland mattered in those discussions and calculations...

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#74

Post by Led125 » 18 Oct 2011, 00:01

Some information on this is provided by Bohan Budurowycz in his book Polish Soviet Relations, 1933-39 (Columbia University Press: 1963) on pages 40-41:
During [Hermann] Rauschning's secret meetin with Pilsudski on December 11 1933, the Marshal allegedly expressed his belief in the inevitablity of a Russo-Polish and a Russo-German War, and showed inerest in the possibility of an alliance between Poland and the Reich, which would eventually create an entirely new basis for the settlement of the frontier dispute between the two nations. According to Rauschning, Pilsudski realised that neither Poles nor their allies could stop the rearmament of Germany, and decided that the best way to promote Poland's interests law in a close military cooperation with the Nazis. Unsupported by any other sources, however, this evidence can easily be refuted by the Marshal's studiously reserved attitude toward all more or less subtle offers of Polish-German entente which emanated from Hitler's entourage.

Michael Mills:
I'm sure Polish diplomats said similar things to Soviet diplomats about Germany, but this is mere speculation.
Your assuredness is indeed based on ignorance of Polish political history (which I also shared at one time).
On the contrary, Pilsudski actually presided over, and his policies led to, very friendly Soviet-Polish relations during the early 1930's. Warm Soviet-Polish relations ended because Beck attempted to bury the hatchet with Germany after Hitler's ascension to power.

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Re: Did Pilsudski plan an alliance with Hitler against Stali

#75

Post by michael mills » 20 Oct 2011, 14:43

It is contrary to historical truth to posit a conflict between the policies of Pilsudski and Beck toward Germany.

Pilsudski regarded Beck as his disciple in foreign policy, and Beck regarded himself as the executor of Pilsudski's political legacy. Everything that Beck did was faithful to the political line laid down by Pilsudski before his death, which was one of detente with Germany after Hitler's ascent to power and abandonment of the previous anti-Polish policies of the Weimar republic.

When Beck responded favorably toward Hitler's hints at a thaw in German-Polish relations, he was carrying out Pilsudski's policy, not acting contrary to it.

Pilsudski remained firmly anti-Sovit until his dying day. In fact, a couple of days before his death, he condemned the visit of Laval to Moscow for the purpose of concluding the French-soviet military alliance, telling his aide that the French cozying up to Moscow would come to no good. That was almost his last recorded statement before his death.

Budurowycz obviously does not believe Rauschning's claim that Pilsudski hinted at a Polish-German alliance against the Soviet Union during their meeting on 11 December 1933, when Rauschning had gone to Warsaw to negotiate the German-Polish detente. That is his prerogative, but I see no good reason to reject Rauschning's claim.

Rauschning first made his claim about Pilsudski's hint about a German-Polish alliance after the war, in a statement made to the German historian Richard Breyer in 1951. Previous to that, he had not mentioned PIlsudski's alleged interest in a German-Polish alliance. Why?

Rauschning presumably reported Pilsdski's hint to Hitler after his return from Warsaw, and thereafter kept quiet about it, since a German-Polish alliance against the Soviet Union could only come to fruition if it were worked towards cautiously and secretly.

He broke with Hitler in 1934, and left Germany. From that time on, all his public statements, all his writings were intensely anti-Hitler, and he presented Hitler as profoundly anti-Polish and planning for war with Poland from 1933 onward, which is historically false. Since he was presenting Poland as the future innocent victim of Hitler's wickedness, he could not reveal what Pilsudski 's interest in an anti-Soviet alliance with Hitler, since that would have been contrary to the propaganda picture he was painting.

By 1951, both Pilsudski and Hitler were long dead, so there was no obstacle to Rauschning's revealing to Breyer what Pilsudski had said to him on 11 December 1933. Since Rauschning had remained hostile to Hitler ever since 1934, there was no reason for him to have invented a story about Pilsudski's having expressed an interest in allying with Hitler against the Soviet Union.

Indeed, as Wojciechowski points out, in 1951, Rauschning had a personal motive for revealing what Pilsudski had intimated on 11 December 1933, a motive that was consistent with his compulsive hatred of Hitler. Essentially Rauschning was claiming that in 1933 there had been a chance for resolution of all the conflicts between Germany and Poland that could have avoided the German-Polish war that historically did break out in 1939, and possibly led to victory over the Soviet Union in alliance with Poland, thereby avoiding the disaster of 1945. However, that chance had been lost due to what Rauschning claimed (falsely) was Hitler's intransigently anti-Polish attitude.

Essentially, as Wojciechowski points out, Rauschning was big-noting himself by insinuating that if Germany had followed his policy of friendship toward Poland, it would have avoided disaster. However, that boastfulness is no reason for rejecting what he told Breyer in 1951 about what Pilsudski said on 11 December 1933.

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