51 quotes found
"As a result of the Soviet hopes of world revolution or, at least, ideological expansion into Central Europe, the Polish victories near Warsaw between 16 and 25 August 1920 were a key incident in the Cold War. The Battle of Warsaw ended the drive west by the Soviets, a drive which had already led them to capture the cities of Minsk and Vilnius the previous month. Had the Soviets succeeded in 1920 and established a sister republic in Poland, on the model of the French Revolutionaries in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands, then Communism would have had an opportunity to become more strongly grounded."
"In this episode, as with the post-1945 conflicts more classically seen as part of the Cold War, the struggle between the Great Powers was indirect: even in the Korean War (1950–3), there was no declaration of war or full-scale conflict. In 1920, the French provided the Poles with useful supplies and military advice, but there was no commitment of troops. Instead, the Poles benefited from their ability to gain the initiative, and then defeat separately the Soviet forces whose coordination was handicapped by mutually-distrustful Communist generals and by lengthy supply lines. Advancing over a very wide front and reliant on long supply lines, the tired Soviet forces lacked depth and nearby reserves. This was a very different situation to their successful fighting advance across this territory against the Germans in 1944. Prior to the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, Soviet strength seemed particularly potent and threatening, and it was unclear whether it would be possible for the Western powers to stop Soviet expansion short of full-scale war. What containment (to employ a later term) could mean in practice was unclear. In the event, after the battle, the Poles, in turn, advanced to within ninety miles of Kiev, before agreeing an armistice. The eventual Treaty of Riga, in March 1921, left Poland with some territory in modern Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, and with a frontier far to the east of modern Poland."
"If Charles Martel had not checked the Saracen conquest at the Battle of Tours, the interpretation of the Koran would be taught at the schools of Oxford, and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet. Had Pilsudski failed to arrest the advance of the Soviet Bolshevik Army at the Battle of Warsaw, not only would Christianity have experienced a dangerous reverse, but the very existence of Western civilisation would have been imperilled. The Battle of Warsaw saved Central and most parts of Europe from a more subversive danger – the fanatical tyranny of the Communist Soviet. All of Europe at this time, after World War I, was in ruin, and a strong conqueror could have imposed a tyrannical system from Russia in the East to France, and possible Britain in the west. The army that had marched on Warsaw was over a million strong and was nearing the gates of Warsaw when the Polish Cavalry attacked at the Bolshevik hind-quarter. The Bolsheviks were so surprised by a viable and active military response to their sure victory that the Bolshevik army in shock routed and fled in complete disarray. The Polish western boundary stood until 1939 and World War II. On the essential point, there can be little room for doubt; had the Soviet forces overcome Polish resistance… Bolshevism would have spread throughout Central Europe and might well have penetrated the whole continent."
"General Peter Wràngel's Caucasian Army had captured Tsaritsyn that June, but by January 1920 it was clear that the war was effectively over. The Allies cut off their aid to the Whites. One by one the generals fled or, like Kolchak, were captured and executed. By the summer of 1920 Lenin felt confident enough to export the Revolution westwards, ordering the Red Army to march on Warsaw and confidently talking of the need to 'sovietize Hungary and perhaps Czechia and Romania too'. Only their decisive defeat by the Polish army on the banks of the River Vistula halted the spread of the Bolshevik epidemic."
"(this war) largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more.[...] Unavowedly and almost unconsciously, Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international revolution."
"That was the time when everyone in Germany, including the blackest reactionaries and monarchists, declared that the Bolsheviks would be their salvation."
"(this war allows us) ...to probe Europe with the bayonets of the Red Army."
"We must direct all our attention to preparing and strengthening the Western Front. A new slogan must be announced: Prepare for war against Poland."
"Lenin’s great disappointment with spreading Communism abroad occurred in the summer of 1920. In April of that year, Poland, eager to forestall the reemergence of a strong and imperialist Russia, had made common cause with Ukrainian nationalists and invaded the Soviet Ukraine with the aim of detaching it from Russia. The invasion failed to ignite an uprising in the Ukraine, and the Polish armies soon found themselves in full retreat. As the Red Army approached the borders of ethnic Poland, the Politburo, the directing organ of the Communist Party, had to decide whether to stop or to continue advancing westward. Opinions were divided but Lenin insisted on offensive operations, and as by now was always the case, he had his way. He felt certain that both Germany and England were ripe for revolution, which the appearance of Communist armed forces on their borders would help ignite. In the summer of 1920, the Red Army, accompanied by Soviet commissars of Polish origin, entered Poland. It broadcast appeals calling on Polish workers and peasants to seize properties of the bourgeois and landlords—slogans that had proven very effective in Russia. But the Poles of all classes rallied to defend newly won Polish sovereignty. In the battle for Warsaw, one of the decisive battles of modern history, they repulsed and scattered the Communist army. Lenin could not conceal his bitterness at this outcome."
