Selbstschutz in Poland

[Morden]

Very interesting topic though very unpleasant in outlook. The discussion is not kept civil almost from all sides. I want to thank Sid G. for calming down individuals and trying to influence others to behave properly. I co-operated with him at the topic on Warsaw Uprising and I really liked it.

I have to make statement here: I'm polish and I'm proud of it.

I'm not so die-hard fighter for polish honor as Orzel (which is Eagel in polish and our country emblem) and I don't like his manner of writting here in this forum which I find unacceptable. But on the other hand he made some valid points on Jason's post in the topic. Indeed Selbschutz was not polish - and that's it. As Orzel mentioned the wording is important, especially when somebody without some historical backgroud reads it.
I hope that Jason will admit that his wording was inapropriate.
I hope Orzel will start to control himself (as he already apologised for the manner of his posts).
I hope that this topic will be continued as it is titled i.e. Selbschutz in Poland.
And we can of course start new topic e.g. "Non-existent collaboration in Poland" which hopefully won't turn into another flamewar.

Here I would like to comment some posts:

Jason has some kind of fixation when it comes to polish "blue police". As it was mentioned it was not combat organisation. Secondly it was created on the base of pre-war police force. While it is true that it had to co-operate with Germans there were very little true "collaborationists" - policemen did not identified themselves with german rule. Polish underground movement was very strict about activity of those policemen and quite many of them was sentenced death penalty during the war becouse of theirs misdeeds. What's more Germans themselves purged blue police very often - it is estimated that at least 15% of policemen were releived and sentenced at least the labour camp sentences.
The most common, what does not mean numerous, crime of polish blue police was the co-operation in jews prosecution. While not directly involved in Holocaust the police force was supposed to find hiding jews, to protect jewish property which was taken over by germans, to control jews movement to ghettos etc. There were several reasons for that: rather strong antisemitism in Poland in pre-war period, "better them than us" or "they are going to die either way" or "we don't care about jews, we care about Poles" attitude, some of course wanted to get rich and inability to help (you can help an individual but not millions). But such behaviour was not rule. As a whole polish blue police helped Poles a lot while not actively collaborated with nazis.

On the other hand polish underground goverment (yes, yes government) created special organisation that was supposed to help jews live till the end of the war. It was only one INSTITUTION in occupied Europe created with only one goal - help jews. What may be of interest for you - almost half of trees in Yad Vashem are polish trees (tree is seed by two persons -jew that survived the Holocaust and the one who helped him/her to do it).

I don't know if Henrik belives in what he writes about polish "collaborationists" who signed the Volksliste. The first question is if they had any option? I don't think they had. Maybe lonely indyvidual can stick to his ideas and suffer, but what about families with little children or old parents? If one didn't sign the Volksliste he was deported to GG from the Reich with few suitcases, in case of farmers without any devices or animals. Would you Henrik let your family suffer in harsh 1939-40 winter if you had an option to sign Volksliste? Apart from that, civilian (of any nation) has one aim during the war - to survive and it doesn't matter how.

And the last thing: polish - ukrainian relationship which are getting better each year - very good prognosis for our future. The worst thing of it is that Ukrainians as well as Poles were manipulated by others (Russians, Soviets, Austrians, Germans) to fight each other. Foreign powers acted accordingly to the old roman rule divide et impera.
The hatered peaked during WWII and early after. Firstly 1941-43 Ukrainians cleansed western Ukraine of Poles (at least they tried very hard and were extremly brutal). After that in 1945-47 we - Poles (with help of mighty Soviet Union) dispearsed Ukrainians in northern Poland. It is estimated that those ethnic cleansings costed life of about 100.000 Poles and 25.000 Ukrainians.

Morden

[Morden]

Hi to all!

This topic cought my attention so I descided to put some light on the "polish question".

1. Despite Orzels remarks (or lack of manners) there was plenty of Polish collaboration. Out of 7 Blue-police regiments in Galicia, one is clearly marked as "polish" - that is made up of ethnic Poles and not Volksd.

