Poland's long-term war aims in World War II

[Futurist]

What were the Polish government-in-exile's long-term war aims in World War II? Specifically, what did they want Poland's post-WWII borders to look like?

Is it safe to say that they wanted a restoration of the status quo ante bellum in the East as well as an annexation of East Prussia, Danzig, eastern Pomerania, and Upper Silesia in the West (in addition to getting all of their pre-war territories restored in the West, of course)?

Is there anything else that they wanted in terms of territory?

Also, they wanted reparations from Germany for starting World War II, correct?

[wm]

They were changing with time, there were numerous plans and studies.
in the middle of 1944, the minimum demands were East Prussia, Danzig, and Oppeln Silesia (without Breslau), hopeful maximum - the Oława and Oder river. Reparations were planned plus disarmament of Germany.
The demands were never handed over to the Allies, they remained on paper in a rather hazy state and never matured.

[South]

Good afternoon Futurist and Wm,

Futurist; I subscribe to Wm's post above.

Your question is clear enough. I do ask to add another facet to the question.

The Polish government in exile also had to factor into their thinking the reality on the ground...such as the Kresy area being Soviet-occupied.

Whatever the landmass between Oder-Neisssse and the Curzon Line would yield post-war, surely the Polish government in exile (Wm; I need some help here !) sought a smaller sovereign Poland than a Polish SSR.


~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA

[wm]

It should be noted it wasn't a single government but a few consecutive governments led by politicians of various backgrounds.

Actually, there wasn't that much time to factor things.
In April 1943 Stalin accused the Polish government of collaborating with the Nazis, broke off diplomatic relations with it, and started forming his own "Polish" government.
Earlier the Polish border question was mostly kicked down the road (i.e. after the war) - by both the Allies and by Stalin.

At the beginning of 1944, the Allies started forcing their own deal with Stalin and that resulted in a meeting between Mikołajczyk, the then Polish prime minister with Stalin in October 1944.
Mikołajczyk agreed to the Curzon Line but refused to hand over Lwów to Stalin.
Stalin additionally demanded that his Polish government was merged with the Polish government-in-exile and that greatly complicated things, so in the end it all came to nothing.

Generally, it was a good decision it was better the Soviets and their collaborators subjugated Poland than the Soviets assisted by the Polish government-in-exile.
The Czechs did exactly that and it didn't do them any good. It resulted only in much higher acceptance of communism in Czechoslovakia than in Poland.

[South]

Good morning Wm,

Interesting info.

Most appreciated !

~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA

[wm]

From Lower Silesia From Nazi Germany To Communist Poland 1942-49 by Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach:

From 30 July to 9 August 1944, Mikolajczyk was in Moscow at Churchill's instigation for a last-ditch effort at compromise.
During an early session, Stalin sent out a trial balloon to see whether the London Poles would finally give way over the Curzon line.
Stalin informed Mikolajczyk that Poland would be allowed to receive the Oder-western Neisse, including the cities of Stettin and Breslau. Stalin probably had not decided for himself whether this was to be policy, but brought the issue up to test the Exile government's reaction. Mikolajczyk retorted that these cities were purely German, whereupon Stalin noted that they had been once Slavic. [...]

As has been noted, to enhance Soviet prestige and to secure some popular support for its Polish confreres, ever-increasing slices of Germany were ceded to Poland. The larger Poland was made in the west, the further west Soviet influence would penetrate. It was also shrewdly reasoned that any losses would be resented by the Germans no matter what the size and their inevitable demands for revision would drive the Poles into Moscow's embrace.

Equally, the Kremlin surmised that a diminished Germany would find it all the mom difficult to mount a recovery, and therefore a renewed threat, and would have the added benefit of restricting Western economic preponderance to a truncated Reich. [...]

Mikotajczyk's successor, Tomasz Arciszewski of the PPS, would not alter course and accept what the Exile Poles felt was capitulation and enslavement to Moscow. Even some of the proffered gains in the west were publicly rejected by Arciszewski, explicitly rejecting the accession of Breslau and Stettin because their incorporation into Poland would permanently damage relations with Germany and leave Poland at the mercy of the Soviet Union. [...]

As Arciszewski was to tell The Sunday Times:
The debate in the House, however, has raised the problem not only of our eastern but of our western frontier with Germany, and here I would like to state that we have no grand ideas of expansion.
We are trying only to preserve the unity and integrity of the Polish State. We have put forward our claims against Germany and demanded the incorporation into Poland of East Prussia, Upper Silesia, and parts of Pomerania, and we appreciate the positive attitude of the Allies, including Soviet Russia, who promised us help in this matter.
But we do not want to expand our frontier in the west to include eight to ten million Germans. We do not want, that is, either Breslau or Stettin. We are claiming just our ethnical and historical Polish territories which are under German domination.

