Poland as Obnoxious Pawn

I have previously written about Poland’s role in the run-up to the Second World War, describing Poland as a pawn – useful as a tool for the west to get into the war – and also examining the sellout of Poland and other Central European countries to the Soviets. 

Most famously, Britain and France gave a guarantee to Poland before the invasion by Germany in September 1939 – a guarantee that neither country had the intent or ability to honor in case Poland was invaded; a guarantee useful, it seems, merely as a pretext for these two western states to get into a fight with Germany.

However, there is another side to this story.  Poland did not spend the interwar years in peace and harmony with its neighbors.  Poland was not an innocent victim in a game of elephants.  Poland played an active part in actions that would contribute to its demise.

“Poland hunt like sharks in a shark tank until it itself is eaten.”

This is not to suggest that Poland would have survived unscathed had it followed a different course.  There were reasons for Germany and the Soviets to fight sooner or later, with or without Poland’s actions (and with or without any actions taken by the Western nations).  However, it is appropriate, I believe, to recognize the contributions that Polish leaders took that actively contributed to its demise.

To put it succinctly: If one were to design a plan to anger every neighbor, one could not do better than the Poles did in the interwar years.  And even with this, Great Britain and France, backed by the US, gave a war guarantee.

For this post, I draw material from the book “1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers,” by Gerd Schultze-Rhonof.

Paris, 1919

At the end of the Great War, Poland receives, via the various treaties in Paris, land allotted to it from the holdings of the various neighboring nations.  Along with this come millions of non-Poles – people also without an interest in becoming Poles.  Yet, even after these gains, Poland is not satisfied.

The head of the Polish delegation at Versailles, Dmowski, explains in the negotiations on the new frontiers of Poland that one must not lose sight of the fact that the regions granted to Poland are “only a down payment on a real Great Poland.” (Page 423)

The leaders of this new Polish government are looking to restore all of the lands which before 1772 were parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Union.  Perhaps the high point of this union is achieved in 1569, formally known as the Union of Lublin:

The Union of Lublin…replaced the personal union of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a real union and an elective monarchy…

It was signed July 1, 1569, in Lublin, Poland, and created a single State, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was ruled by a single elected monarch who carried out the duties of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and governed with a common Senate and parliament (the Sejm). The Union was an evolutionary stage in the Polish–Lithuanian alliance and personal union, necessitated also by Lithuania's dangerous position in wars with Russia.

This union saw its end with the Partitions of Poland, occurring at the end of the eighteenth century – with Poland divided amongst the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians.

Thus, at the end of the Great War, the new leaders of the new Poland had sights set on lands that were at the time part of Russia, the Ukraine, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, among others.  In 1918, Polish leaders set out to satisfy their dreams.

The new Poland in 1918 – right after being founded – establishes a strong army out of the former German, Austrian, Hungarian, and Russian world-war soldiers (now Polish nationals), and by means of attacks begins to expand in three directions at the expense of its neighbors. (Page 424)

At the same time that Poland was beneficiary of the treaties from Paris, and perhaps the prime beneficiary of the ideals expressed by Wilson in his Fourteen Points, Polish leaders took actions to further these gains via militaristic means – often aggressing against neighbors that have either been declawed by the victorious Allies (such as Germany and Austria), or that were busy with internal strife (such as Russia). 

Poland Fails to Learn from History

(Technically, the political leaders of Poland fail…)

Casual students of World War II history will recall the guarantees by Britain and France in favor of Poland against any foreign aggression (which turned out to mean aggression by Germany, but not aggression by the Soviets).  Pat Buchanan, in his wonderful book “Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World,” has described this guarantee by the British as one of the bigger blunders of diplomacy leading up to the war.

It turns out that Roosevelt may have been behind the push to make the guarantees, as relayed by Herbert Hoover in his magnum opus, “Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath.”  (There are even backstories to this backstory, as Poland apparently made no friends with its neighbors during the interwar years in any case, as documented by Gerd Schultze-Rhonof in his book “1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers.”)

Clearly, political leaders in Poland have not learned from this history – the history offering a clear demonstration that a) a guarantee from western leaders is nothing more than a tool for western provocation and for western purposes, b) as a diplomatic strategy, cozying up to distant powers is not nearly as effective as making nice with neighbors, most importantly with Germany and Russia, and c) going out of one’s way to make enemies out of powerful neighbors is never a good idea.

