Вторая мировая война

08.05.2020

The text of the secret protocol to the Polish-British mutual assistance agreement of August 25, 1939, with the seals and signatures of Ambassador Edward Raczyński and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain Lord Halifax.

The Power of Treaties

We trusted our allies. Poland entered the war full of faith in the power of Treaties it had concluded with its European partners since the early 1920s. The earliest of these agreements was the Polish-French Agreement of February 19, 1921. Signed in Paris by the foreign ministers Aristides Briand and Eustachy Sapieha, it was a way to stablisize position of a young Polish state in the face of a possible threat from Germany. The accompanying secret military convention provided that in the event of German aggression both countries would provide "effective and quick assistance". The Polish-Romanian convention on the defense covenant signed in Bucharest two weeks later and extended in 1926 bound Poland and Romania with the obligation of mutual defense against any external assault.

The USSR, although difficult to recognize as Poland's ally, was, however, a party to the non-aggression pact concluded on July 25, 1932, in which both states "renounced war as a tool of national policy in their mutual relations and undertook to refrain from any aggressive actions or from assault on one another. " In May 1934, the non-aggression pact was extended to December 31, 1945. So it was mandatory on September 17, 1939, when the USSR troops entered eastern Poland! Just before the outbreak of war, a key role in ensuring Poland's security was to be played by the Polish-British mutual assistance agreement, hurriedly negotiated during the period of intensifying Polish-German relations, and signed on August 25, 1939. The agreement provided for immediate military assistance in the event of German aggression against one of the signatories.

Illustration caption:

A note that Ambassador Grzybowski did not accept

On September 17, Rzeczpospolita fighting the German invasion received a stab in the back. At dawn, about one and a half million soldiers troops of the Red Army entered the eastern territories of Poland. Thus, the Soviet Union realized its political intention to extend its zone of interest, included in a secret protocol to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, which was signed on August 23, 1939 by the Foreign Ministers of the Third Reich and the USSR - Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov.

Shortly before the beginning of the aggression, at 3 in the morning, the USSR Deputy Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Potemkin, summoned the Polish Ambassador to Moscow, Wacław Grzybowski, and tried to give him a note justifying the entry of the Red Army into Poland. The Ambassador rejected its argument about the disappearance of the Polish state and refused to accept the document. The text of the note - obtained from Russian diplomats in Romania thanks to contacts of the Polish embassy in Bucharest - reached the hands of Minister Beck while being in Kuty on the Polish-Romanian border on 17 September around noon. The Minister accepted the Ambassador's conduct and instructed the staff of four Polish branches - the embassy in Moscow, consulates general in Kiev and Minsk, and the consulate in Leningrad - to leave the USSR. The decision of the Soviet authorities stood in the way of evacuation, which granted diplomatic privileges to Ambassador Grzybowski, but refused them to other diplomats. The Russians changed their position and issued exit visas to Poles after the intervention of Western powers' ambassadors. Polish diplomatic staff could not leave the USSR until October 10. Despite efforts and interventions, Polish Consul General in Kiev Jerzy Matusiński had not been found. Presumably he was arrested and murdered by the NKVD. "We are at war with Russia by the very fact of aggression. (...) For a state of war to occur, a formal declaration is not a prerequisite. The Russian-Japanese War of 1904 or the Polish-German War of 1939 are classic examples of this, "commented a few months later the state of Polish-Soviet relations, former Foreign Minister Jan Szembek.

Illustration caption:

Cable from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Bucharest with the text of the Soviet note of September 17, 1939.

The New Ministry of Foreign Affairs

August Zaleski took over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the government formed by General Władysław Sikorski in Paris on 1 October 1939. The new Minister of Foreign Affairs was a well-known person in the world of diplomacy. Before the war, he headed Polish diplomatic missions in Switzerland, Greece and Italy, and in 1926-32 he headed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in eleven consecutive Polish governments. He remained Foreign Minister in the Sikorski government until July 1941, handing in his resignation in protest against the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, its provisions and negotiations, and the minimizing of the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the talks.

Organizing the work of the Ministry was not a simple task. After the formation of General Sikorski's government, the Foreign Ministry was in Paris for nearly two months. Overcrowded rooms of the facility also served other government authorities at that time. The situation improved slightly when on 22 November 1939, the Ministry moved with the whole government to the city of Angers, about 300 km southeast of Paris. The French authorities have indicated this location because of its remoteness from the German border and the historical relationship between Anjou and the history of Poland. The stabilization lasted only seven months. After the Third Reich's invasion of France and the rapid progress of the German offensive, the Polish government, following the reccommendation of the French authorities, moved to Libourne near Bordeaux and the Atlantic coast on 14 June. After a short stay in the city, a group of most important politicians, including President of the Republic of Poland Władysław Raczkiewicz and members of the government with Minister Zaleski were evacuated to London on board of the British cruiser HMS "Arethusa".

Illustration caption:

A government meeting in Angers in December 1939. From left: the Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski, the Minister Józef Haller, the Minister of the Treasury Henryk Strasburger and the Minister of Foreign Affairs August Zaleski.

