Polish soldiers in the Wehrmacht/Waffen-SS?

[Obserwator]

hat chapter shows that the leader of the Armia Krajowa, Grot-Rowecki, had entered into negotiations with the German authorities on a de-facto collaboration, but the talks failed when Grot-Rowecki was arrested and executed by a group of over-zealous Gestapo men who were either unaware of the negotiations or else were opposed to them.

I would advise anyone reading this to remember that Mills usually twists what he reads, and study his history of posting.
Grot Rowecki never entered any kinds of collaberation talks with Germans.
He was captuted by Gestapo police and held for extensive period of time during which the German officials proposed collaboration which he refused.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Grot-Rowecki

On June 30, 1943 he was arrested by Gestapo in Warsaw and sent to Berlin, where he was questioned by many prominent Nazi officials (Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Heinrich Himmler, Jürgen Stroop and Heinrich Müller). He was offered some sort of an anti-bolshevik alliance, but he refused. He was probably murdered in August 1944 in Sachsenhausen.

There is more on the polish site :
http://wilk.wpk.p.lodz.pl/~whatfor/biog ... owecki.htm
In short -arrested 30.VI.1943 at 10 A.M in his home, by KdS Warschau from IV District Gestapo: "Rollkommando", led przez SS-Untersturmführer Erich Merten.They confirmed it was him(Gestapo gained his picture in 1940)
In HQ of Sipo on Szuch Alley he was interrogated by Jurgen Strop.
During the night he was flown to Berlin on Tempelhof airfield. and transported to IV Departament RSHA [Gestapo] Prinz-Albrechtstrasse 8.
On his flight he was escorted by kommandant KdS Warschau Ludwig Hahn
,Walter Stamm(Gestapo) Alfred Spilker(Sonderkommando des BdS Warschau)
He was interrogated by several high ranking officials-Heinrich Müllera, SS -Gruppenführer (chief of the IV departament of RSHA) SS-Sturmbannführer Harro Thomsena, RSHA SS-Obergruppenführer Ernsta Kaltenbrunner and Reichsführer SS Heinricha Himmlera,
who made a notice about the situation.
http://wilk.wpk.p.lodz.pl/~whatfor/aa2/row_aktennot.jpg

Growecki refused and offer of anti bolshevik alliance and was sent as prisoner to KL Sachsenhausen at 16 June of 1943, during his stay he was asked a couple of more times to cooparate which he refused.Finally after the start of uprising in Warsaw at the phone order of Himmler he was murdered(in the period of the 7days of the uprising)

Now dear readers please remeber what our Mills told us just in his post:

was arrested and executed by a group of over-zealous Gestapo men who were either unaware of the negotiations or else were opposed to them

Now, we have Grot Rowecki arrested and transported to Berlin, questioned by Himmler, given a proposal he refuses, then sent to prison, and killed a year later.Mills has shown that he has no knowledge about the situation he described and provide a false statement completly out of touch of real historic truth. How could Gestapo arrest a men in a prison ? How could Gestapo not know of the proposal if Himmler himself proposed it ? And how could it be that Rowecki was killed by Germans opposed or unawere of his status if Himmler himself ordered his death.
Ladies and Gentelmen-with this I am proud to give you an evidence as to the lack of historical knowledge of Micheal Mills.A proof which will be provided on every time he tries to question historical evidence.

And my mistake: "Naras" is actually an abbreviation of "narodowo-radykalny". My memory failed me on that point.

Unfortunetly again it seems that more then memory is at loss here.Beside the book I mentioned no mention of Naras anywhere.In fact that doesn't surprise me as there is no letter "s" in narodowo radykalny.
There is a word Stronnictwo(faction) in Polish, but unsurprisingly there never was such a thing as Narodowe Radykalne Stronnictwo (besides the fact that it is ungrammatic in Polish of course)..

Of course there was an political party called Oboz Narodowo Radykalny but it splintered in 1935 into two parties, one of which called itself ONR Falanga -ONRF, but it also disolved itself in the summer of 1939 and created a party called Konfedarcja Narodu-none of this poltical entites as we can see give a name Naras.
Which frankly means Mills -if you create fictional parties there is a lot of doubt as to the rest of your theories.Wheren't there similar problems with the word Elephant in russian languge involved with you ?