First, some background: the backdrop is the Ukraine.  NATO, a military institution without a purpose (a very dangerous entity) is talking tough, talking expansion, and talking permanent:

General Philip Breedlove, NATO's top commander in Europe, has proposed that the Polish city of Szczecin expand its existing base to help the military alliance respond faster to any threat posed by Russia. (1)

He said that NATO needs to position resources forward on its eastern flank in response to the concerns of nations close to Ukraine. (2)

“Pre-positioned supplies, pre-positioned capabilities and a basing area ready to rapidly accept follow-on forces,” he said. “And how we man that in a rotational or nonpermanent basis is what we’re looking at now to propose in NATO and we will be looking at that with the (North Atlantic Council).” (2)

NATO's top military commander, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, said last month NATO would have to consider permanently stationing troops in eastern Europe. (3)

Permanently stationed troops in Poland.  (As an aside, I wonder if the intent is to keep the Russians out, or keep the Germans in.)

American allies (specifically Britain) seemingly want in on the action:

According to the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think-tank close to NATO, Britain and other NATO allies backing the general’s plans to place supplies — weapons, ammunition and ration packs — at a new headquarters in eastern Europe, to enable a sudden influx of thousands of NATO troops to be ready for action in the event of a crisis. (1)

Thousands of troops, supposedly as a check on Russia.  Thousands (against Russia) does not equal deterrence; it equals provocation.  Does this dawn on Polish leaders?

Poland as Pawn: Hoover Identifies Roosevelt’s Betrayal

Freedom Betrayed, by Herbert Hoover

With his analysis of the war complete with Hoover’s documentation regarding the decision by Truman to use the atomic bombs against Japan, Hoover turns to specific case studies regarding specific nations and regions in the conflict.  Whereas the preceding sections of his magnum opus were written in chronological sequence, he now takes a slice by geography in order to tell the narrative one selected region at a time.

Much of the information is repeated in this section from the previous chronological analysis.  However, there is also much new information, as well as new interpretations from Hoover that were not so strongly emphasized earlier.

One of these case studies regards Poland.  Hoover begins by outlining the behind-the-scenes actions of Roosevelt in convincing Britain to offer the infamous guarantee to Poland, and additionally to convince Poland to not negotiate with either Germany or Russia.

President Roosevelt had on January 4, 1939 announced what had amounted to a revolution in American foreign Policy.  He proposed action by the United States “stronger than words and less than war” on activities of foreign nations with which he disagreed.

The President at once took action under this new policy with respect to Hitler’s demand of March 21, 1939 on Poland.

The U.S. Ambassador to Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy, played a supporting role in implementing Roosevelt’s desires.  He regularly urged firmness on the part of Britain when it came to dealing with the Germans.  The German Charge d’Affaires in London confirmed Kennedy’s position, informing his government on March 20 that:

…Kennedy…is playing a leading part.  He is said to be in personal contact with the Missions of all the States involved, and to be attempting to encourage them to adopt a firm attitude by promising that the United States…would support them by all means (short of war”).

Further American activities were disclosed after the Germans had invaded Poland in September 1939 and seized the Polish Foreign Office records.  The Germans released a mass of documents which certainly indicated that the American Ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt, who could only act on Mr. Roosevelt’s authority, had made a profusion of oral assurances to officials of Poland and France which they could only interpret as a promise of assistance of some kind of force from the United States. 

When these documents were published, their authenticity was denied by both Bullitt and by the Polish Ambassador to the U.S.  The Polish Ambassador later informed Hoover that he denied their authenticity at the request of the State Department.  Further, Hoover has evidence of the authenticity of these German-released documents via Polish Embassy documents later given to the Hoover Institute.  Besides minor differences in translations, these documents confirmed those released by the Germans as authentic.  Hoover goes on to quote from a sampling of these documents – documents received directly from the Polish Embassy in Washington.  From the Polish Ambassador Potocki to the Polish Foreign Office, dated two months before the British guarantee to Poland, in which he summarizes his conversations with U.S. Ambassador Bullitt:

…2) the war preparations of the United States on land, sea, and air, which will proceed in an accelerated tempo and will cost the colossal sum of $1,250,000,000.  3) the definite opinion of the President that France and Britain should abandon all policy of compromise with the totalitarian countries and should not enter into any discussion with them which might be directed towards any territorial changes.  4) a moral assurance that the United States is abandoning the policy of isolation and is ready, in case of war, to participate actively on the side of Great Britain and France, placing all its resources, financial and in raw materials, at their disposal.

