Home Army

"Home Army" redirects here. For other uses, see Home Army (disambiguation).

The Armia Krajowa (the Home Army), abbreviated "AK", was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union for Armed Struggle) and over the next two years absorbed most other Polish underground forces. It was loyal to the Polish government in exile and constituted the armed wing of what became known as the "Polish Secret State". The Armia Krajowa, with over 400,000 members, was the largest Polish underground resistance movement and the world's second largest.^[a] It was disbanded in January 1945, when Polish territory had largely been cleared of German forces by the advancing Soviet Red Army.

The AK's primary activity was sabotage of German activities, including transports headed for the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union. The AK also fought some full-scale battles against the Germans, particularly in 1943 and 1944 during Operation Tempest, thereby tying down a number of German forces and diveting much-needed supplies. The most widely known AK operation was the Warsaw Uprising, part of the 1944 Operation Tempest. The AK also defended Polish civilians against atrocities committed by Nazi collaborators - organizations such as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Lithuanian Security Police. The Armia Krajowa, loyal to the relatively anti-Soviet Polish government in exile, was viewed by the Soviet Union as an antagonistic force, leading to increasing conflict between AK and Soviet forces both during and after the war. Those conflicts and other issues - such as the separation from Jewish resistance - meant that Armia Krajowa, seen in modern Poland as a heroic resistance, has been the subject of controversy and different portrayal in historiographies of various countries and in various periods.

History

World War II

The AK's origins were in the Służba Zwycięstwu Polski (Service for the Victory of Poland), which had been set up, just as the joint German and Soviet invasion of Poland was nearing completion, on September 27, 1939, by General Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski. Seven weeks later, November 17, 1939, on the orders of General Władysław Sikorski, this organization was succeeded by Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union for Armed Struggle), which over two years later, on February 14, 1942, became the AK.

While these two organisations were the founders of the AK, the majority of other Polish resistance movements eventually merged with the AK during the war. Stefan Rowecki (pseudonym Grot, or "Arrowhead"), served as the AK's first commander until his arrest in 1943; Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski commanded from July 1943 until his capture in September 1944 and Leopold Okulicki, pseudonym Niedzwiadek ("Bear Cub") led the organisation in its final days.

Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski.

The supreme command defined the main tasks of the AK as partisan warfare against the German occupiers, recreation of armed forces underground and, near the end of the German occupation, general armed revolt until victory. At the war's end, AK plans envisaged the seizure of power in Poland by the Delegatura (Government Delegate's Office at Home) establishment, the representatives of the London-based Polish government in exile; and by the government-in-exile itself, which would return to Poland. In addition to the London government there was also a political organization in Poland itself, a deliberative body of the resistance and the Polish Secret State. The Political Consultative Committee (Polityczny Komitet Porozumiewawczy) was formed in 1940 after an agreement by representatives of several major political parties (PPS-WRN, SL, SN and SP); renamed to Home Political Representation (Krajowa Reprezentacja Polityczna) in 1943 and to Council of National Unity (Rada Jedności Politycznej) in 1944. The AK, although in theory subordinated to the civil authorities and the government in exile, often acted somewhat independently with both the AK commanders in Poland and London government not fully aware of the situation of the other.

Until the major revolt began in 1944, the AK concentrated on self-defence (freeing prisoners and hostages, defence against pacification measures) and striking at the German forces. Throughout the period of its existence AK units carried out thousands of armed raids and intelligence operations, sabotaging hundreds of railway shipments and participating in many partisan clashes and battles with German police and Wehrmacht units. The AK also conducted retaliatory operations to assassinate Gestapo officials in response to Nazi terror tactics imposed on the civilian population of Poland.

"Germany is kaput" (German: Deutschland kaput) - a defeatist poster published in the General Government by Action "N" after the battle of Stalingrad in 1943

Polish Home Army's 26th Infantry Regiment en route from the Kielce-Radom area to Warsaw in an attempt to join the Warsaw Uprising.

