Home Army

The Home Army (

The Home Army sabotaged German transports bound for the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union, destroying German supplies and tying down substantial German forces. It also fought pitched battles against the Germans, particularly in 1943 and in Operation Tempest from January 1944. The Home Army's most widely known operation was the Warsaw Uprising of August–October 1944. The Home Army also defended Polish civilians against atrocities by Germany's Ukrainian and Lithuanian collaborators. Its attitude toward Jews remains a controversial topic.

As

in Central and Eastern Europe, the portrayal of the Home Army was no longer subject to government censorship and propaganda.

Origins

Part of a series on the
Polish Underground State
History of Poland 1939–1945
Authorities Government Administration Parliament Courts
Political organizations Major parties Polish Socialist Party People's Party National Party Labour Party Minor parties Camp of National Unity Democratic Party Jewish Labour Bund Hashomer Hatzair Betar (Zionist youth) Opposition National Radical Camp Polish Workers' Party
Military organizations Home Army (AK) Service for Poland's Victory (SZP) Armed Resistance (ZWZ) Gray Ranks National Security Corps (PKB) Mostly integrated with Home Army Gwardia Ludowa WRN Peasant Battalions Partially integrated with Home Army National Military Organization National Armed Forces Camp of Fighting Poland Pomeranian Griffin Confederation of the Nation Non-integrated but recognizing authority of Home Army Jewish Combat Organization Jewish Military Union Opposition Armia Ludowa
Related topics Cultural activities Education History of Poland during 1939–1945
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The Home Army originated in the

The Home Army was loyal to the Polish government-in-exile and to its agency in occupied Poland, the Government Delegation for Poland (Delegatura). The Polish civilian government envisioned the Home Army as an apolitical, nationwide resistance organisation. The supreme command defined the Home Army's chief tasks as partisan warfare against the German occupiers, the re-creation of armed forces underground and, near the end of the German occupation, a general armed rising to be prosecuted until victory. Home Army plans envisioned, at war's end, the restoration of the pre-war government following the return of the government-in-exile to Poland.^{[4][1][2][5][6][7]}

The Home Army, though in theory subordinate to the civil authorities and to the government-in-exile, often acted somewhat independently, with neither the Home Army's commanders in Poland nor the "London government" fully aware of the other's situation.^{[8]: 235–236}

After

In February 1942, when the Home Army was formed from the Armed Resistance, it numbered around 100,000 members.[5] Less than a year later, at the start of 1943, it had reached a strength of around 200,000.^[5] In the summer of 1944, when Operation Tempest began, the Home Army reached its highest membership:^[5] estimates of membership in the first half and summer of 1944 range from 200,000,^[8]: 234 through 300,000,^[10] 380,000^[5] and 400,000^[11] to 450,000–500,000,^[12] though most estimates average at about 400,000; the strength estimates vary due to the constant integration of other resistance organisations into the Home Army, and that while the number of members was high and that of sympathizers was even higher, the number of armed members participating in operations at any given time was smaller—as little as one per cent in 1943, and as many as five to ten per cent in 1944^[11]—due to an insufficient number of weapons.^{[5][13][8]: 234}

Home Army numbers in 1944 included a cadre of over 10,000–11,000 officers, 7,500 officers-in-training (singular:

The Home Army was intended to be a mass organisation that was founded by a core of prewar officers.[5] Home Army soldiers fell into three groups. The first two consisted of "full-time members": undercover operatives, living mostly in urban settings under false identities (most senior Home Army officers belonged to this group); and uniformed (to a certain extent) partisans, living in forested regions (leśni, or "forest people"), who openly fought the Germans (the forest people are estimated at some 40 groups, numbering 1,200–4,000 persons in early 1943, but their numbers grew substantially during Operation Tempest).^{[8]: 234–235} The third, largest group were "part-time members": sympathisers who led "double lives" under their real names in their real homes, received no payment for their services, and stayed in touch with their undercover unit commanders but were seldom mustered for operations, as the Home Army planned to use them only during a planned nationwide rising.^{[8]: 234–235}

The Home Army was intended to be representative of the Polish nation, and its members were recruited from most parties and social classes.

