Chapter Two
Despite the surrender of the Polish Armed Forces in early October 1939, Poland itself had never surrendered. Even as Hans Frank was installing himself in Wawel Castle, Kraków, the Underground State (Państwo Podziemne) was starting to function. Because much of Poland’s history had been one of occupation or oppression, guerrilla warfare and clandestine operations were familiar to the Poles and early resistance organisations, such asPolska Organizacia Wojskowa were revered. However, these ideas of resistance were not the preserve of a minority as in most other occupied European countries, but were ingrained in all Poles. Nevertheless it was always expected that guerrilla tactics would be employed initially against the Soviet Union rather than Germany, and there remained the difficult question of how to weld together the disparate political and military resistance movements.
The Polish Government-in-exile, under the firm leadership of General Sikorski, pulled together the main political parties including the Peasant, National Democratic and the Polish Socialist Party to form the nucleus of a civil underground state. Only the extreme right-wing Nationalist Party and the communist Polish Workers Party, who were eventually to set up a competing government and army, refused to join the coalition. However, those political leaders who chose to remain in Poland and go underground were constantly in fear of their lives. Early losses included the leading members, Mieczysław Niedziałkowski and Maciej Rataj, who after arrest and interrogation at Gestapo HQ in Warsaw, were taken to a killing ground in the Kampinos Forest, just west of Warsaw and executed in June 1940.1
For reasons of security and to improve liaison with the Allies, as well as to co-ordinate Polish military units worldwide, the Polish Government-in-exile remained in London. From there, it directed the administration and policies of both an underground civilian administration and military resistance movement in occupied Poland. This clandestine civilian Underground State, or ‘Home Government’ (Delegatura Rządu) comprised numerous departments to look after the needs of a suppressed population. The preservation of a Polish press, culture, education and welfare system were of paramount importance and even ‘shadow’ departments of Trade, Industry, Communications and Agriculture were established in the hope that they would, one day, form part of an independent Polish government.
During the years of occupation, the Germans stripped Poland of its industry and financial means of support. They also destroyed the Polish educational system by closing all schools except technical colleges, capable of producing tradesmen for the Reich. Professors, teachers and lecturers were expelled from theirgymnasia (lower secondary schools) and higher education, or even eliminated. Yet the Underground State still managed to organise the secret education of Polish children in safe houses, by teachers who had survived the round-ups. And the shutdown also provided an unexpected boost for the resistance; for at a stroke, large numbers of science and research academics were sent home and could turn their minds wholeheartedly to devising plans to undermine German control.2
The main practical way to oppose the enemy was by military resistance. The main military underground organisation within Poland was initially the Service for the Victory of Poland (SZP), which operated from September to December 1939. Then on the orders of General Sikorski, the SZP was integrated into a new formation known as the Union for Armed Struggle or ZWZ (Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej). The first military commander of ZWZ was briefly Major-General Michał Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz (‘Torwid’), who left to command the military resistance in the Soviet controlled Polish sector and was replaced by General Stefan Rowecki (‘Grot’).3 The ZWZ operated as an important intelligence gathering, sabotage and propaganda organisation until its re-birth on 14 February 1942 as theArmia Krajowa (Home Army or ‘AK’). Again, the extreme nationalist militia (NSZ) and communist Polish People’s Army (Armia Ludowa) were excluded, but the strength of the new organisation was that all levels of the resistance were now subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief, General Grot-Rowecki and the Home Army High Command; ultimate control was still exerci