[Agadanik]

"Obserwator" wrote:

Untrue-many people were listed even without their knowledge.
The method varied of course.

Thanks for your comment, Allen. Good point. Unfortunately, the subject of Volksdeutsche in Poland has been barely touched upon and the evidence remains largely unscientific - anecdotal, journalistic or literary, as Obserwator notes in his reference to a recent Polish novel.

Obserwator - I agree that the situation varied and there were different criteria. Silesians, Kaszubs and Pomeraniens were indeed often, although not always, pressured. There was an old anecdote about two Silesian brothers, both having served in the AK - one in Armia Krajowa, the other in Afrika Korps.

What I object to is your generalization:

People were either automatically assigned to the lists or threatened when they didn't sign, it's really no argument.

The very point you make about voluntary Volksdeutsche being treated with contempt and accused of treason contradicts that. It was much more complex than that. I am not aware of any statistics, but wartime memoirs repeatedly cite the presence of Volksdeutsche who willingly assisted the Germans.

[michael mills]

Read the chapter in the book I named.

"Nara" is an abbreviation of "NArodowo-RAdykalny".

A member of the Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny was nick-named a "Nara". I have used the English plural "Naras" to indicate a number of members.

In the same way, a member of Dmowski's National Democratic Party (Endecja) was called an "Endek"; in English we refer to more than one "Endek" as "Endeks".

As Agadanik has shown, the Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny (National Radical Camp) still existed in 1940, and offered to collaborate militarily with the Germans.

Before the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Germans were not interested in collaboration with Polish nationalists, which is why they cracked down on the Naras.

However, by 1943 they were interested, which is why they entered into negotiations with Grot-Rowecki.

[Agadanik]

Thanks for the information. Let's get specific.

For information on the "Naras", please read this book:
"Poland: Key to Europe", by Raymond Leslie Buell (published London, Jonathan Cape, 1939).

If Buell's book was published in 1939, it could not possibly support your comment in question:

After the German invasion, the Naras and other right-wing Poles, who were very anti-Communist, proposed to form a Polish army to fight against the Soviet Union alongside the German forces.

As to the following,

For information on the agreement by Germany to suppress anti-Soviet Polish nationalism in its Zone of Occupation, please check out this book:

- nobody questions that. The second Ribbentrop-Molotow protocol of Sept.29 is widely known.

For information on the suspicion of a collaboration between the Soviet Union and Germany on the suppression of Polish oppositionist elements, in particular the AB-Aktion, please see this book:

"Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg : "Heimatfront" und besetztes Europa", Gerhard Paul, Klaus-Michael Mallmann (Hrsg.) (published Darmstadt, Primus, c2000)

Thak you, I don't know this book. Is this the work that attributes the Katyn massacre to a co-operative Soviet-German effort? Please comment on this subject.

the leader of the Armia Krajowa, Grot-Rowecki, had entered into negotiations with the German authorities on a de-facto collaboration, but the talks failed when Grot-Rowecki was arrested and executed by a group of over-zealous Gestapo men who were either unaware of the negotiations or else were opposed to them.

Obserwator covered that in his post. "Overzealous Gestapo men" - I take it that's a joke? Let me just add that all biographical notes on Stefan Rowecki I am familiar with are consistent on the subject of his arrest in June 1943, his interrogation in Warsaw and Berlin, where he "emphatically rejected German offers of participating in a common anti-bolshevik front". He was sent to Sachsenhausen, where he perished a year later. See http://polskahistoria.com/polish/module ... e&artid=78

Like many in the Polish military and the underground political leadership, Grot-Rowecki was fiercely anti-Soviet and believed Poland ultimately had to face two enemies. However, like almost all others, he was loyal to the Polish government in exile and knew that any accomodation with the Germans would be considered treasonous. He paid for that belief with his life. You may not have been aware of his fate, but I'd like to believe that this information will make you reconsider your statement about his "entering into negotiations" with the Nazis.

"Genocide and Rescue in Wołyń : Recollections of the Ukrainian Nationalist Ethnic Cleansing Campaign against the Poles During World War II", edited by Tadeusz Piotrowski (published Jefferson, NC, McFarland, c2000), contains information about the German authorities providing aid to ethnic Poles during the Ukrainain nationalist uprising in Volhynia in 1943.