In another dispatch, also dated two months before Britain’s guarantee to Poland, from the Polish Ambassador in Paris to the Polish Foreign Office stated:

As Ambassador Bullitt puts it: “If a war breaks out, we probably would not participate in it at the beginning, but we would finish it.”…One thing, however, appears to be certain, namely that President Roosevelt’s policy in the immediate future will tend to…weaken Britain’s tendencies toward a compromise [over Poland].

Hoover confirms that documentation from the U.S. State Department on this had not yet been released.  However, based on conversation Hoover later had with Ambassador Kennedy, the U.S. positions portrayed in these dispatches were confirmed.  During the war, Hoover met with Kennedy approximately 20 times.  Kennedy apparently profoundly disagreed with Roosevelt’s foreign policy. 

Hoover would document his conversations with the various people he met with.  An example is provided of Hoover’s meeting with Kennedy on May 15, 1945.  Kennedy indicated he had over 900 dispatches which he could not print without consent of the U.S. Government.  He hoped one day to receive such permission as it was Kennedy’s intention to write a book that would:

…put an entirely different color on the process of how America got into the war and would prove the betrayal of the American people by Franklin D, Roosevelt.

…Roosevelt and Bullitt were the major factors in the British making their guarantees to Poland and becoming involved in the war.  Kennedy said that Bullitt, under instructions from Roosevelt, was constantly urging the Poles not to make terms with the Germans and that he Kennedy, under instructions from Roosevelt, was constantly urging the British to make guarantees to the Poles.

He said that after Chamberlain had given these guarantees, Chamberlain told him (Kennedy) that he hoped the Americans and the Jews would now be satisfied but that he (Chamberlain) felt that he had signed the doom of civilization.

Kennedy said that if it had not been for Roosevelt the British would not have made this most gigantic blunder in history.

Kennedy told me that he thought Roosevelt was in communication with Churchill, who was the leader of the opposition to Chamberlain, before Chamberlain was thrown out of office….

James Forrestal, Under Secretary of the Navy, documented in his diaries a substantially similar conversation with Kennedy.

Much of the rest of Hoover’s case study through the beginning of the war regarding Poland was documented well earlier in this volume.  After Britain made the guarantee, it attempted to reach a deal with Stalin.  Why a deal was not struck prior to the guarantee is a mystery to Hoover.  Stalin, now in the cat-bird’s seat – with Britain having backed itself into a corner – was free to sell his services to the highest bidder:  Germany or Britain.

Stalin’s price was to annex much of Eastern Europe.  Chamberlain’s “moral scruples” prevented him from signing this death warrant on a large swath of Europeans, despite the constant “violent attacks” on Chamberlain by Churchill, Lloyd George, and Eden to do so.

On August 21, Moscow announced that a non-aggression pact was to be signed between Russia and Germany.  On September 1, Hitler invaded Poland.

Hoover then takes up the situation of Poland during and after the war. He documents the change in Roosevelt’s attitude toward the Atlantic Charter, and its (in)applicability to the Russians and to lands overtaken by Russia.  Needless to say, Roosevelt’s interpretation of the Charter and its application to Russia were twisted in such a manner to ensure Russia was able to keep all war-related gains.

The Polish by this time are starting to feel a bit betrayed by Roosevelt.

The Polish Ambassador on Washington records his last conversation with Sikorski (on January 10, 1943) at which time they reviewed Sikorski’s visit:

…Sikorski regretfully admitted that…for the first time he was beset by the fear that American policy was beginning to drift in direction of appeasement of Soviet Russia….

Of course, at this point there was little choice for the U.S., unless it was willing to continue the fight against the Russians directly.  This appeasement was cemented between Roosevelt and Stalin at Tehran.  For Poland, their fate was likely sealed once the West made alliance with the Russians – or even prior, once Poland decided not to find a middle-ground in negotiating between the two tyrants on either side at the encouragement of the U.S.  Perhaps once Hitler came to power Poland’s fate was sealed one way or another.  This certainly had to be understood by Roosevelt before any guarantee was made,  calling into question the true purpose behind the making of the guarantee in the first place.

