History Of Poland (1939–1945)
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history of Poland The history of Poland spans over a thousand years, from Lechites, medieval tribes, Christianization of Poland, Christianization and Kingdom of Poland, monarchy; through Polish Golden Age, Poland's Golden Age, Polonization, expansionism and be ...
from 1939 to 1945 encompasses primarily the period from the
invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...
by
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
and the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
to the end of
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 ...
. Following the German–Soviet non-aggression pact,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September 1939 and by the Soviet Union on 17 September. The campaigns ended in early October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland. After the Axis attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, the entirety of Poland was occupied by Germany, which proceeded to advance its racial and genocidal policies across Poland. Under the two occupations, Polish citizens suffered enormous human and material losses. According to the
Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...
estimates, about 5.6 million Polish citizens died due to the German occupation and about 150,000 due to the Soviet occupation. The
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
were singled out by the Germans for a quick and total annihilation and about 90 percent of
Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
(nearly three million) were murdered as part of the
Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
. Jews,
Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...
,
Romani people {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...
and prisoners of many other ethnicities were killed ''en masse'' at Nazi
extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...
s, such as
Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...
,
Treblinka Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the Treblinka, ...
and Sobibór. Ethnic Poles were subjected to both Nazi German and Soviet persecution. The Germans killed an estimated two million ethnic Poles. ''
Generalplan Ost The (; ), abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's plan for the settlement and "Germanization" of captured territory in Eastern Europe, involving the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews, and o ...
'' contemplated turning the remaining majority of Poles into
slave labor Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
and annihilating those perceived as " undesirable".
Ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...
and massacres of Poles and to a lesser extent
Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...
were perpetrated in western
Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
(prewar Polish
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
) from 1943. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army participated. In September 1939, the Polish government officials sought refuge in
Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
, but their subsequent internment there prevented the intended continuation abroad as the government of Poland. General
Władysław Sikorski Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader. Before World War I, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause of Polish independenc ...
, a former prime minister, arrived in
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, where a replacement
Polish Government-in-Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
was soon formed. After the
fall of France The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Net ...
, the government was evacuated to
Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
. The
Polish armed forces The Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland (, ; abbreviated SZ RP), also called the Polish Armed Forces and popularly called in Poland (, roughly "the Polish Military"—abbreviated ''WP''), are the national Military, armed forces of the Poland, ...
were reconstituted and fought alongside the Western Allies in France, Britain and elsewhere. A
Resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized group of people that tries to resist or try to overthrow a government or an occupying power, causing disruption and unrest in civil order and stability. Such a movement may seek to achieve its goals through ei ...
began organizing in Poland in 1939, soon after the invasions. Its largest military component was a part of the
Polish Underground State The Polish Underground State (, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland ...
network and became known as the
Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
. The whole clandestine structure was formally directed by the Government-in-Exile through its
delegation Delegation is the process of distributing and entrusting work to another person.Schermerhorn, J., Davidson, P., Poole, D., Woods, P., Simon, A., & McBarron, E. (2017). ''Management'' (6th ed., pp. 282–286). Brisbane: John Wiley & Sons Australia. ...
resident in Poland. There were also
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...
,
right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...
,
leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...
,
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
and
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
partisan organizations. Among the failed anti-German uprisings were the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the
Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...
. The aim of the Warsaw Uprising was to prevent domination of Poland by the Soviet Union. In order to cooperate with the Soviet Union after
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
, Sikorski, an important war ally of the West, negotiated in
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
with
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
and they agreed to form a Polish army in the Soviet Union, intended to fight on the Eastern Front alongside the Soviets. The " Anders' Army" was instead taken to the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
in 1942 and then to
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
. Further efforts to continue the Polish-Soviet cooperation had failed because of disagreements over borders, the discovery of the
Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...
of Polish POWs perpetrated by the Soviets, and the death of General Sikorski. Afterwards, in a process seen by many Poles as a Western betrayal, the Polish Government-in-Exile gradually ceased being a recognized partner in the Allied coalition. Stalin pursued a strategy of facilitating the formation of a Polish government independent of (and in opposition to) the exile government in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
by empowering the
Polish communists Communism in Poland can trace its origins to the late 19th century: the Marxist First Proletariat party was founded in 1882. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (''Socjaldemokracja Króle ...
. Among Polish communist organizations established during the war were the
Polish Workers' Party The Polish Workers' Party (, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1948 to form the Polish United W ...
in occupied Poland and the
Union of Polish Patriots Union of Polish Patriots (''Society of Polish Patriots'', , ZPP, ) was a political body created by Polish communists in the Soviet Union in 1943. The ZPP, unofficially controlled and directed by Joseph Stalin, became one of the founding structur ...
in Moscow. In late 1943 a new
Polish army The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...
was formed in the Soviet Union to fight together with the Soviets. At the same time Stalin worked on co-opting the Western Allies (the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
led by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
led by Prime Minister
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
), who, in terms of practical implementations, conformed to Stalin's views on Poland's borders and future government. The fate of Poland was determined in a series of negotiations that included the conferences in
Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
,
Yalta Yalta (: ) is a resort town, resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Crime ...
, and
Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
. In 1944, the Polish Government-in-Exile approved and the underground in Poland undertook unilateral
political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
and military actions aimed at establishing an independent Polish authority, but the efforts were thwarted by the Soviets. The Polish communists founded the
State National Council Krajowa Rada Narodowa in Polish language, Polish (translated as State National Council or Homeland National Council, abbreviated to KRN) was a parliament-like political body created during the later stages of World War II in Nazi Germany, German- ...
in 1943/44 in occupied
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
and the
Polish Committee of National Liberation The Polish Committee of National Liberation ( Polish: ''Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego'', ''PKWN''), also known as the Lublin Committee, was an executive governing authority established by the Soviet-backed communists in Poland at the la ...
in July 1944 in
Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...
, after the arrival of the
Soviet army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...
. The Soviet Union kept the eastern half of prewar Poland, granting Poland instead the greater southern portion of the eliminated German
East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...
and shifting the country west to the
Oder–Neisse line The Oder–Neisse line (, ) is an unofficial term for the Germany–Poland border, modern border between Germany and Poland. The line generally follows the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, meeting the Baltic Sea in the north. A small portion ...
, at the expense of Germany.


Before the war


Rearmament and first annexations

After the death of
Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he beca ...
in 1935, the Sanation government of his political followers, along with President Ignacy Mościcki, embarked on a military reform and rearmament of the Polish Army in the face of the changing political climate in Europe. Thanks in part to a financial loan from France, Poland's new Central Industrial Region participated in the project from 1936 in an attempt to catch-up with the advanced weapons development by Poland's richer neighbors. Foreign Minister
Józef Beck Józef Beck (; 4 October 1894 – 5 June 1944) was a Polish statesman who served the Second Republic of Poland as a diplomat and military officer. A close associate of Józef Piłsudski, Beck is most famous for being Polish foreign minister in ...
continued to resist the growing pressure on Poland from the West to cooperate with the Soviet Union in order to contain Germany. Against the rapidly growing German military force, Poland not only possessed no comparable quantity of technical resources, but also lacked the knowledge and concepts of developing modern warfare. Also in 1935,
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
announced and expanded the hitherto secret
German rearmament German rearmament (''Aufrüstung'', ) was a policy and practice of rearmament carried out by Germany from 1918 to 1939 in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which required German disarmament after World War I to prevent it from starting an ...
contrary to the provisions of the
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
the foundation of the post-
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
international order. Unable to prevent Hitler's
remilitarization of the Rhineland The remilitarisation of the Rhineland (, ) began on 7 March 1936, when military forces of Nazi Germany entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared f ...
, the United Kingdom and France also pursued rearmament. Meanwhile, German territorial expansion into central Europe began in earnest with the ''
Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...
'' of
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
in March 1938. Poland dispatched special diversionary groups to the disputed Zaolzie (
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...
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, ...
) area in hope of expediting the breakup of
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
and regaining the territory. The
Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Third Republic, French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The agreement provided for the Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–194 ...
of 30 September 1938 was followed by Germany's incorporation of the
Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and ) is a German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohe ...
. Faced with the threat of a total annexation of Czechoslovakia, the Western Powers endorsed the German partition of the country. Poland insistently sought a great power status but was not invited to participate in the Munich conference. Minister Beck, disappointed with the lack of recognition, issued an ultimatum on the day of the Munich Agreement to the government of Czechoslovakia, demanding an immediate return to Poland of the contested Zaolzie border region. The distressed Czechoslovak government complied, and Polish military units took over the area. The move was negatively received in both the West and the Soviet Union, and it contributed to the worsening of the geopolitical situation of Poland. In November, the Polish government also annexed a small border region in dispute with the newly autonomous state of
Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
and gave its support to
Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
's expansion into Carpatho-Ukraine, located within the now federal Czechoslovakia.


Aftermath of the Munich Agreement

The Munich Agreement of 1938 did not last for long. In March 1939 the
German occupation of Czechoslovakia German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
began with the invasion of
Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...
and
Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...
, leaving Slovakia as a German puppet state.
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
was forced to give up its
Klaipėda Region The Klaipėda Region () or Memel Territory ( or ''Memelgebiet'') was defined by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles in 1920 and refers to the northernmost part of the German province of East Prussia, when, as Memelland, it was put under the administr ...
(''Memelland''). Formal demands were made for the return of the
Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (; ) was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrou ...
to Germany, even though its status was guaranteed by the
League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...
. In early 1939 Hitler proposed Poland an alliance on German terms, with an expectation of compliance. The Polish government would have to agree to Danzig's incorporation by the Reich and to an extraterritorial highway passage connecting
East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...
with the rest of Germany through the so-called Polish Corridor (an area linking the Polish mainland with the
Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
). Poland would join an anti-Soviet alliance and coordinate its foreign policy with Germany, thus becoming a client state. The independence-minded Polish government was alarmed and a British guarantee of Poland's independence was issued on 31 March 1939. Reacting to this act and to Poland's effective rejection of the German demands, Hitler renounced the existing German–Polish declaration of non-aggression on April 28. In August 1939 negotiations took place in Moscow, launched by the competing Allied-Soviet and Nazi-Soviet working groups, each attempting to enlist Stalin's powerful army on their side. By the evening of 23 August 1939, Germany's offer was accepted by default, because the Polish leaders' refusal to cooperate militarily with the Soviets prevented the possibility of the alternate outcome. The
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...
of non-aggression was signed. In anticipation of an attack and occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany, the pact had secret provisions attached, which delineated carving up parts of Eastern Europe into
spheres of influence In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military, or political exclusivity. While there may be a formal a ...
of the two signatories. The dividing line was running through the territory of east-central Poland. The "desirability of the maintenance of an independent Polish State" was left to mutually agreed "further political developments" read the text, which was discovered years later.


Military alliances

The Soviet Union, having its own reasons to fear the German eastward expansionism, repeatedly negotiated with France and the United Kingdom, and through them made an offer to Poland of an anti-German alliance, similar to the earlier one made to Czechoslovakia. The British and the French sought the formation of a powerful political-military bloc, comprising the Soviet Union, Poland and
Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
in the east, and France and Britain in the west. As of May 1939, the Soviet conditions for signing an agreement with Britain and France were as follows: the right of the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
troops to pass through Polish territory, the termination of the Polish–Romanian alliance, and the limitation of the British guarantee to Poland to cover only Poland's western frontier with Germany. The Polish leaders believed that once on Polish territory the Soviet troops would not leave and throughout 1939 refused to agree to any arrangement which would allow Soviet troops to enter Poland. The Polish unwillingness to accept the Soviet dangerous offer of free entry is illustrated by the quote of Marshal
Edward Rydz-Śmigły Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz also called Edward Rydz-Śmigły, (11 March 1886 – 2 December 1941) was a Polish people, Polish politician, statesman, Marshal of Poland and Commander-in-Chief of Poland's armed forces, as well as a painter and ...
, commander-in-chief of the Polish armed forces, who said: "With the Germans we run the risk of losing our liberty. With the Russians we will lose our soul". The attitude of the Polish leadership was also reflected by Foreign Minister Józef Beck, who, apparently confident in the French and British declarations of support, asserted that the security of Poland was not going to be guaranteed by a "Soviet or any other Russia". The Soviets then turned to concluding the German offer of a treaty and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed. The Soviet-Nazi cooperation had been making progress since May 1939, when
Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (; – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician, diplomat, and revolutionary who was a leading figure in the government of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s, as one of Joseph Stalin's closest allies. ...
became the Soviet
minister of foreign affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...
. The German military used a system of automated code for the secret transfer of messages based on the
Enigma machine The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the W ...
. The constantly generated and altered code scheme was broken by Polish mathematicians led by
Marian Rejewski Marian Adam Rejewski (; 16 August 1905 – 13 February 1980) was a Polish people, Polish mathematician and Cryptography, cryptologist who in late 1932 reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma machine, Enigma cipher machine, aided ...
and the discovery was shared with the French and the British before the outbreak of the war.
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma Cryptanalysis of the Enigma ciphering system enabled the western Allies of World War II, Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of Morse code, Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigm ...
was an immensely important Polish contribution to the war effort, as it was continued throughout the war in Britain and deprived the unsuspecting Germans of secrecy in their crucial communications. At the end of August, the Polish-British and Polish-French alliance obligations were updated. Poland, surrounded by the Nazi-led coalition, was under partial military mobilization but poorly prepared for war. Full (general) mobilization was prevented by the pressure from the British and French governments, who sought a last-minute peaceful solution to the imminent Polish-German conflict. On 1 September 1939, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany. Britain and France, bound by military alliances with Poland, declared war on Germany two days later.


