Bogdan Musiał (born 1960 in Poland) is a Polish-German historian. In 1985 he left Poland and became a
political refugee in Germany, where he obtained German citizenship. In 2010 he returned to Poland and became a professor at the
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw.
Musiał specializes in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
history.
[Bogdan Musial (ed)]
Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrußland by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz.
The Sarmatian Review, April 2006 Issue.
Career
Bogdan Musiał was born in 1960 in
Wielopole, Dąbrowa County
Wielopole is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Olesno, within Dąbrowa County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship
Lesser Poland Voivodeship ( ) is a voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship in southern Poland. It has an area of , and a popu ...
, Poland. He worked in
Silesia
Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...
n mines and worked with the Polish
Solidarność
Solidarity (, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" ( , abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”''), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard, Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Polish People's Rep ...
movement. On account of the latter involvement, he was persecuted by state security and in 1985 sought and received political asylum in the
Federal Republic of Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen constituent states have a total population of over 84 ...
; in 1992 he was
naturalized
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...
. He worked as a mechanic, and from 1990 to 1998 studied history, political science and sociology at the
Leibniz University of Hannover and the
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...
. In 1998 he graduated with a thesis on the treatment of Jews in occupied Poland.
From 1991 to 1998, Musiał received a scholarship from
Friedrich Ebert Foundation. During that time he was one of the main critics of the ''
Wehrmachtsausstellung'' exhibition compiled by the
Hamburg Institute for Social Research
The Hamburg Institute for Social Research (; abbreviated HIS) is an independent private foundation whose scholarship is focused on both contemporary history and the social sciences. Founded in 1984 by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, it currently employs ...
, which eventually had to be seriously revised before reopening to conform with his findings.
Since 1998 he served as scientific researcher at the
German Historical Institute The German Historical Institutes (GHI), , (''DHI'') are six independent academic research institutes of the Max Weber Foundation dedicated to the study of historical relations between Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germ ...
in Warsaw where he has studied previously inaccessible sources about crimes of the Soviet
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
, during the Soviet retreat in 1941 which escalated violence.
[Bogdan Musial, ]
Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen. Die Brutalisierung des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges im Sommer 1941
', Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2000, .
He habilitated in 2005. In 2008 he published the book ''Kampfplatz Deutschland''. 2010–2015 he lived in Poland and worked at the
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw.
Lustration activities
In 2007 Musiał wrote in the ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...
'' that
Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman (; ; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish–British sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. ...
was a former agent for Poland's ''
Urzad Bezpieczenstwa'' (communist secret police) between 1945 and 1953 and had participated in political cleansing of opponents. Bauman responded that he would not dignify Musiał with an answer as "I don't want to give weight or importance to something which is
omposed ofhalf-truths and 100% lies. What is true in his article is not new, because everybody knew I was a communist." Prior research by
Piotr Gontarczyk showed that Bauman had indeed been a
political officer and a secret informant of the communist authorities and had received awards from the communist government for fighting Polish democratic and independence movements.
In 2008 Musiał published a controversial article in
''Rzeczpospolita'' alleging that the father of Polish historian
Włodzimierz Borodziej—who had advocated for new research into the
—had been an officer in the ''
Służba Bezpieczeństwa
The Security Service (; ), in full Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and commonly known as SB, was a secret police force established in the Polish People's Republic in 1956 as a successor to the Ministry of Public Security (P ...
'' and had arranged for Borodziej's position on the German-Polish Textbook Commission, which per Musiał tarnished Borodziej's credibility as a historian.
Musiał criticized the Polish Foreign Ministry for recommending the book ''Inferno of Choices: Poles and the Holocaust'', as an advancing a ""pedagogy of shame", that may have an irreparable effect on the Polish image abroad. He has also criticized the ''
Aftermath'' film based on the events in the
Jedwabne pogrom and its director
Władysław Pasikowski
Władysław Pasikowski (; born 14 June 1959 in Łódź, Poland) is a Polish film director and screenwriter.
He made his debut film, Kroll, in 1991, which was honored with the Polish Film Festival prize for his debut and the Special Jury Prize.
P ...
, saying that countries outside of Poland would not put up with similar disdain.
Views
Musial supports demanding war reparations from Germany for destruction and loss of life Poland endured from Nazi Germany which he views as unpaid (Germany claims the
Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany waived such claims).
According to Musiał ''
Hunt for the Jews'' by
Jan Grabowski failed to examine material that contradicted Grabowski's thesis, including Polish witness statements, German statements, and archives of the Polish resistance. Musial argued that the book underestimates the number of Jewish survivors while inflating the number of complicit Poles, and that statements made by Poles are criticized while those of Jewish witnesses are not.
Reviews
Yehuda Bauer
Yehuda Bauer (; 6 April 1926 – 18 October 2024) was a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the The Holocaust, Holocaust. He was a professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew Univer ...
reviewed Musiał's ''Sowjetische Partisanen: Mythos und Wirklichkeit, 1941–1944'', calling it "a most important contribution" to the history of the war, the Soviet partisans, and Polish-Jewish partisan relations in Belorussia.