Embassies, legations and consulates

Before September 1939, Poland had 10 embassies, 20 legations, 24 consulates general and 42 consulates as well as nearly 130 honorary consulates around the world. The outbreak of war, followed by the development of political events in 1939-1945, meant that the network of Polish diplomatic posts underwent significant changes. The attack of the Third Reich on Poland marked the end of the mission of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin and 14 consular offices in Germany, while the aggression of the Soviet Union resulted in the liquidation of posts in Moscow, Kiev, Minsk and Leningrad. In the years 1939-1941, as a result of pressure from the German authorities, Polish representations’ offices in countries dominated by the Third Reich, including Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece and Finland, were closed. After the Italian war in 1940, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Rome ceased operations, and the Polish mission to the Holy See, previously located in one of the Roman palaces, had to move its headquarters to modest offices in the Vatican. In some countries of the world, Polish diplomats could, however, continue their work in their current conditions – remaining at their headquarters were embassies in London, Washington and Ankara, as well as legations in Bern, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Madrid, Mexico, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Stockholm, Cairo and Tehran.

After the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, 21 field delegations of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Moscow began work. All of them ceased operations after the USSR broke off relations with Poland after the discovery of the Katyń graves in 1943. The proof of the importance of contacts with non-European countries was the elevation of the legation in Shanghai to the rank of an embassy, transferred, as requested by the Chinese authorities, to the city of Chongqing, as well as the opening of embassies in Ottawa and Baghdad.

Caption below the illustration:

Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Chongqing in 1945.

Jan Karski’s report

A unique chapter in the history of Polish diplomacy was written by those who provided various forms of assistance to Polish Jews during the Second World War. Few of them were able to leave Poland as part of the September 1939 emigration wave. On Polish lands occupied by the Third Reich, Jews were deprived of all civil liberties, forced into ghettos, severely punished for breaking the regime's discriminatory laws and left to die. From 1941, Jews were subjected to systematic extermination. In 1942, the extermination of Jews became part of a wider Nazi German plan of total annihilation of all European Jewish population. By 1945, approximately 3 million Polish Jews lost their lives in the Nazi German extermination camps and ghettos. Between 1939 and 1941, from 100 000 to 300 000 Polish Jews were deported from the Soviet-annexed Poland deep into the USSR along with other Polish citizens.

Jan Karski played a special part in the history of Jews in occupied Poland. Karski started his diplomatic career before 1939 as an intern at the Consulate General of Poland in London under his family name of Jan Kozielewski. Karski went on to pursue his diplomatic career at the headquarters of the Polish foreign service. He worked for the Home Army’s information service and he was engaged in clandestine activities. He travelled as a courier between Poland, France and Britain. In 1942, Karski brought the first extensive eye-witness reports about the Holocaust to the Polish government-in-exile and to the leaders of the free world. In July 1943, Karski presented his report to the U.S. President F. D. Roosevelt. In his conversation with Roosevelt, Karski said: ”If the Germans do not change their methods towards the Jewish population, if there is no Allied intervention – either by repression or any other way - or if no unforeseen circumstances arise, the Jewish population of Poland, with the exception of members of the Jewish resistance, will cease to exist.” Jan Karski’s reports formed basis of the diplomatic note sent by the Polish government to governments of 26 countries, signatories of the United Nations Declaration, on 10 December 1942. Later on, the note was published as “The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland” and distributed by the Polish Foreign Ministry.

Caption:

Diplomatic passport issued for Jan Karski before his mission to the United States of America in 1943

The Paraguayan passports

Since the outbreak of the Second World War, and especially in 1942 and 1943, illegal assistance was provided by the Polish Legation in Bern, Switzerland for Jewish citizens of Poland, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Hungary and Jews deprived of German citizenship. Polish diplomats: Konstanty Rokicki, Stefan Ryniewicz and Juliusz Kühl organised, with full knowledge and agreement of the Head of Mission Aleksander Ładoś, production of illegal Paraguayan passports (and, in rare cases, other South American passports). First, original blank passports were bought from South American honorary consuls in Bern and then they were issued to Jews to protect them against deportation to extermination camps and to give them a chance to survive in an internment camp for foreigners. The Polish Legation in Bern issued at least 1,000 such passports. Each passport was issued for several family members. The passports reached only some Jews. They saved at least 800 lives.

The Head of Mission in Bern Aleksander Ładoś sent reports to the Polish Foreign Service Headquaters with information about the illegal passport production: “Our operation consists in obtaining South American passports from friendly consuls, especially from Paraguay and Honduras. The passports are kept here while their copies are sent to Poland. This keeps people safe because as “foreigners” they are placed in relatively decent conditions, in special camps. They would remain there until the war is over and we would maintain correspondence to stay in contact. Then, we issue written statements to consuls confirming that the passports were used to save people’s lives and they shall not be used otherwise”.

Caption:

A Paraguayan passport issued by Vice-Consul Konstanty Rokicki

Long live independent Poland!

At the turn of 1944 and 1945, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs still had 7 embassies, 33 legations and 139 consular offices around the world. In February 1945, the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition powers – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – agreed in Yalta to give Poland to the sphere of influence of the USSR. Despite the deteriorating diplomatic position, the Polish posts continued their activities until early July 1945, when they were closed almost without exception after recognition of the Polish government in London was withdrawn and almost all countries established relations with the Provisional Government of National Unity established in Poland in accordance with the Yalta arrangements of the Big Three. The liquidation process was preceded by the destruction of the institution's files and documentation. Care over buildings owned by the Polish state was entrusted to representations of third countries or authorities of the country of office.

On 6 July 1945, the day after the Polish government's withdrawal of recognition from the most important coalition countries, Minister Adam Tarnowski directed a circular to the heads of all Polish institutions in which he stated: "I am convinced that no matter how in terms of service the participation of each of you in the further work of the government will look in the future, you will all, as far as your strength and ability, cooperate in the fight for the victory of ideals close to the heart of every true Pole. Long live independent Poland! "

Caption below the illustration:

The Circular of Minister Tarnowski from 6 July 1945