German and Soviet invasions of Poland


German invasion

On 1 September 1939, without a formal
declaration of war A declaration of war is a formal act by which one state announces existing or impending war activity against another. The declaration is a performative speech act (or the public signing of a document) by an authorized party of a national gov ...
, Nazi Germany invaded Poland using the pretext of the Gleiwitz incident, a provocation (one of many) staged by the Germans, who claimed that Polish troops attacked a post along the German–Polish border. During the following days and weeks the technically, logistically and numerically superior German forces rapidly advanced into the Polish territory. Secured by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet troops also invaded Poland on 17 September 1939. Before the end of the month, most of Poland was divided between the Germans and the Soviets. The Polish military did not anticipate the German attack. After 1926, Józef Piłsudski led the military to discontinue defense preparations of the western border. They were resumed in March 1939. Afterwards the
Polish Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland (, ; abbreviated SZ RP), also called the Polish Armed Forces and popularly called in Poland (, roughly "the Polish Military"—abbreviated ''WP''), are the national Military, armed forces of the Poland, ...
were organized for the defense of the country. According to the historian Andrzej Leon Sowa, the technical and organizational level of the Polish forces corresponded to that of the World War I period. The armed forces' strategic position was made more hopeless by the recent
German occupation of Czechoslovakia German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
. Poland was now surrounded on three sides by the German territories of
Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...
,
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, ...
and East Prussia, and the German-controlled Czechoslovakia. The newly formed
Slovak state Slovak may refer to: * Something from, related to, or belonging to Slovakia (''Slovenská republika'') * Slovaks, a Western Slavic ethnic group * Slovak language, an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages * Slovak, Arkan ...
assisted their German allies by attacking Poland from the south. The Polish forces were blockaded on the Baltic Coast by the German navy. The Polish public, conditioned by government propaganda, was not aware of the gravity of the situation and expected a quick and easy victory of the Polish-French-British alliance. The German "concept of annihilation" ('' Vernichtungsgedanke'') that later evolved into the ''
Blitzkrieg ''Blitzkrieg'(Lightning/Flash Warfare)'' is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with ...
'' ("lightning war") provided for rapid advance of
Panzer {{CatAutoTOC, numerals=no Words and phrases Germanic words and phrases Words and phrases by language la:Categoria:Verba Theodisca ...
(armoured) divisions, dive bombing (to break up troop concentrations and destroy airports, railways and stations, roads, and bridges, which resulted in the killing of large numbers of refugees crowding the transportation facilities), and aerial bombing of undefended cities to sap civilian morale. Deliberate bombing of civilians took place on a massive scale from the first day of the war, also in areas far removed from any other military activity. The German forces, ordered by Hitler to act with the harshest cruelty, massively engaged in murder of Polish civilians. The Polish army, air force and navy had insufficient modern equipment to match the onslaught. Each of Germany's five armies involved in attacking Poland was accompanied by a special security group charged with terrorizing the Polish population; some of the Polish citizens of German nationality had been trained in Germany to help with the invasion, forming the so-called
fifth column A fifth column is a group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize ...
. Many German leaders in Poland and communist activists were interned by the Polish authorities after 1 September. 10–15,000 ethnic Germans were arrested and force marched toward
Kutno Kutno is a city in central Poland with 42,704 inhabitants (2021) and an area of . It is the capital of Kutno County in the Łódź Voivodeship. Founded in the medieval period, Kutno was a local center of crafts and trade, owing its growth to i ...
soon after the beginning of the hostilities. Of them about 2,000 were killed by angry Poles, and other instances of killing ethnic Germans took place elsewhere. Many times greater numbers of Polish civilians had been killed by the
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...
throughout the "September Campaign". 58 German divisions, including 9 Panzer divisions, were deployed against Poland. Germany commanded 1.5 million men, 187,000 motor vehicles, 15,000 artillery pieces, 2,600 tanks, 1,300 armored vehicles, 52,000 machine guns and 363,000 horses. 1,390
Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...
warplanes were used to attack Polish targets. On 1 September the German navy positioned its old
battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...
''
Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; ; ; ; ; occasionally in English ''Sleswick-Holsatia'') is the Northern Germany, northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of S ...
'' to shell Westerplatte, a section of the Free City of Danzig, a defended enclave separate from the main city and awarded to Poland by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. 53 navy ships were designated for action against Poland. According to Antoni Czubiński, 1.2 million Polish troops had been mobilized, but some did not even have rifles. There were 30 infantry divisions, 11 cavalry brigades, 31 light artillery regiments, 10 heavy artillery regiments and 6 aerial regiments. They possessed 3,600 artillery pieces (mostly regular, with only a few hundred of anti-armor or anti-aircraft units), and 600 tanks, of which 120 were of the advanced 7TP-type. The air force regiments included 422 aircraft, including 160 PZL P.11c, 31 PZL P.7a and 20 P.11a fighters, 120 PZL.23 Karaś reconnaissance-bombers, and 45 PZL.37 Łoś medium bombers. The Polish-made P-series fighter planes were becoming obsolete; state-of-the art P-24s were built but sold abroad to generate currency. Łoś bombers were modern and fast. The navy's participation was limited by the withdrawal of major ships to the United Kingdom to prevent their destruction, and their linking up with the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
(known as the Peking Plan). The navy consisted of four destroyers (of which three had left for England), one minelayer, five submarines, and some smaller vessels, including six new minesweepers. Although the UK and France declared war on Germany on 3 September, little movement took place on the western front. The offensive in the West that the Poles understood they were promised was not materializing, and, according to
Norman Davies Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a British and Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Profes ...
, it was not even immediately feasible or practical. Because of the Western inaction, of the secret protocols of the German-Soviet treaty, and other factors including its own poor intelligence, the Polish government was initially not fully aware of the degree of the country's isolation and the hopelessness of its situation. The combined British and French forces were strong in principle, but not ready for an offensive for a number of reasons. The few limited air raids attempted by the British were ineffective and caused losses of life and equipment. Dropping propaganda leaflets had henceforth become their preferred course of action, to the dismay of the Polish public, which was led to believe that a real war on two fronts and a defeat of the
Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
were coming. The several Polish armies were defending the country in three main concentrations of troops, which had no territorial command structure of their own and operated directly under orders from Marshal
Edward Rydz-Śmigły Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz also called Edward Rydz-Śmigły, (11 March 1886 – 2 December 1941) was a Polish people, Polish politician, statesman, Marshal of Poland and Commander-in-Chief of Poland's armed forces, as well as a painter and ...
; it turned out to be a serious logistical shortcoming. The armies were positioned along the border in a semicircle, which provided for weak defense, because the Germans concentrated their forces in the chosen directions of attacks. The German armored corps quickly thwarted all attempts of organized resistance and by 3–4 September the Polish border defenses were broken along all the axes of attack. Crowds of civilian refugees fleeing to the east blocked roads and bridges. The Germans were also able to circumvent other concentrations of the Polish military and arrive in the rear of Polish formations. As the Polish armies were being destroyed or in retreat, the Germans took
Częstochowa Częstochowa ( , ) is a city in southern Poland on the Warta with 214,342 inhabitants, making it the thirteenth-largest city in Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship. However, Częstochowa is historically part of Lesser Poland, not Si ...
on 4 September,
Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
and
Kielce Kielce (; ) is a city in south-central Poland and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the banks of the Silnic ...
on 6 September. The Polish government was evacuated to
Volhynia Volhynia or Volynia ( ; see #Names and etymology, below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but in ...
and the supreme military commander Rydz-Śmigły left Warsaw on the night of 6 September and moved in the eastern direction toward Brześć. General Walerian Czuma took over and organized the defense of the capital city. According to Halik Kochanski, Rydz-Śmigły fled the capital and the Polish high command failed its army. Rydz-Śmigły's departure had disastrous effects on both the morale of the Polish armed forces and on his ability to exercise effective overall command. The Germans began surrounding Warsaw on 9 September. City president Stefan Starzyński played an especially prominent role in its defense. The campaign's greatest Battle of the Bzura was fought west of the middle
Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...
on 9–21 September. Heavy fighting took place also at a number of other locations, including the area of
Tomaszów Lubelski Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in south-eastern Poland with 19,365 inhabitants (2017). Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, near Roztocze National Park, it is the capital of Tomaszów Lubelski County. History The town was founded at the end of the ...
(until 26 September), and a determined defense of Lwów was mounted (against the German forces until 22 September, when the defenders surrendered to the Soviets upon their arrival). On 13 September, Marshal Rydz-Śmigły ordered all Polish forces to withdraw toward the so-called Romanian Bridgehead in southeastern Poland, next to the Romanian and Soviet borders, the area he designated to be the final defense bastion. On 11 September, foreign minister
Józef Beck Józef Beck (; 4 October 1894 – 5 June 1944) was a Polish statesman who served the Second Republic of Poland as a diplomat and military officer. A close associate of Józef Piłsudski, Beck is most famous for being Polish foreign minister in ...
asked France to grant asylum to the Polish government and Romania to allow the transfer of the government members through its territory. On 12 September, the Anglo-French Supreme War Council deliberating in
Abbeville Abbeville (; ; ) is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is the of one of the arrondissements of Somme. Located on the river Somme, it was the capital of Ponthieu. Geography Location A ...
, France concluded that the Polish military campaign had already been resolved and that there was no point in launching an anti-German relief expedition. The Polish leaders were unaware of the decision and still expected a Western offensive.


Soviet invasion

From 3 September Germany urged the Soviet Union to engage its troops against the Polish state, but the Soviet command kept stalling, waiting for the outcome of the German-Polish confrontation and to see what the French and the British were going to do. The Soviet Union assured Germany that the Red Army advance into Poland would follow later at an appropriate time. For the optimal "political motivation" (a collapse of Poland having taken place), Molotov wished to hold the Soviet intervention until the fall of Warsaw, but the city's capture by the Germans was being delayed due to its determined defense effort (until September 27). The Soviet troops marched on 17 September into Poland, which the Soviet Union claimed to be by then non-existent anyway (according to the historian
Richard Overy Richard James Overy (born 23 December 1947) is a British historian who has published on the history of World War II and Nazi Germany. In 2007, as ''The Times'' editor of ''Complete History of the World'', he chose the 50 key dates of world his ...
, Poland was defeated by Germany within two weeks from 1 September). The
Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...
was justified by the Soviets by their own security concerns and by the need to protect the ethnically Belarusian and Ukrainian populations. The invasion was coordinated with the movement of the German army, and met limited resistance from the Polish forces. The Polish military formations available in the eastern part of the country were ordered by the high command, who were then at the Romanian border, to avoid engaging the Soviets, but some fighting between Soviet and Polish units did take place (such as the Battle of Szack fought by the Border Protection Corps). The Soviet forces moved west (to the
Bug River The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in Central Europe that flows through Belarus (border), Poland, and Ukraine, with a total length of .Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
,
Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
, Romania and
Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
. About 13.4 million Polish citizens lived in the areas seized by the Soviet Union. Of those, about 8.7 million were Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews. The minorities' relations with the Polish authorities were generally bad and many of their members greeted and supported the arriving Red Army troops as liberators. The British and French responses to the "not unexpected" Soviet encroachment were muted. Had it not been for the Soviet-German treaty and the Soviet invasion, all of prewar Poland would have likely been captured by Nazi Germany already in 1939.


End of campaign

The Nazi-Soviet treaty process was continued with the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty signed on 28 September. It adjusted and finalized the territorial division, placing
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
within the Soviet sphere and moving the Soviet-German agreed boundary east from the Vistula to the Bug River, and authorized further joint action to control occupied Poland. An idea of retaining a residual Polish state, considered earlier, was abandoned. The Polish government and military high command retreated to the southeast Romanian Bridgehead territory and crossed into neutral Romania on the night of 17 September. From Romania on 18 September President Ignacy Mościcki and Marshal Rydz-Śmigły issued declarations and orders, which violated their status of persons passing through a neutral country. Germany pressured Romania not to allow the Polish authorities to depart (their intended destination was France) and the group was interned. The Polish ambassador in Romania helped General
Władysław Sikorski Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader. Before World War I, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause of Polish independenc ...
, a member of the Polish opposition who was refused a military assignment and also entered Romania, to acquire departure documents and the general left for France. Resistance continued in many places. Warsaw was eventually bombed into submission. The event that served as a trigger for its surrender on 27 September was the bombing damage to the water supply system caused by deliberate targeting of the waterworks. Warsaw suffered the greatest damage and civilian losses (40,000 killed), already in September 1939. The
Modlin Fortress Modlin Fortress () is one of the largest 19th-century fortresses in Poland. It is located in the town of Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki in district Modlin (village), Modlin on the Narew river, approximately 50 kilometers north of Warsaw. It was original ...
capitulated on 29 September, the
Battle of Hel The Battle of Hel (, literally "the Defense of Hel") was a World War II engagement fought from 1 September to 2 October 1939 on the Hel Peninsula, of the Baltic Sea coast, between invading German forces and defending Polish units during the Ge ...
continued until 2 October, and the Battle of Kock was fought until 4 October. In the country's woodlands, army units began underground resistance almost at once. Major "Hubal" and his regiment pioneered this movement. During the September Campaign, the Polish Army lost about 66,000 troops on the German front; about 400,000 became prisoners of Germany and about 230,000 of the Soviet Union. 80,000 managed to leave the country. 16,600 German soldiers were killed and 3,400 were missing. 1000 German tanks or armored vehicles and 600 planes were destroyed. The Soviet Army lost between 2,500 and 3,000 soldiers, while 6,000 to 7,000 Polish defenders were killed in the east. Over 12,000 Polish citizens executed by the Nazis were among the approximate 100,000 civilian victims of the campaign. Several Polish Navy ships reached the United Kingdom and tens of thousands of soldiers escaped through Hungary, Romania, Lithuania and
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
to continue the fight. Many Poles took part in the
Battle of France The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembour ...
, the
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...
, and, allied with the British forces, in other operations (see
Polish contribution to World War II In World War II, the Polish armed forces were the fourth largest Allied forces in Europe, after those of the Soviet Union, United States and Britain. Poles made substantial contributions to the Allied effort throughout the war, fighting on land, ...
).


Occupation of Poland


German-occupied Poland

The greatest extent of depredations and terror inflicted on and suffered by the Poles resulted from the German occupation. The most catastrophic series of events was the extermination of the Jews known as the
Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
. About one-sixth of Polish citizens lost their lives in the war, and most of the civilian losses resulted from various targeted, deliberate actions. The German plan involved not only the annexation of Polish territory but also a total destruction of Polish culture and the Polish nation ''(
Generalplan Ost The (; ), abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's plan for the settlement and "Germanization" of captured territory in Eastern Europe, involving the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews, and o ...
)''. Under the terms of two decrees by Hitler (8 October and 12 October 1939), large areas of western Poland were annexed to Germany. These included all the territories which Germany had lost under the 1919
Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
, such as the Polish Corridor,
West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (; ; ) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and from 1878 to 1919. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1773, formed from Royal Prussia of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonweal ...
and
Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( ; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heav ...
, but also a large, indisputably Polish area east of these territories, including the city of
Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...
. The annexed areas of Poland were divided into the following administrative units: *
Reichsgau Wartheland The Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen, also Warthegau) was a Nazi Germany, Nazi German ''Reichsgau'' formed from parts of Second Polish Republic, Polish territory Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, annexed in 1939 during World War ...
(initially Reichsgau Posen), which included the entire
Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...
Voivodeship A voivodeship ( ) or voivodate is the area administered by a voivode (governor) in several countries of central and eastern Europe. Voivodeships have existed since medieval times and the area of extent of voivodeship resembles that of a duchy in ...
, most of the Łódź Voivodeship, five counties of the
Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...
n Voivodeship, and one county of the Warsaw Voivodeship; *the remaining area of the Pomeranian Voivodeship, which was incorporated into the
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia () was an Reichsgau, administrative division of Nazi Germany created on 8 October 1939 from annexed territory of the Free City of Danzig, the Greater Pomeranian Voivodship (Polish Corridor), and the Marienwerder (regi ...
(initially Reichsgau Westpreussen); * Ciechanów District (''Regierungsbezirk Zichenau'') consisting of five northern counties of the Warsaw Voivodeship (
Płock Płock (pronounced ), officially the Ducal Capital City of Płock, is a city in central Poland, on the Vistula river, in the Masovian Voivodeship. According to the data provided by Central Statistical Office (Poland), GUS on 31 December 2021, the ...
,
Płońsk Płońsk (; ) is a town in central Poland with 21,591 inhabitants (2022). Situated at the Płonka river in the historic region of Mazovia, it is the seat of Płońsk County in the Masovian Voivodeship. History According to archaeological researc ...
, Sierpc, Ciechanów and Mława), which became a part of
East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...
; * Katowice District (''Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz'') or, unofficially, East
Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( ; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heav ...
(''Ost-Oberschlesien''), which included the
Silesian Voivodeship Silesian Voivodeship ( ) is an administrative province in southern Poland. With over 4.2 million residents and an area of 12,300 square kilometers, it is the second-most populous, and the most-densely populated and most-urbanized region of Poland ...
, Sosnowiec,
Będzin Będzin (; also seen spelled ''Bendzin''; ) is a city in the Dąbrowa Basin, in southern Poland. It lies in the Silesian Highlands, on the Czarna Przemsza River (a tributary of the Vistula River, Vistula). Even though part of Silesian Voivodeship ...
, Chrzanów,
Oświęcim Oświęcim (; ; ; ) is a town in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship in southern Poland, situated southeast of Katowice, near the confluence of the Vistula (''Wisła'') and Soła rivers. Oświęcim dates back to the 12th century, when it was an im ...
, and
Zawiercie Zawiercie () () is a town in southern Poland located in the Silesian Voivodeship with 49,334 inhabitants (2019). It is situated in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland near the source of the Warta River. The town lies near the historical region of Sil ...
counties, and parts of
Olkusz Olkusz ( ''Elkish'') is a town in southern Poland with 36,607 inhabitants (2014). Situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Katowice Voivodeship (1975–1998), it is the capital of Olkusz County. Olkusz is known for its ...
and
Żywiec Żywiec () is a town on the River Soła in southern Poland with 31,194 inhabitants (2019). It is situated within the Silesian Voivodeship, near the Żywiec Lake and Żywiec Landscape Park, one of the eight protected areas in the voivodeship. H ...
counties, which became a part of the
Province of Upper Silesia The Province of Upper Silesia (; Silesian German: ''Provinz Oberschläsing''; ; ) was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided int ...
. The area of these annexed territories was 92,500 square kilometres and the population was about 10.6 million, a great majority of whom were Poles. In
Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...
n districts German summary courts sentenced to death 11,000 Poles in late 1939 and early 1940. A total of 30,000 Poles were executed there already in 1939, with an additional 10,000 in
Greater Poland Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; ), is a Polish Polish historical regions, historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed by Kalisz, the oldest city in Poland. The bound ...
and 1500 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, ...
. Jews were expelled from the annexed areas and placed in ghettos such as the
Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...
or the
Łódź Ghetto The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of ...
. Catholic priests became targets of campaigns of murder and deportation on a mass scale. The population in the annexed territories was subjected to intense racial screening and
Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In l ...
. The Poles experienced property confiscations and severe discrimination; 100,000 were removed from the port city of
Gdynia Gdynia is a city in northern Poland and a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. With an estimated population of 257,000, it is the List of cities in Poland, 12th-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in the Pomeranian Voivodeship after Gdańsk ...
alone already in October 1939. In 1939–40, many Polish citizens were deported to other Nazi-controlled areas, especially the
General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...
, or to
concentration camps A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
. With the clearing of some western Poland regions for German resettlement, the Nazis initiated the policies of
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...
. About one million Poles were forcibly removed from their dwellings and replaced with over 386,000 ethnic Germans brought from distant places. (see also:
Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany The Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany during World War II was a massive operation consisting of the forced resettlement of over 1.7 million Polish people, Poles from the territories of Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German-occupied Poland, ...
) Under the terms of the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...
and the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty, the Soviet Union annexed all Polish territory east of the line of the rivers
Pisa Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tow ...
,
Narew The Narew (; ; or ) is a 499-kilometre (310 mi) river primarily in north-eastern Poland. It is a tributary of the river Vistula. The Narew is one of Europe's few braided rivers, the term relating to the twisted channels resembling braided h ...
, Bug and San, except for the area around
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
(known in Polish as Wilno), which was given to
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
, and the
Suwałki Suwałki (; ; or סוּוואַלק) is a city in northeastern Poland with a population of 69,206 (2021). It is the capital of Suwałki County and one of the most important centers of commerce in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. A relatively young ci ...
region, which was annexed by Germany. These territories were largely inhabited by
Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...
and
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 ...
ians, with minorities of
Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...
and
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
(for numbers see Curzon Line). The total area, including the area given to Lithuania, was 201,000 square kilometres, with a population of 13.2 million. A small strip of land that was a part of
Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
before 1914 was given to
Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Polish territories previously occupied by the Soviets were organized as follows: *
Bezirk Bialystok Bialystok District (German language, German: ''Bezirk Bialystok'') was an administrative unit of Nazi Germany created during the World War II invasion of the Soviet Union. It was to the south-east of East Prussia, in present-day northeastern Pola ...
(District of
Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...
), which included the Białystok,
Bielsk Podlaski Bielsk Podlaski (, , ) is a town in eastern Poland, within Bielsk County in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. As of December 2021, the town has a population of 24,883. Geography Bielsk Podlaski is located in the geographical region of Europe known as ...
,
Grajewo Grajewo (; ) is a town in north-eastern Poland with 21,499 inhabitants (2016). It is the capital of Grajewo County within the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is located within the historic region of Masovia, near the border with Podlachia and Masuria. H ...
,
Łomża Łomża () is a city in north-eastern Poland, approximately to the north-east of Warsaw and west of Białystok. It is situated alongside the Narew river as part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the capital of Łomża County and has been the se ...
,
Sokółka Sokółka (; , ) is a town in northeastern Poland, seat of the Sokółka County in Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is a busy rail junction located on the international Warsaw–Białystok–Grodno line, with additional connections which go to Suwałki a ...
, Wołkowysk, and
Grodno Grodno, or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. The city is located on the Neman, Neman River, from Minsk, about from the Belarus–Poland border, border with Poland, and from the Belarus–Lithua ...
counties, was "attached" to (but not incorporated into) East Prussia; *''Bezirke Litauen und Weißrussland''the Polish part of White Russia (today western
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 ...
) and the Vilnius province were incorporated into the
Reichskommissariat Ostland The (RKO; ) was an Administrative division, administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. It served as the German Civil authority, civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, La ...
; *''Bezirk Wolhynien-Podolien''the Polish Province of Volhynia, was incorporated into the
Reichskommissariat Ukraine The ''Reichskommissariat Ukraine'' (RKU; ) was an administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. It served as the German civilian occupation regime in the Ukrainian SSR, and ...
; * Distrikt Galizien, East Galicia, was incorporated into the General Government and became its fifth district. The remaining block of territory was placed under a German administration called the
General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...
(in German ''Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete''), with its capital at
Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
. It became a part of Greater Germany ('' Grossdeutsches Reich''). The General Government was originally subdivided into four districts, Warsaw,
Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...
,
Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...
, and Kraków, to which East Galicia and a part of Volhynia were added as a district in 1941. (For more detail on the territorial division of this area see
General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...
.) The General Government was the nearest to Germany proper part of the planned ''
Lebensraum (, ) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch movement, ''Völkisch'' nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' beca ...
'' or German "living space" in the east, and constituted the beginning of the implementation of the Nazi grandiose and genocidal human engineering scheme. A German lawyer and prominent Nazi, Hans Frank, was appointed Governor-General of the General Government on 26 October 1939. Frank oversaw the segregation of the Jews into
ghetto A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...
s in the larger cities, including Warsaw, and the use of Polish civilians for compulsory labour in German war industries. Some Polish institutions, including the police (the number of the so-called Blue Police reached about 12,500 in 1943), were preserved in the General Government. Over 40,000 Poles worked in the General Government's administration, supervised by over 10,000 Germans. Political activity was prohibited and only basic Polish education was allowed. University professors in Kraków were sent to a concentration camp and in Lviv were shot. Ethnic Poles were to be gradually eliminated. The Jews, intended for a more immediate extermination, were herded into ghettos and severely repressed. The Jewish councils in the ghettos had to follow the German policies. Many Jews escaped to the Soviet Union (they were among the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 refugees that arrived there from German-occupied Poland) and some were sheltered by Polish families. The population in the General Government's territory was initially about 11.5 million in an area of 95,500 km2, but this increased as about 860,000 Poles and Jews were expelled from the German-annexed areas and "resettled" in the General Government. After
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
, the General Government's area was 141,000 km2, with 17.4 million inhabitants. Tens of thousands were murdered in the German campaign of extermination of the Polish
intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...
and other elements thought likely to resist (e.g.
Operation Tannenberg Operation Tannenberg (, ) was one of the first Anti-Polish sentiment, anti-Polish extermination actions by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German-occupied Poland from September 1939 to January 1940. The operation was conducted ...
and Aktion AB). Catholic clergy were commonly imprisoned or otherwise persecuted; many were murdered in concentration camps. Tens of thousands of members of the resistance and others were tortured and executed at the Pawiak prison in Warsaw. From 1941, disease and hunger also began to reduce the population, as the exploitation of resources and labor, terror and Germanisation reached greater intensity after the attack on the Soviet Union. Poles were also deported in large numbers to work as forced labor in Germany, or taken to concentration camps. About two million were transported to Germany to work as slaves and many died there. '' Łapanka'' or random roundup, on streets or elsewhere, was one of the methods practiced by the Nazis to catch prisoners for labor. Several hundred Wehrmacht brothels, for which local non-German women were forcibly recruited, operated throughout the Reich. In contrast to Nazi policies in occupied
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...
, the Germans treated the Poles with intense hostility and all Polish state property and private industrial concerns were taken over by the German state. Poland was plundered and subjected to extreme economic exploitation throughout the war period. The future fate of Poland and Poles was stipulated in ''Generalplan Ost'', a Nazi plan to engage in
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
and ethnic cleansing of the territories occupied by Germany in
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
in order to exterminate the Slavic peoples. Tens of millions were to be eliminated, others resettled in
Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
or turned into slave populations. The cleared territories were to be resettled by Germans. A trial evacuation of all Poles was attempted in the
Zamość Zamość (; ; ) is a historical city in southeastern Poland. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship, about from Lublin, from Warsaw. In 2021, the population of Zamość was 62,021. Zamość was founded in 1580 by Jan Zamoyski ...
region in 1942 and 1943. 121,000 Poles were removed from their villages and replaced with 10,000 German settlers. Under the
Lebensborn ''Lebensborn e.V.'' (literally: "Fount of Life") was a secret, SS-initiated, state-registered association in Nazi Germany with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "heal ...
program, about 200,000 Polish children were kidnapped by the Germans to be tested for racial characteristics that would make them suitable for Germanisation. Of that number (many were found unsuitable and killed), only between 15% and 20% were returned to Poland after the war. When German occupation extended to the eastern Kresy territories after they were taken from the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, the Nazis unleashed there their genocidal anti-Jewish policies. They conducted terror campaigns directed against ethnic Poles, including especially such groups as intelligentsia or Catholic clergy. Ethnic Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians, while themselves subjected to brutal occupation, generally received more favorable treatment from the Nazis. Their nationalists and others were used by the occupant in actions against ethnic Poles or allowed to conduct anti-Polish activities themselves. Members of all four ethnicities were encouraged to act against the Jews and participated in
pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...
s and other instances of killing of Jews. Different segments of Polish society experienced different degrees of suffering under the German occupation. Residents of rural villages and small towns generally did better than big city dwellers, while the land-owning class (''ziemiaństwo'' or ''
szlachta The ''szlachta'' (; ; ) were the nobility, noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Depending on the definition, they were either a warrior "caste" or a social ...
''), privileged in independent Poland, prospered also during the war. In the postwar
Nuremberg trials #REDIRECT Nuremberg trials {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from move ...
, the International Military Tribunal stated: "The wholesale extermination of Jews and also of Poles had all the characteristics of genocide in the biological meaning of this term". According to a 2009 estimate by the
Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...
(IPN), between 5.62 million and 5.82 million Polish citizens (including
Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
) died as a result of the German occupation.