Karel Berkhoff stated that the book will likely remain a comprehensive description of partisan warfare in Belarus due to its large source base. Berkhoff highlighted the book's key finding that the Soviet Partisans acted "more or less independently from Moscow", and were never fully controlled by the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
. As a result, in the zones controlled by the Soviet partisans, they frequently robbed the local peasants, attacked Jews, assaulted women, beat and killed locals and on some occasions destroyed entire villages.
Professor
Zdzisław Winnicki reviewed Musial's book on Soviet partisans, calling it an "impressive and pioneering work", with "incredibly valuable assessments" about the combat effectiveness of Soviet partisan units and their infiltration by the NKVD. Winnicki concludes that Musial's work is a mature, objective study that helps us understand not only past events but also current views and attitudes in
Belarus
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
.
Per Anders Rudling, reviewed "Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen": Die Brutalisieung des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges im Sommer 1941. ("Counter-revolutionary Elements are to be Shot": The Brutalization of the German-Soviet War in the summer of 1941). He noted that Musiał predicted in his introduction that "German liberal intellectuals are not going to like his book for political reasons" because "the sensitiveness surrounding the subject of the Holocaust and the National Socialist past has often worked as a block to a scholarly approach to the subject". Musiał places responsibility for the outbreak of World War II both on Germany and on the Soviet Union. According to Rudling Musiał makes use of "controversial statistics, aimed at pointing out that Poles were singled out and subjected to uniquely harsh terror under Stalin". Rudling concludes by saying that "By focusing on these tragic events, the book has stirred up a debate.
Wolfram Wette
Wolfram Wette (born 11 November 1940) is a German military historian and peace researcher. He is an author or editor of over 40 books on the history of Nazi Germany, including the seminal '' Germany and the Second World War'' series from the G ...
wrote that the book is full of contradictions and confuses perpetrators and victims. According to Wette the parts of the books describing the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland contain interesting information, however Musiał's assertion that "Between 1939 and 1941 ... Soviet terror in eastern Poland was comparable to Nazi terror in German-occupied Poland, if not worse." anticipates his findings that are affected by a "specifically Polish anti-Sovietism" attitude.
Alexander B. Rossino states that Musiał's research is detailed and has resulted in a more nuanced understanding of Jewish involvement with Soviet occupation forces. Rossino underlines that while Musiał has been criticized for claiming that Jews in eastern Poland were over represented in Soviet institutions, examination of witness reports discovered in many cases Jewish militia members directly participated in mass arrests and deportation actions. Rossino writes that other scholars of the final solution in the occupied Soviet Union have corroborated Musiał's findings. He names among them Yitzhak Arad who wrote that Jews played a relatively large role in the Communist Party that was behind actions in occupied Poland. Other scholars include Dov Levin who wrote "the labeling of the Soviet administration as a 'Jewish regime' became widespread when Jewish militiamen helped NKVD agents send local Poles into exile". Rossino names also Jan Gross who according to him wrote in 1983 that "Jewish collaboration" with the Soviet authorities was behind the sudden upsurge of anti-Semitism among the non-Jewish population in eastern Poland.
Bibliography
* ''"Aktion Reinhardt". Der Völkermord an den Juden im Generalgouvernement 1941-1944'' (The Origins of "Operation Reinhard": The Decision-Making Process for the Mass Murder of the Jews in the General Government) Osnabrück 2004
* ''Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrußland. Innenansichten aus dem Gebiet Baranovici 1941–1944. Eine Dokumentation'' (Soviets partisans in Belarus). Oldenbourg Verlag, München 2004, .
* ''The Origins of 'Operation Reinhard': The Decision-Making Process for the Mass Murder of the Jews in the Generalgouvernment.'' Yad Vashem Studies 28 (2000): 113–153
* ''Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement. Eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin 1939–1944''. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1999, .
* ''Kampfplatz Deutschland, Stalins Kriegspläne gegen den Westen'' (Battle-ground Germany, Stalin's plans of war against the West). Propyläen, Berlin 2008, .
* ''Sowjetische Partisanen 1941–1944: Mythos und Wirklichkeit'' (Soviet partisans. Myth and Reality), Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 2009; 592 pages. .
* "''Stalins Beutezug. Die Plünderung Deutschlands und der Aufstieg der Sowjetunion zur Weltmacht''" (Stalin's plundering raid. The plundering of Germany and the rise of the Soviet Union to a Superpower),Propyläen, Berlin 2010. .
* ''Kto dopomoże Żydowi...'' (''Who helps a Jew ...'') Zysk, Poznań, 201
ref>
References
* Paweł Paliwoda (February 2, 2001)
Bogdan Musiał interviewed by Paweł Paliwoda.Bogdan Musiał interviewed by Paweł Paliwoda. ''Życie'', Internet Archive.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musial, Bogdan
1960 births
20th-century Polish historians
21st-century Polish historians
Living people
People associated with the Institute of National Remembrance
Polish male non-fiction writers
Polish male writers