The Polish resistance movement in World War II, with the Home Army at its forefront, was the largest underground resistance in all of Nazi-occupied Europe, covering both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish defence against the Nazi occupation was an important part of the European anti-fascist resistance movement. It is most notable for disrupting German supply lines to the Eastern Front, providing military intelligence to the British, and for saving more Jewish lives in the Holocaust than any other Allied organization or government. It was a part of the Polish Underground State.

Organizations Soldiers from Kolegium "A" of Kedyw on Stawki Street inWola district - Warsaw Uprising 1944 Polish partisans from Kielce area - unit "J?drusie" 1945

The largest of all Polish resistance organizations was the Home Army (in Polish,Armia Krajowa or AK), loyal to the Polish government in exile in London. The AKwas formed in 1942 from within the Union for Armed Combat (Zwi?zek Walki Zbrojnej or ZWZ, created in 1939) and incorporated most other Polish resistance groups (except for the communists and some far-right groups). It was the military arm of the Polish Secret State.

From 1943 the AK was increasingly in competition with the communist resistance People's Army (Polish Armia Ludowa or AL), backed by the Soviet Union and controlled by the Polish Workers' Party (Polish Polska Partia Robotnicza or PPR). After the fall of France Poles who were not involved in the regular Polish Army in France and combatants who not escaped to Britain created the Polish resistance in France.

“ "Within the framework of the entire enemy intelligence operations directed against Germany, the intelligence service of the Polish resistance movement assumed major significance. The scope and importance of the operations of the Polish resistance movement, which was ramfied down to the smallest splinter group and brilliantly organized, have been in (various sources) discclosed in connection with carrying out of major police security operations"" ”

— Heinrich Himmler, 31 December 1942

Membership

By 1944 the AK had some 380,000 men, although not all of them were armed: the AL was much smaller, numbering around 30,000. By the summer of 1944 Polish underground forces numbered more than 300,000 with some estimates of over 400,000-500,000.

Actions, operations and intelligence 1939-1945

1939

Witold Pilecki - founder of TAPorganisation and the secret agent of Polish resistance in Auschwitz

On November 9, 1939, the two soldiers of Polish army Witold Pilecki and Major Jan W?odarkiewicz founded the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland after defeat.

Pilecki became its organizational commander as TAP expanded to cover not only Warsawbut Siedlce, Radom, Lublin and other major cities of central Poland. By 1940, TAP had approximately 8,000 men (more than half of them armed), some 20 machine guns and several anti-tank rifles. Later, the organization was incorporated into the Union for Armed Struggle (Zwi?zek Walki Zbrojnej), later renamed and better known as the Home Army (Armia Krajowa).

1940 Major Henryk Dobrza?ski aka "Hubal" "Hubal" and his partisan unit - winter 1940

In March 1940, a partisan unit of the first guerrilla commanders in the Second World War in Europe under Major Henryk Dobrza?ski "Hubal" completely destroyed abattalion of German infantry in a skirmish near the village of Huciska.

A few days later in an ambush near the village of Sza?asy it inflicted heavy casualties upon another German unit. To counter this threat the German authorities formed a special 1,000 men strong anti-partisan unit of combined SS–Wehrmacht forces, including a Panzer group. Although the unit of Major Dobrza?ski never exceeded 300 men, the Germans fielded at least 8,000 men in the area to secure it.

In 1940, Witold Pilecki, a member of the Polish resistance, presented to his superiors a plan to enter Germany's Auschwitz concentration camp, gather intelligence on the camp from the inside, and organize inmate resistance. The Home Army approved this plan, provided him a false identity card, and on September 19, 1940, he deliberately went out during a street roundup in Warsaw - ?apanka, and was caught by the Germans along with other civilians and sent to Auschwitz. In the camp he organized the underground organization -Zwi?zek Organizacji Wojskowej - ZOW. From October 1940, ZOW sent its first report about the camp and the genocide in November 1940 to Home Army Headquarters in Warsaw through the resistance network organized in Auschwitz.

During the night of January 21–22, 1940, in the Soviet-occupied Podolian town of Czortków TheCzortków Uprising started. It was the first Polish uprising during World War II. Anti-Soviet Poles, most of them teenagers from local high schools, stormed the local Red Army barracks and a prison, in order to release Polish soldiers kept there.

On the end of 1940 Aleksander Kami?ski created Polish youth resistance organization - "Wawer". It was part of the Szare Szeregi (the underground Polish Scouting Association). Organisation provided many minor sabotage operations in occupied Poland and its first action was series of graffiti in Warsaw around the Christmas Eve of 1940, commemorating the Wawer massacre. Members of the AK Wawer "Small Sabotage" units painted "Pom?cimy Wawer" ("We'll avenge Wawer") on Warsaw walls. At first they painted the whole text, then to save time they shortened it to two letters, P and W. Later they invented Kotwica -"Anchor" - who became the symbol of all Polish resistance in occupied Poland.

1941 Poster spread by Operation N

From April 1941 the Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Union for Armed Struggle startedOperation N headed by Tadeusz ?enczykowski. It involved sabotage, subversion and black-propagandaactivities.

From March 1941, Witold Pilecki's reports were forwarded to the Polish government in exile and through it, to the British and other Allied governments. These reports informed the Allies about the Holocaust and were the principal source of intelligence on Auschwitz-Birkenau for the Western Allies.

On March 7, 1941, two Polish agents of the Home Army killed Nazi collaborator actor Igo Sym in his apartment in Warsaw. In reprisal, 21 Polish hostages were executed. Several Polish actors were also arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz, among them such notable figures as directors Stefan Jaraczand Leon Schiller.

In July 1941 Mieczys?aw S?owikowski (using the codename "Rygor" — Polish for "Rigor") set up "Agency Africa," one of World War II's most successful intelligence organizations. His Polish allies in these endeavors included Lt. Col. Gwido Langer and Major Maksymilian Ci??ki. The information gathered by the Agency was used by the Americans and British in planning the amphibious November 1942 Operation Torch landings in North Africa. These were the first large-scale Allied landings of the war, and their success in turn paved the way for the Allies' Italian campaign.

1942 Polish partisan Zdzis?aw de Ville "Zdzich", member of AK "J?drusie" with Polish version of the M1918 BAR

On 20 June 1942 took place the most spectacular escape from Auschwitz concentration camp. UkrainianEugeniusz Bendera and three Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanis?aw Gustaw Jaster and Józef Lempartmade a daring escape. The escapees were dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, fully armed and in an SS staff car. They drove out the main gate in a stolen Rudolf Hoss automobile Steyr 220 with a smuggled report from Witold Pilecki about the Holocaust. The Germans never recaptured any of them.

In September 1942 "The Council to Aid Jews ?egota" was founded by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz ("Alinka") and made up of Polish Democrat as well as other Catholic activists. Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where there existed such a dedicated secret organization. Half of the Jews who survived the war (thus over 50,000) were aided in some shape or form by ?egota. Most known activist of ?egota was Irena Sendler head of the children's division who saved 2,500 Jewishchildren by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, providing them false documents, and sheltering them in individual and group children's homes outside the Ghetto.

In 1942 Jan Karski reported to the Polish, British and U.S. governments on the situation in Poland, especially the Holocaust of the Jews. He met with Polish politicians in exile including the prime minister, as well as members of political parties such as the PPS, SN, SP, SL, Jewish Bund and Poalei Zion. He also spoke to Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, and included a detailed statement on what he had seen in Warsaw and Be??ec.

The Zamo?? Uprising was an armed uprising of Armia Krajowa and Bataliony Ch?opskie against the forced expulsion of Poles from theZamo?? region under the Nazi Generalplan Ost. Germans attempting to remove the local Poles from the Greater Zamo?? area (through forced removal, transfer to forced labor camps, or, in some cases, mass murder) to get it ready for German colonization. It lasted from 1942 until 1944 and despite heavy casualties suffered by the Underground, the Germans failed.

On the night from 7 to 8 October 1942 Operation Wieniec started. It targeted rail infrastructure near Warsaw. Similar operations aimed at disrupting German transport and communication in occupied Poland occurred in the coming months and years. It targeted railroads, bridges and supply depots, primarily near transport hubs such as Warsaw and Lublin.

[edit]1943

In early 1943 two Polish slave janitors of Peenemünde's Camp Trassenheide provided maps, sketches and reports to Polish Home Army Intelligence, and in June 1943 British intelligence had received two such reports which identified the "rocket assembly hall', 'experimental pit', and 'launching tower'. When reconnaissance and intelligence information regarding the V-2 rocket became convincing, theWar Cabinet Defence Committee (Operations) directed the campaign's first planned raid (the Operation Hydra bombing of Peenemünde in August 1943) and Operation Crossbow.

On March 26, 1943 in Warsaw Operation Arsenal was launched by the Szare Szeregi (Gray Ranks) Polish Underground The successful operation led to the release of arrested troop leader Jan Bytnar "Rudy". In an attack on the prison van Bytnar and 24 other prisoners were freed.

In 1943 in London Jan Karski met the then much known journalist Arthur Koestler. He then traveled to the United States and reported to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His report was a major factor in informing the West. In July 1943, again personally reported to Roosevelt about the situation in Poland.

During their meeting Roosevelt suddenly interrupted his report and asked about the condition of horses in occupied Poland. He also met with many other government and civic leaders in the United States, including Felix Frankfurter,Cordell Hull, William Joseph Donovan, and Stephen Wise. Karski also presented his report to media, bishops of various denominations (including Cardinal Samuel Stritch), members of the Hollywood film industry and artists, but without success. Many of those he spoke to did not believe him, or supposed that his testimony was much exaggerated or was propaganda from the Polish government in exile.

In April 1943 the Germans began deporting the remaining Jews from the Warsaw ghetto provoking the Warsaw Ghetto Rising, April 19 to May 16. Some units of the AK tried to assist the Ghetto rising, but for the most part the resistance was unprepared and unable to defeat the Germans.

One Polish AK unit, the National Security Corps (Pa?stwowy Korpus Bezpiecze?stwa), under the command of Henryk Iwa?ski("Bystry"), fought inside the ghetto along with ?ZW. Subsequently, both groups retreated together (including 34 Jewish fighters). Although Iwa?ski's action is the most well-known rescue mission, it was only one of many actions undertaken by the Polish resistance to help the Jewish fighters.

In one attack, three cell units of AK under the command of Kapitan Józef Pszenny ("Chwacki") tried to breach the ghetto walls with explosives, but the Germans defeated this action. AK and GL engaged the Germans between April 19 and April 23 at six different locations outside the ghetto walls, shooting at German sentries and positions and in one case attempting to blow up a gate. After the failure of the uprising, the Jewish leaders knew they would be crushed, but they preferred to die fighting than wait to be deported to their deaths in the concentration camps.

AK members recovering V-2 from the Bug River.

In August 1943 the headquarters of the Armia Krajowa ordered Operation Belt who was one of the large-scale anti-Nazi operations of the AK during the war. By February 1944, 13 German outposts were destroyed with few losses on the Polish side.

Operation Heads started - action of the serial assassinations Nazi personnel sentenced to death by the Special Courts for crimes against Polish citizens in occupied Poland.

On September 7, 1943, the Home Army killed Franz Bürkl during Operation Bürkl. Bürkl was a high-ranking Gestapo agent responsible for the murder and brutal interrogation of thousands ofPolish Jews and resistance fighters and supporters. In reprisal, 20 inmates of Pawiak were murdered in a public execution by the Nazis.

From November 1943, Operation Most III started. The Armia Krajowa provided the Allies with crucial intelligence on the German V-2 rocket. In effect some 50 kg of the most important parts of the captured V-2, as well as the final report, analyses, sketches and photos, were transported to Brindisi by a Royal Air Force Douglas Dakota aircraft. In late July 1944, the V-2 parts were delivered to London.

1944 Polish resistance soldiers from Batalion Zo?ka during 1944 Warsaw Uprising "Gray Wolf" with Polish national flag - German armored fighting vehicle SdKfz 251captured by the Warsaw insurgents- 8-th "Krybar" Regiment, on August 14, 1944 from 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking.

On 11 February 1944 the Resistance fighters of Polish Home Army's unit Agat executed Franz Kutschera, SSand Reich's Police Chief in Warsaw in action known as Operation Kutschera. In a reprisal of this action 27 February 140 inmates of Pawiak - Poles and Jews were shot in a public execution by the Germans.

May 13–May 14, 1944 the Battle of Murowana Oszmianka the largest clash between the Polish anti-NaziHome Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) and the Nazi Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force a Lithuanian volunteer security force subordinated to Nazi Germany. The battle took place in and near the village of Murowana Oszmianka in Generalbezirk Litauen Reichskommissariat Ostland. The outcome of the battle was that the 301st LVR battalion was routed and the entire force was disbanded by the Germans soon afterwards.