Armia Krajowa supplied valuable intelligence information to the Allies; 43 percent of all reports received by British secret services from continental Europe in 1939-45 had come from Polish sources. Until 1942, most of British intelligence from Germany came from AK reports; until the end of the war AK would remain the main British source for news from Central and Eastern Europe. Among other topics, Armia Krajowa intelligence provided the Allies with information on German concentration camps, and about the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket One Project Big Ben mission used a stripped-for-lightness RAF twin-engine Dakota (Operation Wildhorn III) (Most III) from Brindisi, Italy, to fly to an abandoned German airfield in Poland to retrieve information prepared by engineer and aircraft designer Antoni Kocjan, as well as 100 lb (45 kg) of cargo regarding V-2 rocket wreckage from a Peenemünde launch, including Special Report 1/R, no. 242, photographs, a select set of eight parts, and drawings of the wreckage. Psychological warfare was also waged, in which Action "N" was mounted to create the illusion of an internal German opposition movement to Hitler.

Major military and sabotage operations included: the Zamość Uprising of 1942-1943, with AK sabotaging German plans for expulsion of Poles under the Generalplan Ost; the protection of the Polish population from the massacres of Poles in Volhynia in 1943-1944; Operation Corona (Akcja Wieniec) sabotaging German rail transport in 1942; Operation Belt (Akcja Taśma) in 1943, a series of attacks against German border guarding stations on the frontier between the General Government and the territories annexed by Germany; Operation Jula - another rail sabotage in 1944; and most notably Operation Tempest in 1944, a series of nationwide uprisings whose chief goal was to seize control of cities and areas where German forces were preparing their defenses against the Soviet Red Army, so that Polish underground civil authorities could take power before the arrival of the Soviets. The largest and best known of the Operation Tempest battles was the Warsaw Uprising - the attempt to liberate Warsaw. It started on August 1 1944; the Polish troops took control of significant portion of the city and resisted the German-led forces until October 2 (63 days in total). With no aid from the approaching Red Army, the Germans eventually defeated the rebels and burned the city, finally quelling the Uprising only on 2 October 1944. Other major city uprisings of AK included the Operation Ostra Brama in Wilno and the Lwów Uprising. While the AK managed to liberate a number of places from German control, in the end due to hostility and lack of support from the Soviet Union, it failed to secure territory for the government in exile to return.

Axis fatalities due to the actions of the Polish underground, of which AK formed the bulk of, are estimated at up to 150,000 (one should however note that estimates of guerilla warfare inflicted casualties often have a wide margin of error). The AK primary activity was sabotage of German rail and road transports to the eastern front in Russia. It is estimated that one eighth of all German transports to Eastern Front were destroyed or significantly delayed due to AK's activities. The battles with the Germans, particularly in 1943 and 1944, tied down several German divisions (about 930,000 German soldiers in total).

"Der Klabautermann" - an issue of the periodical dated 3 January 1943 - a satire against the Third Reich, showing Nazi terror and genocide, on the right Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Creation of Action "N".

List of confirmed sabotage-diversionary actions of the Union of Armed Combat (ZWZ) and Home Army (AK) from 1 January 1941 to 30 June 1944

Sabotage / Diversionary Action Type	Totals
Damaged locomotives	6 930
Delayed repairs to locomotives	803
Derailed transports	732
Transports set on fire	443
Damage to railway wagons	19 058
Blown up railway bridges	38
Disruptions to electricity supplies in the Warsaw grid	638
Army vehicles damaged or destroyed	4 326
Damaged aeroplanes	28
Fuel tanks destroyed	1 167
Fuel destroyed (in tonnes)	4 674
Blocked oil wells	5
Wagons of wood wool destroyed	150
Military stores burned down	130
Disruptions of production in factories	7
Built-in faults in parts for aircraft engines	4 710
Built-in faults into cannon muzzles	203
Built-in faults into artillery missiles	92 000
Built-in faults into air traffic radio stations	107
Built-in faults into condensers	70 000
Built-in faults into (electro-industrial) lathes	1 700
Damage to important factory machinery	2 872
Various acts of sabotage performed	25 145
Planned assassinations of Germans	5 733

Postwar

See also: Cursed soldiers

Kotwica, one of the symbols of the Armia Krajowa

The AK officially disbanded on 19 January 1945 to avoid armed conflict with the Soviets and civil war. However, many units decided to continue their struggle under new circumstances. Soviet Union and Polish communists viewed the underground loyal to the Polish government in exile as a force which had to be removed before they could gain complete control over Poland. Future General Secretary of PZPR, Władysław Gomułka, is quoted as saying: "Soldiers of AK are a hostile element which must be removed without mercy". Another prominent Polish communist, Roman Zambrowski, said that AK had to be "exterminated".