"Under the rule of Catherine the Great, Russia reclaimed all of its historical lands, including in the south and west. This all lasted until the Revolution. Before World War I, the Austrian General Staff, relying on the ideas of Ukrainianization, started to actively promote the ideas of Ukraine and the Ukrainianization. Their motive was obvious. Just before World War I, they wanted to weaken the potential enemy and secure themselves favourable conditions in the border area. So this idea which had emerged in Poland that people residing in that territory were allegedly not really Russians, but rather belonged to a special ethnic group, the Ukrainians, started to be promoted by the Austrian General Staff too. As far back as the 19th century, theorists calling for Ukrainian independence appeared. All those, however, claimed that Ukraine should have a very good relationship with Russia. They insisted on that. After the 1917 Revolution, the Bolsheviks sought to restore the statehood, and the Civil War began, including the hostilities with Poland. In 1921, peace with Poland was proclaimed, and under that treaty, the right bank of the Dnieper River once again was given back to Poland."
"To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to world-wide conflagration. March on Vilno, Minsk, Warsaw!"
"Germany, who has latterly come to unite about 80 million Germans, who has brought certain neighboring states under her sway and who has strengthened her military might in many respects, has evidently become a dangerous competitor for the principal imperialist powers of Europe - Great Britain and France. They therefore declared war on Germany under the pretext of fulfilling their obligations to Poland. It is now clearer than ever how far the real aims of the governments of these powers are from the purpose of defending disintegrated Poland or Czechoslovakia."
"Events arising out of the Polish‑German War has revealed the internal insolvency and obvious impotence of the Polish state. Polish ruling circles have suffered bankruptcy. . . . Warsaw as the capital of the Polish state no longer exists. No one knows the whereabouts of the Polish Government. The population of Poland have been abandoned by their ill‑starred leaders to their fate. The Polish state and its government have virtually ceased to exist. In view of this‑state of affairs, treaties concluded between the Soviet Union and Poland have ceased to operate. A situation has arisen in Poland which demands of the Soviet‑Government especial concern for the security of its state. Poland has become a fertile field for any accidental and unexpected contingency that may create a menace to the Soviet Union. . . . Nor can it be demanded of the Soviet Government that it remain indifferent to the fate of its blood brothers, the Ukrainians and Byelorussians White Russians inhabiting Poland, who even formerly were without rights and who now have been abandoned entirely to their fate. The Soviet Government deems it its sacred duty to extend the hand of assistance to its brother Ukrainians and brother Byelorussians inhabiting Poland."
"At 4.45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, the tranquillity of daybreak in Western Poland was shattered by a deafening military thunderclap. Five German armies comprising more than 1.8 million men swept across the Polish borders, launched from ideally situated bridgeheads in Western Pomerania, East Prussia, Upper Silesia and German-controlled Slovakia. Almost as loud as the barrages of the German artillery were the roars of engines; the German advance was spearheaded by more than three thousand tanks and hundreds of armoured cars and personnel carriers. From the sky, Ju-87 dive-bombers shrieked down on the hastily mobilizing Poles, their precision bombs destroying bridges, roads and supply convoys, their terrifying sirens sowing panic among the defending forces. The aim was to avoid the protracted attrition of the last war by achieving rapid penetration of territory and swift, annihilating encirclements of enemy forces. With its devastating combination of artillery, infantry, armour and air power, this was precisely what the blitzkrieg made possible."
"Guderian - who was happy to describe himself as Liddell Hart's disciple and pupil and even translated his works into German - had learned his lessons well. In September 1939 his panzers were unstoppable. The Poles did not, as legend has it, attempt cavalry charges against them, though mounted troops were deployed against German infantry, but they lacked adequate motor transport and their tanks were fewer and technically inferior to the Germans'. Moreover, like the Czechs before them, the Poles found Anglo-French guarantees to be militarily worthless. At the Battle of Bzura they mounted a desperate counteroffensive to hold up the German assault on Warsaw, but by September 16 their resistance was crumbling. By the 17th the Germans had reached the fortress at Bresc (Brest) on the River Bug. On September 28 Warsaw itself fell. Eight days later the last Polish troops laid down their arms. The entire campaign had lasted barely five weeks. The Poles had fought courageously, but they were outnumbered and outgunned."
"The joint invasion of Poland was celebrated with a parade by the Wehrmacht and the Red Army in Brest Litovsk."