If Stalin had thought that the London Poles had no choice and would have to acquiesce, they proved him mistaken.
They had a choice: not to accede even if this meant political suicide.
Stalin's realism prevented him from believing that this was an option and only very late in the day did it dawn on him that no accommodation on his terms would be possible. [...]

In early December 1944, General Charles de Gaulle, the French leader, declared to Stalin that the Oder-western Neisse being trumpeted by the Lublin Poles would preclude any future Polish-German rapprochement, to which Stalin readily agreed.

[Steve]

Poland’s borders were in theory decided on by three men Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Roosevelt was seemingly not very interested in the subject much beyond how it would play with voters of Polish ancestry in America. Churchill was not going to let the subject get in the way of relations with his new buddy Stalin and Stalin knew exactly what he wanted and got it.

When Micolajczyk arrived in Moscow in July 1944 he went to see the British ambassador. There he was told that to get into Stalin’s good books he should purge his government of “reactionary” and “anti Soviet” elements. He should accept the Curzon line as a basis for negotiations and recognise the Soviet findings on the Katyn massacre as conclusive. Also that he should come to a “working relationship” with the Polish Lublin Committee who should have been called Stalin’s stooges.

Micolajczk was late insulted by Molotov and waited three days to meet Stalin on August 3. Stalin said there would be no compromise on the Curzon Line as he was “too old to act against conscience” which told him that the Curzon Line was right. However, Poland’s boundaries would be along the Oder and Neisse plus it would receive most of East Prussia. The Warsaw uprising had started on August 3 and Micolajczk asked for help. Stalin insulted the Polish underground and told Micolajczk he should “get together” with the Lublin Committee.

On August 6 Micolajczk met with the Lublin Committee. A Mrs Wasilewska told him that she had just talked to someone who had been in Warsaw on August 4 and had not seen any fighting. Then he was told that the Curzon Line was fair and should be the new boundary. They met again the next day when Micolajczk was told that Polish Soviet relations were more important than borders. He should resign from the London government and join the Lublin Committee as prime minister. When Micolajczk said that he might return to Poland on his own he was threatened with arrest if he did so.

On August 9 Micolajczk met Stalin who told him there was no uprising in Warsaw and assured him that he did not want to impose communism on Poland.

The visit to Moscow had not gone well for Micolajczyk but it got a lot worse when he returned in October. He was then subjected to insults and bullying by both Stalin and Churchill.

It was at the Tehran conference at the end of 1943 that the big three decided more or less where Poland’s borders would be. Churchill summed up Tehran “It is thought in principle that the home of the Polish state and nation should be between the so called Curzon Line and the line of the Oder including for Poland East Prussia and Opelin; but the actual tracing of the frontier line requires careful study; and possibly disentanglement of population at some point”. Opelin was the capital of Upper Silesia.

At the Yalta conference the Anglo American plan seems to have been that Poland would not receive any territory west of the Oder except for a small part of Upper Silesia. Churchill reported on his return that Poland would receive “in place of a precarious corridor the great city of Danzig, the greater part of East Prussia West and South of Konigsberg, and a long wide sea front on the Baltic. In the west she will receive the important industrial province of Upper Silesia and in addition, such other territories to the east of the Oder as may be decided at the peace settlement”

Stalin imposed the Oder Western Neisse border at the end of the war but the UK and USA never gave formal recognition. At the 1945 Potsdam conference it was decided that”The final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland should await the peace settlement”.

[Futurist]

They were changing with time, there were numerous plans and studies.
in the middle of 1944, the minimum demands were East Prussia, Danzig, and Oppeln Silesia (without Breslau), hopeful maximum - the Oława and Oder river. Reparations were planned plus disarmament of Germany.
The demands were never handed over to the Allies, they remained on paper in a rather hazy state and never matured.

Did the Poles want to keep Teschen for themselves?

Also, did the Poles have any thoughts on Poland's post-WWII borders before the Fall of France? Or did they simply not think much about this topic back then?

