Armia Krajowa

The Armia Krajowa (the army of the interior, AK) was the most important resistance movement in Poland under the German occupation 1939-1945). It was active of September 1939 at January 1945.

The Armia Krajowa was the most important resistance movement in action during the Second world war, forming the wing armed with what was known under the name of Polish secret state ( państwo podziemne ).

History

Origin

The AK derives from the Służba Zwycięstwu Polski (Service of the Victoire Polonaise), created the September 27th 1939 by the general Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski. The November 17th 1939, the general Władysław Sikorski replaced this organization by the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of the Armed struggle) which became the AK thereafter after fusion with the Polski Związek Powstańczy (Union Polonaise of Resistance). The AK officially was born the February 14th 1942.

Stefan Rowecki (known under the pseudonym of Grot , or “arrow points”), was the first commander of the AK until his arrest in 1943; Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski ordered July 1943 until its capture in September 1944. Leopold Okulicki, known under the pseudonomyme of Niedźwiadek (“baby bear”) directed the organization until its dissolution. The AK is officially dissolved the January 19th 1945 in order to avoid a war with the Soviet as well as a civil war. However, on many units decided on continuous their combat in new circumstances.

Structure

The executive branch of the AK was the operational command, composed of many units. The estimates of manpower of the AK during the second half of 1944 oscillate between 250.000 and 350.000, including more than 10.000 officers. The majority of the other clandestine Polish armed movements amalgamated with the AK:

the Konfederacja Narodu (Confederation of the People) (1943),
the Bataliony Chłopskie (Country Battaillons of the S),
a broad military organsation of the Stronnictwo Ludowe (Popular party),
the Socjalistyczna Organizacja Bojowa (Socialist Organization de Combat ), created by the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (PS, Polish Socialist party),
the Narodowa Organizacja Wojskowa (National Military Organization), created by the Stronnictwo Narodowe (Left National),
starting from March 1944 , part of the organization of Extreme right-hand side (in particular of the Camp national-radical) Narodowe Sily Zbrojne (National Armed forces).

The AK was divided into 60 regional branches, which themselves were divided into 89 inspections then 278 districts. The supreme command defined the priority tasks of the AK as being the preparation of the action and general rising at the end of the German occupation, until the victory. At this point, the plans envisaged the catch of the to be able in Poland by the creation of a will delegatura , the representatives of the Polish Gouvernement in exile with London then by the government in exile itself, once this one sunken to Poland.

Weapons and equipment

As a clandestine army operating in a country occupied by the enemy, separated from the territories combined by thousands of kilometers, the AK had to deal with single problem in the history relating to the acquisition of weapons and equipment. It however succeeds in exceeding these difficulties and arming with a certain degree with tens of thousands of soldiers in the countryside. However, the hostile conditions made that only armed units of infantry slightly could be made up. No artillery, no armoured tank or no aviation were obviously available (with some exceptions near at the time of the Insurrection of Warsaw). But inside even of these light units of infantry, the equipment available heteroclite, was composed of weapons of various types, generally in sufficient quantity to arm only one fraction with the soldiers.

By opposition, their adversaries, the German armed forces and their allies, were equipped uniformly and in profusion out of weapons and ammunition. Moreover, they could count on the support of many forces of support (artillery, aviation,…). In fact, German had a superiority material crushing on the AK, which restricted the operations severely that it could make a success of.

The weapons of the Armia Krajowa came from various sources:

weapons buried by the Polish armies on the battle fields after the Campaign September (1939),
weapons recovered with German or their allies,
weapons bought with German or their allies,
weapons manufactured clandestinely by the Armia Krajowa itself,
weapons parachuted by the Allies.

Masks of weapons buried in 1939, the AK obtained 614 heavy machine guns, 1193 light machine-guns, 33052 light rifles, 6732 guns, 28 guns antitank, 25 rifles antitank and 43154 grenades. However, because of the inappropriate conditions of conservation and of the urgency and the chaos in which these masks of weapons had been made, the majority of these weapons were in a deplorable state. Weapons thus found for the preparation of the Operation Storm, only 30% were usable.

The purchases of weapons to the German soldiers were very discrete. They were carried out by individual units or individual soldiers. As the hope of a German victory disappeared and that moral German units dropped, the number of soldiers ready to sell their weapons increased. Also this source of weapons took it importance with time. These purchases were extremely risky because the Gestapo was with the current of this Black-market of the weapons and tried to put an end to it via agents in cover. The greatest part of this traffic was limited to the personal weapons, but of time to other, of the light or heavy machine-guns could be acquired. It was much easier to treat with the Italian and Hungarian units stationed in Poland which sold readily their weapons with clandestine Polish, as long as it was possible to hide this traffic with German.

The efforts in order to capture German weapons were also shown very effective. Raids were carried out on the trains supplying the face like against stations of gendarmerie. One recovered sometimes weapons on isolated German soldiers. During the insurrection of Warsaw, the AK even succeeds in capturing some German armored vehicles.

The weapons were clandestinely manufactured by the AK in its secret workshops, like by its members working in the German arms factories. In this manner, the AK could get machine-guns (copies of the English Sten and Blyskawica), guns (Vis), lance-flame, bombs, mines and grenades. Hundreds of people were implied in this effort of production.

