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Polish Army in WW2

Discussion in 'Prelude to War & Poland 1939' started by Kai-Petri, Mar 9, 2003.

  1. ralf

    ralf Member

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    Thanks for opening this tread and for the whole discussion. I mean exspecially our foreign collgues. The tone of this discussion is a little bit hysterical. IIww in Poland ended in 1989, in some way.
    You must remember that we,Poles, are oversensitive about wwII history. I am 38 old and I've read such quantity of crap from communist official history handbooks. I mean Goebbels propaganda too.
    Friedrich, sabres against german tanks is a pure Goebbels propaganda. There is documentary film (black and white) showing such attack, but it was shot many weeks later with German cavalery.
    Andy's explanation on it is the only probable.
    I read your posts Friedrich, and I agree with 90% of them.Your knowledge about Poland is really impressive-I am not joking.
    I remember what my uncle,a 1939 cavalryman,told me.
    Horses were just means of transportation, something like modern motorbikes.Maybe better cos they didn't need spare parts. Charging with sabres took place only when the enemy was unprepared, unaware of the danger. It was always a surprise attack. Germans couldn't have time to aim their guns. That's logical and obvious.
    OK that's it.
     
  2. ralf

    ralf Member

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    I don't understand this discussion. Of course Stalin was better choice for Poles than Hitler. Though his devilish system killed more people in Russia than nazism.
    His aim was not to annihilate polish nation but to change them into Stalin confessors.
    That's beyond any doubt.
     
  3. ralf

    ralf Member

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    I wanted to comment earlier discussion.
     
  4. ralf

    ralf Member

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    You didn't understand Baron's post, he wasn't diminishing polish sacrifice. The Battle of Monte Cassino was not about the monastery. It was about the surrounding hills. It is a cementary of all nations. Poland had the privilege to deliver the final blow. But there are ghosts of many nations there, we are obliged to respect them.
     
  5. TheRedBaron

    TheRedBaron Ace

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    Thank you Ralf.
     
  6. Friedrich

    Friedrich Expert

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    Ralf:

    Thank you very much for your posts. They show a great deal of maturity and cool-minded thinking.

    I do not like you because you agree with me, I like you because you've done what none of your Polish countrymen in this forum have done: being humble and objective.

    Please stick around. This forum needs people like you. And I'd be very interested in discussing Polish subjects with you any day. [​IMG]
     
  7. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    Among enthusiasts in Britain, the Polish contribution is not forgotten. In just one week, I noticed at the Duxford VE-Day airshow, among the trade-stands, a stall dedicated entirely to commemorating the Polish Spitfire squadrons of 131 Wing. And then, at this weeks' Lancaster flypast at the RAF Museum, I noticed a distinguished-looking gentleman standing to one side, wearing many medals. His cap bore the Polish insignia.

    Thank you for restoring a little balance to the discussion, Ralf.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. ralf

    ralf Member

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    Do you know why Poland lost 1939 September Campaign in just 4 weeks?
    Of course, powerful Germans and Russians it was too much for such a small country.
    But after 66 years we can say it openly-polish army was run by incompetent cowards.Yes, exactly so.
    Such individuals as general Rómmel, Dąb- Biernacki, and others should have been sentenced to death by martial court. They left their units on the battlefield. Famous general Bortnowski(a star in the prewar Poland)was sitting paralysed in a forest, unable to give any reasonable order.
    Many of them were cavalrymen. They were wearing beatiful uniforms,kissing ladies hands, they spoke French,Latin fluently, they were art experts. But they didn't fit to the theathre of IIWW. Excellent
    commanders like Sikorski, Sosnkowski,Thomee didn't have much to say. Poland was not prepared to war also thanks to idiotic decisions by war ministers and others. We really had excellent weapons: UR carbine, 7TP tank- better than Panzers I,II,III, Mausers-improved german version, Łoś- bomber plane etc. Our clever goverment spent millions of dollars on modern submarine boats which were completely useless. The problem of Polish weapons was it's scarsity not quality. Beyond any doubt mobilization could be announced weeks faster.The general plan of war was mistaken.General von Manstein said that defence on the borders was hopeless,the only solution was creating a circle of strongly defended towns-fortresses. Blitzkrieg would stuck completely.
    The problem of polish leaders was their quality. This problem is still current)).
     
  9. Friedrich

    Friedrich Expert

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    The question, however, is how much could those town-fortresses have resisted without almost all Poland's limited industry in German hands and weaponry supplies from the Allies that had 3.000 km to go through sea and land to get there?

    Same could be said about the French. No wonder why Poland and France were defeated. Polish generals failed to see (or refused to see) that the awkward French war machine wouldn't move before the 6th week of the war, as French generals failed to see that Poland could not resist on her own for six whole weeks.

    Though we should blame the time too. Most German generals didn't believe Poland could be defeated in 4 weeks.
     