I am familiar with Piotrowski's work. I take it you mean this as a corollary to your previous comments on anti-Soviet collaboration between AK and the Germans. In reality, during mass slaughter of ethnic Poles by Ukrainians in Volhynia in the spring and summer of 1943, AK organized local self-defence - with tacit approval of the Germans. It had nothing to do with the Soviets and no attacks were directed against them. Moreover, 5000 to 7000 ethnic Poles sought refuge in Soviet partisan camps in the area. The subject is exhaustively covered in a recent work by two Polish historians, G.Motyka and R.Wnuk (Pany i rezuny, Warsaw 1997, pp 56-63). The estimates of the number of Polish victims varies, but is generally believed to be in the range of 100,000. Wladyslaw Studnicki gave Theobald Thier, the governor of Galizia, the figure of 200,000 dead (Motyka and Wnuk, p.62).

I am uncertain as to what is it that you are trying to argue. That the Polish underground collaborated with the Germans against the Soviets? Clearly, save for isolated incidents, that's not the case. While Poles had little enthusiasm for the Soviets, in Poland's Eastern borderlands the underground began its anti-Soviet activities only after the front has moved through and Soviet terror machine began mass arrests and deportations of Poles.

[Agadanik]

Michael, it seems to me you are confused.

"Nara" is an abbreviation of "NArodowo-RAdykalny".
A member of the Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny was nick-named a "Nara". I have used the English plural "Naras" to indicate a number of members.

No abbreviation of that sort exists in Polish. Wherever you got it from, it's incorrect. Only the acronym ONR was used. ONR was formed in 1934 and banned by the authorities the same year, but continued its existence unofficially. See http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/52287_1.html

As Agadanik has shown, the Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny (National Radical Camp) still existed in 1940, and offered to collaborate militarily with the Germans.

I said nothing like that. The organization I mentioned was NOR, Narodowa Organizacja Radykalna, a fledgling group, formed in October 1939. I know these names are similar and it may be confusing, but they were two different and unconnected organizations. While several members of NOR came from ONR (which you incorrectly identify as Nara), others came from different political backgrounds. I hope this clarifies the matter. On NOR, see A. Dudek, G. Pytel, Boleslaw Piasecki-proba biografii politycznej, London 1990, pp 107-111.

Before the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Germans were not interested in collaboration with Polish nationalists, which is why they cracked down on the Naras.
However, by 1943 they were interested, which is why they entered into negotiations with Grot-Rowecki.

Grot-Rowecki and his purported "negotiations" have already been covered in posts above. There were, however, other low level attempts to establish some kind of a common German-Polish anti-bolshevik effort. War historian Dariusz Baliszewski describes the case of the underground Muszkieterowie organization, which made approaches to gen. Anders to become a sort of a Polish gen. Vlasov. Anders had the messenger court-martialed, and the head of Muszkieterowie was executed, probably at Grot-Rowecki's request. See http://www.niniwa2.cad.pl/muszkieterowi ... zewski.htm

[michael mills]

If Buell's book was published in 1939, it could not possibly support your comment in question:

If you have not read the book, then how can you comment on it?

Buell's book states that the name "narodowo-radykalny" was abbreviated to "nara".

Yes, a political group nick-named "nara" did exist.

I think you have misunderstood my comments about German-Soviet collaboration in the period 1939-41.

The massacre at Katyn was a purely Soviet affair.

But the suspicion is that Soviets and Germans co-operated in suppressing Polish nationalism, each in its own Zone of Occupation. That is, that in the Spring of 1941, Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to carry out suppressive actions against Polish nationalists, both anti-German and anti-Soviet. As a result, the Soviets massacred a number of Polish army officers and police-men they were holding, and the Germans at the same time carried out the AB-Aktion, directed primarily against the anti-Soviet wing of Polish nationalism. That is the issue raised in the book "Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg".

As for the Armia Krajowa collaboration with the Wehrmacht in Belorussia against Soviet partisans, it was not a trifle. The AK formations were engaged in real fighting, supported logistically by the Wehrmacht, including the treatment of their wounded in Wehrmacht hospitals.

At the time the AK was fighting Soviet partisans in Belorussia in a de facto alliance with the Wehrmacht, it was not engaged in combat with German forces anywhere.