"The generals of the two invading armies went over the details of the prearranged line that would mark the two zones of conquest for Germany and Soviet Russia, subsequently to be rearranged one more time in Moscow. The military parade that followed was recorded by Nazi cameras and celebrated in the German newsreel: German and Soviet generals cheek by jowl n military homage to each other's armies and victories."
"While all these untoward events were taking place, amid a ceaseless chatter of well-meant platitudes on both sides of the Atlantic, a new and more terrible cause of quarrel than the imperialism of czars and kaisers became apparent in Europe. The Civil War in Russia ended in the absolute victory of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Soviet armies which advanced to subjugate Poland were indeed repulsed in the Battle of Warsaw, but Germany and Italy nearly succumbed to Communist propaganda and designs. Hungary actually fell for a while under the control of the Communist dictator, Bela Kun. Although Marshal Foch wisely observed that “Bolshevism had never crossed the frontiers of victory,” the foundations of European civilisation trembled in the early post-war years. Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of Communism. While Corporal Hitler was making himself useful to the German officer class in Munich by arousing soldiers and workers to fierce hatred of Jews and Communists, on whom he laid the blame of Germany’s defeat, another adventurer, Benito Mussolini, provided Italy with a new theme of government which, while it claimed to save the Italian people from Communism, raised himself to dictatorial power. As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into even more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction."
"If Charles Martel had not checked the Saracen conquest at the Battle of Tours, the interpretation of the Koran would be taught at the schools of Oxford, and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet." "Had Pilsudski and Weygand failed to arrest the triumphant advance of the Soviet Army at the Battle of Warsaw, not only would Christianity have experienced a dangerous reverse, but the very existence of Western civilisation would have been imperilled. The Battle of Tours saved our ancestors from the Yoke of the Koran; it is probable that the Battle of Warsaw saved Central and parts of Western Europe from a more subversive danger – the fanatical tyranny of the Soviet. "On the essential point, there can be little room for doubt; had the Soviet forces overcome Polish resistance… Bolshevism would have spread throughout Central Europe and might well have penetrated the whole continent."
"Again and again, Poles rose against their occupiers, only to be savagely put down, with their finest young men slaughtered or marched to Siberian prisons. Then, at the end of the Great War, Poland suddenly reappeared on the maps. What did the Poles do? They immediately saved Western civilization yet again. In the now-forgotten "Miracle on the Vistula," a patched-together Polish army turned back the Red hordes headed for Berlin. One of history's most brilliant campaigns, it saved defeated Germany from a communist takeover. Poland's thanks? The slaughter of World War II. Then the Soviet occupation."
"...and so in the evening released from facts I can think about distant ancient matters for example our friends beyond the sea I know they sincerely sympathize they send us flour lard sacks of comfort and good advice they don't even know their fathers betrayed us our former allies at the time of the second Apocalypse their sons are blameless they deserve our gratitude therefore we are grateful they have not experienced a siege as long as eternity those struck by misfortune are always alone the defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds the Afghan mountaineers..."
"It is said that by doing that [i.e abandoning Eastern Europe] they secured the imminent participation of Stalin in war against Japan. Already armed with the Atomic bomb, they did pay for Stalin so that he wouldn’t refuse to occupy Mandzhuria, to help Mao Zedong to gain power in China and Kim Ir Sen in half of Korea!… Oh, misery of political calculation! When later Mikolajczyk was expelled, when the end of Benesh and Masaryk came, Berlin was blocked, Budapest was in flames and turned silent, when ruins fumed in Korea and when the conservatives fleed from Suez – didn’t really some of those who had better memory recall for instance the case of giving away the cossacks?"
"Auschwitz, the meaning of pain The way that I want you to die Slow death, immense decay Showers that cleanse you of your life Forced in like cattle You run stripped of your life's worth Human mice, for the Angel of Death Four hundred thousand more to die."
"Just as we went by, they were opening the gas-chamber doors, and people fell out like potatoes. ... Each day one hundred Jews were chosen to drag the corpses to the mass graves. In the evening the Ukrainians drove those Jews into the gas chambers or shot them. Every day! ... More people kept coming, always more, whom we hadn't the facilities to kill. ... The gas chambers couldn't handle the load."
"Witnesses said the aircraft lost altitude rapidly, briefly skimmed treetops, then plowed a 500-yard furrow through the forest, breaking apart as it went. Its wings were sheared off, then it disintegrated in a huge explosion followed by a series of smaller explosions that touched off several brush fires."
"A woman who also witnessed the crash said she saw a body hanging from a tree after the explosion but rescue workers found little trace of human remains, apparently because of the force of the blast."
"The television news later showed scenes filmed by a helicopter-borne Polish crew. Amid smoldering tree trunks and mangled metal, charred bodies could be seen, and bits of fabric hung from branches like shrouds, apparently blown there by the force of the explosion."
"The Holy Father was very upset by the news of the accident. He was visibly upset and retired (to his private rooms) to say special prayers for the victims."
"The crew faced fire and loss of thrust in the two left-side engines, cabin decompression and, they soon realised, loss of pitch control. For the remainder of the flight they controlled pitch with the aircraft’s trim system. The flight engineer opened the valves to jettison some of the 70 tonnes of fuel the aircraft was carrying for its trans-Atlantic flight, but was disturbed to see that although the solenoid read as open, the fuel level did not fall. At nearly maximum take-off weight but with only two engines operating, the aircraft was in a gradual, but unstoppable, descent."
"Among the crew’s terse, unemotional remarks was a brief speculation that something, possibly connected with the military area, had hit the horizontal stabiliser and engines. By this time the fire alarm had ceased and the crew presumed the fire had gone out. The engineer reported only one of the aircraft’s four generators was operational. In response, the captain switched off the radar to save power."
"The Polish report into the crash found the shaft bearing in the engine had been installed with half the required number of roller bearings—13 instead of 26. Its failure caused the inner part of the disc to melt and the outer part to spin freely, destroying itself and becoming a rotary projectile. LOT never bought another Soviet aircraft and took delivery of its first Boeing 767 in 1990. Meanwhile, it fitted its Ilyushin 62M fleet with vibration gauges and warning lights."
"The crash, described as Poland's worst commercial airline disaster, left several close-knit Polish communities in the New York area - in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn and in parts of Connecticut and New Jersey - in a state of shock and mourning."
"Owing to the severity of the crash, 62 of the 183 bodies were never positively identified. The victims included 166 Polish citizens and 17 Americans."
"On 14 June 1940, 20 people left "in a transport" guarded—it was said—by twice as many Germans, armed to the teeth. The chroniclers of Pawiak do not record this separately, but rather as part of the next, larger deportation. My mother and I despairingly speculated as to where these two terrible "kennels" had gone. Pawiak had not yet heard the name "Palmiry". The regular shots coming from the clearing there eventually attracted the attention of the foresters, and from them — through secret newspapers — Pawiak learned of Palmiry. Two days of hell began on 20 June. Bolts slammed, long lists of names were called into our cells, and maybe three of us were left from the original dozen. The next day, Mieczysław Niedziałkowski was dragged out (...) Everyone on the long lists was taken to the "transport", about 400 people at that time. They were led under the arms of Maciej Rataj, sick, unfit, battered people dragged from their cells, too weak to walk to the truck. The "kennels", filled with SS men and escorted by heavily armed German vehicles, turned right after they left the gate. Pawiak had its ideas about where they were going. The prison was a lot emptier but — as always — not for long."
"These 15 individuals were sentenced to death by the SD summary court. Permission for the execution was granted pursuant to an order by the Commander of the Security Police and SD in the Radom District; it will be carried out by the Commando unit on 28 June 1940."
"In addition, the Katyn massacre almost coincided with the so-called "Aktion A-B" ... in the area under Nazi occupation, where similar people from similar social circles were shot or sent to concentration camps. A high-ranking Soviet official was permanently attached to the SS command in the General Government, and it is difficult to believe that the timing of these two actions was entirely coincidental."
"The Third Reich's authorities began planning the liquidation of the Polish "leadership class" even before they began the war. They had prepared proscription lists, with 80,000 Poles targeted for elimination. Among them were political activists, insurgents from Silesia and Greater Poland, activists from social organizations, teachers, Catholic priests and judges. From the beginning of the occupation these plans were implemented in two ways: mass executions and imprisonment in concentration camps. The former were undertaken by the Security Police's Einsatzgruppen, who entered Poland just behind the Wehrmacht. Once in the country, they were joined by Selbschutz, Polish German units under the direction of the SS. In the course of this "political cleansing", the Germans murdered 50,000. Another 20,000 were taken to concentration camps in April and May 1940."
"The fate of the majority of those imprisoned in Warsaw by Aktion A-B in spring 1940 was settled. June became the month of mass executions, starting on the 14th."