On June 14, 1944 took place Battle of Porytowe Wzgórze between Polish and Russian partisans, numbering around 3000, and the Nazi German units consisted of between 25000 to 30000 soldiers, with artillery, tanks and armored cars and air support.

On 25–26 June 1944 the Battle of Osuchy - one of the largest battles between the Polish resistance and Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II, continuation of the Zamo?? Uprising.

During 1943 the Home Army built up its forces in preparation for a national uprising. The plan of national anti nazi uprising on areas of prewar Poland was code-named Operation Tempest. Preparation began in late 1943 but military actions start in 1944. Its most widely known elements were Operation Ostra Brama, Lwów Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising.

On July 7 started Operation Ostra Brama Approximately 12,500 Home Army soldiers attacked the German garrison and managed to seize most of the city center. Heavy street fighting in the outskirts lasted until July 14. In Vilnius' eastern suburbs, the Home Army units cooperated with reconnaissance groups of the Soviet 3rd Belorussian Front. The Red Army entered the city on July 15, and the NKVD started to intern all Polish soldiers. On July 16, the HQ of the 3rd Belorussian Front invited Polish officers to a meeting and arrested them.

On July 23 started The Lwów Uprising the armed struggle started by the Polish Home Army(Armia Krajowa) against the Nazi occupiers in Lwów, during World War II. It started on, 1944 as a part of a plan of all-national uprising codenamed Operation Tempest. The fights lasted until July 27 and resulted in liberation of the city. However, shortly afterwards the Polish soldiers were arrested by the invading Soviets and either forced to join the Red Army or sent to the Gulags. The city itself was occupied by the Soviet Union.

In August 1944, as the Soviet armed forces approached Warsaw, the government in exile called for an uprising in the city, so that they could return to a liberated Warsaw and try to prevent a communist take-over. The AK, led by Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, launched the Warsaw Uprising. Soviet forces were less than 20 km away but on the orders of Soviet High Command they gave no assistance. Stalin described the rising as a "criminal adventure". The Poles appealed for the western Allies for help. The Royal Air Force, and the Polish Air Force based in Italy, dropped some arms, but it was almost impossible for the Allies to help the Poles without Soviet assistance.

The fighting in Warsaw was desperate. The AK had between 12,000 and 20,000 armed soldiers, most with only small arms, against a well-armed German Army of 20,000 SS and regular Army units. Bór-Komorowski's hope that the AK could take and hold Warsaw for the return of the London government was never likely to be achieved. After 63 days of savage fighting the city was reduced to rubble, and the reprisals were savage. The SS and auxiliary units were particularly brutal.

After Bór-Komorowski's surrender the AK fighters were treated as prisoners-of-war by the Germans, much to the outrage of Stalin, but the civilian population were ruthlessly punished. Overall Polish casualties are estimated to be between 150,000–300,000 killed, 90,000 civilians were sent to labor camps in the Reich, while 60,000 were shipped to death and concentration camps such as Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, Mauthausen and others.

The city was almost totally destroyed after German sappers systematically demolished the city. The Warsaw Uprising allowed the Germans to destroy the AK as a fighting force, but the main beneficiary was Stalin, who was able to impose a communist government on postwar Poland with little fear of armed resistance.

1945

In March 1945 staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet Union took place in Moscow - (Trial of the Sixteen). The Government Delegate, together with most members of the Council of National Unity and the C-i-C of the Armia Krajowa, were invited by Soviet general Ivan Serov with agreement of Joseph Stalin to a conference on their eventual entry to the Soviet-backed Provisional Government. They were presented with a warrant of safety, yet they were arrested in Pruszków by the NKVD on 27 and 28 March.

Leopold Okulicki, Jan Stanis?aw Jankowski and Kazimierz Pu?ak were arrested on 27th with 12 more the next day. A.Zwierzynski had been arrested earlier. They were brought to Moscow for interrogation in the Lubyanka. After several months of brutal interrogation and torture they were presented with the forged accusations of "collaboration with Nazi Germany" and "planning a military alliance with Nazi Germany"

Nazi Crimes Against Ethnic Poles