[Futurist]

From Lower Silesia From Nazi Germany To Communist Poland 1942-49 by Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach:

From 30 July to 9 August 1944, Mikolajczyk was in Moscow at Churchill's instigation for a last-ditch effort at compromise.
During an early session, Stalin sent out a trial balloon to see whether the London Poles would finally give way over the Curzon line.
Stalin informed Mikolajczyk that Poland would be allowed to receive the Oder-western Neisse, including the cities of Stettin and Breslau. Stalin probably had not decided for himself whether this was to be policy, but brought the issue up to test the Exile government's reaction. Mikolajczyk retorted that these cities were purely German, whereupon Stalin noted that they had been once Slavic. [...]

As has been noted, to enhance Soviet prestige and to secure some popular support for its Polish confreres, ever-increasing slices of Germany were ceded to Poland. The larger Poland was made in the west, the further west Soviet influence would penetrate. It was also shrewdly reasoned that any losses would be resented by the Germans no matter what the size and their inevitable demands for revision would drive the Poles into Moscow's embrace.

Equally, the Kremlin surmised that a diminished Germany would find it all the mom difficult to mount a recovery, and therefore a renewed threat, and would have the added benefit of restricting Western economic preponderance to a truncated Reich. [...]

Mikotajczyk's successor, Tomasz Arciszewski of the PPS, would not alter course and accept what the Exile Poles felt was capitulation and enslavement to Moscow. Even some of the proffered gains in the west were publicly rejected by Arciszewski, explicitly rejecting the accession of Breslau and Stettin because their incorporation into Poland would permanently damage relations with Germany and leave Poland at the mercy of the Soviet Union. [...]

As Arciszewski was to tell The Sunday Times:
The debate in the House, however, has raised the problem not only of our eastern but of our western frontier with Germany, and here I would like to state that we have no grand ideas of expansion.
We are trying only to preserve the unity and integrity of the Polish State. We have put forward our claims against Germany and demanded the incorporation into Poland of East Prussia, Upper Silesia, and parts of Pomerania, and we appreciate the positive attitude of the Allies, including Soviet Russia, who promised us help in this matter.
But we do not want to expand our frontier in the west to include eight to ten million Germans. We do not want, that is, either Breslau or Stettin. We are claiming just our ethnical and historical Polish territories which are under German domination.

If Stalin had thought that the London Poles had no choice and would have to acquiesce, they proved him mistaken.
They had a choice: not to accede even if this meant political suicide.
Stalin's realism prevented him from believing that this was an option and only very late in the day did it dawn on him that no accommodation on his terms would be possible. [...]

In early December 1944, General Charles de Gaulle, the French leader, declared to Stalin that the Oder-western Neisse being trumpeted by the Lublin Poles would preclude any future Polish-German rapprochement, to which Stalin readily agreed.

Very interesting information and analysis--one with which I pretty much agree with.

I do have a question, though--when exactly was it decided that the Germans living in the territories that Germany was going to lose after the war were going to get expelled?

[Futurist]

Poland’s borders were in theory decided on by three men Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Roosevelt was seemingly not very interested in the subject much beyond how it would play with voters of Polish ancestry in America. Churchill was not going to let the subject get in the way of relations with his new buddy Stalin and Stalin knew exactly what he wanted and got it.

When Micolajczyk arrived in Moscow in July 1944 he went to see the British ambassador. There he was told that to get into Stalin’s good books he should purge his government of “reactionary” and “anti Soviet” elements. He should accept the Curzon line as a basis for negotiations and recognise the Soviet findings on the Katyn massacre as conclusive. Also that he should come to a “working relationship” with the Polish Lublin Committee who should have been called Stalin’s stooges.

Micolajczk was late insulted by Molotov and waited three days to meet Stalin on August 3. Stalin said there would be no compromise on the Curzon Line as he was “too old to act against conscience” which told him that the Curzon Line was right. However, Poland’s boundaries would be along the Oder and Neisse plus it would receive most of East Prussia. The Warsaw uprising had started on August 3 and Micolajczk asked for help. Stalin insulted the Polish underground and told Micolajczk he should “get together” with the Lublin Committee.

On August 6 Micolajczk met with the Lublin Committee. A Mrs Wasilewska told him that she had just talked to someone who had been in Warsaw on August 4 and had not seen any fighting. Then he was told that the Curzon Line was fair and should be the new boundary. They met again the next day when Micolajczk was told that Polish Soviet relations were more important than borders. He should resign from the London government and join the Lublin Committee as prime minister. When Micolajczk said that he might return to Poland on his own he was threatened with arrest if he did so.

On August 9 Micolajczk met Stalin who told him there was no uprising in Warsaw and assured him that he did not want to impose communism on Poland.

The visit to Moscow had not gone well for Micolajczyk but it got a lot worse when he returned in October. He was then subjected to insults and bullying by both Stalin and Churchill.