The last source of supply was parachutings of the Allies. It was the only manner of obtaining exotic but powerful weapons like the Plastic or of the anti-tank weapons (PIAT). During the war 485 allied planes carried out parachutings bound for the AK, providing 600,9 tons of material. During these operations, 70 planes and 62 crews (of which 28 were Polish) were lost. In addition to the material, the planes also parachuted specialized instructors (the Cichociemni ), of which nearly 346 were sent in Poland during the war. Because of the very long distance to be traversed since the bases in Great Britain and the Mediterranean as well as weak political will, parachutings represented only one small fraction of those carried out for the French and Yugoslav resistance movements.

Operations

Although the AK was not at the origin of a general rising, its forces indeed practiced an intense economic and military sabotage.

In 1944, the AK acts with large scales, in particular while launching the Insurrection of Warsaw which bursts the 1944. The goal was to release Warsaw before the arrival of the Red Army Soviet (with the manner of Tito). Although the insurrectionists succeeded initially in releasing a few hundreds of prisoners of the concentration camp of the street Gesia (today Anielewicza) and practiced a wild street fighting, the Germans ended up crushing them and destroyed the city while the Soviets stopped their offensive during several months by refusing any help with insurgent (including by refusing the opening of the landing strips to some allied planes). Rising is definitively crushed on October 2nd, 1944.

The units of the AK led thousands of raids as well as research operations of information, sabotaged hundreds of equipment railway and taken part in many battles of partisans with the police force and the German Wehrmacht.

The AK is shown to have made crimes against the ethnic minorities, particularly the Lithuanians (to see below).

On the whole,

Principal military operations or of sabotage are:

Operation Belt
Operation Burza (Storm)

Rising of Wilno
Rising of Lwow
Insurrection of Warsaw

Famous units of the Armia Krajowa :

Wachlarz
Kedyw

Relations with the Jews

In February 1942, the operational command of the office of espionage and propaganda of the AK created Jewish a Affaires section, directed by Henryk Wolinski. This section gathered data on the situation of the Jewish population, prepared reports/ratios and sent information to London. It centralized the contacts between the Polish and Jewish military organizations. The AK also organized a financial support for the Jews (see Zegota). The AK accepted only very few Jews (approximately a thousand) in its own rows: the candidatures of Jews were generally refused.

The AK provides to the Ghetto of Warsaw approximately 60 revolvers, several hundreds of grenade, the ammunition and the explosives. During raise Ghetto of Warsaw in 1943, units of the AK tried by twice making jump the enclosing wall of the ghetto, took actions apart from the ghetto, and in connection with the forces of GL tackled certain German units left in sentinel close to the walls of the ghetto. A unit of the AK, the Security body ( korpus bezpieczeństwa or KB ) taken a direct share with the engagements inside the ghetto with the Jewish combatants of the Żydowski Zwiazek Walki.

Three among 7 members of the Collective Command of the AK (KG AK) were of Jewish origin.

Relations with the Lithuanians

The relations between the Lithuanians and the Poles were tended during most of the period of inter-war period because of the conflicts about the areas of Wilno (Vilnius) and of Suwałki, where a strong minority Lithuania was. During the war, these conflicts re-appeared because the Polish state desired by the Armia Krajowa included the area of Vilnius.

The AK made at least a massacre of Lithuanian civilians, including women and children, with Dubingiai (the Polish historians claim that it from 20 to 27 had killed there, Juozas Lebionka claims that there were 100 of them, and other Lithuanian historians claim that there was nearly 200). The existence of other possible massacres is also prone to dissension. The Lithuanian investigator Rimas Bružas estimates that there was in very nearly 500 Lithuanian civilians killed on the whole. The estimates of Juozas Lebionka are of 1000. Certain Polish historians support that the massacre of Dubingiai was an isolated case, which seems confirmed by the documents of the AK which was found with the Monastère of Bernardinai and which describes the actions of the AK between 1943 and 1944. However, other researchers reached other conclusions starting from these same documents. It seems probable that these slaughters were not planned and due rather to the rejection of the Lithuanians on behalf of some graded AK. One also evokes the actions of the Lithuanian units soldier (allies of the Nazi Germany) shown to have killed out of the Polish civilians. Some of the actions of the AK could have been of the direct reprisals to the actions of the Lithuanian groups or the Lithuanian collaborators. The same reasoning can be applied in the other direction, certain acts of the Lithuanians were made in reprisals. Also, the AK it is perceived like an organization discussed by Lithuania, in spite of its action to save the Poles of Vilnius (of the same way than are perceived the Partisans Soviet).

After 1945

During the war the AK lost some 100 000 men; with the progression of the Red Army, NKVD imprisoned some and sent in the Soviet camps approximately 50 000 others, after a parody of lawsuit (see Lawsuit of the sixteen). Part of the AK refused the demobilization and continued the fight against the communist capacity founded by the Soviets. Repressions of mass fell down on the former resistant not-Communists during all the period of Stalinism.

Random links: