Google translation of part of the Polish language article....................indicates omitted part.
Polish-Czechoslovak border conflict in 1945-1947
Author: Władysław Szczepański
After World War II Poland lost a total of about 76 thousand. Km2, and its boundaries have been shifted 200 km to the west. There was a huge displacement of the population on the so-called. Western and Northern Lands. These migration-territorial processes also affected the Kłodzko Land, where the 10th Polish Army Infantry Division was transferred. The mentioned Kłodzko Land was within the interest of the then Czechoslovak authorities, who at all times wanted to join it in their own country.
It was not just about correcting this part of the border area in favor of Czechoslovakia. Poland's postwar armed forces were not completely structured and structured to protect the Polish frontiers at least professionally, so the regular units of the Polish Army had to immediately cover new missions and new posts.
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There have been numerous incidents in Raciborsk, Glubczyce, Nysa and Kłodzko in the spring. On May 10, 1945, the Polish starosty staff, as well as the motorized and armed Czech operational group, arrived at Raciborz. The period of uncertainty lasted until May 12, when the local Soviet war commandant, after receiving an order to hand over Poles to the city and the right bank of the county, forced the Czechs to leave Raciborz. Still, the future of the rest of the county was still unclear. Both in and around Glubczyce came three-color flags. At the same time in Kłodzko, with the active support of the center of the Rookie, was formed the nucleus of the Czechoslovak administration. In Słonym, Zakrze and Kudów the Czech Starosters were tolerated by the Soviet military authorities.
In Nysa, a border governor of Czechoslovakia began to create militia in Kalisz, Jarnołtów and Jasienica Górna from local Germans, signaling the intention to occupy the border region with Otmuchow. This was the end of the intervention of the governor of Nysa Wincenty Karuga in the Soviet military authorities. Such an occupation by the Czech border communes also reported the plenipotentiary for industry to the district and the city of Nysa. Similar information was also obtained from poviats of Kłodzko, Bystrzycki and Wałbrzych. Many incidents were unlawful requisitions; In May and the first days of June 1945, Racibórz was penetrating the Czech police without obstacles, taking cattle and agricultural crops and shooting at Polish flags. On June 6, the Poles detained a 10-person group of Czechoslovak militiamen who had raced horses and cows up to Racibórz. After the intervention of the Czechoslovak War Commander, they were soon dismissed
Inspectorate in the first half of June 1945, Cieszyn and Racibórz counties, the second Silesian province governor Stefan Węgierov, discussed the above events, and paid attention to the need for a rapid takeover of the entire district of Racibórz, not in the context of the Czechoslovak threat, but because of the influx of settlers arriving in Opole, Mostly from Kresy.
But there was also a shortage of cross-border incidents. In the Kłodzko Valley for the southern border was taken, among others. From Mostowice the Horna composition, and from the Lasów crystalline factory. The Polish press unequivocally pointed to the Czechs as perpetrators of these requisitions. Similar events took place on other sections of the border. In Kałków, in the Nysa district, at the last moment the Czechs were dismantled and disassembled and exported to the mill with grain supplies. The number of the southern neighbor's requisitions was limited in the area until the beginning of June, when the Soviet military command post in Paczków sent the Polish side there economic objects and the Polish militia entered there. The border line in May 1945 was treated without special courtesy to Polish officials. In agreement with the industrial plenipotentiary of the city and district of Nysa, the German director of the Deaf-mute paper mill sank up to 100 km into the Czech Republic, removing various machinery and equipment from there. Similar actions were also taken by the German director of the District Electricity Networks.
Sabers and robberies were then commonplace in the Recovered Territories. On the southern front in the first weeks after the end of the war, the uncertainty surrounding the political future of these lands was further enhanced. The local Soviet commanders were also demilitarized. In Klodzko, the Polish operational group arrived on 17 May, but the authority could not take over until 3 June. In the press of July 1945, it was reported that on June 2, 1945 two trucks with 60 Czech policemen were to arrive in Kłodzko, so that they could convene a meeting with the slogan of Kłodzko's membership in Czechoslovakia. On June 5, 1945, the Polish administration began to function formally in Bystrzyca Kłodzka. A few days earlier, on May 26, the Soviet war commander told the Poles that there were no orders to send them to the city. The group following Wałbrzych the Russians even stated that the city would be transferred to Czechoslovakia. In this case, however, the doubts lasted longer, however, as it was already 28 May under the Polish administration.