I think that this 'polish blue police regiment' had rather administrative meaning than military. If it was military some questions arises:
1. Were they stationed in barracks?
2. Were they committed en masse in e.g. anti-partisan actions?
3. Did they have heavy weapons i.e. mortars, artillery, HMG etc?
4. Were they trained for combat by Germans?
Policemen are, beleive it or not , normal people. They have to earn for living. If you were your whole life a policeman (and had no other proffession) would you consider being one under foreign country occupation in the situation of rapidly deteriorating living condition?

Besides that - I was reading up on some memuars from General Gouvernment written by Ukrainian member of Central Committee. He mentiones interesting fact; the moment Germans announced self government - great numbers of poles began to sign up as Volksd. in order to get better postions or food stamps. Sounds like collaboration to me.

As I wrote in my earlier post the main aim for civilian during the war is to survive. Being a Pole in many parts of Ukraine meant being dead or prosecuted because of your nationality. It was certainly better to be German (or Volksdetsche) in Ukraine. While Germans would tolerate killing Poles by Ukrainans they wouldn't tolerate killing Germans. It was kind of insurance. Though not valid in 1944 when Soviets entered .
Besides for a civiliann two main things are food and shelter.

2. National minorities in Poland. YOU Orzel might not consider them as poles, but the Interwar Polish Gov. tought the opposite. In fact there was a whole program to polonize all those German and Ukrainian minorities. As for you calling them traitors - its funny since, Interwar poland is well known for its shouvenism and opression of minorities.

Well no-one was saint in Europe in pre-WWII period and earlier. The idea of one country - one nation was widespread. Before 1926 when Poland was democratic country the minorities had ca. 80 members of Parliament out of 440 - which is very high number. After 1926 Poland become autocratic and as well as minorities also Poles were prosecuted because of their political views. Nothing is white or black in our complicated world.

3. No members of 14th div. SS Galicia commited any crimes against poles in one point or another. Royal Commision on Warcrimes TWICE found them not guilty - this is a well known fact

Please don't use such arguments. It's not funny. When those Royal Commission found soldiers of "Halyczna" not guilty? Was it in 50s when conflict with SU and its sattelites started to become hot and ukrainian nationalists could be used as revolution/rebel force inside SU?
Sorry for being sarcastic, but if you can please post dates of those rulings.

Morden

[sid guttridge]

Hi All,

It is good to see this interesting discussion settling down.

A question: What is this "Royal Commission" being referred to? As far as I am aware, none of the countries directly interfering in Ukrainian/Polish affairs since 1919 were monarchies. Which country set up this "Royal Commission"?

It occurs to me that the scope for Polish collaboration was much less than elsewhere because the Germans were simply not looking for a collaborationist Polish administration. The Germans simply ceased to recognise the Polish state and absorbed it entirely into the Reich. No centralised puppet administration existed. Only the lowest tiers of local administration and civil policing were left in Polish hands, even in the General Government. Poland was to be the first area cleared of Slavs to create lebensraum for the Germans and the Nazis intended to annihilate the Polish people entirely as an identifiable national unit. A significant start on both colonisation and national extermination were made.

In these circumstances there was very little scope for Polish collaboration. It may not simply be that the Poles were resistant to collaboration. It may also be the case that the Germans were not looking for significant collaboration from a people of whom they had already formally ceased to recognise the existence.

Cheers,

Sid

[Morden]

Hi All,


It occurs to me that the scope for Polish collaboration was much less than elsewhere because the Germans were simply not looking for a collaborationist Polish administration. The Germans simply ceased to recognise the Polish state and absorbed it entirely into the Reich. No centralised puppet administration existed. Only the lowest tiers of local administration and civil policing were left in Polish hands, even in the General Government. Poland was to be the first area cleared of Slavs to create lebensraum for the Germans and the Nazis intended to annihilate the Polish people entirely as an identifiable national unit. A significant start on both colonisation and national extermination were made.

In these circumstances there was very little scope for Polish collaboration. It may not simply be that the Poles were resistant to collaboration. It may also be the case that the Germans were not looking for significant collaboration from a people of whom they had already formally ceased to recognise the existence.