It was at the Tehran conference at the end of 1943 that the big three decided more or less where Poland’s borders would be. Churchill summed up Tehran “It is thought in principle that the home of the Polish state and nation should be between the so called Curzon Line and the line of the Oder including for Poland East Prussia and Opelin; but the actual tracing of the frontier line requires careful study; and possibly disentanglement of population at some point”. Opelin was the capital of Upper Silesia.

At the Yalta conference the Anglo American plan seems to have been that Poland would not receive any territory west of the Oder except for a small part of Upper Silesia. Churchill reported on his return that Poland would receive “in place of a precarious corridor the great city of Danzig, the greater part of East Prussia West and South of Konigsberg, and a long wide sea front on the Baltic. In the west she will receive the important industrial province of Upper Silesia and in addition, such other territories to the east of the Oder as may be decided at the peace settlement”

Stalin imposed the Oder Western Neisse border at the end of the war but the UK and USA never gave formal recognition. At the 1945 Potsdam conference it was decided that”The final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland should await the peace settlement”.

Very interesting information!

Anyway, were there any discussions among the Anglo-French before the Fall of France about what Poland's future borders were going to look like? Or was this topic simply not thought about back then?

It would have been interesting to see what Poland's post-WWII borders would have looked like had France not fallen in 1940 and the Anglo-French proceeded to win the war without Soviet (or American, for that matter) military assistance. I suspect that this issue could have made it harder for Britain and France to successfully negotiate peace with a post-Nazi German government in such a scenario (no Fall of France in 1940)--in the event that the Nazis would have actually been overthrown by their opponents in the German military and government. AFAIK the Schwarze Kapelle were just as hostile to Germany's Versailles borders as Hitler and the Nazis were--if not even more so.

Also, as a side note, I wonder--had Germany successfully been reunified in 1952 based on the terms of the Stalin Note (neutrality, acceptance of the Oder-Neisse Line, et cetera) and then proceeded to invade Poland sometime later to recapture its lost territories (very unlikely, I know, but just go with me here), would the Western Allies (primarily the US, Britain, France, and Italy) have militarily intervened against Germany? I know that the Soviet Union would militarily intervene to protect the territorial integrity of its Polish puppet state, but would the West also militarily intervene in such a scenario?

[Futurist]

BTW, it's also interesting that the post-WWII territorial gains by Poland and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union were a prime example of the idea of Lebensraum actually being carried out--with expulsions and everything, except in this case being against the Germans. I do wonder if Hitler, had he somehow survived WWII and escaped, would have perversely found it admirable about how the Soviets and their Polish puppet state successfully implemented his idea of Lebensraum--albeit on formerly German territories.

[wm]

Poland lost 20 percent of her territory, so it was rather anti-Lebensraum.
Even Polish territorial demands were justified by the desire to improve Polish defensive capabilities against Germany not by Lebensraum.

Anyway, were there any discussions among the Anglo-French before the Fall of France about what Poland's future borders were going to look like? Or was this topic simply not thought about back then?

They didn't care, It was always we would see after the war.

It would have been interesting to see what Poland's post-WWII borders would have looked like had France not fallen in 1940 and the Anglo-French proceeded to win the war without Soviet (or American, for that matter) military assistance. I suspect that this issue could have made it harder for Britain and France to successfully negotiate peace with a post-Nazi German government in such a scenario (no Fall of France in 1940).

Even a victorious war would result in massive French casualties so they wouldn't be nice to Germany.

Also, as a side note, I wonder--had Germany successfully been reunified in 1952 based on the terms of the Stalin Note (neutrality, acceptance of the Oder-Neisse Line, et cetera) and then proceeded to invade Poland sometime later to recapture its lost territories (very unlikely, I know, but just go with me here), would the Western Allies (primarily the US, Britain, France, and Italy) have militarily intervened against Germany? I know that the Soviet Union would militarily intervene to protect the territorial integrity of its Polish puppet state, but would the West also militarily intervene in such a scenario?

But the time it was between the US and the USSR, the Germans were mere foot soldiers to America's atomic knights.

Did the Poles want to keep Teschen for themselves?

That could have been negotiated - with a friendly nation, but by that time the Czechs moved to the Soviet camp.

Also, did the Poles have any thoughts on Poland's post-WWII borders before the Fall of France? Or did they simply not think much about this topic back then?

The first (and of course initial) proposals, formulated in the so-called Bevin memorandum of 1940 were the East Prussia, Danzig, the border with Germany moved to the West without specifying where, and the Prussian Silesia (again without specifying what it was).