Soviet-occupied Poland

By the end of the Soviet invasion, the Soviet Union took 50.1% of the territory of Poland (195,300 km2), with 12,662,000 people. Population estimates vary; one analysis gives the following numbers in regard to the ethnic composition of these areas at the time: 38% Poles, 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians and 0.6% Germans. There were also 336,000 refugees from the areas occupied by Germany, most of them Jews (198,000). Areas occupied by the Soviet Union were annexed to Soviet territory, with the exception of the Wilno/Vilnius region, which was transferred to the
Republic of Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
. The majority of Polish-speaking inhabitants of the Vilnius region soon found themselves subjected to the Lithuanization policies of the Lithuanian authorities, which led to lasting ethnic conflicts in the area. Lithuania, including the contested Vilnius area, was itself incorporated by the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940 and became the
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; ; ), also known as Soviet Lithuania or simply Lithuania, was ''de facto'' one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1940–1941 and 1944 ...
. The Soviets considered the
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
territories (prewar eastern Poland) to be colonized by the Poles and the Red Army was proclaimed a liberator of the conquered nationalities. Many Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians shared that point of view and cooperated with the new authorities in repressing the Poles. The Soviet administrators used slogans about
class struggle In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...
and dictatorship of the proletariat, as they applied the policies of
Stalinism Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...
and
Sovietization Sovietization ( ) is the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets (workers' councils) or the adoption of a way of life, mentality, and culture modeled after the Soviet Union. A notable wave of Sovietization (in the second me ...
in occupied eastern Poland. On 22 and 26 October 1939, the Soviets staged elections to Moscow-controlled
Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet () was the common name for the legislative bodies (parliaments) of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). These soviets were modeled after the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, establ ...
s (legislative bodies) of the newly created provinces of
Western Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine (, ) refers to the western territories of Ukraine. There is no universally accepted definition of the territory's boundaries, but the contemporary Ukrainian administrative regions ( oblasts) of Chernivtsi, I ...
and Western Byelorussia to legitimize the Soviet rule. The new assemblies subsequently called for the incorporation into the Soviet Union, and the
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (SSUSSR) was the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Based on the principle of unified power, it was the only branch of government in the So ...
annexed the two territories to the already existing Soviet republics (the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...
and the
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, Byelorussian SSR or Byelorussia; ; ), also known as Soviet Belarus or simply Belarus, was a Republics of the Soviet Union, republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 19 ...
) on 2 November. All institutions of the dismantled Polish state were closed down and reopened with new directors who were mostly Russian and in rare cases Ukrainian or Polish. Lviv University and other schools restarted anew as Soviet institutions. Some departments, such as law and humanities were abolished; new subjects, including
Darwinism ''Darwinism'' is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural sel ...
,
Leninism Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...
and
Stalinism Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...
were taught by the reorganized departments. Tuition was free and monetary stipends were offered to students. The Soviet authorities attempted to remove all signs of Polish existence and activity in the area. On 21 December, the Polish currency was withdrawn from circulation with limited exchange to the newly introduced
ruble The ruble or rouble (; rus, рубль, p=rublʲ) is a currency unit. Currently, currencies named ''ruble'' in circulation include the Russian ruble (RUB, ₽) in Russia and the Belarusian ruble (BYN, Rbl) in Belarus. These currencies are s ...
. In schools, Polish language books were burned. All the media became controlled by Moscow. Soviet occupation implemented a
police state A police state describes a state whose government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exec ...
type political regime, based on terror. All Polish parties and organisations were disbanded. Only the communist party and subordinate organisations were allowed to exist. Soviet teachers in schools encouraged children to spy on their parents. Ukrainian and Belarusian social organizations, closed by the Polish government in the 1930s, were reopened. In schools, the language of instruction was changed to Ukrainian or Belarusian. The
Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
and
Greek Catholic Greek Catholic Church or Byzantine-Catholic Church may refer to: * The Catholic Church in Greece * The Eastern Catholic Churches The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Ea ...
churches were persecuted, lost many estates, seminaries and affiliated social organizations, but kept most of their primary facilities (houses of worship) open and were able to provide religious services and organize pilgrimages. Priests were discriminated against by the authorities and subjected to high taxes, drafts into military service, arrests and deportations. Many enterprises were taken over by the state or failed, small trade and production shops had to join
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...
s, but only a small proportion of
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...
agriculture was made
collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an e ...
(over ten percent of the arable area) by the start of the war with Germany. Among the industrial installations dismantled and sent east were most of the
Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...
textile industry factories. The results of the Soviet economic policies soon resulted in serious difficulties, as shops lacked goods, food was scarce and people were threatened by
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...
. Nevertheless, the conditions were better under the Soviets than in the German-run
General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...
. The industry was developed in Lviv and elsewhere and unemployment was officially eliminated by the spring of 1940. The living standards, following the initial collapse, kept gradually improving, many services were free or inexpensive and the poor and people with technical education fared better than under the Polish rule. The cities, of which Lviv and Białystok were particularly well-maintained by the Soviet authorities, were in much better shape than the countryside. The situation was very difficult for the Polish retirees, deprived of their pensions, and for the tens of thousands of war refugees who fled German-occupied Poland and settled in the eastern cities. According to the Soviet law of 29 November 1939, all residents of the annexed area, referred to as citizens of ''former Poland'', automatically acquired the Soviet citizenship. Residents were still required and pressured to consent and those who opted out (most Poles did not want to give up the Polish citizenship) were threatened with repatriation to Nazi controlled territories of Poland. The Soviets exploited past ethnic tensions between Poles and other ethnic groups, inciting and encouraging violence against Poles by calling upon the minorities to "rectify the wrongs they had suffered during twenty years of Polish rule". The hostile propaganda resulted in instances of bloody repression. Parts of the Ukrainian population initially welcomed the end of Polish rule and the phenomenon was strengthened by a
land reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...
. The Soviet authorities also started a limited collectivisation campaign. There were large groups of prewar Polish citizens, notably Jewish youth, and, to a lesser extent, Ukrainian peasants, who saw the Soviet power as an opportunity to start political or social activity outside of their traditional ethnic or cultural groups. Their enthusiasm faded with time as it became clear that the Soviet repressions affected everybody. The organisation of Ukrainians desiring independent Ukraine (the OUN) was persecuted as "anti-Soviet". A rule of terror was started 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 ...
and other Soviet agencies. The first victims were the approximately 230,000 Polish
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
. The Soviet Union had not signed any international convention on rules of war and they were denied the status of prisoners of war. When the Soviets conducted recruitment activities among the Polish military, an overwhelming majority of the captured officers refused to cooperate; they were considered enemies of the Soviet Union and a decision was made by the Soviet
Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...
(5 March 1940) to secretly execute them (22,000 officers and others). The officers and a large number of ordinary soldiers were then murdered (see
Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...
) or sent to
Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
. Of the 10,000–12,000 Poles sent to
Kolyma Kolyma (, ) or Kolyma Krai () is a historical region in the Russian Far East that includes the basin of Kolyma River and the northern shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as the Kolyma Mountains (the watershed of the two). It is bounded to ...
in 1940–41, mostly POWs, only 583 men survived, released in 1941–42 to join the Polish Armed Forces in the East. Terror policies were also applied to the civilian population. The Soviet authorities regarded service for the prewar Polish state as a "crime against revolution" and "counter-revolutionary activity", and subsequently started arresting large numbers of Polish
intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...
, politicians, civil servants and scientists, but also ordinary people suspected of posing a threat to the Soviet rule. Schoolchildren as young as 10 or 12 years old who laughed at Soviet propaganda presented in schools were sent into prisons, sometimes for as long as 10 years. The prisons soon became severely overcrowded with detainees suspected of anti-Soviet activities and the NKVD had to open dozens of ad hoc prison sites in almost all towns of the region. The wave of arrests led to the forced resettlement of large categories of people (
kulak Kulak ( ; rus, кула́к, r=kulák, p=kʊˈɫak, a=Ru-кулак.ogg; plural: кулаки́, ''kulakí'', 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), also kurkul () or golchomag (, plural: ), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned over ...
s, Polish civil servants, forest workers, university professors or osadniks, for instance) to the Gulag
labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...
s. An estimated 30–40 thousand Polish citizens were held at the labor camps in 1939–1941. The Polish and formerly Polish citizens, a large proportion of whom were ethnic minorities, were deported mostly in 1940, typically to northern Russia,
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
and
Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
. According to the NKVD data, of the 107,000 Polish citizens of different ethnicities arrested by June 1941, 39,000 were tried and sentenced for various transgressions, including 1200 given death sentences. At that time, 40,000 were imprisoned in NKVD prisons and about 10,000 of them were murdered by the Soviets during prison evacuation after the German attack. Among the Poles who decided to cooperate with the Soviet authorities were Wanda Wasilewska, who was allowed to publish a Polish language periodical in
Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...
, and
Zygmunt Berling Zygmunt Henryk Berling (27 April 1896 – 11 July 1980) was a Polish general and politician. He fought for the independence of Poland in the early 20th century. Berling was a co-founder and commander of the First Polish Army (1944–1945), First ...
, who from 1940 led a small group of Polish officers working on the concept of formation of a Polish division in the Soviet Union. Wasilewska, an informal leader of Polish communists, was received by Stalin at the
Kremlin The Moscow Kremlin (also the Kremlin) is a fortified complex in Moscow, Russia. Located in the centre of the country's capital city, the Moscow Kremlin (fortification), Kremlin comprises five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Mosco ...
on 28 June 1940. The event marked the beginning of the reorientation of Soviet policies with respect to Poles, which would have momentous consequences for the next half-century and beyond. The Soviets undertook a number of conciliatory measures, such as organizing celebrations of the 85th anniversary of the death of the poet
Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He also largely influenced Ukra ...
in November 1940 in Moscow, Lviv, and at other concentrations of the Polish population, or expanding Polish language general and higher education activities in Soviet-controlled territories. Wasilewska and Berling pushed for the Polish division again in September 1942, but Soviet permission for building a Soviet-allied Polish armed force was granted only after the break in diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the
Polish Government-in-Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
in April 1943. Unlike in German-occupied Poland, where open cooperation with the occupier was rare among the Polish elites, many Polish intellectuals, artists, literary figures, and journalists cooperated with the Soviets and their activity often included participation in Soviet propaganda undertakings. Following the
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
and the Sikorski–Mayski agreement, in the summer of 1941, the exiled Poles were released under the declared amnesty. Many thousands trekked south to join the newly formed
Polish Army The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...
, but thousands were too weak to complete the journey or perished soon afterwards. According to a 2009 estimate by the IPN, around 150,000 Polish citizens died as a result of the Soviet occupation. The number of deportees was estimated at 320,000.