Cheers,

Sid

You are very right Sid. In Poland there was no collaboration gov. because germans didn't want to create one. There were talks of polish pro-german circles with Ribbentrop concerning some kind of provisional gov. in late 1939 early 1940. Which finished with the germans concluded that they don't need it.
But you have to be aware that polish society was generally anti-german and such creation would have not had any backing in society. Any form of collaboration was strictly forbidden by polish gov in exile first in France and than in Great Britain.

Till fall of France any kind of co-operation with germans was laughable for any Pole - mighty France, UK and polish army under gen Sikorski were assumed to win the war.
After fall of France the nazi terror made any kind of co-operation impossible.

What's interesting in early 1944 Himmler through SD tried to contact polish Home Army (AK) to build anti-soviet front (SS thought that London gov. would be prone to ally after Katyn and soviet attitude towards Poland). After preliminary talks the process didn't continue. After ocen of polish blood spilled by nazis no agreement could be reached.
In late 1944 germans tried to create polish armed forces called 'polnische wehrmacht'. That exact name had polish forces created by germans in WWI (1917-18 ). There were 130 conscripts. Numbers tell for themselves.

Polish resistance to collaborate was function of german violence. It is interesting that the same resistance was presented during first soviet occupation of eastern Poland in 1939-1941. When soviets changed theirs techniques in 1944-53 huge amount of active collaborators appeared but never in that period exeeded 10% of society and on average was much lower.

Morden

[Rosomak]

Hi All,

It is good to see this interesting discussion settling down.

A question: What is this "Royal Commission" being referred to? As far as I am aware, none of the countries directly interfering in Ukrainian/Polish affairs since 1919 were monarchies. Which country set up this "Royal Commission"?

It occurs to me that the scope for Polish collaboration was much less than elsewhere because the Germans were simply not looking for a collaborationist from Polish administration. The Germans simply ceased to recognise the Polish state and absorbed it entirely into the Reich. No centralised puppet administration existed. Only the lowest tiers of local administration and civil policing were left in Polish hands, even in the General Government. Poland was to be the first area cleared of Slavs to create lebensraum for the Germans and the Nazis intended to annihilate the Polish people entirely as an identifiable national unit. A significant start on both colonisation and national extermination were made.
As I know (but I could be wrong, acordingly to western parts of view) Poles were really ceased from German's point of view. It occured that Poles always playied against Germans. And it

In these circumstances there was very little scope for Polish collaboration. It may not simply be that the Poles were resistant to collaboration. It may also be the case that the Germans were not looking for significant collaboration from a people of whom they had already formally ceased to recognise the existence.

Cheers,

Sid

[Rosomak]

Sorry,but my lastest replay did not appear on this side. So I repeat. Poles never collabrated with Germans as they never wanted us a collaborists. Even most facists Polish resistance (like NSZ = National Army Corps) were never invited by Germans and were never willingly to meet any Germans invitation. In the perspective of all the Europe (Slovakia, Norway, Begium, France, Netherland, Hungary, Rumania, Italy, Finland, Spain. Portugal and so on), even in the perspective of the single soldiers or units from GB, US, France, what to say about Russia - there was not a single Polish unit to fight for Germans. And even all those Poles who were enlisted to Wermacht were from Pommern, Silesia or Warmia i Mazury. They were bi-nationality, bi-language people, and most of them served in Africa Corps. After surrending many of them joined the ranks of Polish II Corps (in 8th British Army) bleeding in Monte Cassino in May 1944. Were they traitors? Or they were simply "the forgotten soldiers" used by any side as a "battle-meat".

[Norman aus Lemberg]

Morden,

1. "I think that this 'polish blue police regiment' had rather administrative meaning than military. "

- The whole batallion definately would have been equipped with some weapons. Besides - I don't think such things as anti-partizan actions mean anything - there were wery little of partizans in GAlicia to start with. The fact is - you did not have to volunteer for the blue police - but many poles did. The issue of volunteering - is the core responce to the question of collaboration.

2. "As I wrote in my earlier post the main aim for civilian during the war is to survive. Being a Pole in many parts of Ukraine meant being dead or prosecuted because of your nationality. It was certainly better to be German (or Volksdetsche) in Ukraine. While Germans would tolerate killing Poles by Ukrainans they wouldn't tolerate killing Germans. It was kind of insurance. "

- During the early occupation - there was no such ting, as persecution of Poles, or Ukrainians. Things were pretty much under control. Poles siezed this as an opportunity to gain control in the government. Only latter did cleansing and commong battles began.

