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Poland’s Home Army (AK) receives funding from Axis Powers

The Polish terror organization received military funding from Germany, Japan, Italy, and Hungary, evidence uncovered by the Sovinform shows.

The History of the USSR & the Peoples’ Democracies

Chapter 13, Section 4 (C13S4)

Saed Teymuri

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The Home Army, whose high command was based in London, was a front for the British intelligence service, and thus the activity of the Home Army reflected the interests of the MI6. For this reason, much as with the MI6 itself, the period of the activity of the Home Army in Poland is divided into three main phases: (1) 1939 to late 1940 or early 1941, (2) 1941 to late 1942 or early 1943, (3) 1943 and beyond. During the period 1939 to late early 1941, the MI6 regarded the Nazi Germans as unofficial allies against the USSR, and hence the ‘Polish Underground’ – also known as the Home Army – was allied with the fascists. According to the Nazi German intelligence chief Walter Schellenberg, as early as 1940, the Polish Underground was actively and covertly collaborating with Japanese diplomatic channels:

the Secret Service of the Polish resistance movement was working in collaboration with the Manchoukuoan Embassy, which was the same thing as saying the Japanese Embassy. In other words, they were obviously working with the Japanese Secret Service. (Hitler’s Secret Service, Original title: The Labyrinth, Walther Schellenberg, Introduction by Alan Bullock, Translation by Louis Hagen, first published: 1956, p. 138) (IMG)

Based on intelligence gathered by the Germans:

it was plain that the Japanese were availing themselves of this organization [i.e. Polish Underground] and the extensive information network that was being built up there. (Hitler’s Secret Service, Original title: The Labyrinth, Walther Schellenberg, Introduction by Alan Bullock, Translation by Louis Hagen, first published: 1956, p. 140) (IMG)

Imperial Japan provided financial support for the Polish AK:

the Japanese Secret Service had taken notice of the organization and methods of the Polish resistance from a very early point of its development. At first the resistance consisted not so much of fighting units of officers and soldiers, but of loosely organized resistance centers with an extensive information service. The Japanese decided to provide this movement with financial aid, as it could be of use to their own intelligence organization. The Japanese almost always availed themselves the services of nationals in those countries in which they were operating. Poland was an especially interesting field for them, as it could be used for intelligence work in two directions, against the Germans and [more importantly] against the Russians. They supplied the Poles with financial support, technical equipment and specially trained couriers, and even went so far as to naturalize their Polish agents and supply them with diplomatic passports. (Hitler’s Secret Service, Original title: The Labyrinth, Walther Schellenberg, Introduction by Alan Bullock, Translation by Louis Hagen, first published: 1956, p. 142) (IMG)

As one may expect, the Japanese did not utilize the Polish Underground state as much against Germany as against the Soviet Union. Indeed, as Schellenberg put it, in using these Polish Underground, the Japanese were mainly engaged:

in the construction of a Secret Service net against Russia…. (Hitler’s Secret Service, Original title: The Labyrinth, Walther Schellenberg, Introduction by Alan Bullock, Translation by Louis Hagen, first published: 1956, p. 143) (IMG)

It should come as no surprise that according to a document by the Cambridge University Press,:

One leaflet distributed in 1941 characterized the PPR leaders and their ideas as simply spokespersons of the Soviet government. “The aim of the Polish Worker’s Party [PPR],” the leaflet stated, “is the struggle against the Polish Government, the Polish Army, and the Polish Nation…. The PPR is preparing the fifth partition of Poland.” (The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, Cambridge University Press, Joshua D. Zimmerman, June 5, 2015, p. 120) (IMG)

In 1941 came the second phase of the activities of the Home Army, when the MI6 genuinely turned against the Nazi Germans, and hence the Home Army too turned against the Nazi Germans. The vast majority of the weight for fighting the Nazi Germans was again placed on the Polish communist-led popular front and the USSR. Nonetheless, one can at least be grateful for the fact that the AK did not outright ally with the Nazis against the communists and the USSR, even though elements within the AK continued to carry out hostile anti-Soviet activities in favor of the Nazis. (…).