Collaboration with the occupiers

In
occupied Poland ' (Norwegian language, Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV 2 (Norway), TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. ...
, there was no official collaboration at either the political or economic level. The occupying powers intended permanent elimination of Polish governing structures and ruling elites and therefore did not seek this kind of cooperation. The Poles were not given positions of significant authority. The vast majority of the prewar citizenry collaborating with the Nazis came from the
German minority in Poland The registered German minority in Poland (; ) is a group of German people that inhabit Poland, being the largest minority of the country. As of 2021, it had a population of 144,177. The German language is spoken in certain areas in Opole Voiv ...
, the members of which were offered several classes of the German ''
Volksdeutsche In Nazi Germany, Nazi German terminology, () were "people whose language and culture had Germans, German origins but who did not hold German citizenship." The term is the nominalised plural of ''wikt:volksdeutsch, volksdeutsch'', with denoting ...
'' ID. During the war, there were about 3 million former Polish citizens of German origin who signed the official '' Deutsche Volksliste''. Depending on a definition of collaboration (and of a Polish citizen, including the ethnicity and minority status considerations), scholars estimate the number of "Polish collaborators" at around several thousand in a population of about 35 million. The estimate is based primarily on the number of death sentences for treason by the Underground court of the
Polish Underground State The Polish Underground State (, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland ...
. The underground courts sentenced 10,000 Poles, including 200 death sentences. John Connelly quoted a Polish historian ( Leszek Gondek) calling the phenomenon of Polish collaboration "marginal" and wrote that "only relatively small percentage of Polish population engaged in activities that may be described as collaboration when seen against the backdrop of European and world history". Some researchers give much higher numbers of collaborators, especially when it comes to denouncing Jews. In October 1939, the Nazis ordered a
mobilization Mobilization (alternatively spelled as mobilisation) is the act of assembling and readying military troops and supplies for war. The word ''mobilization'' was first used in a military context in the 1850s to describe the preparation of the ...
of the prewar Polish police to the service of the occupational authorities. The policemen were to report for duty or face the death penalty. The so-called Blue Police was formed. At its peak in 1943, it numbered around 16,000. Its primary task was to act as a regular police force and to deal with criminal activities, but they were also used by the Germans in combating smuggling and patrolling the Jewish ghettos. Many individuals in the Blue Police followed German orders reluctantly, often disobeyed them or even risked death acting against them. Many members of the Blue Police were
double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...
s for the Polish resistance; a large percentage cooperated with the
Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
. Some of its officers were ultimately awarded the
Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...
awards for saving Jews. However, the moral position of Polish policemen were often compromised by a necessity for cooperation, or even
collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The ...
, with the occupier. According to
Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the history of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is on leave from his position as the Richard C. Levin, Richar ...
, acting in their capacity as a collaborationist force, the Blue Police may have killed more than 50,000 Jews. The police assisted the Nazis at tasks such as rounding up Poles for forced labor in Germany. During Nazi Germany's
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
against the Soviet Union in June 1941, the German forces quickly overran the eastern half of Poland controlled by the Red Army since 1939. New ''
Reichskommissariat () is a German word for a type of administrative entity headed by a government official known as a '' Reichskommissar'' (). Although many offices existed, primarily throughout the Imperial German and Nazi periods in a number of fields (ranging ...
s'' were formed across the
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
macroregion A macroregion is a geopolitical subdivision that encompasses several traditionally or politically defined regions or countries. The meaning may vary, with the common denominator being cultural, economical, historical or social similarity within a ma ...
. As the Soviet-German war progressed, the Home Army fought against both invaders, including the
Soviet partisans Soviet partisans were members of Resistance during World War II, resistance movements that fought a Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla war against Axis powers, Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Territories of Poland an ...
, who often considered the Polish underground as enemies on a par with the Germans and from June 1943 were authorized by their command to denounce them to the Nazis. Due to the intensified, by the fall of 1943, warfare between the Home Army and the Soviet partisans in Poland, a few Polish commanders accepted weapons and ammunition from the Germans to fight the communist forces. In 1944, the Germans clandestinely armed some regional AK units operating in the areas of Navahrudak and
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
. This AK-Nazi cooperation was condemned by General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, commander-in-chief in the
Polish Government-in-Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
, who ordered the responsible officers
court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...
ed. The AK turned these weapons against the Nazis during the Operation Ostra Brama. Such arrangements were purely tactical and did not evidence the type of ideological collaboration as shown by the
Vichy regime Vichy France (; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was a French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, established as a result of the French capitulation after the defeat against ...
in France, the
Quisling regime The Quisling regime, or Quisling government are common names used to refer to the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, collaboration government led by Vidkun Quisling in German occupation of Norway, German-occupied Norway during th ...
in Norway, or the OUN leadership in '' Distrikt Galizien''. Tadeusz Piotrowski quotes Joseph Rothschild as saying: "The Polish Home Army (AK) was by and large untainted by collaboration" and that "the honor of AK as a whole is beyond reproach". The former prime minister of Poland
Leon Kozłowski Leon Tadeusz Kozłowski (; 6 June 1892 – 11 May 1944) was a Polish archaeologist, freemason, and politician who served as Prime Minister of Poland from 1934 to 1935. Life Leon Kozłowski was born in 1892 in the village of Rembieszyce near Ma ...
was released from a Soviet prison and crossed into the German zone of occupation in October 1941. However, his reasons and the context of his action are not known. Historian Gunnar S. Paulsson estimates that in Warsaw the number of Polish citizens collaborating with the Nazis during the occupation might have been around "1 or 2 percent". Fugitive Jews (and members of the resistance) were handed over to the
Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
by the so-called " szmalcowniks", who received financial rewards. Soon after the German takeover of the town of
Jedwabne Jedwabne (; , ''Yedvabna'') is a town in northeastern Poland, in Łomża County of Podlaskie Voivodeship, with 1,942 inhabitants (2002). History First mentioned in 1455 records, on 17 July 1736 Jedwabne received town rights from King Augustus III ...
in July 1941, the Jedwabne pogrom took place. The exact circumstances of what happened during the pogrom are not clear and vigorously debated. According to the investigation by the
Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...
, completed in 2002, at least 340 members of Jewish families were rounded up by or in the presence of the German
Ordnungspolizei The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (''Orpo'', , meaning "Order Police") were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly of power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of t ...
. They were locked in a barn which was then set on fire by Polish residents of Jedwabne. By several accounts, this was done under German duress.


Resistance in Poland


Armed resistance and the Underground State

The
Polish resistance movement in World War II In Poland, the Resistance during World War II, resistance movement during World War II was led by the Home Army. The Polish resistance is notable among others for disrupting German supply lines to the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front ...
was the largest in all of occupied Europe. Resistance to the German occupation began almost at once and included
guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrori ...
. Centrally commanded military conspiratorial activity was started with the Service for Poland's Victory (''Służba Zwycięstwu Polski'') organization, established on 27 September 1939. Poland's prewar political parties also resumed activity. The Service was replaced by the
Polish Government-in-Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
with the Union of Armed Struggle (''Związek Walki Zbrojnej''), placed under the command of General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, a minister in that government. In June 1940
Władysław Sikorski Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader. Before World War I, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause of Polish independenc ...
, prime minister in exile and chief military commander, appointed General Stefan Rowecki, resident in Poland, to head the Union. Bataliony Chłopskie, a partisan force of the peasant movement, was active from August 1940 and reached 150,000 participants by June 1944. The
Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
(''Armia Krajowa'' or AK), loyal to the Government-in-Exile then in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and a military arm of the
Polish Underground State The Polish Underground State (, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland ...
, was formed from the Union of Armed Struggle and other groups in February 1942. In July its forces approached 200,000 sworn soldiers, who undertook many successful anti-Nazi operations. Gwardia Ludowa and its successor Armia Ludowa were the much smaller leftist formations, backed by the Soviet Union and controlled by the
Polish Workers' Party The Polish Workers' Party (, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1948 to form the Polish United W ...
. The National Military Organization was a military structure of the National Party. Its forces split in 1942 and again in 1944, with most joining the Home Army and the rest forming the ultra-nationalist
National Armed Forces National Armed Forces (; NSZ) was a Polish right-wing underground military organization of the National Democracy (Poland), National Democracy operating from 1942. During World War II, NSZ troops fought against Nazi Germany and Gwardia Ludowa, c ...
that operated separately. By mid-1944, partial coalescing of several underground formations had taken place and the AK membership may have reached some 400,000, but its supply of arms remained quite limited. According to Czubiński, the AK counted 300,000 committed soldiers, who performed about 230,000 actions of sabotage and diversion throughout the war. According to Zbigniew Mikołejko, 200,000 soldiers and civilians participated in AK activities during the war. However, the Home Army's resources were so scarce that it could effectively equip only about 30,000 fighters in the spring of 1944. Partisan attacks were also hampered by the Nazi policy of retaliation against the civilian population, including mass executions of randomly rounded up individuals. The occupiers would typically kill one hundred Polish civilians for each German killed by the resistance. The AK encountered difficulties establishing itself in the eastern provinces (
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
) and in the western areas annexed to Germany. General Rowecki was betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo in June 1943. The Underground State originated in April 1940, when the exile government planned to establish its three "delegates" in occupied Poland: for the General Government, the German-annexed areas and the Soviet-occupied zone. After the fall of France, the structure was revised to include only a single delegate. The Underground State was endorsed by Poland's main prewar political blocks, including the
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...
,
socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
,
nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
and
Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
parties and absorbed many supporters of the Sanation rule, humbled by the 1939 defeat. The parties established clandestine cooperation in February 1940 and dedicated themselves to a future postwar parliamentary democracy in Poland. From autumn 1940, the "State" was led by a delegate ( Cyryl Ratajski) appointed by the Polish government in London. The Underground State maintained the continuity of the Polish statehood in Poland and conducted a broad range of political, military, administrative, social, cultural, educational and other activities, within practical limits of the conspiratorial environment. In November 1942
Jan Karski Jan Karski (born Jan Kozielewski, 24 June 1914 – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, Polish resistance movement in World War II, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to ...
, a special emissary, was sent to London and later to Washington, to warn the Western Allies of the imminent extermination of the Jews in Poland. Karski was able to convey his personal observations to American Jewish leaders and he met with President Roosevelt.


After Operation Barbarossa

Leopold Trepper, a Polish-Jewish communist, worked as a master spy and was the chief of the Red Orchestra network in Western Europe. He became aware and informed Stalin of the Nazi-planned
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
, but the Soviet leader did not take hisnor the similar alerts from his top intelligence officer in Japan,
Richard Sorge Richard Gustavovich Sorge (; 4 October 1895 – 7 November 1944) was a German-Russian journalist and GRU (Soviet Union), Soviet military intelligence officer who was active before and during World War II and worked undercover as a German journa ...
advance warnings seriously regarding the imminent Nazi invasion. In Poland, the communists, more active after the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, and the right wing extremists, neither joined the broad coalition nor recognized the Government Delegate. The situation of the Polish armed resistance was made more difficult by the fact that the Allies now assigned Poland to the Soviet sphere of operations, and Britain refrained from or limited direct support of resistance movements in central-eastern Europe. After Operation Barbarossa, the
Soviet partisans Soviet partisans were members of Resistance during World War II, resistance movements that fought a Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla war against Axis powers, Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Territories of Poland an ...
also developed and became militarily active in the General Government. They were generally aligned with the Polish leftist Gwardia Ludowa and posed a significant threat to the authority of the AK, which had not adopted a policy of more direct and widespread confrontations with the Nazis until 1943. The Soviet partisans were especially prevalent 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 ...
and elsewhere in
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
. The presence of the various partisan formations, who often represented irreconcilable political orientations, followed contradictory military strategies and were mutually hostile, including also the
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, National Armed Forces, Bataliony Chłopskie (some right-, some left-wing), and of criminal armed bands preying on local populations, led to armed clashes, assassinations, murder, and a climate of chaos and uncertainty, as the Soviet armies, having established their superiority on the Eastern Front, approached Poland's prewar eastern boundaries. With Stalin's encouragement, Polish communist institutions rival to the Government-in-Exile and the Underground State were established. They included the Polish Workers' Party (from January 1942) and the
State National Council Krajowa Rada Narodowa in Polish language, Polish (translated as State National Council or Homeland National Council, abbreviated to KRN) was a parliament-like political body created during the later stages of World War II in Nazi Germany, German- ...
in occupied Poland, as well as the
Union of Polish Patriots Union of Polish Patriots (''Society of Polish Patriots'', , ZPP, ) was a political body created by Polish communists in the Soviet Union in 1943. The ZPP, unofficially controlled and directed by Joseph Stalin, became one of the founding structur ...
in the Soviet Union. The Jewish Combat Organization groups undertook armed resistance activities in 1943. In April, the Germans began deporting the remaining Jews from the
Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...
, provoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (19 April–16 May). The Polish-Jewish leaders knew that the rising would be crushed but they preferred to die fighting than wait to be murdered in the
extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...
s. In August 1943 and March 1944, the Underground State announced its long-term plan, partially designed to counter the attractiveness of some of the communist proposals. It promised
parliamentary democracy A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of the legisl ...
,
land reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...
,
nationalization Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...
of the industrial base, more powerful
trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
s, demands for territorial compensation from Germany, and re-establishment of the pre-1939 eastern border. Thus, the main difference between the Underground State and the communists, in terms of politics, amounted not to radical economic and social reforms, which were advocated by both sides, but to their attitudes towards national sovereignty, borders, and Polish-Soviet relations.


Operation Tempest and the Warsaw Uprising

In early 1943, the Home Army built up its forces in preparation for a national uprising. The situation was soon complicated by the continuing strength of Germany and the threat presented by the advance of the Soviets, who promoted a territorial and political vision of a future Poland that was at odds with what the Polish leaders were striving for. The Council of National Unity, a quasi-parliament, was instituted in occupied Poland on 9 January 1944; it was chaired by Kazimierz Pużak, a socialist. The plan for the establishment of Polish state authority ahead of the arrival of the Soviets was code-named
Operation Tempest file:Akcja_burza_1944.png, 210px, right Operation Tempest or Operation Burza (, sometimes referred to in English as "Operation Storm") was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II against occupying German forces by the Polish Home Arm ...
and began in late 1943. Its major implemented elements were the campaign of the 27th Home Army Infantry Division in
Volhynia Volhynia or Volynia ( ; see #Names and etymology, below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but in ...
(from February 1944), Operation Ostra Brama in
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
and the
Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...
. In most Polish-Soviet encounters, the Soviets and their allies ultimately opted not to cooperate with the Home Army and ruthlessly imposed their rule; in the case of the Warsaw Uprising, the Soviets waited for the Germans to defeat the insurgents. The forces of the Polish right-wing called for stopping the war against Germany and concentrating on fighting the communists and the Soviet threat. As the Operation Tempest failed to achieve its goals in the disputed eastern provinces, the Soviets demanded that the Home Army be disbanded there and its underground soldiers enlist in the Soviet-allied First Polish Army. The AK commander Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski complied, disbanding in late July 1944 his formations east of the
Bug River The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in Central Europe that flows through Belarus (border), Poland, and Ukraine, with a total length of .Zygmunt Berling Zygmunt Henryk Berling (27 April 1896 – 11 July 1980) was a Polish general and politician. He fought for the independence of Poland in the early 20th century. Berling was a co-founder and commander of the First Polish Army (1944–1945), First ...
. Some partisans obeyed, others refused, and many were arrested and persecuted by the Soviets. In the summer of 1944, as the Soviet forces approached Warsaw, the AK prepared an uprising in the German-occupied capital city with the political intention of preempting an imposition of a communist government in Poland. The Polish supreme commander in London, General Sosnkowski, was opposed to the AK strategy of waging open warfare against the German forces on the eve of the arrival of the Soviet armies (the effective scope of those military undertakings was in any case limited because of insufficient resources and external pressures), as self-destructive for the AK. He dispatched General Leopold Okulicki to Poland in May 1944, instructing him not to allow such actions to proceed. Once in Poland, Okulicki pursued his own ideas instead and in Warsaw he became the most ardent proponent of an uprising there, pushing for a quick commencement of anti-German hostilities. Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who thought an uprising in Warsaw would improve his bargaining position in the upcoming negotiations with Stalin, cabled on 27 July Jan Stanisław Jankowski, the government delegate, declaring the
Polish Government-in-Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
's authorization for the issuance of an uprising proclamation by the Polish underground authorities in Warsaw, at a moment chosen by them. To some of the underground commanders, the German collapse and the entry of the Soviets appeared imminent, and the AK, led by Bór-Komorowski, launched the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August. The insurgents' equipment and supplies would suffice for only several days of fighting and the uprising was planned to last no longer than that. On 3 August Mikołajczyk, conferring with Stalin in Moscow, announced an upcoming "freeing of Warsaw any day now" and asked for military help. Stalin promised help for the insurgents, but noted that the Soviet armies were still separated from Warsaw by powerful and thus far undefeated concentrations of enemy troops. In Warsaw, the Germans turned out to be still overwhelmingly strong and the Soviet leaders and their forces nearby, not consulted in advance, contrary to the insurgents' expectations gave little assistance. Stalin had no interest in the uprising's success and following the failure of the talks with Mikołajczyk, the Soviet
TASS The Russian News Agency TASS, or simply TASS, is a Russian state-owned news agency founded in 1904. It is the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide. TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterpri ...
information agency stated in the 13 August broadcast that "the responsibility for the events in Warsaw rests entirely with the Polish émigré circles in London". The Poles appealed to the Western Allies for help. The
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
and the Polish Air Force based in Italy dropped some arms but little could be accomplished without Soviet involvement. Urged by the communist
Polish Committee of National Liberation The Polish Committee of National Liberation ( Polish: ''Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego'', ''PKWN''), also known as the Lublin Committee, was an executive governing authority established by the Soviet-backed communists in Poland at the la ...
and the Western leaders, Stalin eventually allowed airdrops for the Warsaw insurgents and provided limited military assistance. Soviet supply flights continued from 13 to 29 September and an American relief operation was allowed to land on Soviet-controlled territory, but by that time the area under insurgent control had been greatly reduced and much of the dropped material was lost. General Berling's failed but costly attempt to support the fighters on 15–23 September using his Polish forces (First Army units crossed the
Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...
but were slaughtered in a battle over the bridgehead) derailed Berling's own career. The Soviets halted their western push at the Vistula for several months, directing their attention south toward the Balkans. In the Polish capital, the AK formations initially took over considerable portions of the city, but from 4 August they had to limit their efforts to defense and the territory under Polish control kept shrinking. The Warsaw AK district had 50,000 members, of whom perhaps 10% had firearms. They faced a reinforced German special corps of 22,000 largely SS troops and various regular army and auxiliary units, up to 50,000 soldiers total. The Polish command had planned to establish a provisional Polish administration to greet the arriving Soviets but came nowhere close to meeting this goal. The Germans and their allies engaged in the mass slaughter of the civilian population, including between 40,000 and 50,000 massacred in the districts of Wola,
Ochota Ochota () is a district of Warsaw, Poland, located in the central part of the city's urban agglomeration. It is Warsaw's most densely populated district and home to the scientific campus of the University of Warsaw. The biggest housing estate ...
and Mokotów. The SS and auxiliary units were recruited from the Soviet Army deserters (the Dirlewanger Brigade and the R.O.N.A. Brigade) were particularly brutal. After the uprising's surrender on 2 October, the AK fighters were given the status of prisoners-of-war by the Germans but the civilian population remained unprotected and the survivors were punished and evacuated. The Polish casualties are estimated to be at least 150,000 civilians killed, in addition to the fewer than 20,000 AK soldiers. The German forces lost over two thousand men. Under three thousand of the First Polish Army soldiers died in the failed rescue attempt. 150,000 civilians were sent to labour camps in the
Reich ( ; ) is a German word whose meaning is analogous to the English word " realm". The terms and are respectively used in German in reference to empires and kingdoms. In English usage, the term " Reich" often refers to Nazi Germany, also ca ...
or shipped to concentration camps such as Ravensbrück,
Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...
, and Mauthausen. The city was almost totally demolished by the German punitive bombing raids, but only after being systematically looted of works of art and other property, which were then taken to Germany. General Sosnkowski, who criticized the Allied inaction, was relieved of his command. Following the defeat of Operation Tempest and the Warsaw Uprising, the remaining resistance in Poland (the Underground State and the AK) ended up greatly destabilized, weakened and with damaged reputation, at the moment when the international decision-making processes impacting Poland's future were about to enter their final phase. The Warsaw Uprising allowed the Germans to largely destroy the AK as a fighting force, but the main beneficiaries were the Soviets and the communists, who were able to impose a communist government on postwar Poland with reduced risk of armed resistance. The Soviets and the allied First Polish Army, having resumed their offensive, entered Warsaw on 17 January 1945. In January 1945, the Home Army was officially disbanded. The AK, placed under General Okulicki after General Bór-Komorowski became a German prisoner, was in late 1944 extremely demoralized. Okulicki issued the order dissolving the AK on 19 January, having been authorized to do so by President Raczkiewicz. The civilian Underground State structure remained in existence and hoped to participate in the future government of Poland.