The rest of this story demonstrates the cynicism and immorality of the political leaders of this war, and would be laughable if it wasn’t for the death and destruction brought to countless millions by the actions taken by the leaders of the so-called free democracies.  For example:

On February 20, Mr. Roosevelt replied to [Polish American Congressman from Buffalo, Joseph] Mruk, stating that the issue was one between the Russians and the Poles.

In other words, Roosevelt said tough luck for Poland.

On February 22, 1944, Mr. Churchill made a speech in the House of Commons stating that the British Government had never guaranteed “any particular frontier line to Poland….”

Perhaps Churchill thought Poland could be satisfied by moving to Wales?

Mr. Roosevelt urged the Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk to go to Moscow and discuss these questions with Marshall Stalin.  According to the Prime Minister’s account, Mr. Roosevelt also said:

“… you Poles must find an understanding with Russia.  On your own, you’d have no chance to beat Russia, and let me tell you now, the British and Americans have no intention of fighting Russia.

“But don’t worry…Stalin doesn’t intend to take freedom from Poland.”

Roosevelt perhaps was not aware of Stalin’s previous actions wherever the Communists had influence?

In July 1944, the Russian armies arrived just across the river from Warsaw.  Stalin urged the Poles to fight the Germans.  The Poles did so, soon seizing a large part of the city.  Stalin, instead of coming to the aid of the Poles in this uprising, left them alone to fight the Germans, saying “nothing can be done for Poland if you do not recognize the Curzon line…”  Stalin left the Poles to fight the Germans, until October 3, when, exhausted and out of supplies, the Polish resistance failed.  After the uprising, the Germans destroyed virtually the entire city of Warsaw. 

In this action of betrayal to the Polish fighters, Stalin both reduced the German army as well as the best fighters the Poles had to offer in any possible later resistance to the Russians. 

In early March 1945 Moscow offered safe conduct to a group of sixteen leaders of the democratic Polish underground to journey to Russia to negotiate the setting up of a new government….  The sixteen Polish leaders vanished completely on March 27. 

At the end of the war, the eastern borders of both Poland and Germany were moved to the west.  This entailed the relocation of approximately six million Poles from the Soviet annexed area into that region annexed from Germany, and an additional six million Germans from the former German lands into what remained of Germany.

Neither group was allowed to take more of their belongings than they could carry on their own backs or the backs of their children….  Hundreds of thousands streamed the roads, the veritable picture of exhaustion and despair – a sodden heart-broken, dispirited horde.  Thousands died by the roadsides.  Thousands of fleeing Polish and German women were raped and the men were plundered by Russian soldiers of occupation.

Hoover counts over one million orphans or half-orphans in Poland.  An organization of Polish women was picking up one thousand abandoned children per day.  According to Mikolajczyk, non-Communist Polish leaders were being executed or deported daily.

According to a lieutenant colonel to Eisenhower, “The liberation of Poland by Russian Armies brought with it pillage, loot, rape, mass arrests, executions and deportations.”

Thus ends Hoover’s account of the betrayal of Poland.  It seems Poland was used only as a pawn – a cynical guarantee provided by Britain at the urging of Roosevelt not for the sake of securing a free Poland, but for the purpose of providing an excuse for the west to enter the coming war between Germany and Russia.

World War Two, a View from Different Eyes

I have in the past written much about the Second World War, from Pearl Harbor to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; from Roosevelt’s manipulations to get the US into the war to the forced migrations of millions of Germans and other Europeans after the war.  While much of this was based on work from revisionist historians (even Herbert Hoover!), most of the authors on which my posts were based were from the United States or otherwise affiliated with the victorious side.

I am now beginning to go through another history of the war, this one by a German revisionist historian.  The book is entitled “1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers,” by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof. 

About the author:

Schultze-Rhonhof was born in Weimar. He entered military service in 1959 a few years after the Bundeswehr was founded. When he retired in 1996, he was Territorial Commander-in-chief in charge of Lower Saxony and Bremen and held the rank of Generalmajor (Major General).

The book is quite controversial, even (or especially) in Germany:

In his book “Der Krieg, der viele Väter hatte” [The War that had many Fathers], he argues that Adolf Hitler had not wanted to risk war right until September 1939. Thus, Schultze-Rhonhof especially blames Poland for the outbreak of World War II as a result the rejection of German willingness of negotiations. Besides, also Great Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union had taken their part in the outbreak of the war because they had driven Poland into the war.

