The FSB of Russia publishes declassified documents on the activities of the operational groups of the 4th (off-front) department of the NKGB of the USSR on the territory of Poland and on the cooperation of detachments of the Polish Home Army with the Nazis.
Archival reports speak of contacts between Polish nationalists and the Nazis, of their reprisals against fellow Jews and Poles who sympathized with the USSR.
"Military-political meanness"
The Craiova Army (AK) was formed at the turn of 1939-1940 as an armed wing of underground military-political structures subordinate to the Polish government in exile, which was actually located in the UK.
According to historians, until 1943, the activities of the AK were reduced mainly to targeted sabotage, information gathering, and organizational and propaganda work.
In the future, she carried out partisan operations, which, however, were not very large-scale and did not make a significant contribution to the defeat of Nazism, experts say.
Moreover, as evidenced by archival documents published by the FSB of the Russian Federation, units of the AK in a number of situations actively cooperated with the Nazis.
“In historiography, there is an opinion that the Craiova Army for a long time “accumulated reserves” and performed some other indistinct actions.
The concrete and confirmed results of its activities cannot be compared with the struggle of Soviet partisans who made many kilometers of raids and destroyed entire German garrisons, ”Dmitry Surzhik, executive secretary of the Association of Historians of the Union State, said in an interview with RT.
According to him, against the background of the successes of the Red Army during the Belarusian strategic offensive operation of 1944, which allowed the Soviet troops to liberate part of the territory of Poland, the AK command decided to seize power in the settlements of the former Commonwealth, from where the Germans retreated, but where the Soviet administration had not yet been created .
“From a moral point of view, such actions can only be assessed as military-political meanness.
But in any case, nothing came of it.
The Home Army simply did not have enough strength for this, ”Surzhik emphasized.
Home Army unit
Gettyimages.ru
© Picture Post
According to experts, there are many white spots in the history of AK.
In various parts of Poland and the border areas of neighboring states, the activities of its units were not uniform and were of an ambiguous nature.
“The Home Army is a complex phenomenon.
For example, on the territory of Belarus, there were clashes between Akovites and Soviet partisans, and in Western Ukraine, local units of the AK, on the contrary, collaborated with Soviet partisans in the face of a common threat posed by Ukrainian nationalists who committed massacres of the Polish civilian population, ”said in an interview with RT Director of the Historical Memory Foundation Alexander Dyukov.
Documentary evidence
The published documents of the 4th (off-front) department of the NKGB of the USSR highlight the facts of the active cooperation of a number of units of the Home Army with the Nazis and their participation in punitive actions against the pro-Soviet-minded population.
So, at the end of June 1944, the People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR Vsevolod Merkulov reported to the USSR State Defense Committee about the situation developing inside the AK, the contacts of its fighters with the Nazi invaders and the formation of the so-called Polish legions by the German command.
In June 1944, in the territory of the General Government (part of occupied Poland), the task force of the NKGB of the USSR, Major of State Security German Mukhin, intercepted a letter from the commander of the detachment of the Polish peasant movement of the Battalions of Clap (BKh) "Godfather" to his chief "Orach", which reported:
“The flying detachments of the Home Army, receiving English aircraft, are hiding from us, covering their tracks.
On their part, we see no desire to cooperate with us.
We boil and seethe from combinations of leadership, from theft and speculation in discarded weapons.
So things can come to an explosion ... This weapon is thrown by the pans from the "AK" and it can be directed at our chest.
The pans mock and deceive us.
I am waiting for a decision - whether to recapture the dropped weapons from the villains, or look for them in German manors ... We will try to settle the score.
The German occupation authorities took advantage of the conflicts within the underground to engage Polish nationalists in the fight against Polish patriots and Soviet partisans who sympathized with the USSR, while committing various provocations.
According to the report of the head of the operational group of the NKGB of the USSR, senior lieutenant of state security German Mukhin, who operated in the Pinsk region of Belarus, “in the Stolbovtsy and Nesvizh districts of the Baranovichi region, the Polish Volunteer Army, formed by the Germans, is stationed under the name “Polish Legions”.
Legions number 1500-1700 people.
In the city of Tarnow, Krakow region, the Germans also posted an announcement calling to join the "Polish Legions".