From 1943, when the MI6 turned in favor of the Nazi Germans, the Home Army became for the most part a fascist death squad pretending to be opposed to the Nazi Germans. Instead of fighting the Germans, the Home Army criminal bandits engaged in anti-communist guerrilla operations throughout Poland – and in so doing, they of course received the support of the Nazi Germans. Stefan Korbonski, a founder and head of the Polish Underground State, recognized that the weapons of the Home Army came from the German forces:

Weapons that the Home Army had at its disposal came from four different sources: arms buried by the Polish armies on the battlefields of the September campaign; arms purchased or captured from the Germans; arms manufactured by the Home Army; and arms received from the air drops. (The Polish Underground State: A Guide to the Underground, 1939-1945. Stefan Korbonski, p. 34. Bold added) (IMG)

This, by the way, was the case well into mid-1947, with the majority of the weapons of the Polish Underground guerrillas being of German origin. According to the CIA:

The Partisans are universally well armed, mostly with automatica and semi-automatic weapons. Most of these arms are of of German origin, but many of Soviet manufacture have been captured from the Soviet and Polish military forces. (Survey of the Illegal Opposition in Poland, CIA, July 1, 1947, p. 3) (IMG)

Korbonski added that the Hungarian and Italian armies also provided arms to the Polish Home Army:

Transactions with Italian and Hungarian branches stationed in Poland, which they were happy to sell, were easier to deal with in the Polish underground. (The Polish Underground State: A Guide to the Underground, 1939-1945. Stefan Korbonski, p. 35) (IMG)

These weapons were specifically handed to the Polish Home Army to help them combat the Soviets. For instance, according to the British military researcher Kochanski, certain branches of the AK showed a:

favourable response to the suggestion by the Germans in the Nowogrodek and Wilno provinces that the AK should accept arms and supplies from the Germans in return for engaging in anti-partisan warfare. On 9 December 1943, days after the bulk of his unit had been disarmed by the Soviet partisans as described above, Captain Adolf ‘Gora’ Pilch signed an agreement with the Germans and began to receive supplies from them, as did Lieutenant Jozef ‘Lech’ Swida in Lida and Aleksander ‘Wilk’ Krzyianowski in the Wilno area. All these agreements were condemned by AK command and by General Sosnkowski in London. (The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War, Halik Kochanski, 2012) (IMG)

The ’condemnation’ of the Polish Home Army branches’ collaboration with the Nazi Germans by General Sosnkowski was hypocritical, since that man had been a Nazi-collaborationist long before World War II. Rolf-Deter Muller – the scientific director of the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office, the official research wing of the military of the Federal Republic of German – noted the 1930s interaction between Polish General Sosnkowski and the notorious Nazi German General Goring for an alliance, supposedly ‘defensive’ in nature, against the USSR:

On his hunting trip, Göring initially spoke to General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, the army inspector responsible for the eastern border area Polesia. It seems evident that they discussed options for defence against the Soviet Union. Sosnkowski, who was standing, as it were, directly opposite the Red Army, had explained a few days beforehand to the French ambassador and his military attaché that any kind of cooperation between France and the USSR was undesirable from a Polish perspective. It would be insane to imagine that, in the event of a Franco-German war, thousands of Soviet bombers would attack Berlin to help the French citizenry. In the case of a Polish-Soviet war, which Sosnkowski expected within two or three years, German military assistance would be extremely desirable - and how would France be able to help Poland in that case? The Polish general was thinking above all of a defensive battle, because a joint assault on the USSR would entail enormous dangers and, even if it were to succeed, it might well be that the Ukrainians would 'prefer to work for the king of Prussia. (Enemy in the East: Hitler’s Secret Plans to Invade the Soviet Union, Rolf-Deter Muller, 2014, pp. 51-52) (IMG)

Another example of Nazi-AK collaboration is given by the military historian and British military’s medical officer Prit Buttar:

Krzyianowski held negotiations with German officials, including Seidler von Rosenfeld, a local SD officer, and Julian Christiansen, the head of the local branch of the Abwehr (German military intelligence) in January and February 1944 respectively. Christiansen suggested a detailed protocol, in which Germany offered to arm Krzyzanowski’s men, including with light artillery, in exchange for a cessation of hostilities between the Home Army and German forces, and Polish cooperation with the occupying authorities in terms of economic production. (Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II, Prit Buttar, p. 191) (IMG)