It should be noted that the author does not seem to be introducing a book that exonerates Hitler.  He suggests that the war had many fathers – not just one.  This is certainly an uncontroversial suggestion to anyone with even a moderate understanding of the roots of the war.

From my past reading, it is quite clear that the US, Great Britain, and France did, in fact, push Poland into war and did cause Poland to not negotiate with Hitler and Germany, for example from “Freedom Betrayed,” by Herbert Hoover:

Further American activities were disclosed after the Germans had invaded Poland in September 1939 and seized the Polish Foreign Office records.  The Germans released a mass of documents which certainly indicated that the American Ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt, who could only act on Mr. Roosevelt’s authority, had made a profusion of oral assurances to officials of Poland and France which they could only interpret as a promise of assistance of some kind of force from the United States.

Hoover documents his conversations with US Ambassador to Britain, Joseph Kennedy, during the run-up to the war.  Hoover met with Kennedy in May, 1945.  According to Kennedy:

Prelude to War

It is commonly understood that World War Two was an almost inevitable continuation of the Great War.  Many point to Versailles – that portion of the final treaties dictated in Paris by the Allies and dealing with Germany.  Hitler certainly used Versailles as a rallying cry.  But the seeds were sown not merely by this dictated, so-called “treaty.”

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder

Before getting to the unfathomable history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, Snyder sets the stage with a brief examination of the birthing of both Hitler and Stalin – two men not born in a vacuum, but products of events and activities that came before and during their respective rises to power.

Reflecting on the aftermath of the Great War:

The war broke the old land empires of Europe, while inspiring dreams of new ones….It showed that millions of men would obey orders to fight and die, for causes abstract and distant, in the name of homelands that were already ceasing to be or only come into being.

World War One was a drastic break for Europe – Jacques Barzun marks it as the “blow that hurled the modern world on its course of self-destruction.”  FJP Veale traces the beginning of the return to barbarism in Europe to some aspects of the Napoleonic Wars and the introduction into Europe of American barbarity honed in Lincoln’s destruction of the South and subsequent treatment of American Indian populations in the West.  However, it is the Great War that he sees as a decisive turning point: “Seen in perspective it is now clear that the First World War was an unqualified disaster for the White Race.”

Returning to Snyder:

More than a million Armenians were killed by Ottoman authorities.  Germans and Jews were deported by the Russian Empire.  Bulgarians, Greeks, and Turks were exchanged among national states after the war.

While not living in perfect peace, it should be remembered that integrated societies built Europe over the course of centuries.  Armenians, Arabs, Jews and Greeks lived within the Ottoman Empire, with the worst atrocities occurring only during the last years of that dying empire.  Germans and Jews lived throughout Central and Eastern Europe, contributing significantly to the culture and technology in every region.  World War One shattered this multi-cultural world, and cemented the dangerous idea of nation-state.

Just as important, the war shattered an integrated global economy.  No adult European alive in 1914 would ever see the restoration of comparable free trade; most European adults alive in 1914 would not enjoy comparable levels of prosperity during the rest of their lives.

For those who believe the activity associated with war is stimulative to the economy, the last paragraph should be read again.  Instead, the war was good for the revolutionaries, offering an environment conducive to further radical transformations – communist utopias, fascist efficiencies, and democratic gods.

The first to succumb was the Russian Empire, with the liberal revolution of February giving way to the communist revolution of November – thanks to the Germans and a railroad car brought from Switzerland, with a cargo – both human and gold – intended to distract the Russians from the war on Germany’s east. 

Russia lost significant territory at the end of the conflict: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland all became independent republics at the end of the war.  This was viewed by the communists as little more than a short term defeat – continued war would eventually bring these lands under the communist fold, something Stalin apparently intended with his maneuvers against Germany and the West in the run-up to the Second World War.

Of these new republics, Poland was the most significant.  It was the largest, and for the first time in more than a century it separated Germany from Russia – it was an impediment to the designs of its neighbors both east and west.  Poland could come into existence because the three powers that consumed it at the end of the eighteenth century – the German, Hapsburg, and Russian Empires – all ceased to exist by the end of the Great War.

The reinvigorated Poland didn’t sit still:

In 1919 and 1920, the Poles and the Bolsheviks fought a war for the borderlands between Poland and Russia that was decisive for the European order.  The Red Army had moved into Ukraine and Belarus as the Germans had withdrawn, but these gains were not acknowledged by the Polish leadership.