Home Army ranks included a number of female operatives.^[17] Most women worked in the communications branch, where many held leadership roles or served as couriers.^[18] Approximately a seventh to a tenth of the Home Army insurgents were female.^[19][18][20]

Notable women in the Home Army included

Many women participated in the Warsaw Uprising, particularly as medics or scouts;[25]^[26][19] they were estimated to form about 75% of the insurgent medical personnel.^[20] By the end of the uprising, there were about 5,000 female casualties among the insurgents, with over 2,000 female soldiers taken captive; the latter number reported in contemporary press caused a "European sensation".^[18]

Structure

Home Army Headquarters was divided into five sections, two bureaus and several other specialized units:^[1][5][27]

• 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 was subordinate in the military

Home Army commander	Codename	Period	Replaced because	Fate	Photo
General Związek Walki Zbrojnej as Armia Krajowa was not named such until 1942	Torwid	27 September 1939 – March 1940	Arrested by the Soviets	Joined the Anders Army, fought in the Polish Armed Forces in the West . Emigrated to United Kingdom.
General Stefan Rowecki	Grot	18 June 1940 – 30 June 1943	Discovered and arrested by German Gestapo	Imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Executed by personal decree of Heinrich Himmler after Warsaw Uprising had begun.
General Tadeusz Komorowski	Bór	July 1943 – 2 September 1944	Surrendered after end of Warsaw Uprising.	Emigrated to United Kingdom.
General Leopold Okulicki	Niedźwiadek	3 October 1944 – 17 January 1945	Dissolved AK trying to lessen the Polish-Soviet tensions.	Arrested by the Soviets, sentenced to imprisonment in the Trial of the Sixteen. Likely executed in 1946.

Regions

The Home Army was divided geographically into regional branches or areas (obszar),

The Western Allies had limited intelligence assets in Central and Eastern Europe. The extensive in-place Polish intelligence network proved a major resource; between the French capitulation and other Allied networks that were undeveloped at the time, it was even described as "the only [A]llied intelligence assets on the Continent".[34]^[35][32] According to Marek Ney-Krwawicz [pl], for the Western Allies, the intelligence provided by the Home Army was considered to be the best source of information on the Eastern Front.^[36]

Home Army intelligence provided the Allies with information on

The researchers who produced the first Polish–British in-depth monograph on Home Army intelligence (Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II: Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee, 2005) described contributions of Polish intelligence to the Allied victory as "disproportionally large"[41] and argued that "the work performed by Home Army intelligence undoubtedly supported the Allied armed effort much more effectively than subversive and guerilla activities".^[42]

Subversion and propaganda

The Home Army also conducted psychological warfare. Its Operation N created the illusion of a German movement opposing Adolf Hitler within Germany itself.^[1]

The Home Army published a weekly Biuletyn Informacyjny (Information Bulletin), with a top circulation (on 25 November 1943) of 50,000 copies.^[43][44]

Major operations

Sabotage was coordinated by the Union of Retaliation and later by Wachlarz and Kedyw units.^[2]

Major Home Army military and sabotage operations included:

• the
  Zamość Rising of 1942–1943, with the Home Army sabotaging German plans to expel Poles under Generalplan Ost^[2]
• the protection of the Polish population from the
  massacres of Poles in Volhynia in 1943–1944^[2]
• Operation Garland, in 1942, sabotaging German rail transport^[2]
• Operation Belt in 1943, a series of attacks on German border outposts on the frontier between the General Government and the territories annexed by Germany
• Operation Jula, in 1944, another rail-sabotage operation^[2]
• most notably Operation Tempest; in 1944, a series of nationwide risings which aimed primarily to seize control of cities and areas where German forces were preparing defenses against the Soviet Red Army, so that Polish underground civil authorities could take power before the arrival of Soviet forces.^[45]

The largest and best-known of the Operation Tempest battles, the Warsaw Uprising, constituted an attempt to liberate Poland's capital and began on 1 August 1944. Polish forces took control of substantial parts of the city and resisted the German-led forces until 2 October (a total of 63 days). With the Poles receiving no aid from the approaching Red Army, the Germans eventually defeated the insurrectionists and burned the city, quelling the Uprising on 2 October 1944.

The Home Army also sabotaged German rail- and road-transports to the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union.^[46] Richard J. Crampton estimated that an eighth of all German transports to the Eastern Front were destroyed or substantially delayed due to Home Army operations.^[46]

Assassination of Nazi leaders

The Polish Resistance carried out dozens of attacks on German commanders in Poland, the largest

• SS-Oberscharführer, Gestapo officer, and commandant of the Pawiak prison, assassinated 7 September 1943.^[49]
• SS and Police Leader of the Warsaw District, assassinated 1 February 1944.^[50]

As a clandestine army operating in an enemy-occupied country and separated by over a thousand kilometers from any friendly territory, the Home Army faced unique challenges in acquiring arms and equipment,^[51] though it was able to overcome these difficulties to some extent and to field tens of thousands of armed soldiers. Nevertheless, the difficult conditions meant that only infantry forces armed with light weapons could be fielded. Any use of artillery, armor or aircraft was impossible (except for a few instances during the Warsaw Uprising, such as the Kubuś armored car).^[51][52] Even these light-infantry units were as a rule armed with a mixture of weapons of various types, usually in quantities sufficient to arm only a fraction of a unit's soldiers.^{[13][8]: 234 [51]}

Home Army arms and equipment came mostly from four sources: arms that had been buried by the Polish armies on battlefields after the 1939

From arms caches hidden in 1939, the Home Army obtained 614 heavy machine guns, 1,193 light machine guns, 33,052 rifles, 6,732 pistols, 28 antitank light field guns, 25 antitank rifles, and 43,154 hand grenades. However, due to their inadequate preservation, which had to be improvised in the chaos of the September Campaign, most of the guns were in poor condition. Of those that had been buried in the ground and had been dug up in 1944 during preparations for Operation Tempest, only 30% were usable.[53]^: 63

Arms were sometimes purchased on the

Air drops were infrequent. Deliveries from the west were limited by Stalin's refusal to let the planes land on Soviet territory, the low priority placed by the British on flights to Poland; and the extremely heavy losses sustained by Polish Special Duties Flight personnel. Britain and the United States attached more importance to not antagonizing Stalin than they did to the aspirations of the Poles to regain their national sovereignty, particularly after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the Soviets joined the Western Allies in the war against Germany.^[56]

In the end, despite all efforts, most Home Army forces had inadequate weaponry. In 1944, when the Home Army was at its peak strength (200,000–600,000, according to various estimates), the Home Army had enough weaponry for only about 32,000 soldiers."^[8]: 234 On 1 August 1944, when the Warsaw Uprising began, only a sixth of Home Army fighters in Warsaw were armed.^[8]: 234

Relations with ethnic groups

Jews

Home Army members' attitudes toward

Members of the Home Army were named Righteous Among the Nations for risking their lives to save Jews, examples include Jan Karski,^[66] Aleksander Kamiński,^[67] Stefan Korboński,^[68] Henryk Woliński,^[69] Jan Żabiński,^[70] Władysław Bartoszewski,^[71] Mieczysław Fogg,^[72] Henryk Iwański,^[73] and Jan Dobraczyński.^[74]

Daily operations

A Jewish partisan detachment served in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising,^[75][76] and another in Hanaczów [pl].^[77][78] The Home Army provided training and supplies to the Warsaw Ghetto's Jewish Combat Organization.^[77] It is likely that more Jews fought in the Warsaw Uprising than in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, some fought in both.^[65]: 273 Thousands of Jews joined, or claimed to join, the Home Army in order to survive in hiding, but Jews serving in the Home Army were the exception rather than the rule. Most Jews in hiding could not pass as ethnic Poles and would have faced deadly consequences if discovered.^{[79][65]: 275}

In February 1942, the Home Army Operational Command's Office of Information and Propaganda set up a Section for Jewish Affairs, directed by

Antony Polonsky observed that "the attitude of the military underground to the genocide is both more complex and more controversial [than its approach towards szmalcowniks]. Throughout the period when it was being carried out, the Home Army was preoccupied with preparing for ... [the moment when] Nazi rule in Poland collapsed. It was determined to avoid premature military action and to conserve its strength (and weapons) for the crucial confrontation that, it was assumed, would determine the fate of Poland. ... [However,] to the Home Army, the Jews were not a part of 'our nation' and ... action to defend them was not to be taken if it endangered [the Home Army's] other objectives." He added that "it is probably unrealistic to have expected the Home Army—which was neither as well armed nor as well organized as its propaganda claimed—to have been able to do much to aid the Jews. The fact remains that its leadership did not want to do so."^[87]: 68 Rowecki's attitudes shifted in the following months as the brutal reality of the Holocaust became more apparent, and the Polish public support for the Jewish resistance increased. Rowecki was willing to provide Jewish fighters with aid and resources when it contributed to "the greater war effort", but had concluded that providing large quantities of supplies to the Jewish resistance would be futile. This reasoning was the norm among the Allies, who believed that the Holocaust could only be halted by a significant military action.^{[62]: 110–122}

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The Home Army provided the

Because it was the largest Polish resistance organization, the Home Army's attitude towards Jewish fugitives often determined their fate.^[63] According to Antony Polonsky the Home Army saw Jewish fugitives as security risks.^[87]: 66 At the same time, AK's "paper mills" supplied forged identification documents to many Jewish fugitives, enabling them to pass as Poles.^[65]: 275 Home Army published a leaflet in 1943 stating that "Every Pole is obligated to help those in hiding. Those who refuse them aid will be punished on the basis of...treason to the Polish Nation".^[98] Nevertheless, Jewish historians have asserted that the main cause for the low survival rates of escaping Jews was the antisemitism of the Polish population.^[99]

Attitudes towards Jews in the Home Army were mixed.^[59] A few AK units actively hunted down Jews,^{[100]: 238 [101]} and in particular two district commanders in the northeast of Poland (Władysław Liniarski of Białystok and Janusz Szlaski of Nowogródek) openly and routinely persecuted Jewish partisans and fugitives;^[102] however, these were the only two provinces, out of seventeen, where such orders were issued by provincial commanders.^[103] The extent of such behaviors in the Home Army overall has been disputed;^{[104]: 88–90 [105]} Tadeusz Piotrowski wrote that the bulk of the Home Army's antisemitic behavior can be ascribed to a small minority of members,^{[104]: 88–90} often affiliated with the far-right National Democracy (ND, or Endecja) party, whose National Armed Forces organization was mostly integrated into the Home Army in 1944.^{[106]: 17 [106]: 45} Adam Puławski has suggested that some of these incidents are better understood in the context of the Polish–Soviet conflict, as some of the Soviet-affiliated partisan units that AK units attacked or was attacked by had a sizable Jewish presence.^[77] In general, AK units in the east were more likely to be hostile towards Jewish partisans, who in turn were more closely associated with the Soviet underground, while AK units in the west were more helpful towards the Jews. The Home Army had a more favorable attitude towards Jewish civilians and was more hesitant or hostile towards independent Jewish partisans, whom it suspected of pro-Soviet sympathies.^[107] General Rowecki believed that antisemitic attitudes in eastern Poland were related to Jewish involvement with Soviet partisans.^[108] Some AK units were friendly to Jews,^[109] and in Hanaczów Home Army officers hid and protected an entire 250-person Jewish community, and supplied a Jewish Home Army platoon.^[110] The Home Army leadership punished a number of perpetrators of antisemitic violence in its ranks, in some cases sentencing them to death.^{[104]: 88–90}

Most of the underground press was sympathetic towards Jews,^[85] and the Home Army's Bureau of Information and Propaganda was led by operatives who were pro-Jewish and represented the liberal wing of Home Army;^[85] however, the bureau's anti-communist sub-division, created as a response to communist propaganda, was led by operatives who held strong anti-communist and anti-Jewish views, including the Żydokomuna stereotype.^[111][85] The perceived association between Jews and communists was actively reinforced by Operation Antyk, whose initial reports "tended to conflate communists with Jews, dangerously disseminating the notion that Jewish loyalties were to Soviet Russia and communism rather than to Poland", and which repeated the notion that antisemitism was a "useful tool in the struggle against Soviet Russia".^[112]

Lithuanians

Although the Lithuanian and Polish resistance movements had common enemies—Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—they began working together only in 1944–1945, after the Soviet reoccupation, when both fought the Soviet occupiers.^[113] The main obstacle to unity was a long-standing territorial dispute over the Vilnius Region.^[114]

The

In April 1944, the Home Army in the Vilnius Region attempted to open negotiations with Povilas Plechavičius, commander of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, and proposed a non-aggression pact and cooperation against Nazi Germany.^[116] The Lithuanian side refused and demanded that the Poles either leave the Vilnius region (disputed between Poles and Lithuanians) or subordinate themselves to the Lithuanians' struggle against the Soviets.^[116] In the May 1944 Battle of Murowana Oszmianka, the Home Army dealt a substantial blow to the Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force,^{[104]: 165–166 [117]} which resulted in a low-level civil war between anti-Nazi Poles and pro-Nazi Lithuanians that was encouraged by the German authorities;^[115] it culminated in the June 1944 massacres of Polish and Lithuanian civilians in the villages of Glitiškės (Glinciszki) and Dubingiai (Dubinki) respectively.^{[104]: 168–169}