The Holocaust in Poland


Jews in Poland

Despite the various forms of anti-Jewish harassment that took place in late prewar Poland, the Jewish community there was the largest in Europe and thrived. Jews constituted a large percentage and often the majority of the urban
bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...
and urban poor in many towns. In 1938, the Polish government passed a law withdrawing Polish citizenship from Poles who had lived outside of Poland for over five years. The law was aimed at and used to prevent the tens of thousands of Polish Jews in Austria and Germany, threatened or expelled by the Nazi regime, from returning to Poland. In December 1939, the Polish diplomat and resistance fighter
Jan Karski Jan Karski (born Jan Kozielewski, 24 June 1914 – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, Polish resistance movement in World War II, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to ...
wrote that, in his opinion, some Poles felt contempt and dismay in observing the barbarian anti-Jewish deeds of the Nazis, while others watched these deeds with interest and admiration. He warned of the threat of demoralization of broad segments of Polish society because of the narrow common ground that the Nazis shared with many ethnic Poles on the Jewish issue. Local
antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
, encouraged by the Nazis and augmented by their propaganda, resulted during the war in many instances of violence directed against Jews. According to Laurence Weinbaum, who quotes Aleksander Smolar, "in wartime Polish society ... there was no stigma of collaboration attached to acting against the Jews". According to the writer and researcher Anna Bikont, most Jews who escaped the
Nazi ghettos Beginning with the invasion of Poland during World War II, the Nazi Germany, Nazi regime set up ghettos across German-occupied Europe, German-occupied Eastern Europe in order to segregate and confine Jews, and sometimes Romani people, into small ...
could not have survived the war even if they had been in possession of material resources and social connections because ethnic Poles diligently and persistently excluded them from Polish society.


Nazi persecution and elimination of ghettos

Persecution of the Jews by the Nazi occupation government, particularly in the urban areas, began immediately after the commencement of the occupation. In the first year and a half, the Germans confined themselves to stripping the Jews of their property, herding them into ghettos (approximately 400 were established beginning in October 1939) and putting them into forced labor in war-related industries. Thousands of Jews survived by managing to stay outside the ghettos. During this period, a Jewish so-called community leadership, the '' Judenrat'', was required by the Germans in every town with a substantial Jewish population and was able to some extent to bargain with the Germans. Already during this initial stage tens of thousands of Jews died because of factors such as overcrowding, disease and starvation. Others survived, supported by the Jewish social self-help agency and the informal trading and smuggling of food and necessities into the ghettos. The ghettos were eliminated when their inhabitants were shipped to slave labor and extermination camps. The
Łódź Ghetto The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of ...
, one of the largest and most isolated, lasted also the longest (from April 1940 until August 1944), because goods were manufactured there for the Nazi war economy. The deportations from the
Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...
began in July 1942. They were facilitated by collaborators, such as the Jewish police, and opposed by the resistance, including the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB). An estimated 500,000 Jews died in the ghettos, and a further 250,000 were murdered during their elimination. While many Jews reacted to their fate with disbelief and passivity, revolts did take place, including at the
Treblinka Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the Treblinka, ...
and Sobibór camps and at a number of ghettos. The leftist ŻOB was established in the Warsaw Ghetto in July 1942 and was soon commanded by Mordechai Anielewicz. As the final liquidation of the remaining ghetto population was commenced by the Nazis on 19 April 1943, hundreds of Jewish fighters revolted. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising lasted until May 16 and resulted in thousands of Jews killed and tens of thousands transported to Treblinka. The
Polish underground The Polish Underground State (, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland ...
and some Warsaw residents assisted the ghetto fighters.


Extermination of Jews

After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, special extermination squads (the ''
Einsatzgruppen (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imp ...
'') were organised to kill Jews in the areas of eastern Poland which had been annexed by the Soviets in 1939. The Nazi anti-Jewish persecutions assumed the characteristics and proportions of
genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
, and, from the fall of 1941, of the organized
Final Solution The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a plan orchestrated by Nazi Germany during World War II for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official ...
. The
Chełmno extermination camp Chełmno, or Kulmhof, was the first of Nazi Germany's extermination camps and was situated north of Łódź, near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, Germany annexed ...
near
Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...
was put into operation first. Beginning on 8 December 1941, at least 150,000 Jews were murdered there. About two million Jews were killed after the beginning of
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
, mostly by the Germans, in areas where Soviet presence was replaced with the Nazi occupation. Especially in the early weeks of the German offensive, many thousands of Jews were murdered by members of local communities in the western parts of the previous Soviet zone, such as the
Baltic countries The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...
, eastern Poland, and western
Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
. The
pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...
s, encouraged by the Germans, were sometimes perpetrated primarily or exclusively by the locals, including Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Poles. In 1942, the Germans engaged in the systematic killing of the Jews, beginning with the Jewish population of the General Government. The General Government had the largest in Europe population of Jews and was designated to be the primary location of Nazi installations for the elimination of Jews. Six
extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...
s (
Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...
,
Bełżec Belzec (English: or , Polish: , approximately ) was a Nazi German extermination camp in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland. It was built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to ...
,
Chełmno Chełmno (; older ; , formerly also ) is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 18,915 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the seat of the Chełmno County in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. Due to its regional importance ...
, Majdanek, Sobibór and
Treblinka Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the Treblinka, ...
) were established in which the most extreme measure of
the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
, the mass murder of millions of Jews from Poland and other countries, was carried out between 1942 and 1945. Nearly three million Polish Jews were murdered, most in death camps during the so-called
Operation Reinhard Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt ( or ; also or ) was the codename of the secret Nazi Germany, German plan in World War II to exterminate History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied ...
. Prisoners of many nationalities were kept at Auschwitz and parts of the complex were used as a brutal and deadly labor camp, but about 80% of the arriving Jews were murdered upon arrival (some 900,000 people). Auschwitz, unlike Treblinka or Bełżec, was not solely a death camp, but it likely had the highest number of Jewish victims. Of Poland's prewar Jewish population of about or above three million, about or above 10% survived the war. Davies wrote of some 150,000 Jews surviving the war in Poland. Between 50,000 and 100,000 survived in hiding helped by other Poles according to Kochanski, between 30,000 and 60,000 according to Sowa. Dawid Warszawski wrote of estimated 50,000 Jews surviving in Poland, a majority of them in camps. According to historian Jan Grabowski, about 35,000 Polish Jews survived the war in Poland, but he counts the Jewish deaths caused directly or indirectly by ethnic Poles in hundreds of thousands (victims of the Blue Police and of civilians). About 250,000 Jews escaped German-occupied Poland and went mostly to the Soviet Union. At Treblinka (a site that, together with Auschwitz, produced the highest number of Jewish victims) and other extermination locations,
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
ordered measures intended to conceal the Nazi crimes and prevent their future detection. The
Romani people {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...
were also marked by the Nazis for immediate elimination. Of the 80,000 Romani living in Poland, 30,000 survived the German occupation.


Efforts to save Jews

Some Poles tried to save Jews. In September 1942, the
Provisional Committee to Aid Jews The Provisional Committee to Aid Jews () was founded on September 27, 1942, by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz. The founding body consisted of Poland, Polish democratic Roman Catholic, Catholic activists associated with the Fr ...
(''Tymczasowy Komitet Pomocy Żydom'') was founded on the initiative of
Zofia Kossak-Szczucka Zofia Kossak-Szczucka ( (also Kossak-Szatkowska); 10 August 1889 – 9 April 1968) was a Polish writer and World War II resistance fighter. She co-founded two wartime Polish organizations: Front for the Rebirth of Poland and Żegota, set up to ...
. This body later became the council to Aid Jews (''Rada Pomocy Żydom''), known by the code-name Żegota and under the auspices of the Government Delegation for Poland. Żegota is particularly noted for its children-saving operation led by Irena Sendler. Jewish children were smuggled out of the
Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...
before the ghetto was eliminated and thus saved. (See also an example of the village that helped Jews: Markowa). Because of such actions, Polish citizens have the highest number of
Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...
awards at the
Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...
Museum. Thousands of Jews were saved with the help of the
Greek Catholic Greek Catholic Church or Byzantine-Catholic Church may refer to: * The Catholic Church in Greece * The Eastern Catholic Churches The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Ea ...
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky in western Ukraine. Helping Jews was extremely dangerous because people involved exposed themselves and their families to Nazi punishment by death. The official policies of the Polish Government-in-Exile and the Polish Underground State called for providing assistance to the Jews. However, they reacted to tragic events with delays and were hampered by what General Stefan Rowecki, chief of the armed underground, characterized as overwhelmingly antisemitic attitudes of Polish society. Gangs and individuals denounced Jews and preyed on Jewish victims. Right-wing organizations, such as the National Radical Camp (ONR) and the
National Armed Forces National Armed Forces (; NSZ) was a Polish right-wing underground military organization of the National Democracy (Poland), National Democracy operating from 1942. During World War II, NSZ troops fought against Nazi Germany and Gwardia Ludowa, c ...
(NSZ), remained virulently antisemitic throughout the occupation period.


Polish-Ukrainian conflict


Background

The bloody ethnic conflict exploded during World War II in areas of today's western
Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
, inhabited at that time by
Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...
and a Polish minority (and until recently by
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, most of whom had been killed by the Nazis before 1943). The Ukrainians blamed the Poles for preventing the emergence of their national state as a result of the outcomes of their conflict at the end of World War I and for Poland's nationality policies (such as military colonization in
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
). Ukraininan partisans therefore undertook a campaign of terror during the interwar years, led by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Under Piłsudski and his successors the Polish state authorities responded with harsh pacification measures. The events that unfolded in the 1940s were a legacy of this bitterness and also a result of other factors, such as the activities of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Ukrainians, generally assigned by the Nazis the same inferior status as Poles, in many practical respects received more favorable treatment. However, the Germans thwarted the Ukrainian attempts to establish a Ukrainian state, imprisoned Ukrainian leaders, and split the occupied lands that Ukrainians considered theirs into two administrative units. Following the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, the Ukrainian nationalists feared a repeat of the post-
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
scenario: a power vacuum left by the exhausted great powers and a Polish armed takeover of western Ukraine. Aiming for a country without any Poles or Polish interests left, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) undertook to create an ethnically homogenous Ukrainian society by physically eliminating the Poles. The German occupiers, whose long-standing policy was to aggravate further the Polish-Ukrainian enmity, for the most part, did not intervene in the resulting campaigns of
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...
.


Ethnic cleansing

The wartime Polish-Ukrainian conflict commenced with the
massacres of Poles in Volhynia The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (; ) were carried out in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), with the support of parts of the local Ukrainians, Ukrainian popu ...
(, literally: ''Volhynian slaughter''), a campaign of ethnic
mass murder Mass murder is the violent crime of murder, killing a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more ...
in western
Reichskommissariat Ukraine The ''Reichskommissariat Ukraine'' (RKU; ) was an administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. It served as the German civilian occupation regime in the Ukrainian SSR, and ...
, which was the Polish Volhynian Voivodeship before the war. The entire conflict took place mainly between late March 1943 and August 1947, extending beyond World War II. The actions, orchestrated and conducted largely by the UPA together with other Ukrainian groups and local Ukrainian peasants in three former Polish provinces (
voivodeship A voivodeship ( ) or voivodate is the area administered by a voivode (governor) in several countries of central and eastern Europe. Voivodeships have existed since medieval times and the area of extent of voivodeship resembles that of a duchy in ...
s), resulted in between 50,000 and 60,000 Polish civilians killed in
Volhynia Volhynia or Volynia ( ; see #Names and etymology, below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but in ...
alone. Other major regions of the slaughter of Poles were eastern Galicia (20,000–25,000 killed) and southeastern
Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...
province (4,000–5,000 killed). The peak of the massacres took place in July and August 1943, when Dmytro Klyachkivsky, a senior UPA commander, ordered the extermination of the entire ethnically Polish population between 16 and 60 years of age. Hundreds of thousands of Poles fled the affected areas. The massacres committed by the UPA led to ethnic cleansing and retaliatory killings by Poles against local Ukrainians both east and west of the Curzon Line. Estimates of the number of Ukrainians killed in Polish reprisals vary from 10,000 to 20,000 in all areas affected by the conflict. Ukrainian historians give higher numbers for the Ukrainian losses. The reprisal killings were committed by the
Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
, Bataliony Chłopskie, and Polish self-defense units. They were restrained from mounting indiscriminate attacks by the
Polish Government-in-Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
, whose goal was to retake and govern western Ukraine after the war. As a result of the fierce fighting that took place in May and June 1944, a Polish-Ukrainian front had been established along the Huczwa River with several thousand participants on each side; it ceased to exist only with the arrival of the Soviet Army. The ethnic cleansing and securing ethnic homogeneity reached its full scale with the post-war Soviet and Polish communist removal of the Polish and Ukrainian populations to the respective sides of the Poland-
Soviet Ukraine The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party m ...
border and the implementation of the
Operation Vistula Operation Vistula (; ) was the codename for the 1947 forced resettlement of close to 150,000 Ukrainians in Poland, Ukrainians (including Rusyns, Boykos, and Lemkos) from the southeastern provinces of People's Republic of Poland, postwar Poland to ...
, the dispersing of Ukrainians still remaining in Poland in remote regions of the country. Due in part to the successive occupations of the region, ethnic Poles and Ukrainians were brutally pitted against each other, first under the German occupation, and later under the Soviet occupation. Tens or hundreds of thousands on both sides (estimates differ widely) lost their lives over the course of this conflict.


Government-in-Exile, communist victory


Polish government in France and Britain

Because of the Polish government leaders' internment in Romania, a practically new government was assembled in Paris as a
Government-in-Exile A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovereign state or semi-sovereign state, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile usu ...
. Under French pressure, on 30 September 1939 Władysław Raczkiewicz was appointed as president and General
Władysław Sikorski Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader. Before World War I, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause of Polish independenc ...
became prime minister and commander-in-chief of the Polish armed forces, reconstructed in the West and as an underground activity in occupied Poland. The exile government was authorized by the Sanation government leaders interned in Romania and was conceived as a continuation of the prewar government, but was beset by strong tensions between the sympathizers of the Sanation regime, led by President Raczkiewicz and General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, and anti-Sanation opposition, led by Prime Minister Sikorski, General
Józef Haller Józef Haller (''de Hallenburg''; 13 August 1873 – 4 June 1960) was a Polish lieutenant general and legionary in the Polish Legions during the First World War. He was a harcmistrz (the highest Scouting instructor rank in Poland), the p ...
, and politicians from the Polish parties persecuted in the past in Sanation Poland. The 1935 April Constitution of Poland, previously rejected by the opposition as illegitimate, was retained for the sake of continuity of the national government. President Raczkiewicz agreed not to use his extraordinary powers, granted by that constitution, except in agreement with the prime minister. There were calls for a war tribunal prosecution of the top leaders deemed responsible for the 1939 defeat. Sikorski blocked such attempts, but allowed forms of persecution of many exiles, people seen as compromised by their past role in Poland's ruling circles. A quasi-parliamentary and advisory National Council was established in December 1939. It was chaired by the Polish senior statesman Ignacy Paderewski. The vice-chairmen were Stanisław Mikołajczyk, a
peasant movement A peasant movement is a social movement involved with the agricultural policy, which claims peasants rights. Peasant movements have a long history that can be traced to the numerous peasant uprisings that occurred in various regions of the wor ...
leader, Herman Lieberman, a
socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
, and Tadeusz Bielecki, a
nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
. The war was expected to end soon in an Allied victory and the government's goal was to reestablish the Polish state in pre-1939 borders, augmented by
East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...
, Danzig, and the planned significant adjustments of the western border, all to be obtained at the expense of Germany. The government considered Poland to be in a state of war with Germany, but not with the Soviet Union, the relationship with which was not clearly specified. The eastern border problem placed the Polish government on a collision course not only with the Soviets but also with the Western Allies, whose many politicians, including
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
, kept thinking of Poland's proper eastern boundary in terms of the " Curzon Line". The exile government in Paris was recognized by France, Britain, and many other countries and was highly popular in occupied Poland. By the spring of 1940, an 82,000 strong army was mobilized in France and elsewhere. Polish soldiers and ships fought in the Norwegian Campaign. France was invaded and defeated by Germany. The Polish Army units, dispersed and attached to various French formations, fought in the defense of France and covered the French retreat, losing 1,400 men. On 18 June 1940, Sikorski went to England and made arrangements for the evacuation of the Polish government and armed forces to the
British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...
. Only 19,000 soldiers and airmen could be evacuated, which amounted to less than a quarter of the Polish military personnel established in France. The infighting within the exile government circles continued. On July 18 President Raczkiewicz dismissed Prime Minister Sikorski because of the disagreements concerning possible cooperation with the Soviet Union. Sikorski's supporters in the Polish military and the British government intervened and Sikorski was reinstated, but the internal conflict among the Polish ''
émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social exile or self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French verb ''émigrer'' meaning "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Hugueno ...
s'' intensified. Polish pilots became famous because of their exceptional contributions during the
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...
. Polish sailors, on Polish and British ships, served with distinction in the
Battle of the Atlantic The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allies of World War II, ...
. Polish soldiers participated in the
North African Campaign The North African campaign of World War II took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943, fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers. It included campaigns in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts (Western Desert campaign, Desert Wa ...
.


Polish Army's evacuation from the Soviet Union

After Germany attacked the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the British government allied itself with the Soviet Union on 12 July and Churchill pressed Sikorski to also reach an agreement with the Soviets. The Sikorski–Mayski treaty was signed on 30 July despite strong resistance from Sikorski's opponents in the exile government (three cabinet ministers resigned, including Foreign Minister August Zaleski and General Sosnkowski) and Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations were restored. The territorial aspects of the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...
had been invalidated. Polish soldiers and others imprisoned in the Soviet Union since 1939 were released and the formation of a Polish army there was agreed, intended to fight on the Eastern Front, help the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
to liberate Poland and establish a sovereign Polish state. Other issues, including Poland's borders, were left to be determined in the future. A Polish-Soviet military agreement was signed on 14 August; it attempted to specify the political and operational conditions for the functioning of the Polish army. Sikorski's preference, stated around 1 September, was for the Polish army to be deployed in defense of the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
oil fields, which would allow it to maintain close contacts with the British forces. To resolve the various problems that surfaced during the recruitment and training of the Polish divisions and concerning their planned use, Sikorski went to the Soviet Union, where he negotiated with Stalin. The two leaders announced a common declaration "of friendship and mutual assistance" on 4 December 1941. But political and practical difficulties continued; for example the Soviets were unable or unwilling to properly feed and supply the Poles. Ultimately, with British help, the chief of the Polish army in the Soviet Union
Władysław Anders Władysław Albert Anders (11 August 1892 – 12 May 1970) was a Polish military officer and politician, and prominent member of the Polish government-in-exile in London. Born in Krośniewice-Błonie, then part of the Russian Empire, he serv ...
and Sikorski obtained Stalin's permission to move the force to the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
. According to one source, 78,631 Polish soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians left the Soviet Union and went to
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
in the spring and summer of 1942. The majority of General Anders' men formed the II Corps in the Middle East, from where the corps was transported to
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
in early 1944, to participate in the Italian Campaign. Its 60,000 soldiers grew to 100,000 by mid-1945. Overall, the Polish soldiers were taken from where they conceivably could have had enhanced the faltering standing of the Polish Government-in-Exile and influenced the post-war fate of Poland, to where, as it turned out, they could not.


In the shadow of Soviet offensive, death of Prime Minister Sikorski

As the Soviet forces began their westward offensive with the victory at Stalingrad, it had become increasingly apparent that Stalin's vision of a future Poland and of its borders was fundamentally different from that of the Polish government in London and the Polish Underground State; the Polish-Soviet relations kept deteriorating. Polish communist institutions rival to those of the main national independence and pro-Western movement were established in Poland in January 1942 (the
Polish Workers' Party The Polish Workers' Party (, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1948 to form the Polish United W ...
) and in the Soviet Union (the
Union of Polish Patriots Union of Polish Patriots (''Society of Polish Patriots'', , ZPP, ) was a political body created by Polish communists in the Soviet Union in 1943. The ZPP, unofficially controlled and directed by Joseph Stalin, became one of the founding structur ...
). Early in 1943, the Polish communists (their delegation led by
Władysław Gomułka Władysław Gomułka (; 6 February 1905 – 1 September 1982) was a Polish Communist politician. He was the ''de facto'' leader of Polish People's Republic, post-war Poland from 1947 until 1948, and again from 1956 to 1970. Born in 1905 in ...
) engaged in Warsaw in negotiations with the
Delegation Delegation is the process of distributing and entrusting work to another person.Schermerhorn, J., Davidson, P., Poole, D., Woods, P., Simon, A., & McBarron, E. (2017). ''Management'' (6th ed., pp. 282–286). Brisbane: John Wiley & Sons Australia. ...
of the Government-in-Exile, but no common understanding was arrived at and the Delegation terminated the talks after the Soviet-Polish breach in diplomatic relations caused by the dispute concerning the
Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...
. The Polish Workers' Party formulated its separate program and from November was officially under Gomułka's leadership. On the initiative of the Union of Polish Patriots, presided by Wanda Wasilewska, in the spring of 1943 the Soviets began recruiting for a leftist Polish army led by
Zygmunt Berling Zygmunt Henryk Berling (27 April 1896 – 11 July 1980) was a Polish general and politician. He fought for the independence of Poland in the early 20th century. Berling was a co-founder and commander of the First Polish Army (1944–1945), First ...
, a Polish Army colonel, to replace the "treacherous" Anders' army that left. The Kościuszko Division was rushed to its first military engagement and fought at the
Battle of Lenino The Battle of Lenino was a tactical World War II engagement that took place on 12 and 13 October 1943, north of the village of Lenino, Mahilyow Voblast, Lenino in the Mogilev region of Byelorussian SSR, Byelorussia. The battle itself was a part ...
on 12–13 October. The Soviet-based communist faction, organized around the Central Bureau Communists of Poland (activated January 1944), directed by such future Stalinist Poland's ruling personalities as Jakub Berman, Hilary Minc, and Roman Zambrowski, was increasingly influential. They also had a prevailing sway on the formation of Berling's First Polish Army in 1943–44. In April 1943, the Germans discovered the graves of 4,000 or more Polish officers at Katyn near
Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...
. The Polish government, suspecting the Soviets to be the perpetrators of an atrocity, requested the
Red Cross The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...
to investigate. The Soviets denied involvement and the request was soon withdrawn by Sikorski under British and American pressure, but Stalin reacted by "suspending" diplomatic relations with the Polish Government-in-Exile on 25 April. The Katyn massacre information was suppressed during and after the war by the British, to whom the revelation was an embarrassment and presented a political difficulty. Prime Minister Sikorski, the most prominent of the Polish exile leaders, was killed in an air crash near
Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...
on 4 July 1943. Sikorski was succeeded as head of the Government-in-Exile by Stanisław Mikołajczyk and by Kazimierz Sosnkowski as the top military chief. Sikorski had been willing to work closely with Churchill, including on the issue of cooperation with the Soviets. The prime minister believed that Poland's strategic and economic weaknesses would be eliminated by a takeover of German East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia and that Polish territorial concessions in the east were feasible. On the other hand, Sikorski was credited with preventing the Soviet territorial demands from being granted in the
Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942 The Anglo-Soviet Treaty, formally the Twenty-Year Mutual Assistance Agreement Between the United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, established a military alliance, military and political alliance between the Soviet Union and th ...
. After his death, the Polish government's position within the Allied coalition deteriorated further and the body splintered into quarreling factions.


Decline of Government-in-Exile

At the Moscow Conference of foreign ministers of the three Allied great powers (October 1943), at the request of the Polish government borders were not discussed, but US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
had already expressed his support for Britain's approval of the Curzon Line as the future Polish-Soviet boundary. The powers represented divided Europe into spheres of influence and Poland was placed within the Soviet sphere. The Poles were also disappointed by a lack of progress regarding the resumption of Polish-Soviet diplomatic ties, an urgent issue, because the Soviet armies were moving toward Poland's 1939 frontiers. In November–December 1943, the
Tehran Conference The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of the Allies of World War II, held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was the first of the Allied World Wa ...
of the Allied leaders took place. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill agreed with Stalin on the issue of using the Curzon Line as the basis of Poland's new eastern border and on compensating Poland with lands taken from Germany. The strategic war alliance with the Soviets inevitably outweighed the Western loyalty toward the Polish government and people. The Poles were not consulted or properly informed of the three Allied leaders' decisions. With the Western Allies stalling a serious offensive undertaking from the west, it was clear that it would be the Soviet Union who would enter Poland and drive off Nazi Germans. The Soviet offensive aimed at taking the
Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...
basin commenced in January 1944. Churchill applied pressure to Prime Minister Mikołajczyk, demanding accommodation with the Soviets, including on the issue of the borders. As the Red Army was marching into Poland defeating the Nazis, Stalin toughened his stance against the Polish Government-in-Exile, wanting not only the recognition of the proposed frontiers, but also a resignation from the government of all elements 'hostile to the Soviet Union', which meant President Raczkiewicz, armed forces commander Sosnkowski, and other ministers. The Underground State governing structures were formed by the Peasant Alliance, the
Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...
, the National Alliance and the Labour Alliance. They acted as rivals in a fragile coalition, each defining its own identity and posturing for the expected post-war contest for power. The Polish government in London was losing its already weak influence on the views of the British and American governments. The British and Soviet demands on the exile government were made in January 1944, in the context of a possible renewal of Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations and, contingent on the Polish agreement, a Soviet consent for an independent, presumably " Finlandized" Polish state. Following a refusal to accept the conditions by the Polish government, the Soviets engaged in supporting only the leftist government structures they were in process of facilitating, allowing contacts with Mikołajczyk, but already within the framework of communist control. In the aftermath of the controversial visit of Oskar R. Lange to the Soviet Union, the Polish American Congress was established in the US in May 1944; among the organization's goals was the promotion of interests of independent Poland before the
US Government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, execut ...
. Mikołajczyk visited the US in June and on several occasions met with President Roosevelt, who urged him to travel to Moscow and talk to the Soviet leaders directly. Mikołajczyk, subsequently engaged in negotiations with Stalin and the emerging Polish communist government ( PKWN), eventually resigned his post and Tomasz Arciszewski became the new prime minister in exile in November 1944. Mikołajczyk's disagreements with his coalition partners (he was unable to convince the ministers that restoration of the prewar eastern border of Poland was no longer feasible and further compromises were necessary) and his departure created a vacuum, because the British and the Americans were practically unwilling to deal with the Polish government that followed. In 1944, the Polish forces in the West were making a substantial contribution to the war. In May, participating in the Italian Campaign, the Second Corps under General Anders stormed the fortress of
Monte Cassino The Abbey of Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a Catholic Church, Catholic, Benedictines, Benedictine monastery on a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Valle Latina, Latin Valley. Located on the site of the ancient ...
and opened a road to Rome. In the summer and fall, the corps participated in the Battle of Ancona and the
Gothic Line The Gothic Line (; ) was a German and Italian defensive line of the Italian Campaign of World War II. It formed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's last major line of defence along the summits of the northern part of the Apennine Mountains du ...
offensive, finishing the campaign with the Battle of Bologna in April 1945. In August 1944, after the
Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and ...
, General Stanisław Maczek's 1st Armoured Division distinguished itself at the Battle of Falaise. After fighting the Battle of Chambois and defending
Hill 262 Hill 262, or the Mont Ormel ridge (elevation ), is an area of high ground above the village of Coudehard in Normandy that was the location of a bloody engagement in the final stages of the Battle of Falaise in the Operation Overlord, Normandy Cam ...
, the division crossed into
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, where it took
Ypres Ypres ( ; ; ; ; ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres/Ieper ...
. In October, heavy fighting by its units helped secure
Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
and resulted in the taking of the Dutch city of
Breda Breda ( , , , ) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. ...
. In April 1945 the division concluded its combat in Germany, where it occupied
Wilhelmshaven Wilhelmshaven (, ''Wilhelm's Harbour''; Northern Low Saxon: ''Willemshaven'') is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea, and has a population of 76,089. Wilhelmsha ...
and liberated a war prisoner camp that held many Polish female
POW POW is "prisoner of war", a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. POW or pow may also refer to: Music * P.O.W (Bullet for My Valentine song), "P.O.W" (Bull ...
s, captured by the Nazis after the Warsaw Uprising. In September General Stanisław Sosabowski's Parachute Brigade fought hard at the
Battle of Arnhem The Battle of Arnhem was fought during the Second World War, as part of the Allies of World War II, Allied Operation Market Garden. It took place around the Netherlands, Dutch city of Arnhem and vicinity from 17 to 26 September 1944. The Alli ...
. The
Polish Air Force The Polish Air Force () is the aerial warfare Military branch, branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as ''Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej'' (). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 26,000 military personnel an ...
, comprising 15 warplane squadrons and 10,000 pilots, fully participated in the Western offensive, as did the Polish Navy ships.