3."Well no-one was saint in Europe in pre-WWII period and earlier. The idea of one country - one nation was widespread. Before 1926 when Poland was democratic country the minorities had ca. 80 members of Parliament out of 440 - which is very high number. After 1926 Poland become autocratic and as well as minorities also Poles were prosecuted because of their political views. Nothing is white or black in our complicated world. "

- Am glad we agree on minorities question.

4."When those Royal Commission found soldiers of "Halyczna" not guilty? Was it in 50s when conflict with SU and its sattelites started to become hot and ukrainian nationalists could be used as revolution/rebel force inside SU?
Sorry for being sarcastic, but if you can please post dates of those rulings. "

- The first Royal commision was in 48 if am not mistaken, the secon one inthe late 70's. Yes, the politics had a lot to do with it, but no evidence (even now) has ever been produced to convice the division. If you can provide me some points - I would gladly discuss them with you.

P.S. I agree on the Polish-Ukrainian relations with you, and I am also glad that they are getting better with every year.


Sid:
The Royal Commission refers to the commission estalished by the British to investigate the division prior to its relese from the British POW camps in England. They were cheking for some war criminals or relation to death camps - but nothing of such could ever been found and any of the allegations were ever proven to be true.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Norman,

Thanks for the information on the Royal Commissions.

Have you any more specific sourcematerial such as the full title etc. I can then find the original in the Official Publications part of the Britih Library.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Orzel]

"During the early occupation - there was no such ting, as persecution of Poles, or Ukrainians. Things were pretty much under control. Poles siezed this as an opportunity to gain control in the government. Only latter did cleansing and commong battles began." no offense man but were you high when you wrote that? No persecution of Poles early in the occupation by the Germans? What do you call early the first half hour? Poles seized control of the government? How could Poles seize control of the Government of Poland?

On a related topic I ran across a website about a display in Poland on the Wolyn region during and after WWII. It featured some great articles as well photographs and interviews with veterans and civilians alike. The general gist of the showcase was that the extremist elements in the Ukrainian independence combined with the ignorance and brutality of the Ukrainian population caused 100,000 Polish deaths as well as over 20,000 Ukrainian deaths. It is unfortunate that these two nations who have lived side by side for so long cannot find a common ground. This especially sad when looks back to periods of tremendous prosperity, peace and tolerance when Ukraine was part of the Polish Commonwealth. Had the Commonwealth become a state of three nations and not only two(Poland and Lithuania) to this day Poland would be a great power in Europe and Ukraine could have been spared many hardships.

[Norman aus Lemberg]

Dear Sid,

Am not sure about the exact title - but if you visit this site, you can probaly find a lot of material on alleged "war criminals":

http://www.ukar.org

Orzel

no offense man but were you high when you wrote that? No persecution of Poles early in the occupation by the Germans? What do you call early the first half hour? Poles seized control of the government? How could Poles seize control of the Government of Poland?

- I notice that this is your tendency, not to pay attention. Galicia was not under the same rule as Poland, it was under direc control of Hans Frank, with the status of a special region. The speciality meant that the locals were given self-administration status.

On a related topic I ran across a website about a display in Poland on the Wolyn region during and after WWII. It featured some great articles as well photographs and interviews with veterans and civilians alike.

- Well if you back on the topic - how about anwring my previous postings? What about Pacifications of the 30's? Or do you think that out of the blue, Ukrainians descided - hey, lets gas us some polacks?



It is unfortunate that these two nations who have lived side by side for so long cannot find a common ground. This especially sad when looks back to periods of tremendous prosperity, peace and tolerance when Ukraine was part of the Polish Commonwealth.

- The only prosperity I can see was in 16st. Ever since then, Poland was on a road to decline.