"Most terrifying was the atmosphere, paralyzing thought and will, filled with fear and terror—the shouting of outraged Germans, the cries of beaten prisoners and uncertainty about what tomorrow would bring. New prisoners were brought in every night after interrogation. Often after their names were called in the cells, people were herded into the courtyard, from whence they were taken either to camps or to be shot. Executions began in the shooting range near the ravine at Czechowy Górny, then at the cemetery on Unicky Street, at Rury Świętoduskie, and the Jewish cemetery. Others were taken to the forests near Niemce and Kopopnica. Jews were shot in the Krępiec forest. Most of the time we learned of this from the prisoners in Work Cell 19, who dug the execution pits and buried the bodies. The lists of prisoners to be shot or deported to camps were prepared by the Gestapo under Cramer's supervision and approved by Gestapo commander Müller. Those lists were taken to the Castle, where the transports were organized. A group of Gestapo officers would arrive to collect the prisoners (if they were to be executed, mostly at night), with Gestapo officers from the prison staff also taking part."
"Let no one mourn for me, because I die — not in the field, not in battle, yet still like a soldier — as a Pole for Poland, with her name on my lips, no small honor. Blood spilled on Polish soil will fertilize it, breeding avengers and a free, greater Poland."
"We arrived at Auschwitz around three in the afternoon ... The kapos and SS men herded us into the yard with sticks ... We had to walk up to tables where they took down our personal details, asked about our occupations and issued us numbers on what looked like cards ... Then they began teaching us how to line up for roll call ... The kapos began hitting us with their mallets, seemingly oblivious to where their blows fell. We ran around the yard, completely stunned, terrified, with no idea what was happening and what was expected of us."
"Around 9 p.m., we heard loud commands and orders in the corridor. A moment later the door to cell 43, mine, opened, and I heard a loud voice say "Achtung!" All 37 of us stood at attention in two rows. Names were called out; those called were made to stand in the corridor with their faces to the wall. The rest of us were pale, nervous and unsure of what would happen next. A moment later, a short sentence was read in German and then translated into Polish: For hostile activities against the Germans, you have been sentenced to death by shooting. Afterwards the men were taken to cell 48 and the women to the second floor. The death cell rang out with the national anthem, hymns and military songs all night."
"Gentlemen! I have discussed with my colleague Streckenbach, in the presence of Obergrüppenführer Krüger, this extraordinary-pacification program, the goal of which is the accelerated liquidation of the majority of rebellious politicians and politically suspect individuals in our hands while simultaneously putting an end to traditional Polish criminality. I freely admit that this will result in several thousand Poles losing their lives, mainly from the circle of Polish ideological leaders. All of us, as National Socialists, must commit to making every effort to ensure that no further resistance crystallizes within the Polish nation."
"I got to Auschwitz via a mass operation, known by its perpetrators as "Aktion A-B". It affected tens of thousands in central Poland, in Kraków, Warsaw and Częstochowa. Thousands of young men were taken from their homes or off the streets in June 1940 and taken, as a precaution, to the new concentration camp at Oświęcim"
"On 4 April 1940, I saw about 10 covered German trucks going down the road from Firlej to the barrens. At the time I was leaving my house in a horse-drawn wagon; I returned about three hours later. When I got back I learned from my family and neighbors that gunfire had been heard coming from the barrens, that they had been surrounded by a chain of guard posts, and that a guard had been posted at the yard of each house to prevent people from going out. By the time I returned there was neither gunfire nor guards. Not much later, I saw the same German trucks leave for Radom. I then went to the barrens. The day before I had noticed several freshly dug large holes there. I went to them. They had been filled in and trampled by boots. You could see the marks of their hobnails. Nearby were bone fragments. Later I heard that the Nazis had shot a large group of people from the Chlewiska area."
"During the hot summer days of 1940, rumors began circulating in Kraków that were working on some major construction on the Silesian border, like large barracks or blocks — all surrounded by barbed wire and kept under the tightest secrecy. But even if it had been public, none of us could have grasped what was going on, because the Germans were building Auschwitz."
"In the first half of 1940 the so-called Aktion AB was started, targeting mainly Polish intellectuals. Thousands were shot at Palmiry, the chosen execution site near Warsaw. Among those killed there were Marshal of the Sejm Maciej Rataj; one of the leaders of the Polish socialists, Mieczysław Niedziałkowski; a prominent athlete and gold medalist at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, Janusz Kusociński; writer and editor of the first underground magazine in the country, Poland Lives, Witold Hulewicz; Polish Senator :Helena Jaroszewiczowa, and the renowned chess player Dawid Przepiórka."
"In spring 1940 another wave of persecution of Polish intellectuals, called "Aktion A-B" by the Germans, began in all the large cities of the General Government. Governor Hans Frank openly saw this as "a convenient moment" in which the SiPo and SS had to act at a "faster pace" as the West was more concerned at the time with the invasion of Belgium and France than the fate of the Poles."