Józef Piłsudski, the post-war Polish leader, had visions of restoring Poland to its prior glory – every nationalist claims as legitimate their national borders in existence at the height of national history.  Poland advanced, the Soviets countered – securing Ukraine – and advanced into Poland.  Lenin saw Warsaw and thereafter Berlin soon to come under the flag of the revolution.  The Polish army stopped this dream in Warsaw in August 1920.

Poland countered and pushed again into Belarus and Ukraine – with Stalin a political officer of the defeated Red Army.  Eventually these territories were divided between Poland and the Bolsheviks.  Jews, Ukrainians, and Belarusians separated by a border not previously existent in the lifetimes of the current inhabitants.  Finally, in March 1921, a treaty between Poland and the Bolsheviks, signed in Riga, brought this war to a close.

Meanwhile, Germany birthed its own communists: “They would take their instructions from the Communist International, established by Lenin in 1919.”  But it wasn’t just the communists in Germany that found common ground with the Soviets:

Once the fighting in Europe had ceased, the German government quickly found common ground with the Soviet Union.  After all, both Berlin and Moscow wanted to change the European order at the expense of Poland.

The two governments signed the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, “restoring diplomatic relations, easing trade, and inaugurating secret military cooperation.”  Viktor Suvorov covers this extensive cooperation between the Soviets and the German Fascists in his book The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II.  It should be kept in mind that Hitler was, after all, a National Socialist.

Versailles has been extensively discussed by many sources.  Whatever one believes about the weight of reparations, etc., it is clear that Hitler effectively used this treaty to drum up support within the German people.  The weight of the reparations and the reality that self-determination was a meaningless term for the ten million or so Germans living outside the borders of Germany: both were used to generate internal support.  Hitler certainly knew how to rouse the masses.

Meanwhile, deprived of lands in the west by Poland, Lenin turned inward to build some form of socialist state.  Despite losing the only elections they held (and thereafter calling no others), with an army insufficient to advance to the west but sufficient to defeat all internal rivals, with a secret service (the Cheka) killing thousands of internal threats – Lenin built his state.  Stalin eventually consolidated this power.

The stage was set – the ground was made fertile for both Hitler and Stalin.  Each took advantage of the opportunity.  And each saw the fertile lands between Berlin and Moscow as an integral part of their respective visions.

During the years that both Stalin and Hitler were in power, more people were killed in Ukraine than anywhere else in the bloodlands, or in Europe, or in the world.

It began with the famines….

Making a Choice

The important question is: how could (how can) so many human lives be brought to a violent end?

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder

I return to this book by Snyder; I feel I have taken enough of a respite.  This will be my final post on this book.  Before addressing Snyder’s question, however, the final episodes of atrocity will briefly be covered.

Beginning in 1943 and continuing into the summer of 1944, Soviet troops were advancing westward toward Berlin.  Belarus – three years prior having been overrun by the Nazis, then suffering three years under the Nazis, was now the epicenter of the fight between the Soviets and the Nazis.  Just two weeks after the Allies landed 160,000 troops in Normandy, Stalin launched an offensive of one million in Operation Bagration:

The operation resulted in the almost complete destruction of an entire German army group, with the loss of Army Group Centre's Fourth Army, Third Panzer Army and Ninth Army. It is considered the most calamitous defeat experienced by the German armed forces during the Second World War.

Returning to Snyder:

The Germans lost some four hundred thousand missing, wounded, or killed.  Army Group Center was smashed.  The way to Poland was open.

Next stop, Warsaw, and one of many impossible choices facing those who lived in this region during those years – this by members of the Polish Home Army.  Having news of the rapid Soviet advance (and also having evidence, present in the countless Germans heading west), it seemed clear that the Germans would soon be defeated (good news) and the Soviets would soon replace them (not so good news):

If the Home Army fought the Germans openly, and succeeded, they might greet the arriving Red Army as masters of their own house.  If they fought the Germans openly, and failed, they would be prone and powerless when the Soviets arrived.  If they did nothing, they would have no bargaining position with the Soviets – or their western Allies.

In this short paragraph can be grasped the entirety of the situation and choices facing all those who lived in this region of hell on earth for the subject dozen years.  Every choice was bad, every outcome deadly. 

