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. They were loyal to the Polish government-in-exile in London. The armed wing of the Polish Underground State is called the Home Army.

Home Army


Membership

The size of the Home Army throughout its existence is outlined as follows.

 Year  Size 1942 100,000 Armia Krajowa . Encyklopedia WIEM. Retrieved 2 April 2008. 1943 200,000 1944 400,000

Structure


The Home Army Headquarters was divided into two bureaus, five sections and several other specialized units:

 Section I: Organization – personnel, justice, religion
 Section II: Intelligence and Counterintelligence
 Section III: Operations and Training – coordination, planning, preparation for a nationwide uprising
 Section IV: Logistics
 Section V: Communication – including with the Western Allies; air drops
 Bureau of Information and Propaganda (sometimes called "Section VI") – information and propaganda
 Bureau of Finances (sometimes called "Section VII") – finances
 Kedyw (acronym for Kierownictwo Dywersji, Polish for "Directorate of Diversion") – special operations
 Directorate of Underground Resistance

The Home Army's commander took orders from the Polish Commander-in-Chief (General Inspector of the Armed Forces) of the Polish government-in-exile and the Government Delegation for Poland.

Home Army commanderCodenamePeriodReplaced becauseFatePhotoGeneral Michał Karaszewicz-TokarzewskiTechnically, commander of Służba Zwycięstwu Polski and Związek Walki Zbrojnej as Armia Krajowa was not named such until 1942Torwid – March 1940 Arrested by the Soviets Joined the Anders Army, fought in the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Emigrated to the United Kingdom (UK). 100pxGeneral Stefan RoweckiGrot – June 30, 1943 Discovered and arrested by German Gestapo Imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. executed by personal decree of Heinrich Himmler following the start of the Warsaw Uprising. 100pxGeneral Tadeusz KomorowskiBór – September 2, 1944 Surrendered after end of Warsaw Uprising. Emigrated to United Kingdom. 100pxGeneral Leopold OkulickiNiedźwiadek – January 17, 1945 Dissolved the AK trying to lessen the Polish-Soviet tension. Arrested by the Soviets, sentenced to imprisonment in the Trial of the Sixteen. Likely executed in 1946. 100px


Persecution under Soviet occupation

After Nazi Germany was defeated, the Soviet Union set up a puppet state in Poland,The Great Globe Itself: A Preface to World Affairs By William Bullitt, Francis P. Sempa   subjecting Poland to communist totalitarianism until 1989, Lappin, Shalom (2006), ‘How Class Disappeared from Western Politics’, Dissent, Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 73-78.



 Kirsch, Adam (2024), On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice, W.W. Norton and Company, New York and London.
  while Soviet troops did not leave Poland until 1993.  

  The puppet state's founding came with the arrest of 25,000 Polish Home Army soldiers, who were deported to Gulag camps in Russian mainland. As many as 100,000 Polish women were also raped by Soviet soldiers.Joanna Ostrowska, Marcin Zaremba,  "Kobieca gehenna" (The women's ordeal) , Polityka - No 10 (2695), 2009-03-07; pp. 64-66.   Dr. Marcin Zaremba  of Polish Academy of Sciences, the co-author of the article cited above – is a historian from Warsaw University Department of History Institute of 20th Century History ( cited 196 times in Google scholar). Zaremba published a number of scholarly monographs, among them: Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm (426 pages), Marzec 1968 (274 pages), Dzień po dniu w raportach SB (274 pages), Immobilienwirtschaft (German, 359 pages), see  inauthor:"Marcin Zaremba" in Google Books. Joanna Ostrowska  of Warsaw, Poland, is a lecturer at Departments of Gender Studies at two universities: the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, the University of Warsaw as well as, at the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is the author of scholarly works on the subject of mass rape and forced prostitution in Poland in the Second World War (i.e. "Prostytucja jako praca przymusowa w czasie II Wojny Światowej. Próba odtabuizowania zjawiska," "Wielkie przemilczanie. Prostytucja w obozach koncentracyjnych," etc.), a recipient of Socrates-Erasmus research grant from Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin, and a historian associated with Krytyka Polityczna. 

Some anti-communist Poles rose up in arms against the Soviet occupiers right after the war. The establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944-1949 By Norman Naimark   However, the armed resistance failed due to the lack of external support. Tens of thousands of them were deported to Gulag camps as well, with a few to no confirmed survivors. Among them consisted of 6,000 Poles being jailed in Borowicze (now Borovichi, Russia) and 6,300 in Stalinogorsk (now Novomoskovsk, Russia). The exact number is unknown due to the lack of access to all of the relevant Soviet documents.

Footnotes

References

Category:World War II
Category:The Holocaust
Category:History of Poland
Category:1939 establishments
Category:1945 disestablishments in Europe
Category:1940s disestablishments in Europe