The AK did not do any real fighting against German forces until the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when they struck at the German forces that had already been beaten by the Red Army.

Prior to that, the AK had engaged the Germans in the Zamosc area, alongside the Peasant Battalions. But their actions were mainly terrorist, directed against German civilian settlers in the area.

So up to the Warsaw Uprising, most of the actual fighting done by the AK was on the side of the Germans, against the Soviet side.

As for the situation in Volhynia, I never said that the AK there fought against Soviet partisans. I said that the German authorities assisted ethnic Poles. In fact, there was de facto collaboration between the Germans and the AK against the Ukrainian insurgents.

The point I am making is that the degree of collaboration, whether overt or de facto, between the German occupation authorities and rightist Polish elements was much greater than generally believed, and certainly much greater than claimed in the Polish national legend.

The de facto co-operation with Germany tended to come from the political circles associated with the Pilsudski circle, which tended to be more pro-German and more anti-Russian than the Endecja wing of Polish nationalism. The book by Gerlach mentions Prince Radziwill as adopting a friendly attitude to the German authorities in Belorussia, and being favoured by them in relation to his estates; before the war, and before Pilsudski's death, Radziwill had been active in promoting better relations with Germany.

When I get the chance, I will check again the book "Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg". I remember clearly that it referred to negotiations between the Germans and Grot-Rowecki, and about the German approaches to him being interrupted by his arrest, but I will check what it says exactly.

[michael mills]

To bring this discussion back on track:

It is not important whether or not members of the pre-war political group "Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny" were called Naras. Buell says they were, and he was writing in 1939, as a contemporary scholar with an expert knowledge of Poland.

It is not important whether some Naras were members of the group that tried to collaborate with the German occupiers, or what that group was called.

What is important is why the Germans did not accept that collaboration, but suppressed the group and executed its leader.

The reason is that the Germans had agreed to suppress all anti-Soviet manifestations of Polish nationalism within their zone.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans became more interested in collaboration by anti-Soviet Poles, and began to initiate negotiations themselves. It was in that context that the negotiations with Grot-Rowecki took place.

In the end the attempts to start up an anti-Soviet Polish-German collaboration failed, apart from some quite significant de-facto collaboration at the regional level. But the attempt was made, and there were Polish political elements that were prepared to consider it.

[michael mills]

Also see my post on this thread:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=464835

[Obserwator]

If you have not read the book, then how can you comment on it?

How can a book published in 1939 speak about events in 1940s ?

Yes, a political group nick-named "nara" did exist.

Sorry again-no such group existed Mills. First you came with a word that doesn't exist in polish language, then with a abbraviation of a group that didn't exist, now you claim existence of another group that didn't exists.
Oboz Narodowo Radykalny was called "ONRA", such a thing as nara didn't exist.
The term nara is a short term for "na razie" or in english "see you" used by youth anyway.

As for the Armia Krajowa collaboration with the Wehrmacht in Belorussia against Soviet partisans, it was not a trifle. The AK formations were engaged in real fighting, supported logistically by the Wehrmacht, including the treatment of their wounded in Wehrmacht hospitals.

As your ignorance of Polish affairs was shown in posts above I would like to see the facts you claim to be posted.

At the time the AK was fighting Soviet partisans in Belorussia in a de facto alliance with the Wehrmacht, it was not engaged in combat with German forces anywhere.

Again post evidence-considering your complete twisting of Grot's case and statements completely ignoring facts I
suspect the above stamement to be of similiar worth.

The AK did not do any real fighting against German forces until the Warsaw Uprising of w1944

Untrue and again coming from lack of knowledge about the case :
http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/2%20Article.htm
List of confirmed sabotage-diversionary actions of
the Union of Armed Combat (ZWZ) and Home Army (AK)
from 1 January 1941 to 30 June 1944
Source: Bohdan Kwiatkowski, Sabotaż i dywersja, Bellona, London 1949, vol.1, p.21

Sabotage / Diversionary Action Type


Totals

1


Damaged locomotives


6 930

2


Delayed repairs to locomotives


803

3


Derailed transports


732

4


Transports set on fire


443

5


Damage to railway wagons


19 058

6


Blown up railway bridges


38

7


Disruptions to electricity supplies in the Warsaw grid


638

8


Army vehicles damaged or destroyed


4 326

9


Damaged aeroplanes


28

10


Fuel tanks destroyed


1 167




Fuel destroyed (in tonnes)


4 674

11


Blocked oil wells


5

12


Wagons of wood wool destroyed


150

13


Military stores burned down


130

14


Disruptions of production in factories


7

15


Built-in faults in parts for aircraft engines


4 710

16


Built-in faults into cannon muzzles


203

17


Built-in faults into artillery missiles


92 000

18


Built-in faults into air traffic radio stations


107

19


Built-in faults into condensers


70 000

20


Built-in faults into (electro-industrial) lathes


1 700

21


Damage to important factory machinery


2 872

22


Various acts of sabotage performed


25 145

23


Planned assassinations of Germans


5 733

Prior to that, the AK had engaged the Germans in the Zamosc area, alongside the Peasant Battalions. But their actions were mainly terrorist, directed against German civilian settlers in the area.

Actually they engaged Wehrmaht and SS units-didn't know they were civilians.
Of course Mills ignores the widescale resistence evident in occupied areas and Warsaw.Furthermore they were operations launched by Kedyw, Operation Belt, Polish assistence in transporting V2 rockets to Allies, Stanisław Lęcki mission in Wehrmacht general uniform to Paris where he studied deployment of German troops and later inspected Atlantic Wall, etc etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kedyw

Kedyw carried over various tasks in all parts of occupied Poland. Among the most notable were:sabbotage of railroad net, bridges and roads
burning the trains and fuel depots
destruction or damage of arms factories working for the Wehrmacht
liberation of several hundred prisoners and hostages
the famous action of this type took place on March 26, 1943, and is known as Akcja pod Arsenałem
executions of collaborators and traitors sentenced by an underground court
one of such actions was aimed at Igo Sym, a Polish actor informing the Germans of the Home Army movements
executions of the most brutal and cruel German members of occupational troops, Gestapo, SS and police
among those executed were SS and police general Franz Kutschera, killed on February 2, 1944, and SS-Hauptscharfuehrer August Kretschmann, commander of Gęsiówka concentration camp

As to "no actions against occupation before Warsaw Uprising"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_uprising

More than 1,000 members of German Ordnungspolizei and Sicherheitspolizei have died in the course of their normal police duties; this does not include the losses during participation in any special operations. Alongside those losses, the number of 500 casualties among the various officials of all administration sectors deserves a separate mention – from the speech of Hans Frank on 18 November 1943

So up to the Warsaw Uprising, most of the actual fighting done by the AK was on the side of the Germans

Is that so ? Then why does Hans Frank say :

If not for Warsaw in the General Government, we wouldn't have 4/5 of our current problems on that territory. Warsaw was and will be the centre of chaos and a place from which opposition spreads throughout the rest of the country – Hans Frank on 14 December 1943, Krakow

There wasn't a single combat engament in which AK units fought on side of Germans, in fact AK engaged in various operations against the German occupiers, rescuing people from concentration camps, resisting genocide campaigns and sabogating military production.

As for the situation in Volhynia, I never said that the AK there fought against Soviet partisans I said that the German authorities assisted ethnic Poles. In fact, there was de facto collaboration between the Germans and the AK against the Ukrainian insurgents.

http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyc ... egion.html

The Nazi's completed their "holocaust" of the Jews of Volhynia in late 1942. Unlike Poles that were treated as enemies the Nazis had an ambivalent feeling towards Ukrainian guerillas who were known as UPA, Ukrainska Povstanska Armia (Ukrainian Insurrection Army)) which was started in this region and then spread to other regions of Ukraine. The UPA fought sporadically with the Nazis and with Soviet partisants. The UPA held that an ethnically pure Volhynia after the genocide of Jews also meant elimination of Poles (see Massacres of Poles in Volhynia). In course of the actions of the UPA the majority of the Polish population of the region was murdered. This also completed holocaust of Jews that had been hidden in the local Polish villages.

In January 1944 the Red Army re-entered Volhynia. The Polish Home Army founded the 27th Infantry Division to fight Germans together with Soviets. However, the unit was abandoned and partially destroyed by the Nazi army.

when they struck at the German forces that had already been beaten by the Red Army.

Except of course that the forces in Warsaw beatend by Red Army and Germany had not surrendered yet at the time.

The point I am making is that the degree of collaboration, whether overt or de facto, between the German occupation authorities and rightist Polish elements was much greater than generally believed, and certainly much greater than claimed in the Polish national legend.

Point rejected to your lack of knowledge as shown by the Grot Rowecki case which proved that besides biased opinions there is not much in facts that you possess.

The book by Gerlach mentions Prince Radziwill as adopting a friendly attitude to the German authorities in Belorussi

There were people friendly to Germany, but Poland wasn't a monarchy but a democracy, thats the first point, the second being Prince Radziwiłł ( a person that I hear for a first time although the name is common ) was neither the chief of AK, prime minister, foreign minister, general ore anyone else besides a private person. Judged by Mills record he probably wasn't called Radziwiłł either and was friendly towards Switzerland
But seriously led us judge by facts, and the fact is AK wasn't ever in position to be fighting with German forces as it commanded by Polish Govt. in Exile and a part of the Allies. I can easly see a local AK commander asking for a truce with Germans while escaping pursuit, but that would have been a local matter made by a lone unit without regard to the stance of the organisation and Polish Government and hence against it.

Furthermore any kind of collaboration besides inviduals was unthinkable as Nazis conisdered Poles to be animals whos population was to be reduced to a snall number of slaves through process of extermination that started with Operation Tannenberg and widescale genocide commited by Wehramacht troops on their own in Septemeber Campaign and contiuned till the end of the war in all murdering 6milion innocent Polish citizens.

[Agadanik]

To bring this discussion back on track:

OK, Michael. Let's accept your rules. Let's agree that what you say is important, is in fact important. Let's gloss over your confusion over different organizations, and over your statement (emphasis added) that the AB-Aktion and the Katyn massacres, which occurred at the same time, may have been a co-ordinated action between the German and Soviet security forces.

Let's forget for the moment your claim that Grot-Rowecki, arrested by the Gestapo as a result of denunciation by two Polish Gestapo agents and subsequently murdered at a concentration camp, had entered into negotiations with the German authorities.

Let's accept your theory that AK was mainly involved in terrorist (??? That's a rather unusual term for anti-nazi resistance in Europe. As opposed to what - open warfare?) activity, although the number of German troops killed by the AK is estimated at 150,000 (See http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.c ... ring%20WW2).

Let's then deal with the central precept of your argument: that after June 1941,

the Germans became more interested in collaboration by anti-Soviet Poles...and there were Polish political elements that were prepared to consider it.

Given Poland's geographic location and its modern history, incl. the Polish-Soviet war of 1920, given its strongly anti-Soviet political coloring in the interwar years, it could have been expected that the initiatives you point to would succeed - at least to some meaningful degree. Poland's political spectrum during the war was varied, incl. some 10,000 active in communist underground (Andrzej Albert, Najnowsza historia Polski, Warsaw 1989, pp 408-418). Consistent with Poland's pre-war political landscape, a considerable component was the radical right, made even more extreme by the experience of Soviet annexation of Polish territories and the two year campaign of terror there. The same pattern was true of Poland's government in exile.

But the German initiatives did not succeed and no element of substance within the Polish political arena advocated collaboration with the Nazis. Recent history works covering either Poland or the entire WW2 - Norman Davies, Gerhard Weinberg - corroborate that. Antonio Munoz in his Forgotten Legions (Boulder 1991, p. 369) lists 12 different nationalities within the 200,000-strong Eastern European membership in Waffen SS. There are no Poles among them. The only reference is to 5000 ethnic Germans from Polish territories.

Surely you know all that. I am all for debunking historical myths, and Poland, no less than any other nation, has her share of them. But it seems to me that your arguments, often less than accurate, are being put forward to substantiate a belief you formed based on some other, non-historical basis.

Ultimately, you're not convincing. Armed underground in Poland involved literally hundreds of thousands of people of all ethnic and political ilk. If one searches, as you do, across the wartime history of a ravaged and tortured nation and all that can be found is two or three cases you point to, if major and recognized history works are unequivocal that the Poles, by and large, did not collaborate - then I'd say your insistence on trying to prove the contrary smacks not so much of revisionism, but of reductionism. Would you argue with the same emphasis, based on the Lindbergh case, that the Americans were pro-Nazi? Would you use Mosley for a similar argument against the Brits? Somehow, I don't think so. But I would certainly be curious to know where your beliefs come from and how you came to form them.