Soviet and Polish-communist victory

The
Bug River The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in Central Europe that flows through Belarus (border), Poland, and Ukraine, with a total length of .1st Belorussian Front) on 19 July 1944 and their commander Konstantin Rokossovsky headed for Warsaw, together with the allied Polish forces. As they approached the Polish capital, German
panzer {{CatAutoTOC, numerals=no Words and phrases Germanic words and phrases Words and phrases by language la:Categoria:Verba Theodisca ...
divisions counterattacked, while the Poles commenced the
Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...
. After the German attack was brought under control, Rokossovsky informed Stalin on 8 August that his forces would be ready to engage in an offensive against the Germans in Warsaw around 25 August, but received no reply. The Soviets secured their
Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...
bridgeheads, and, with the First Polish Army, established control over the
Praga Praga is a district of Warsaw, Poland. It is on the east bank of the river Vistula. First mentioned in 1432, until 1791 it formed a separate town with its own city charter. History The historical Praga was a small settlement located at the e ...
east-bank districts of Warsaw. The situation on the ground, combined with political and strategic considerations, resulted in the Soviet decision to pause at the Vistula for the remainder of 1944. The Government-in-Exile in London was determined that the
Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
would cooperate with the advancing Red Army on a tactical level, as Polish civil authorities from the Underground State took power in Allied-controlled Polish territory, to ensure that Poland remained an independent country after the war. However, the failure of
Operation Tempest file:Akcja_burza_1944.png, 210px, right Operation Tempest or Operation Burza (, sometimes referred to in English as "Operation Storm") was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II against occupying German forces by the Polish Home Arm ...
and the Warsaw Uprising laid the country open to the establishment of communist rule and Soviet domination. The Soviets performed arrests, executions and deportations of the Home Army and Underground State members, although AK partisans were generally encouraged to join the communist-led Polish armies. In January 1945, Soviet and allied Polish armies undertook a massive offensive, aiming at the liberation of Poland and the defeat of Nazi Germany. Marshal
Ivan Konev Ivan Stepanovich Konev ( rus, Ива́н Степа́нович Ко́нев, p=ɪˈvan sʲtʲɪˈpanəvʲɪtɕ ˈkonʲɪf, links=no; 28 December 1897 – 21 May 1973) was a Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union who led Red Army forc ...
's
1st Ukrainian Front The 1st Ukrainian Front (), previously the Voronezh Front (), was a major formation of the Red Army during World War II, being equivalent to a Western army group. They took part in the capture of Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany. Wartime ...
broke out of its
Sandomierz Sandomierz (pronounced: ; , ) is a historic town in south-eastern Poland with 23,863 inhabitants (), situated on the Vistula River near its confluence with the San, in the Sandomierz Basin. It has been part of Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship (Holy ...
Vistula bridgehead on 11 January and rapidly moved west, taking
Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...
,
Częstochowa Częstochowa ( , ) is a city in southern Poland on the Warta with 214,342 inhabitants, making it the thirteenth-largest city in Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship. However, Częstochowa is historically part of Lesser Poland, not Si ...
and
Kielce Kielce (; ) is a city in south-central Poland and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the banks of the Silnic ...
on 16 January.
Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
was liberated on 18 January, a day after Hans Frank and the German administration fled the city. Marshal Konev's forces then advanced toward
Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( ; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heav ...
, freeing the remaining survivors of the
Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
on 27 January. In early February, the 1st Ukrainian Front reached the
Oder River The Oder ( ; Czech and ) is a river in Central Europe. It is Poland's second-longest river and third-longest within its borders after the Vistula and its largest tributary the Warta. The Oder rises in the Czech Republic and flows through west ...
in the vicinity of Breslau. North of the Ukrainian Front, the 1st Belorussian Front under Marshal
Georgy Zhukov Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( 189618 June 1974) was a Soviet military leader who served as a top commander during World War II and achieved the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. During World War II, Zhukov served as deputy commander-in-ch ...
went to the Oder along the
Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...
and
Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...
route. Still further north operated the
2nd Belorussian Front The 2nd Belorussian Front (, ''Vtoroi Belorusskiy front'', also romanized "Byelorussian SSR, Byelorussian"), was a Front (military formation), major formation of the Soviet Army during World War II, being equivalent to a Western army group. I ...
commanded by Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky. The First Polish Army fought on the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts. It entered the rubble of Warsaw on 17 January, formally liberating the city. Poznań was taken by Soviet formations after a bloody battle. In the context of the westbound offensive but also to support the clearing of East Prussia and the forces engaged in the
Battle of Königsberg The Battle of Königsberg, also known as the Königsberg offensive, was one of the last operations of the East Prussian offensive during World War II. In four days of urban warfare, Soviet Union, Soviet forces of the 1st Baltic Front and the 3 ...
, the First Polish Army was directed northwards to the
Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...
n region, where its drive began at the end of January. The heaviest battles fought by the Poles included the breaching of the Pomeranian Wall, accomplished by the badly battered First Polish Army and the Soviets on 5 February, during their East Pomeranian Offensive. The Poles, commanded by General Stanisław Popławski, then led the assault on Kolberg, completed on 18 March.
Gdynia Gdynia is a city in northern Poland and a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. With an estimated population of 257,000, it is the List of cities in Poland, 12th-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in the Pomeranian Voivodeship after Gdańsk ...
and Danzig were taken over by the 2nd Belorussian Front by the end of March, with the participation of the Polish 1st Armoured Brigade. The First Polish Army's campaign continued as it forced the Oder in April and finally reached the Elbe River in early May. The Second Polish Army was led by Karol Świerczewski and operated with the 1st Ukrainian Front. The soldiers, who were recently conscripted, poorly taken care of and badly commanded, advanced toward
Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...
from 16 April and suffered huge losses as they struggled in the Battle of Bautzen. Subsequently, the Second Army took part in the capture of Dresden and then crossed into Czechoslovakia to fight in the final Prague Offensive, entering the city on 11 May. The
Polish Army The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...
, placed under the overall command of
Michał Rola-Żymierski Michał Rola-Żymierski (; 4 September 189015 October 1989) was a Polish high-ranking Polish United Workers' Party, Communist Party leader, communist military commander and NKVD secret agent. He was appointed as Marshal of Poland, and served in t ...
, was ultimately expanded to 400,000 people, and, helping to defeat Germany all the way to the
Battle of Berlin The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II. After the Vistula–Od ...
(elements of the First Polish Army), suffered losses equal to those experienced during the 1939 defense of the country (according to Czubiński). Over 600,000 Soviet soldiers died fighting German troops in Poland. Terrified by the reports of Soviet-committed atrocities, masses of Germans fled in the westerly direction. According to Czubiński, in the final stages of the war, the Polish armed forces were the fourth largest on the Allied side, after the armies of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom.


Polish state reestablished with new borders and under Soviet domination


Poland's war losses

The numerical dimensions of Polish World War II human losses are difficult to ascertain. According to the official data of the Polish War Reparations Bureau (1946), 644,000 Polish citizens died as a result of military action and 5.1 million died as a result of the occupiers' repressions and extermination policies. According to Czubiński, the Soviet Union was responsible for the deaths of some 50,000 of the exterminated persons. Approximately 90% of Polish Jews perished; most of those who survived did so by fleeing to the Soviet Union. 380,000 Polish Jews were estimated to have survived the war. According to an estimate of the Central Committee of Polish Jews, 50,000 Jews survived in Poland. Close to 300,000 Jews found themselves in Poland soon after the war. For a number of reasons, including antisemitic activities such as the
Kielce pogrom The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence toward the Jewish community centre's gathering of refugees in the city of Kielce, Poland, on 4 July 1946 by Polish soldiers, police officers, and civiliansŻydokomuna accusations, loss of families, communities and property, desire to emigrate to
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
or to places in the West deemed more advantageous than post-war Poland, most of the surviving Jews left Poland in several stages after the war. The goal of Polish communist authorities was a state populated by ethnic Poles and the officials often informally facilitated departures of the Jews. The heaviest losses among ethnic Poles were experienced by people with secondary and higher education, who were targeted by the occupiers and of whom a third or more had not survived. Academics and professional people suffered the most. According to Kochanski, only about 10% of the human losses of Poland were a result of military action; the rest came from intentional exterminations, persecutions, war and occupation hardships and the attendant attrition. 800,000 Poles became permanently disabled and large numbers failed to return from abroad, which further reduced the manpower potential of Poland. 105,000 service people, or about one-half of the soldiers enlisted in the
Polish Armed Forces in the West The Polish Armed Forces in the West () refers to the Polish Armed Forces, Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Allies of World War II, Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its Axis powers, allies during World War II. Poli ...
, returned to Poland after the war. The war destroyed 38% of Poland's national assets. A substantial majority of Polish industrial installations and agricultural infrastructure had been lost. Warsaw and a number of other cities were for the most part destroyed and required extensive rebuilding.


Beginnings of communist government

The
State National Council Krajowa Rada Narodowa in Polish language, Polish (translated as State National Council or Homeland National Council, abbreviated to KRN) was a parliament-like political body created during the later stages of World War II in Nazi Germany, German- ...
(KRN), chaired by
Bolesław Bierut Bolesław Bierut (; 18 April 1892 – 12 March 1956) was a Polish communist activist and politician, leader of History of Poland (1945–1989), communist-ruled Poland from 1947 until 1956. He was President of the State National Council from 1944 ...
, was established in Warsaw by the
Polish Workers' Party The Polish Workers' Party (, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1948 to form the Polish United W ...
(PPR) on January 1, 1944. The Armia Ludowa was its army. The Polish communist centers in Warsaw and in Moscow initially operated separately and had different visions of cooperation with the Soviet Union and regarding other issues. In the spring of 1944, the KRN sent a delegation to the Soviet Union, where it gained Stalin's recognition and the two branches began working together. In intense negotiations, the two Polish communist groups agreed to establish the
Polish Committee of National Liberation The Polish Committee of National Liberation ( Polish: ''Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego'', ''PKWN''), also known as the Lublin Committee, was an executive governing authority established by the Soviet-backed communists in Poland at the la ...
(PKWN), a sort of temporary government. As the Soviets advanced through Poland in 1944 and 1945, the German administration collapsed. The communist-controlled PKWN was installed in July 1944 in
Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...
, the first major Polish city within the new boundaries to be seized by the Soviets from the Nazis, and began to take over the administration of the country as the Germans retreated. The Polish government in London formally protested the establishment of the PKWN. The PKWN was led by Edward Osóbka-Morawski, a socialist, and included other non-communists. The
PKWN Manifesto The Manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, also known as the July Manifesto () or the PKWN Manifesto (), was a political manifesto of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN), a Soviet-backed administration, whi ...
was proclaimed in
Chełm Chełm (; ; ) is a city in eastern Poland in the Lublin Voivodeship with 60,231 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some from the border with Ukraine. The ...
on July 22, initiating the crucial
land reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...
. The
agrarian reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...
, according to Norman Davies, was moderate and very popular. The communists constituted only a small, but highly organized and influential minority in the forming and gaining strength Polish pro-Soviet camp, which also included leaders and factions from such main political blocks as the agrarian, socialist,
Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
, and nationalist movements. The Polish
Left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relativ ...
in particular, with considerable support from the peasant movement leaders, both critical in respect to the Second Republic's record, was inclined to accept the Soviet territorial concepts and called for the creation of a more egalitarian society. They became empowered and commenced the formation of the new Polish administration, disregarding the existing Underground State structures. The so-called
Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland The Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland (, RTRP) was created by the State National Council () on the night of 31 December 1944.Norman Davies, 1982 and several reprints, ''God's Playground'' 2 vols. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. a ...
was established at the end of 1944 in Lublin and was recognized by the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...
. It was headed by the socialist Osóbka-Morawski, but the communists held a majority of key posts. In April 1945, the provisional government signed a mutual friendship, alliance and cooperation pact with the Soviet Union. In late 1944 and early 1945, the Poles on the one hand tended to resent the Soviet Union and communism and feared Poland's becoming a Soviet dependency, while on the other the leftist viewpoints were increasingly popular among the population. There was little support for a continuation of the prewar policies.


Allied determinations

By the time of the
Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (), held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three sta ...
, in February 1945, the Soviets were at the height of their power, while the fronts in Western Europe and Italy had not advanced as quickly as expected. At the conference, the Allies continued their discussions and informally finalized decisions on the postwar order in Europe. Churchill and Roosevelt accepted the Curzon Line as the basis of Poland's eastern border, but disagreed with Stalin on the extent of Poland's western expansion, at the expense of Germany. Poland was going to get a compromise provisional (until the agreed free elections) government of national unity including both the existing
communist government A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...
, now unofficially considered principal, and pro-Western forces. There was a disagreement regarding the issue of inclusion of the London-based government in exile as the main pro-Western faction in the government of national unity. The Polish government in exile reacted to the Yalta announcements (unlike the Tehran Conference outcomes, Yalta results were made public) with a series of fervent protests. The Underground State in Poland, through its Council of National Unity that operated in hiding, issued a more measured and pragmatic response, regretting the sacrifices imposed on Poland but expecting a representative government established and committing itself to adapt to the situation and to promote "friendly and peaceful relations" with the Soviet Union. The council declared its readiness to participate in the consultations leading to the formation of the government of national unity. The tripartite Allied commission made up of
Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (; – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician, diplomat, and revolutionary who was a leading figure in the government of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s, as one of Joseph Stalin's closest allies. ...
and the British and American ambassadors in Moscow worked on the composition of the Polish government of national unity from 23 February, but the negotiations soon stalled because of different interpretations of the Yalta Conference agreements. The former prime minister in exile Stanisław Mikołajczyk, approached by representatives of the communist-controlled Provisional Government, refused to make a separate deal with that body, but on 15 April made a statement of acceptance of the Yalta decisions. Because of the continuing disagreement on the composition of the government of national unity, Churchill convinced Mikołajczyk to take part in a conference in Moscow in June 1945, where he and other Polish democrats agreed with Stalin to a temporary deal (until the elections promised to take place soon, but with no specific time frame provided or even discussed) excluding the government in exile. Mikołajczyk was perceived in the West as the only reasonable Polish politician. Based on the understanding reached in Moscow by the three powers with Mikołajczyk's help, the Government of National Unity was constituted on 28 June 1945, with Osóbka-Morawski as prime minister, and
Władysław Gomułka Władysław Gomułka (; 6 February 1905 – 1 September 1982) was a Polish Communist politician. He was the ''de facto'' leader of Polish People's Republic, post-war Poland from 1947 until 1948, and again from 1956 to 1970. Born in 1905 in ...
and Mikołajczyk as deputy prime ministers. Mikołajczyk returned to Poland with
Stanisław Grabski Stanisław Grabski (; 5 April 1871 – 6 May 1949) was a Polish economist and politician associated with the National Democracy (Poland), National Democracy political camp. As the top Polish negotiator during the Peace of Riga talks in 1921, Gra ...
in July and was enthusiastically greeted by large crowds in several Polish cities. The new government was quickly recognized by the United Kingdom, the United States, and most other countries. The government, formally a coalition, was in reality controlled entirely by Gomułka's Polish Workers' Party and other Polish politicians convinced of the inevitability of Soviet domination. The government was charged with conducting elections and normalizing the situation in Poland. The exile government in London, no longer recognized by the great powers, remained in existence until 1991.


Persecution of opposition

Persecution of the opposition intensified in October 1944, when the PKWN authorities encountered widespread loyalty problems among the now conscripted military personnel and other sections of Polish society. The enforcement of the communist rule was undertaken 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 ...
and the Polish security services, all backed by the massive presence of the Red Army in Poland. Potential political opponents of the communists were subjected to Soviet terror campaigns, with many of them arrested, executed or tortured. According to one estimate, 25,000 people lost their lives in labour camps created by the Soviets as early as 1944. A conspiratorial AK-related organization known as NIE (for ''Niepodległość'' or Independence) was set up in 1944 by Emil Fieldorf. General Okulicki became its commander and NIE remained in existence after the AK was dissolved in January 1945. Its activities were directed against the communist
Provisional Government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, a transitional government or provisional leadership, is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revoluti ...
. However, as a result of Okulicki's arrest by the NKVD in March and the persecution, NIE ceased to exist. The Armed Forces Delegation for Poland was established instead in May, to be finally replaced by the Freedom and Independence (WiN) formation, whose goal was to organize political rather than military resistance to the communist domination. Government Delegate Jan Stanisław Jankowski, chairman of the Council of National Unity Kazimierz Pużak and thirteen other
Polish Underground State The Polish Underground State (, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland ...
leaders were invited to and on 27 March 1945 attended talks with General Ivan Serov of the NKVD. They were all arrested and taken to Moscow to await a trial. The Polish communist Provisional Government and the Western leaders were not informed by the Soviets of the arrests. The British and the Americans were notified by the Polish Government-in-Exile. After the belated Soviet admission, they unsuccessfully pressured the Soviet government for the release of the captives. In June 1945, the Trial of the Sixteen was staged in Moscow. They were accused of anti-Soviet subversion and received lenient by Soviet standards sentences, presumably because of the ongoing negotiations on the formation of Polish government and Western interventions. Okulicki was condemned to ten years in prison. Post-German industrial and other property was looted by the Soviets as
war reparations War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. War reparations can take the form of hard currency, precious metals, natural resources, in ...
, even though the former lands of eastern Germany were coming under permanent Polish administration. As the Soviets and the pro-Soviet Poles solidified their control of the country, a political struggle with the suppressed and harassed opposition ensued, accompanied by a residual but brutally fought armed rebellion waged by unreconciled elements of the former, now officially disbanded underground and the nationalistic right wing. Thousands of militiamen, PPR members and others were murdered before the communist authorities brought the situation under control. According to one estimate, in the post-war violence about 10,000 members of the anti-communist underground were killed, along with 4,500 regime functionaries and several hundred Soviet soldiers. A "Democratic Bloc" comprising the communists and their socialist, rural and urban allies was established. Mikołajczyk's
Polish People's Party The Polish People's Party (, PSL) is a conservative political party in Poland. It is currently led by Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Its history traces back to 1895, when it held the name People's Party, although its name was changed to the pre ...
(PSL), which refused to join the bloc, was the only legal opposition; they counted on winning the promised legislative elections. Other contemporary Polish movements, including the
National Democracy National Democracy may refer to: * National democratic state, a state formation conceived by the Soviet concept of national democracy * National Democracy (Czech Republic) * National Democracy (Italy) * National Democracy (Philippines) * National De ...
, Sanation, and
Christian Democracy Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...
were not allowed to function legally and were dealt with by the Polish and Soviet internal security organs. The Western Allies and their leaders, Roosevelt and Churchill in particular, have been criticised by Polish writers and some Western historians for what most Poles see as the abandonment of Poland to Soviet rule. Decisions were made at the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences and on other occasions that amounted, according to such opinions, to Western complicity in Stalin's takeover of Eastern Europe. According to Czubiński, blaming the Western powers, especially Winston Churchill, for a "betrayal" of the Polish ally, "seems a complete misunderstanding".