Had the Commonwealth become a state of three nations and not only two(Poland and Lithuania) to this day Poland would be a great power in Europe and Ukraine could have been spared many hardships

- This was realized with Treaty of Gadiach in 1667 - The treaty was supposed to include Ukraine as Grand Dutchy of Rus under Hemtan Vyhovsky. But the idea was never supported by the polish nobility.

[Opa]

About the situation of the 1 million ethnic Germans who suddenly became an oppressed minority in 1919, read the books of Richard Blanke, such as Orphans of Verhttp://www.ume.maine.edu/~history/blanke/blanke.htmsailles. Here is his link

My own ancestors were ethnic Germans from Slovakia, and there too (despite the alliance of Slovakia with the Third Reich), there are ultra-nationalists without heart nor decency towards hapless victims. Some postings ought to be pruned.

[Ironrat]

I did found a few mistakes:
1. Bruno Schultz was not killed in a concentration camp. On 19 November the writer set off to the Judenrat for some bread and fell prey to "a wild action" of the local Gestapo. He died in the street, shot by Karl Günther, a Gestapo officer who murdered Schulz in revenge for the shooting of his own protégée, a dentist called Löwe, by Landau.

2. Kaszubians history is a little more complicated than described in this thread. In fact they were descending from dutch pirates who came to the north of Poland. Even today you can find in their language words that are identical to dutch language.

3.Concentration camps in Poland after the war were mostly (I will not say all) organized by russians. They were Germans in this cams but also Poles (a lot of AK members) and others peoples considered as a threat to the new post-war order. Thousends were deported to Russia and did return (if they were still alive) home after Stalin's death. Little people knows that Russians even had after the end of WWII a camp in France near Paris.

Most of the people signig the volksliste were considering themselves as Germans. Some people did become volksdeutch because it made their living easier. I personally knew the story of a priest who signed the volksliste and saved during the war a lot of people - mostly Jewish giving them for example fake church certificates or buying out persons sent to concentration camps. After the war, he was sentenced to death. Finally he spend 10 years in prison. As for today I was unable learn more about him.

[PAWEL_202]

[

quote="Morden"]Very interesting topic though very unpleasant in outlook.
Jason has some kind of fixation when it comes to polish "blue police". As it was mentioned it was not combat organisation. . As a whole polish blue police helped Poles a lot while not actively collaborated with nazis.

WHAT? The Blue Police might not have started out as a combat Org.
but it sure as Hell ended up one. Schuma for instance...Oh and
before you say something like "they weren't Poles or they were
Kaszubians or ext....ext..." THEY WERE POLES! How do I kow?
because Im proud to say they are members of my family

[Morden]

WHAT? The Blue Police might not have started out as a combat Org.
but it sure as Hell ended up one. Schuma for instance...Oh and
before you say something like "they weren't Poles or they were
Kaszubians or ext....ext..." THEY WERE POLES! How do I kow?
because Im proud to say they are members of my family

Polish Schuma Battalions? Well, can you tell us more? I'm rather curious.

Morden

[MAXIS]

Hi guys
As my looks for infos has continued in the past months I want to display a very important (on my opinion) detail about Selbstschutz in Generalgouvernement.

Directly quoted fm Raul Hilberg. The destruction of european jews (I think an irrecusable and over any suspect source).
Note 326 connected with chapter eight “The deportation” (translated fm italian edition pg. 892):
“Initially under Stadthauptmanner and Kreishauptmanner, they [the selbstschutz] were then associated with ordnungspolizei on October 1942. Only 25% of those ethnic germans, spoke german because in their ranks were admitted ethnic germans speaking polish only and some ukrainians”.

Well, considering this, what’s the precise demarcation line between, polish, german, volksdeutsche speaking german, volksdeutsche speaking polish etc, etc into polish (or not polish) Selbstschutz/Sonderdienst?
Really this structure was pure blood without any “contamination” or, was somewhat “mischlinge”?
Really could we consider as an absolute truth, without any doubt, the assertion, made by someone in this post, that Selbstschutz was 100% german and not polish (and following this, Jason Pipes was brutally “attacked”)???
Or the truth was much more tiny, really hard to define and out on every nationalistic honour?

This isn’t mathematic, and results not even derived fm irrecusable arithmetical rules. Or not?

Best
Max