Special messages of the NKGB of the USSR
The head of the operational group of the NKGB of the USSR, State Security Major Viktor Karasev, reported in May 1944: “The commander of the Polish illegal detachment Shanets, operating in the mountains.
Ostrawiec, received automatic weapons from the Germans, as well as badges with images of the Polish coat of arms, a white eagle with an inscription in Polish and German.
The operational group of the NKGB of the USSR, operating in the Sventsitsky and Svirsky regions of the Lithuanian SSR, informed its command: “on the initiative of the Germans, at the end of January of this year.
the commander of the Polish brigade "Lopashko" began negotiations with them on the fight against partisans.
As a result of negotiations in early February of this year.
in the areas indicated above, the gebitskommissar Wulf ordered the cessation of hostilities between the German-Lithuanian and Polish armed forces.
Fragments of the message of the NKGB of the USSR
In a special message dated January 9, 1945, the operational group of the NKGB of the USSR, operating south of Krakow, said:
“The head of the task force ... Major of State Security Comrade.
Zolotar reports... The command of the Home Army has issued an order prohibiting attacks on the Germans.
The published documents also mention that the commander of the regiment of the Home Army of the Krakow Voivodeship, Major "Borowy" (Major of Artillery Adam Stabrava, commander of the First Regiment of the Podhalian Riflemen of the Home Army) gave a secret order to the detachments of his regiment to shoot all the Jews who were in the service of the Home Army, due to the fact that they allegedly can run over to the Soviet partisans and provide information about the AK, its tasks and structure.
Fragments of the message of the NKGB of the USSR
Information about the destruction of persons sympathizing with the Soviet partisans by the Akovites also came from other task forces.
So, on January 21, 1945, the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR, Pavel Sudoplatov, sent a memorandum to the Deputy People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR Bogdan Kobulov about the recruitment of an AK lieutenant nicknamed "Charny" - Lieutenant of the Italian army Enzo Boletti.
"Charny" reported that "a purge of officers is taking place in the AK detachments.
The entire old command staff is relieved of their positions and Polish officers sent from England are appointed in their place ... Persons sympathetic to the Soviet Union, as well as those associated with Soviet partisans, are physically destroyed by the AK high command.
Machine gunners of the Home Army
Gettyimages.ru
© Picture Post
On March 12, 1945, Sudoplatov provided the People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR Vsevolod Merkulov with information received from the commander of the front-line Special Group of the NKGB of the USSR, Senior Lieutenant Alexander Shikhov, who operated in the Vilna region:
“The bandit Eduard Voitkevich was detained, who, being sure that he was dealing in the person of Comrade.
Shikhova with the head of the gang, told him about his belonging to the Mosquito gang, called his nickname "Pantsesh" and said that the Mosquito gang consists of 60 regular bandits and is armed with 5 machine guns and a lot of machine guns.
"Pancesh" also reported that in the "Mosquito" gang there is a group of German paratroopers in the amount of 6 people, led by a major who has a walkie-talkie, with the help of which he communicates with the German command.
Message from the NKGB of the USSR
Published documents also indicate that AK militants carried out acts of terror against the commanders of the Red Army fighting the Nazis.
On January 18, 1945, Sudoplatov sent a memo to the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence Smersh NPO of the USSR and to the People's Commissars of State Security of the Belarusian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian USSR.
“According to intelligence data from our operational group operating on the territory of Poland, the leadership of the Home Army supplied its branches with a large amount of poisons in order to use them for individual terror against Soviet officers.
So, the commander of one of the battalions of the AK regiment Borovoye received special poisons, among which a powder that irritates the skin is used by pollinating clothes and potassium cyanide, ”the document says.
Meanwhile, as historians recall, the authorities of modern Poland categorically glorify the Craiova Army and seek to erase from history all other forces that participated in the liberation of their country from Nazism - moreover, both Soviet and local formations collaborating with the USSR - the Polish Committee of National Liberation and Army of Ludov.
Home Army unit
Gettyimages.ru
© Picture Post
Dmitry Surzhik calls the declassification and publication of the documents of the NKGB an important step for an objective understanding of the events of World War II.
“When studying the history of the Second World War on the territory of Poland, a big question arises: if many Akovites fought against the Soviet army, which liberated their country from the Nazis, then on whose side did they fight?
I think that the current Polish authorities will not like a sincere answer to this question, ”summed up Surzhik.