Illusion about Stalin was possible for the Allies; Polish officers and politicians could not afford to be so deluded.  They knew of the earlier occupation when Stalin went into eastern Poland; they knew of the deportations to central Asia; they knew of Katyn – the discovery of which prompted Stalin to break off diplomatic relations with the Polish government, an Allied government:

If Stalin would use his own massacre as reason to end relations with the Polish government, how could he be expected to negotiate in good faith about anything?  And if the Soviet Union would not recognize the legitimate Polish government during a common war against Nazi Germany, what were the chances that it would support Polish independence when the war was over and the Soviet position much stronger?

Someone might have told the Polish officers and politicians that they need not fret over such choices.  A clue might have been taken from British and American encouragement that the Poles accept the Soviet version of Katyn.  Just as the guarantee given by Britain and France in 1939 meant nothing (other than, perhaps, adding to Polish obstinacy), Poland in 1944 was of little concern to the Allies.

In any case, Roosevelt and Churchill had already agreed in late 1943 that the Soviet Union would reclaim eastern Poland as part of the Soviet Union after the war – in other words, half of their country had already been ceded (and kept secret to protect the Polish vote in FDR’s upcoming election).  Stalin, of course, had his plans for what was to become the new Poland.

Nevertheless, a choice was made – try to take control before the Soviets entered Warsaw:

Left alone by its allies, the Polish government in London ceded the initiative to the Polish fighters in Warsaw.  Seeing little other hope to establish Polish sovereignty, the Home Army chose an uprising in the capital, to commence on 1 August 1944.

You would think that the Soviets would be pleased with this – an uprising against the Nazis, weakening the enemy before the advancing Soviet army.  In a twisted sort of way, you would be correct.

Poles who revealed themselves to join the common fight against Germans were treated as people who might resist future Soviet rule.  The Soviet Union never had any intention of supporting any institution that claimed to represent an independent Poland.

The only institution in Poland immune from this concern was the Polish communist party.

Poland Sees Reality

It seems certain of the Central European countries are not going along with Washington’s desires to isolate Russia due to the issues in Ukraine.  Some combination of reality and realpolitik has overcome the situation, even for several members of NATO:

So let’s consider Hungary, a NATO member whose prime minister recently named Putin’s Russia as a political model to be emulated. Or NATO member Slovakia, whose leftist prime minister likened the possible deployment of NATO troops in his country to the Soviet invasion of 1968. Or NATO member Czech Republic, where the defense minister made a similar comparison and where the government joined Slovakia and Hungary in fighting the European Union’s sanctions against Russia. Or Serbia, a member of NATO’s “partnership for peace” that has invited Putin to visit Belgrade this month for a military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Red Army’s “liberation” of the city.

That’s three members and one partner.  Several of these complaints were registered early on.  What has changed?

Then there is Poland, which until recently was leading the effort within NATO and the European Union to support Ukraine’s beleaguered pro-Western government and punish Putin’s aggression.

For many reasons, I consider the critical player in this match to be Poland: historically, a buffer zone between east and west in Europe and a pawn of western powers in the run-up to World War II.  Currently a member of NATO, one who previously led the charge for tough talk and tough actions against Russia.

When Poland was talking tough in this most recent calamity, I openly questioned the sanity of their political leadership.  Regardless of one’s views on the situation in Ukraine or the role played by either the Russian or US governments, one look at a map might suggest to Poland’s political leadership a more tempered position.  A consideration of the true value of an American guarantee might be in order.  A moment’s pause to consider the transitioning relationship between Germany and Russia could be expected.  A consideration of the different views of Poland’s immediate neighbors might be wise.

Apparently, times have changed:

This month its new prime minister, Ewa Kopacz, ordered her new foreign minister to urgently revise its policy. As the Wall Street Journal reported, she told parliament she was concerned about “an isolation of Poland” within Europe that could come from setting “unrealistic goals” in Ukraine.

Some common sense on this topic coming from Poland’s leadership.  Again, whatever one’s view of the backstory of this conflict, Polish security requires a reality-based assessment of the situation – not action based on promises from the West that will prove to be as impossible to keep as were the British and French guarantees of 1939.

More, from Bloomberg:

“We shouldn’t rush to become part of this military conflict,” Kopacz said as she presented her cabinet. “When the big European family decides that we want to help” Ukraine, “then we should take part in providing help, but together with other countries.”

If actions follow these words, it represents a marked change from Poland’s previous stand on this issue; it also increases the likelihood of a calmer, peaceful resolution.

Finally, it continues to develop the possibility for the integration of Germany toward the east.