  10. ralf

    ralf Member

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    [/QUOTE]The question, however, is how much could those town-fortresses have resisted without almost all Poland's limited industry in German hands and weaponry supplies from the Allies that had 3.000 km to go through sea and land to get there?[/QUOTE]

    The Campaign would have been lost anyway without foreign support.Exspecially, after Soviet invasion. But German war-machine would be very overheated. Polish casualties could be much lower.
    As I said September was much to late for any decision. Competent leaders would start thinking about preparation many months before September.
    All that should have been done in September 1938.
    Why ,for Christ sake, Poland didn't declare war with Soviet Russia!!!? It had devastating effects later on.
    cześć
     
  11. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    You mean September 1939 when the Red Army crossed the border?
     
  12. ralf

    ralf Member

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    You mean September 1939 when the Red Army crossed the border? </font>[/QUOTE]Of course I mean only this moment, not 1941:)
    Polish soldiers were not treated as prisoners of war. All polish historicians believe this to be a serious fault resulting in Katyń, Miednoje, Charkow massacres and many more not identified till now.
    Polish officers were trated worse than common criminals in Russia.
     
  13. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    Yes, Ralf, that would have made an interesting position for the western allied at least, or is that what you are after? That they would have been forced to make a stand on the Russian politics while in true life the situation stayed neutral and enabled the co-operation in 1941 when Barbarossa started. ( then again the Winter war i.e. war between Finland and Russia was not a reason to declare war in 1939-40...)

    I also read that the Russian Secret police gave info to the Germans during their co-operation 1939-1941 on suspicious persons in Poland leading to a huge numebr of arrests as well as persons wanted by Gestapo being delivered by the Red Army to the Germans from eastern Poland. So the country was totally terrorized by both sides.
     
  14. stanchev

    stanchev Member

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    Yes and the funny thing was that most polish citizens (including Jews) in 1939-1941 were escaping from soviet occupation to land occupied by the nazis
     
  15. ralf

    ralf Member

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    Yes, I know many such examples, one of them was my close friend. The horror of Stalin Russia is impossible to to understand for the people in the Western Europe. That doesn't extend to the members of this forum ,of course, who are all history maniacs.
    But ordinary people are quite unaware of it. Wladimir Putin is now restoring very delicately the cult of Stalin. My cunning senses notice that.
    By the way during 9th of May celebrations in Moscow he didn't mention Poland as an ally against Axis!!
    About 350.000 polish soldiers on all fronts plus about 350.000 members of Home Army(AK).Too few for him. He spoke about German and Italian resistance movement members. Can you imagine how polish veterans felt?
     
  16. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    I thought that contributors to this thread may like to read the contents of a letter printed this morning in the London Guardian newspaper : -

    POLAND'S WAR CONTRIBUTION

    Sir,

    In their coverage of the celebrations of the 60th Anniversary of the ending of the second world war in Europe, the British media rightly emphasised the role of the Soviet Union in winning the war against Nazi Germany. However, it is also worth remembering the efforts of the other member states of the anti-Nazi coalition, including Poland.

    My country was the first one to confront Hitler's war machine. At the end of the war, Poland raised a regular army of nearly 600,000 fighting on different fronts. Together with the soldiers of the underground army of the various organizations in the occupied country, in 1945, the Polish nation had a huge army of 1.2 million. This means that Poland was the fourth largest contributor to the victory of the anti-Nazi coalition in terms of the number of soldiers.

    It is also appropriate to observe that during the war Poland lost about 6 million of its citizens - over 15% of the country's prewar population.

    It must be clear, in the light of this, why the Poles have reacted with indignation at the President of the Russian Federation's assessment of the war allies' respective contributions to the victory over Nazi Germany. Poland stands out from 'other' countries mentioned in the President's address at Red Square and has fully legitimate reasons for its war effort to be duly recognized.

    Zbigniew Matuszewski
    Ambassador of the Republic of Poland.
     
  17. Friedrich

    Friedrich Expert

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    That's bloody awful! [​IMG] Specially if we consider that German resistance was underservedly included there… a resistance movement that acted only when the war was lost… :mad:
     
  18. ralf

    ralf Member

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    Well that's Russian policy. When I was in the UK 16 years ago I had to do with people from different social classes. It was nice to hear compliments from them about Polish soldiers. Ordinary people are always more reliable than politicians.I encountered much sympathy. Probably it was in some way polish war heritage. It is nice not be ashamed for your nation. This may change thanks to polish criminals that are invading Britan.
     
  19. Heartland

    Heartland Member

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    Heh, well, the same could be said about a lot of nations, really. The French have certainly been mentioned, but there is also a good case for putting the British in this category. Several good examples can be found in Max Hastings "Bomber Command", with the bomber force pretty much resembling a gentlemans club before and at the start of the war, couped up in castles and mansions, more occupied with coctail parties and training. Of course, they suffered terribly once the war heated up.

    I bet the same could be said of most European nations actually - Germany, Finland, and possibly the USSR excepted.
     
  20. ralf

    ralf Member

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