Soviet-controlled Polish state

Postwar Poland was a state of reduced sovereignty, strongly dependent on the Soviet Union, but the only one possible under the existing circumstances and internationally recognized. The Polish Left's cooperation with the Stalin's regime made the preservation of a Polish state within favorable borders possible. The dominant Polish Workers' Party had a strictly pro-Soviet branch, led by Bierut and a number of internationalist in outlook Jewish communist activists, and a national branch, willing to take a "Polish route to socialism", led by Gomułka. As agreed by the Allies in Yalta, the Soviet Union incorporated the lands in eastern Poland (
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
, east of the Curzon Line), previously occupied and annexed in 1939 (see
Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union Seventeen days after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet Union entered the eastern regions of Poland (known as the ) and annexed territories totalling with a population of 13,299 ...
). Deferring to Stalin's territorial schemes, the Allies compensated Poland with the German territories east of the
Oder–Neisse line The Oder–Neisse line (, ) is an unofficial term for the Germany–Poland border, modern border between Germany and Poland. The line generally follows the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, meeting the Baltic Sea in the north. A small portion ...
, parts of
Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...
,
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, ...
and
East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...
(in Polish communist government's propaganda referred to as the
Recovered Territories The Recovered Territories or Regained Lands () are the lands east of the Oder–Neisse line, Oder-Neisse line that over the centuries were gradually lost by Poland and colonized by the Germans, and that returned to Poland after World War II. T ...
). The deal was practically, but in principle not permanently, finalized at the Potsdam Conference (17 July to 2 August 1945). The entire country was shifted to the west and resembled the territory of Medieval early
Piast Poland The period of rule by the Piast dynasty between the 10th and 14th centuries is the first major stage of the history of the Polish state. The dynasty was founded by a series of dukes listed by the chronicler Gall Anonymous in the early 12th cen ...
. Per the Potsdam agreement, millions of Germans were expelled and forced to relocate their families to the new Germany. About 4.4 million had already fled not waiting for the Potsdam decrees (most during the final months of the war), and 3.5 million were removed from what was now territory of Poland in 1945–1949. Davies wrote that the resettlement of Germans was not merely an act of wartime revenge, but a result of decades old Allied policy. The Russians as well as the British saw the German East Prussia as a product of German militarism, the "root of Europe's miseries", and the Allies therefore intended to eradicate it. The new western and northern territories of Poland were repopulated with
Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...
" repatriated" from the eastern regions now in the Soviet Union (2–3 million people) and from other places. The precise Soviet-Polish border was delineated in the Polish–Soviet border agreement of 16 August 1945. The new Poland emerged 20% smaller (by 77,700 km2 or 29,900 mi2) in comparison to the 1939 borders. Eastern poorly developed regions were lost and western industrialized regions were gained, but the emotional impact for many Poles was clearly negative. The
population transfer Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration that is often imposed by a state policy or international authority. Such mass migrations are most frequently spurred on the basis of ethnicity or religion, but they also occur d ...
s included also the moving of the
Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...
and the
Belarusians Belarusians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Belarus. They natively speak Belarusian language, Belarusian, an East Slavic language. More than 9 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 7.99&n ...
from Poland into their respective Soviet republics.Forced migration in the 20th century
In particular, the Soviet and Polish communist authorities expelled between 1944 and 1947 nearly 700,000 Ukrainians and
Lemkos Lemkos (; ; ; ) are an ethnic group inhabiting the Lemko Region (; ) of Carpathian Rus', an ethnographic region in the Carpathian Mountains and foothills spanning Ukraine, Slovakia, and Poland. Lemkos are often considered to be a sub-group of ...
, transferring most of them into
Soviet Ukraine The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party m ...
, and then spreading the remaining groups in the Polish Recovered Territories during the
Operation Vistula Operation Vistula (; ) was the codename for the 1947 forced resettlement of close to 150,000 Ukrainians in Poland, Ukrainians (including Rusyns, Boykos, and Lemkos) from the southeastern provinces of People's Republic of Poland, postwar Poland to ...
, thus ensuring that postwar Poland would not have significant minorities or any minority concentrations to contend with. Thousands were killed in the attendant strife and violence. After the war, many displaced Poles and some of those living in Kresy, now in the Soviet Union, did not end up in Poland as reestablished in 1945. The population within the respective official Polish borders decreased from 35.1 million in 1939 to 23.7 million in 1946. Poland's western borders were soon questioned by the Germans and many in the West, while the planned peace conference had not materialized because the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
replaced the wartime cooperation. The borders, essential to Poland's existence, were in practice guaranteed by the Soviet Union, which only increased the dependence of Polish government leaders on their Soviet counterparts.


See also

* History of Poland (1945–1989) *
List of Polish cities damaged in World War II As the German army retreated during the later stages of the World War II, Second World War, many of the urban areas of what is now Poland were severely damaged as a result of military action between the retreating forces of the Nazi Germany, Germ ...
*
Polish culture during World War II Polish culture during World War II was suppressed by the occupying powers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both of whom were hostile to Poland's people and cultural heritage. Policies aimed at cultural genocide resulted in the deaths of thou ...
* Polish material losses during World War II * World War II casualties of Poland


Notes

''a.''According to Davies, the Grand Alliance (Britain, USA and the Soviet Union) decided in the meetings of its three leaders that the unconditional defeat of the Reich was the Alliance's overriding priority (principal war aim). Once this definition was accepted, the two Western powers, having obliged themselves not to withdraw from the conflict for any reason (including pressuring the Soviets), had lost their ability to meaningfully influence Soviet actions. ''b.''The PKWN's land reform decree was issued on 6 September 1944. The Polish communists were reluctant to execute the land reform, which represented a radical departure from old Polish legal systems (they claimed adherence to the 1921 March Constitution of Poland). Polish peasants were reluctant to take over the landowners' possessions. Stalin summoned to Moscow in late September the KRN and PKWN leaders, led by Bierut, and inquired about the progress of the land reform. The Soviet leader asked how many estates had already been parceled and was very unhappy to find out that the answer was zero. He repeatedly lectured the Polish leaders, appealing to their communist convictions and patriotism. Stalin urged them to start implementing the land reform without any further delay, not to worry excessively about legal proprieties, because it was a revolutionary action, and to take advantage of the fact that the Red Army was still in Poland to help. ''c.''Marshal Rydz-Śmigły made a final radio broadcast to Polish troops from Romania on September 20. He stressed the Polish army's involvement in fighting the Germans and told the commanders to avoid pointless bloodshed of fighting the
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
. ''d.''All Polish institutions of secondary and higher education were dismantled and remained closed throughout the war. Some managed to continue functioning as an underground activity. ''e.''According to Kochanski, 694,000 Polish soldiers, including 60,000 Jews, were captured by the Germans, and 240,000 by the Soviets. ''f.''Kochanski contradicts Czubiński, stating that the exile government did consider itself at war with the Soviet Union. Sikorski's position was that Germany was the principal enemy and that cooperation with the Soviet Union was conditionally possible. There were rival factions in the government and probably no official proclamations on that issue. ''g.''The British wanted the Polish forces moved to the Middle East because they expected a German offensive in that direction, through the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
. Churchill asked Stalin to permit the Poles to leave the Soviet Union and thanked him when the agreement was secured. Sikorski was opposed to the removal of Polish soldiers from the Soviet Union, but eventually relented. Sikorski wanted Polish armies engaged against Germany in Western Europe, in the Middle East and in the Soviet Union, because of the uncertain outcomes of military campaigns and because of the need for a Polish (
Government-in-Exile A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovereign state or semi-sovereign state, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile usu ...
affiliated) military force fighting along whichever power would eventually liberate Poland. General Anders, earlier characterized in Soviet internal documents as a loyal pro-Soviet Polish officer (he was a strong supporter of the Sikorski–Mayski agreement of July 1941), by the spring of 1942 became convinced of the inevitability of Soviet defeat. Anders then insisted on taking the Polish formations out of the Soviet Union and opposed Sikorski. Eventually Anders became known for his anti-Soviet views; he demanded a dismissal of the government led by Sikorski, his commander-in-chief. At the time of the decision to remove the Polish army from the Soviet Union, it was not yet apparent that the war with Germany would be resolved mainly by a victorious Soviet westbound offensive on the Eastern Front and that the other war theaters would be relegated to a more peripheral role. In particular, it was not known that Poland would be liberated by the Soviets. ''h.''According to Czubiński, 32,000 Polish soldiers were evacuated, including 6,200 pilots. ''i.''According to Kochanski, a million and a quarter labor prisoners were forcibly taken by the Nazis from the
General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...
alone. According to Sowa, over 2.5 million Polish citizens were used as forced laborers in Germany and occupied France. ''j.''After the abortive
Dieppe Raid Operation Jubilee or the Dieppe Raid (19 August 1942) was a disastrous Allied amphibious attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe in northern France, during the Second World War. Over 6,050 infantry, predominantly Canadian, supported by a ...
in
Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...
in 1942, the Allies exercised extra caution and would not risk any more failed operations. In general, the Americans demanded accelerated offensive action in Europe, while the British wanted to delay the landing in France, which they judged impractical for the time being, and focus instead on the much easier to execute Italian Campaign. ''k.''Expecting the arrival of the Red Army, in December 1944 the Nazis at the last moment closed down the Auschwitz slave labor operation, demolished the main compound and force-marched some 60,000 prisoners toward camps in Germany. A smaller number of sick people remained on the premises until the Soviets arrived. ''l.''The Western powers were soon informed of the secret provisions to the treaty, but failed to notify the Polish government. ''m.''The lands expected to be taken from Germany were also considered a restored Polish territory by the
Polish Underground State The Polish Underground State (, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland ...
leaders. ''n.''The Polish communists attempted to obtain modifications of the Curzon Line that would result in Poland retaining
Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
,
Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...
and the oil fields of
Eastern Galicia Eastern Galicia (; ; ) is a geographical region in Western Ukraine (present day oblasts of Lviv Oblast, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil Oblast, Ternopil), having also essential historic importance in Poland. Galicia ( ...
. Similar territorial conditions were postulated by the Polish government in London in August 1944, after Prime Minister Mikołajczyk's visit to Moscow.
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
decided to satisfy the Lithuanian demands for Vilnius, Ukrainian for Lviv, and to annex for the Soviet Union Eastern Galicia, a region that had never been a part of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
. ''o.''The Polish Government-in-Exile had to cope with a number of instances of negative media and other publicity. In one particularly damaging case, about one third of the Jewish soldiers in the Polish Army in Britain deserted, claiming antisemitism in the institution. Some of them joined a British corps and some were
court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...
ed, but eventually granted amnesty by President Raczkiewicz. ''p.''During the 1930s, the relations between the ruling Sanation camp and the various opposition groups and parties were tense, often hostile. From 1938, the growing external threat was clearly perceived by many and there were voices (mainly from the opposition) calling for the formation of a unified Government of National Defense and for taking other steps to promote a defense-minded consolidation of society. The Sanation ruling circle was not inclined to broaden the government's base and in June 1939 ultimately rejected any power-sharing ideas, apparently because they did not believe in the seriousness of German hostile intentions. The delegations that paid visits to President Mościcki and presented petitions on the issue of coalition government and general war preparedness, representing the agrarian and socialist parties and Polish intellectuals, were not well received. The regime did appeal to citizens' patriotism and generosity and several major fund raising efforts, often led by opposition groups and politicians (some of whom returned at that time of danger from political exile), resulted in donations of considerable magnitude, which by and large ended up not utilized. ''q.''In late February 1945, referring to the post-
Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (), held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three sta ...
protests of the
Polish Government-in-Exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
,
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
said the following in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
: "Let me remind them that there would have been no Lublin Committee or Lublin Provisional Government in Poland if the Polish Government in London had accepted our faithful counsel given to them a year ago. They would have entered into Poland as its active Government, with the liberating Armies of Russia." ''r.''The right-wing anti-communist
National Armed Forces National Armed Forces (; NSZ) was a Polish right-wing underground military organization of the National Democracy (Poland), National Democracy operating from 1942. During World War II, NSZ troops fought against Nazi Germany and Gwardia Ludowa, c ...
(NSZ) stopped cooperating with the AK in November 1944. Being highly antisemitic, they attacked
Jewish partisans Jewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance under Nazi rule, Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, its collaborators during W ...
in German-occupied Poland. They fought the incoming Soviet troops and Polish security forces. The Holy Cross Mountains Brigade of the NSZ avoided the Soviet advance and collaborated with the German military authorities, which made possible its entry into Czechoslovakia in February 1945. As the war ended, the brigade came in contact with the US 3rd Army. The British refused to agree to the brigade's incorporation into the
Polish Armed Forces in the West The Polish Armed Forces in the West () refers to the Polish Armed Forces, Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Allies of World War II, Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its Axis powers, allies during World War II. Poli ...
and the brigade was disarmed by the US Army in August. ''s.''According to Andrzej Leon Sowa, between 10,000 and 25,000 civilians and 5,000 Polish soldiers perished during the siege and defense of Warsaw. ''t.''The size of post-war Poland was determined by
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
alone, because the Western Allies, as shown by the record of British diplomacy, would not have objected to a much smaller Polish state being established. ''u.'' The communist
Provisional Government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, a transitional government or provisional leadership, is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revoluti ...
of Poland demanded the establishment of the post-war Polish-German border at the
Oder–Neisse line The Oder–Neisse line (, ) is an unofficial term for the Germany–Poland border, modern border between Germany and Poland. The line generally follows the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, meeting the Baltic Sea in the north. A small portion ...
, that is along the
Lusatian Neisse The Lusatian Neisse (; ; ; Upper Sorbian: ''Łužiska Nysa''; Lower Sorbian: ''Łužyska Nysa''), or Western Neisse, is a river in northern Central Europe.
(Western Neisse), and, further north, the
Oder The Oder ( ; Czech and ) is a river in Central Europe. It is Poland's second-longest river and third-longest within its borders after the Vistula and its largest tributary the Warta. The Oder rises in the Czech Republic and flows through wes ...
river.
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
indicated his support for the Polish position and the Provisional Government administered the region as soon as it was cleared of the German forces. The American and especially the British governments had a long-standing preference for the border to run further east in its southern portion, along the Nysa Kłodzka (Eastern Neisse) and the upper Oder rivers, which would keep a large portion of Lower Silesia and of the city of Breslau in post-war Germany. At the Potsdam Conference, the delegation of what was now the Polish
Provisional Government of National Unity The Provisional Government of National Unity (, TRJN) was a puppet government formed by the decree of the State National Council (, KRN) on 28 June 1945 as a result of reshuffling the Soviet-backed Provisional Government of the Republic of Pola ...
continued lobbying aimed at keeping all of Lower Silesia under Polish jurisdiction, rather than letting some of it be a part of the
Soviet occupation zone The Soviet occupation zone in Germany ( or , ; ) was an area of Germany that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a communist area, established as a result of the Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republ ...
of Germany. Taking advantage of the British delegation's disruption by the results of the British election, the Americans engaged in dealing with the Soviets on their own. Its outcome, stated in the conference protocols, was that until the final peace settlement, the area all the way west to the Lusatian Neisse would by administered by Poland and not be a part of the Soviet zone of occupation. The planned peace conference never took place and the border has remained where it was provisionally placed in 1945. It was confirmed in the treaties that Poland signed with
West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
in 1970 and with unified Germany in 1990. ''v.''The confiscations stopped after repeated appeals to
Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (; – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician, diplomat, and revolutionary who was a leading figure in the government of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s, as one of Joseph Stalin's closest allies. ...
by Jakub Berman and Hilary Minc. ''w.''There was a total of 1,517,983 'repatriates' from the east, according to Halik Kochanski. Others give different figures. Of the several million ethnic Poles living in
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
, a few million were repatriated to Poland as reestablished within new borders, while perhaps a million stayed in what had become the Soviet territory. ''x.''Most of the soldiers who opted to stay in the West hailed from the eastern
Kresy Eastern Borderlands (), often simply Borderlands (, ) was a historical region of the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic. The term was coined during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with ...
areas annexed to the Soviet Union. The bulk of Anders' Army fell in that category. ''y.''Several thousand Poles fought in the
Soviet partisans Soviet partisans were members of Resistance during World War II, resistance movements that fought a Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla war against Axis powers, Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Territories of Poland an ...
units. A smaller number of Jews also served there and in the Polish communist Gwardia Ludowa. Jews were rarely admitted into the Polish mainstream and
nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
underground armed organizations. ''z.''The liberation of the
Praga Praga is a district of Warsaw, Poland. It is on the east bank of the river Vistula. First mentioned in 1432, until 1791 it formed a separate town with its own city charter. History The historical Praga was a small settlement located at the e ...
right-bank part of Warsaw took over a month of fighting at the cost of eight thousand soldiers killed on each side. After the area was cleared of the Germans in mid-September, General
Zygmunt Berling Zygmunt Henryk Berling (27 April 1896 – 11 July 1980) was a Polish general and politician. He fought for the independence of Poland in the early 20th century. Berling was a co-founder and commander of the First Polish Army (1944–1945), First ...
's forces crossed the
Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...
and the failed Czerniaków operation (a limited
Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...
rescue attempt) began.


Citations


Bibliography

* * Chodakiewicz, Marek Jan. ''Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939–1947.'' Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004
online review
*Coutouvidis, John, and Reynolds, Jaime. ''Poland, 1939–1947'' (1986) * Davies, Norman (1982), ''God's Playground''. New York: Columbia University Press. and . * Davies, Norman ''Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw'' (2004) * Douglas, R.M. ''Orderly and Humane. The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War''. Yale University Press, 2012. . * * Gross, Jan Tomasz, ''Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia'', Princeton University Press, 2002, . * Gross, Jan T. ''Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement, 1939–1944'' (Princeton UP, 1979) *Hiden, John. ed. ''The Baltic and the Outbreak of the Second World War'', Cambridge University Press, 2003, * Kochanski, Halik.
The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War.
' Harvard U.P., 2012, , wit
word search by Amazon.
* Koskodan, Kenneth K. ''No Greater Ally: The Untold Story of Poland's Forces in World War II'', Osprey Publishing 2009, . * Lukas, Richard C. ''Did the Children Cry: Hitler's War Against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939–1945'' (1st ed.; N.Y.:Hippocrene, 1994). * Lukas, Richard C. ''Forgotten Holocaust:The Poles under German Occupation, 1939–1944'' (3rd rev. ed.; N.Y.:Hippocrene, 2012). * Lukas, Richard C. ''Forgotten Survivors:Polish Christians Remember the Nazi Occupation'' (1st ed.; Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004). * * Snyder, Timothy. ''Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin'' (2010) *Terlecki, Olgierd. (1972), ''Poles in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1945'', Interpress Publishers. * Steven J. Zaloga, ''Poland 1939: The birth of Blitzkrieg'', Osprey Publishing 2002, .


External links


Collection of civilian testimonies from German-occupied Poland in "Chronicles of Terror" database
Witold J. Lukaszewski, Sarmatian Review, April 1998 {{DEFAULTSORT:History of Poland (1939-1945)
1939 This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...
1939 This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...
1940 A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, events related to World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January *Janu ...
Modern history of Poland, .1939 Military history of Poland during World War II, . World War II occupied territories, Poland Politics of World War II, Poland 20th century in Poland