[Obserwator]

But I would certainly be curious to know where your beliefs come from and how you came to form them

Agadnik Mills is associeted with revisionism and Irving.You can also search his name on the web, see what sites recomend him(one example-http://www.revisionisthistory.org/communist.html )

[Agadanik]

Mills is associated with revisionism and Irving.

Thanks, Obserwator. I appreciate that. I've read some of his comments, incl. the Jan Karski statement. In this instane, I am happy to debate the subject on merit, and to show Mr. Mills his errant ways...

[Allen Milcic]

Gentlemen:

Please keep personal remarks out of the discussion - let's stick to an exchange of facts, not quips and insults. Thank you.

Allen/

[tom_deba]

I am glad that this topic of discussion portrayed interesting facts and reflections. The topic also shows that still myths are still existing based on non-historical basis. I hope this topic popularized that period of Polish history. Thanks for all who tried to reolve the questions and refuted "therories" pointed here. The lack of book that would explain whole aspects of Polish coolaboration causes problems and makes the myths exist what was presented here. The topic showed that even the history of Armia Krajowa is still
too complicated to foreign historians and readers. The AK, NSZ and collaborationists history for years played marginal role in and was maligned in the educational program of history (thanks to communists) and therefore we have so many problems with it.

[michael mills]

In my comments about the co-operation between the Wehrmacht and units of the AK in West Belorussia (or Polesie if you prefer), I was talking about real fighting, ie units of armed men on different sides shooting at each other, not actions such as those listed by Obserwator, which are more like blowing up the Federal Offices in Oklahoma or killing hostages in Iraq.

In West Belorussia, units of the AK engaged Soivet partisan units in battle, using arms and ammunition supplied to them by the Wehrmacht. In the course of those battles the AK units took casualties, who were treated in Wehrmacht hospitals.

Obserwator did not list any such battles taking place between the AK and German forces prior to the Warsaw Uprising, in which of course open combat did take place.

And note that I was talking about the AK. The Communist Armia Ludowa may have engaged in combat with German forces, but I never claimed that the AL collaborated with the German occupiers.

What I am saying is that in West Belorussia, where the ethnic Polish population was favoured by the German occupiers because of its staunch anti-Soviet attitude (resulting from its experience of Soviet tyranny from September 1939 to June 1941), the local commanders of the AK saw the return of Soviet power as a greater evil than the continuation of the German occupation. Accordingly, they devoted their efforts to fighting the Soviet partisans in the area, and to that end entered into a de-facto colaboration with the Wehrmacht.

In the Generalgouvernement, the AK did undertake verious types of terrorist-type actions against the German occupation, actions that might be compared to those undertaken by the IRA in more recent times against Britain. But it did not engage in the same sort of fighting against German armed forces as it did against Soviet partisans in West Belorussia.

As for Jan Kozielewski alias Karski, I hold to my view that he was essentially a phoney. During the war he was a low-level courier for the AK, smuggling messages from occupied Poland to the Polish Government-in-Exile, first to Angers in France and subsequently to London. Once his cover was blown, he was used a propagandist for the Polish Government-in-Exile, taking material fed to him as the basis for the exciting but fictionalised book "Story of a Secret State", published in 1944.

One of the aims of Karski's propaganda activity was to counter the charges of anti-Semitism being raised against the Government-in-Exile.

The only thing of real historical value done by Karski was to produce his 1940 report on the situation in both German-occupied and Soviet-occupied Poland. The most noteworthy feature of that report is his exposure of large-scale Jewish collaboration with the Soviet occupiers in East Poland; he predicts that the Jews will eventually suffer a "bloody revenge" at the hands of the Poles, a prediction that came true in places like Jedwabne.

Given the justifiably anti-Jewish sentiment in his 1940 report, his later jumping aboard the Holocaust bandwaggon seems all the more opportunistic. His role as a shrill anti-Communist propagandist for the United States Government during the 1950s (in which period he was nicknamed "McCarthyski") seems truer to his real character.