Postwar assessments of the Home Army's activities in Lithuania have been controversial. In 1993, the Home Army's activities there were investigated by a special Lithuanian government commission. Only in recent years have Polish and Lithuanian historians been able to approach consensus, though still differing in their interpretations of many events.^[118][119]

Ukrainians

In the Southeastern part of occupied Polish territories, there have been long-standing tensions between the Polish and Ukrainian populations. Poland's plans to restore its prewar borders were opposed by the Ukrainians, and some Ukrainian groups' collaboration with Nazi Germany had discredited their partisans as potential Polish allies.

The Polish government-in-exile in London was taken by surprise; it did not expect Ukrainian anti-Polish actions of such magnitude.[120] There is no evidence that the Polish government-in-exile contemplated a general policy of revenge against the Ukrainians, but local Poles, including Home Army commanders, engaged in retaliatory actions.^[120] Polish partisans attacked the OUN, assassinated Ukrainian commanders, and carried out operations against Ukrainian villages.^[120] Retaliatory operations aimed at intimidating the Ukrainian population contributed to increased support for the UPA.^[134] The Home Army command tried to limit operations against Ukrainian civilians to a minimum.^[135] According to Grzegorz Motyka, the Polish operations resulted in 10,000 to 15,000 Ukrainian deaths in 1943–47,^[136] including 8,000-10,000 on territory of post-war Poland.^[137][138] From February to April 1945, mainly in Rzeszowszczyzna (the Rzeszów area), Polish units (including affiliates of the Home Army) carried out retaliatory attacks in which about 3,000 Ukrainians were killed; one of the most infamous ones is known as the Pawłokoma massacre.^[139][140]

By mid-1944, most of the disputed regions were occupied by the Soviet Red Army. Polish partisans disbanded or went underground, as did most Ukrainian partisans. Both the Poles and the Ukrainians would increasingly concentrate on the Soviets as their primary enemy – and both would ultimately fail.^[120]

Relations with the Soviet Union

Home Army relations with the Soviet

The Home Army was officially disbanded on 19 January 1945 to avoid civil war and armed conflict with the Soviets. However, many former Home Army units decided to continue operations. The Soviet Union, and the

The first Home Army structure designed primarily to deal with the Soviet threat had been

The first Polish communist government formed in July 1944—the

The third post-Home Army organization was

The persecution of the Home Army was only part of the

Most Home Army soldiers were captured by the NKVD or by Poland's UB political police. They were interrogated and imprisoned on various charges such as "fascism".^[144][145] Many were sent to Gulags, executed, or "disappeared".^[144] For example, all the members of Batalion Zośka, which had fought in the Warsaw Uprising, were locked up in communist prisons between 1944 and 1956.^[146] In 1956 an amnesty released 35,000 former Home Army soldiers from prisons.^[147]

Even then, some partisans remained in the countryside, and were unwilling or unable to rejoin the community; they became known as the cursed soldiers. Stanisław Marchewka "Ryba" was killed in 1957, and the last AK partisan,

Many monuments to the Home Army have since been erected in Poland, including the Polish Underground State and Home Army Monument near the

• Gray Ranks
• Polish contribution to World War II
• Polish resistance movement in World War II
• Western betrayal

Notes

References

Notes

Bibliography

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• Davies, Norman (2003). Rising '44. Macmillan.
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• Ney-Krwawicz, Marek (2001). Polish Home Army, 1939–1945. London: PUMST.
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• Strzembosz, Tomasz (1983). Akcje zbrojne podziemnej Warszawy 1939–1944 [Armed actions of underground Warsaw 1939-1944] (in Polish). Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.
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• Walker, Jonathan (2008). Poland Alone: Britain, SOE and the Collapse of the Polish Resistance, 1944. The History Press.
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• Zimmerman, Joshua D. (2015). The Polish underground and the Jews, 1939–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Armia Krajowa.

• Armia Krajowa Museum in Krakow
• Polish resistance – AK – Site edited by the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association
• Warsaw Uprising Museum
• (in Polish) Archiwum Pomorskie Armii Krajowej
• The Home Army After July 1944 Polish Underground Soldiers 1944–1963 – The Untold Story