Major incidents occurred at the turn of the first and second decade of June. On June 10, 1945, the Czechoslovak infantry battalion, backed by a tank platoon and two motorized platoons, crossed the border in Raciborsk, occupying 14 border towns and reaching a distance of 5 km from Raciborz. In Czech border cottages they searched in all homes, disarmed railway guards, arrested the station commander, and at the station broke up Polish plates and emblems. Poles received 2 hours to leave Chałupek and were taken to the Odra River. Responding to the moves of the Czechoslovak side, on June 12, the Warsaw government firmly demanded the withdrawal of the Czechoslovak troops. On the same day, the National Council recommended placing border posts along the border with Czechoslovakia (except for the Nadolzieński section). Marshal Michał Rola-Żymierski commanded the 1st Panzer Corps to go to the Prudnik-Cieszyn border and commander of the 2nd Army to line the Prudnik-Nysa line. Polish officers had to demand that Czechoslovak commanders withdraw within 24 hours. Otherwise, the Czechs were to be encircled and their captives taken to the border. Shoot the name only in response to the Czech fire. Administrative steps have also been taken by the authorities. The Ministry of Public Administration has instructed the Polish authorities not to give up their facilities in threatened areas, even in the case of the use of force by the Czechs, and to prepare for the reception of troops arriving there.
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Not only did the military participate in securing the site. In Kłodzko went vice-governor of Hungary, who visited the districts of Kłodzko and Bystrzycki, accompanied by district representatives on 13th June. For his part, District Attorney Stanisław Piaskowski delegated to the frontier of his lieutenant colonel. Orczykowski. From the morning of June 14th, from Wroclaw, Legnica and other Lower Silesian cities began to leave the Kłodzko branches of the industrial guards, in the total force of 500 people. According to the report that day, until the evening the Czechs had to cross the Kłodzko Valley to the border at a depth of 10-12 km and plant Lewin Kłodzko, Międzylesie and several neighboring villages. An operational group from Nysa was arrested, which on the Czech side was looking for NYSA warehouses.
On 13 June, the Polish government issued another, even sharper note. On the same day, Vlado Clementis, the secretary of state of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the Prague Radio that he was about to announce the Czechoslovak Government to the Allies with proposals for border corrections in Kłodzko, Raciborsk and Glubczyce. Czechoslovak missions were ordered to leave Racibórz by 1800 on 15 June. Still, Warsaw the same day sent a 24-hour ultimatum to Prague, demanding the withdrawal of the Czechoslovak administration, the police and the army from Zaolia.
The armed conflict with the Czechs was hanging in the hair, but everything was decided by "good Stalin". About June 18, the action was dismissed by Marshal Żymierski, commanding concentrated troops to cross border. In Klodzko, according to the order of the 10th commander, Colonel Alexander Struc, commander of the school, and the reconnaissance company of the 25th Infantry Regiment. They entered the area of Kłodzkie County on June 19th. On the same day the Czechs were to leave all previously occupied towns. Also the Czechoslovak armored train operating between the Śpieawka Średnia and Kłodzko has retreated abroad. On June 22, the Polish military command and garrison began to function in Kłodzko. Two days later the Polish Army entered Paczków and Głuchołazy. The behavior of the incoming troops was much to be desired, but the establishment of the border greatly improved security there. Despite the fact that the robbery expeditions carried out from the southern border, minor incidents also occurred at a later date.
On June 28, 1945, soldiers of the First Battalion, 1st Battalion, were shot in the vicinity of Śnieżka. On the same day, after firing over a white-and-red flag, the fire, combined with the grenades, was repeated. Explaining this event, the Czechs stated that they had taken Polish soldiers as Germans.
At the beginning of July 1945, the Czechoslovak government protested against the violation of the border by regular units of the Polish Army and their temporary occupation. Frydlant, Libava, Mezim and Lusatian Luby and Żytawa. When investigating this matter, the 2nd Army Staff stated that neither the 26th nor the 12th December, 1945, at the 7th and 10th DPs, stationed at the altitude listed in the village, had not violated the border. As it turned out, Czechoslovak territory marched 16th DP Regiment. According to the explanations of the 1st Army of the Polish Army, when the commander of the regiment realized that he had accidentally entered the Czech Frydlant, lying at the borders of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Germany, he wanted to turn around, but the local Czechoslovak commander allowed the Polish unit to continue the march.
It must be stressed that the actions taken in the hot weeks of May and June 1945 did not ultimately produce any visible effects. The decisive attitude of Warsaw and the acceptance by the Soviet authorities of the Odra and Lusatian lines as the western border of Poland, confirmed in the Polish-Czech border region by the gradual transmission of Polish power by the local commandos, thwarted Czechoslovak attempts to create facts there. The Soviet side was also a decisive factor in nullifying the Polish intentions of using Czechoslovak activities in Raciborsk and Kłodzko as a subtext for armed intervention in the Zaol.