As such:

Krzyianowski … came to an arrangement with Christiansen whereby the Germans would ensure that weapons and supplies were left in weakly guarded areas, where they could easily be captured by the Home Army and used against pro-Soviet partisans. (Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II, Prit Buttar, p. 191) (IMG)

The CIA reported:

The AK … included all political groups except the Communists…. (Survey of the Illegal Opposition in Poland, CIA, July 1, 1947, p. 4) (IMG)

Having included ‘all political groups’ implies fascists as well. The AK went on to merge with the Polish fascist ‘National Armed Forces of Poland’ (NSZ), which in its official party newspaper confessed their true aims, namely to combat the communists and to leave off the anti-Nazi struggle for later (read: for never):

It is time to awake and commence with the systematic liquidation of centres under the command of the Communists, and as soon as territory is cleared in this fashion to undertake the planned struggle with the German occupier. The sincere joint work of Polish military and civilian organizations will certainly make it possible for us to pull out the Bolshevik weeds and cleanse the terrain. The PPR, Peoples' Guard, and various ‘red’ partisans must vanish from the surface of the Polish land. (The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War, Halik Kochanski, 2012; citing the NSZ newspaper ‘The Rampart’) (IMG)

In other words, the National Armed Forces would have refused to launch a campaign against the Nazis so long as Poland had communists – and Jews. Beside the Nazis, the:

principal perpetrators of anti-Jewish violence in the name of anti-communist activity were units owing allegiance to the right-wing NSZ…. (The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War, Halik Kochanski, 2012) (IMG)

They also actively collaborated with the Nazis, handing over the Yiddish sons and daughters of Poland to the German military occupation:

The NSZ was quick to take up the sword. On 22 July 1943, they destroyed a GL-AL unit Warynski at Stefanow near Kielce in retaliation for a GL-AL attack on the NSZ earlier that year. The most notorious clash between the two groups came on 9 August 1943, when a NSZ detachment ambushed and murdered 26 GL-AL partisans and 4 civilians near the village of Borow in Lublin province. The NSZ was openly anti-semitic and would kill Jews in the forests or betray them to the Germans. (The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War, Halik Kochanski, 2012) (IMG)

The NSZ was made up of Polish pre-war fascist commanders, the disciples of Pilsudski’s gang. As a 1947 CIA document stated:

The leaders of Partisan bands – particularly NSZ groups – are frequently professional officers of the old Polish Army, with long experience in guerrilla fighting. (Survey of the Illegal Opposition in Poland, CIA, July 1, 1947, p. 3) (IMG)

The American intelligence officer Curt Riess predicted:

Certain countries, or forces in those countries, will undoubtedly become the logical allies of the Nazi underground – the Finnish circles around Baron von Mannerheim, for instance, or the Polish colonels’ clique, which once so ardently fought for everything the Nazis fought for and which, except for the fact that it was thrown out of its own country, has not changed at all. (The Nazis Go Underground, Curt Riess, May 1, 1944, p. 192) (IMG{Nazi Underground})

The “Polish colonels’ clique” was the regime that handed Poland to the Nazis in 1939 and formed the London-based Polish government-in-exile that formed the Polish Secret State, the military force of which was the Home Army. In 1944, the Nazi-collaborationist NSZ and the AK merged. In the words of Kochanski:

the right-wing NSZ … remained outside the structure of the AK until March 1944…. (The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War, Halik Kochanski, 2012) (IMG)

The merger of the AK with an openly anti-Semitic anti-communist Nazi-collaborationist terror army is itself explanatory of the character of the AK. The AK had allied with the Nazis against Soviet power. Approximately five months later, top SS commander Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski initiated attempts to entrench the German alliance with the Home Army against the Red Army. Snyder remarked:

Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski did show signs of wanting to recruit the Home Army as a future ally in a final struggle against the Soviets; he … agreed to negotiate with the Home Army command as with a defeated adversary in late September. (Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, Timothy Snyder, p. 308) (IMG)

More evidence of the AK’s Nazi-collaborationism will be presented in the next series of sections.

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