I do have a question, though--when exactly was it decided that the Germans living in the territories that Germany was going to lose after the war were going to get expelled?

It depends on who the decision maker was.
Stalin believed in ethnic cleansing and population transfers so he couldn't even imagine anything else. The Allies agreed to this at the Tehran Conference. And the decision was formally ratified at the Potsdam Conference.

[Steve]

Stalin’s Tehran proposal of going as far as the Oder came as a surprise but for the British it offered a way out of a dilemma. They were not going to argue with Stalin over the Curzon Line and could be accused of betraying Poland. However, if more territory in the west was given they could say that the Poles had been adequately recompensed. Prior to Tehran the allies had thought of giving Poland East Prussia, Danzig and Upper Silesia.

In February 44 the British and American foreign ministers met and Eden reported “the cessions upon which we and the Americans are agreed would involve the transfer of some 2.5 million Germans”. At Yalta Churchill said that population transfers should be proportional to Germany’s capability to receive deportees. He felt that if the numbers were confined to East Prussia and Upper Silesia they could be managed. Though the allies had agreed with Stalin on Poland’s eastern border they had not agreed on exactly how far west he wanted Poland’s western border. Hence when they were thinking of population transfers prior to the 1945 Potsdam conference they were thinking of much smaller numbers than would actually be the case.

At Potsdam Stalin pushed for the Oder Western Neisse frontier and gave the allies false figures on how many Germans remained in the area beyond this line. He said that no Germans remained in the territory they had agreed on as being given to Poland and the Polish representaves said that about 1.5 million Germans remained east of the Oder Neisse line. Churchill registered his opposition to large scale German population transfers and proposed the return of Germans to territory east of the Oder and Western Neisse. He had argued for the Easter Neisse as the border. Churchill left was replaced by Attlee and the allies gave permission for the transfer of Germans from east of the line proposed by Stalin. At the end of the war there could have been 4 million Germans still living east of the Oder Neisse line with another million trying to return to their homes.

[Futurist]

Stalin’s Tehran proposal of going as far as the Oder came as a surprise but for the British it offered a way out of a dilemma. They were not going to argue with Stalin over the Curzon Line and could be accused of betraying Poland. However, if more territory in the west was given they could say that the Poles had been adequately recompensed. Prior to Tehran the allies had thought of giving Poland East Prussia, Danzig and Upper Silesia.

In February 44 the British and American foreign ministers met and Eden reported “the cessions upon which we and the Americans are agreed would involve the transfer of some 2.5 million Germans”. At Yalta Churchill said that population transfers should be proportional to Germany’s capability to receive deportees. He felt that if the numbers were confined to East Prussia and Upper Silesia they could be managed. Though the allies had agreed with Stalin on Poland’s eastern border they had not agreed on exactly how far west he wanted Poland’s western border. Hence when they were thinking of population transfers prior to the 1945 Potsdam conference they were thinking of much smaller numbers than would actually be the case.

At Potsdam Stalin pushed for the Oder Western Neisse frontier and gave the allies false figures on how many Germans remained in the area beyond this line. He said that no Germans remained in the territory they had agreed on as being given to Poland and the Polish representaves said that about 1.5 million Germans remained east of the Oder Neisse line. Churchill registered his opposition to large scale German population transfers and proposed the return of Germans to territory east of the Oder and Western Neisse. He had argued for the Easter Neisse as the border. Churchill left was replaced by Attlee and the allies gave permission for the transfer of Germans from east of the line proposed by Stalin. At the end of the war there could have been 4 million Germans still living east of the Oder Neisse line with another million trying to return to their homes.

Very interesting information, Steve! Thank you for this.

Apparently Wikipedia states that the Recovered Territories initially faced a severe population shortage due to the expulsion of millions of Germans from there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered_Territories

However, contrary to the official declaration that the former German inhabitants of the Recovered Territories had to be removed quickly to house Poles displaced by the Soviet annexation, the Recovered Territories initially faced a severe population shortage.[6] The Soviet-appointed communist authorities that conducted the resettlement also made efforts to remove many traces of German culture, such as place names and historic inscriptions on buildings, from the newly Polish territories.

Would it be fair to refer to the "re-Polozation" of the Recovered Territories along with Zionism as being two of the most ambitious settler colonialist plans during the 20th century?

[wm]

There was nothing ambitious in it. They transported millions of Poles in cattle cars or open platforms and dumped them somewhere.
There was nothing more to it.