The Communist government in Warsaw wanted some territorial concessions. It was necessary to consider the conduct in Polish hand of the railway lines Bogumił-Racibórz-Koźle, Koźle-Prudnik and the Odra line. In Kłodzko, Bardo, Złoty Stok, Nowa Ruda and Ścinawka Średnia were the most important for Poland. The border could run about 8-10 km south of the latter, at the height of the fork north of Kłodzko. Poland was ready to propose the majority of the Kłodzko Basin to be exchanged. Glubczyce, Baborów and Kietrz. The possibility of leaving Czechoslovakia, in return for fragments of Zaolzia, a dozen or so communes in the Głubczyce district, inhabited before the war by 20 thousand. Inhabitants, with a total area of 168 km2, and Pietraszyn, Krzanowice, Borucin, Boleslaw, Samorzawic and Owisiszcze in Raciborsk, which would give the Czech Republic another 48 km2 with 8.9 thousand. residents. They also suggested, in order to straighten the border, the exchange of the wedge wedge between Prudnik and Głubczyce, to Ciermięcice-Dobieszow.
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The first such document was prepared by then-war correspondents Edmund Omańczyk and Mieczyslaw Zarzycki, who were then in Prague. In their opinion, in the county of Racibórz the commune with the majority of Czechoslovakia was incorporated into Czechoslovakia in 1920, and the rest of the county is purely Polish, as evidenced by the results of the plebiscite and the long-term activity of Polish organizations. As regards the district of Głubczyce, it was stated that it was ¾ exaggerated, "... and what happened in the northern part of the county is Polish". Authorities have stated that the Czech countryside is not there and was not there. The only basis for the Czech pretensions was seen in the fact that in the case of the Polish victory in the plebiscite the southern part of the county was supposed to come to Czechoslovakia. The document concludes that Czech claims are merely political speculation, while Polish law is based on the long struggle of Poles with Germanisation.
Also, the question of the Kłodzko Land, in the context of Czechoslovak territorial claims, has also been the subject of several studies and expert opinions. Based on the results of the study of the most prominent expert on this subject, Professor Jozef Kubin, it was stated that the population of the Czech element in Kłodzko in 1908 was 4,800. They settled (by naming the then): Brzozowice, Zakrze, Kudowa, Błażej, Red, Jakubowice, Pstrążna, Bukovina, Poverty, and Dawn Mountain, in a small number, Lewin, and Jeleniów Jerzykowice. It was so called. The Czech angle, with an area of about 80 km2, populated in 1939 by 11 thousand. people. The rest of the county was purely German at the time, so Czech claims to these areas were considered to be unfounded. Similarly, the Czech arguments were applauded by Professor Kazimierz Piwarski from the Jagiellonian University. Czech claims to district Klodzko, Głubczyce Racibórz and in the year 1918/1919 and after World War I strive for elimination of threatening communication between Prague and Warsaw Lower Silesia performance completely lost their military rationale upon happily integrate Poles on the Oder and Neisse and eliminate the threat of Prussia, On the basis of their arguments, the authors of the Czechoslovak memorials of 1919. It should be clearly stated that the scale of the Czech propaganda campaign to increase the state area of Kłodzko, Racibórz and Głubczyce was grossly incomparable to Poland's argument.
The final argument was to settle among others. Kłodzko Valley for 160 thousand. Poles who went to their homes behind the Bug were "no less tied than the press members of the Kłodzko Friends' Union to the Czech angle." It was also alleged that Czechoslovakia proceeded in a border dispute, contrary to its verbal declarations, "... a Slavic unity against the German question". This argument dates back to the time of the CSR in April 1946 to the representatives of the Great Powers with the Territorial Rewind Program. On the pages of the weekly "Polish Western" was an extensive relationship with the largest demonstration against the actions of the Czech Republic, ie. Odbytego of 5 May 1946 year, the Week of the Recovered Territories, 20-thousand rally in Kłodzko. Then Vice-President of National Council Stanisław Grabski said that the Polish government will not allow that for "... the Czech chauvinist fantasy" Poles living in these areas once again have to go to the misery.
At the same time, the administration of the Polish Kladsko troubled moves towards the Czechoslovak authorities, as it was called, to "reczechizowania" significant faction of the local component of the German and protect it from the same displacement and loss of property. At that time, measures were taken to break the beginnings of the Czech administration in Kłodzko. In the summer of 1945, Jozef Bernard, Oldřich Vacek, Frantisk Kubečka, JosefaUlrych and priest Martin Hofman were arrested. Seized more birth certificates stamped and signed in Nachod and Meziměstí and metrics without signature or date of issue, as well as documents confirming Czech origin, issued by ONV (District National Council) in Nachod, including 60 blank. However, in March 1947 Poland had to come to terms with the definite loss of Zaolzia, while Czechoslovakia abandoned its program of border changes in Silesia.
The issue of border corrections was of importance for the Czech Communists before the elections, as well as the Polish government in Warsaw, which in this way consolidated its position. Finally, the Polish-Czechoslovak border conflict was regulated legally in the fifties