The first AK structure designed primarily to deal with the Soviet threat was NIE, formed in the mid-1943. NIE's goals was not to engage the Soviet forces in combat, but rather to observe and conduct espionage while the Polish government in exile decided how to deal with the Soviets; at that time the exiled government still believed that the solution could be found through negotiations. On 7 May 1945 NIE ("NO") was disbanded and transformed into Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych na Kraj ("Homeland Armed Forces Delegation"), this organization however lasted only until 8 August 1945, when the decision was made to disband the organization and stop partisan resistance on Polish territories.

Armia Krajowa Cross was awarded to veterans of AK by the Polish government in exile.

The first Polish communist government, PKWN, formed in July 1944, declined jurisdiction over AK soldiers, therefore for more than a year it was the Soviet Union agencies like the NKVD which took responsibility for disarming the AK. By the end of the war approximately 60,000 soldiers of AK were arrested, 50,000 of them were deported to Soviet Union's Gulags and prisons; most of those soldiers were captured by Soviets during or in the aftermath of Operation Tempest, when many AK units tried to cooperate with the Soviets in a nationwide uprising against the Germans. Other veterans were arrested when they decided to approach the government officials after being promised amnesty. After several such broken promises during the first few years of communist control, AK soldiers stopped trusting the government.

Monument to Armia Krajowa, Rzeszów, Poland.

The third AK organization was Wolność i Niezawisłość ("Freedom and Sovereignty"). Again its primary goal was not combat. Rather, it was designed to help the AK soldiers in transition from the life of partisans into that of civilians; the secrecy and conspiracy were necessary in the light of increasing persecution of AK veterans by the communist government. WiN was however in much need of funds, to pay for false documents and to provide resources for the partisans, many of whom had lost their homes and entire life's savings in the war. Viewed as enemies of the state, starved of resources, and with a vocal faction advocating armed resistance against the Soviets and their Polish proxies, WiN was far from efficient. A significant victory for the NKVD and the newly created Polish secret police, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, came in the second half of 1945, when they managed to convince several leaders of AK and WiN that they truly wanted to offer amnesty to AK members. In a few months they managed to gain information about vast numbers of AK/WiN resources and people. By the time the (imprisoned) AK and WiN leaders realised their mistake, the organizations had been crippled with thousands of their members having been arrested. WiN was finally disbanded in 1952. By 1947 a colonel of the communist forces declared that "Terrorist and political underground has ceased to be a threatening force, although there are still men of the forests" that need to be dealt with.

The persecution of AK was only part of the repressions under Stalinism in Poland. In the period of 1944-1956, approximately 2 million people were arrested, over 20,000, including the hero of Auschwitz, Witold Pilecki, were executed or murdered in communist prisons, and 6 million Polish citizens (i.e. every third adult Pole) were classifed as a 'reactionary or criminal element' and subject to invigilation by state agencies. In 1956 an amnesty released 35,000 former AK soldiers from prisons: for the crime of fighting for their homeland they had spent sometimes over 10 years in prisons. Even at this time however, some partisans remained in the countryside, unwilling or simply unable to rejoin the community; they became known as the cursed soldiers. Stanisław Marchewka "Ryba" was killed in 1957, and the last AK partisan, Józef Franczak "Lalek", was killed in 1963 - almost 2 decades after the Second World War ended. It was only four years later, in 1967, that Adam Boryczka, a soldier of AK and a member of the elite, Britain-trained Cichociemny ("The Silent and Hidden") intelligence and support group, was released from prison. Until the end of the People's Republic of Poland AK soldiers remained under investigation by the secret police, and it was only in 1989, after the fall of communism, that the sentences of AK soldiers were finally declared invalid and annulled by the Polish courts. Many monuments to Armia Krajowa have been erected in modern Poland, and there are many museum exhibitions (the most notable being the Armia Krajowa Museum in Kraków and the Warsaw Uprising Museum in Warsaw).

Membership

File:1Comp obwSambor inspecDrohobycz Burza3.jpg

Soldiers of the 1st company of Sambor command of Drohobycz Armia Krajowa inspectorate armed with German-made arms and dressed in captured German field uniforms. The soldier on the lower left appears to be holding a Russian-made PPSh-41, or some derivative of that weapon.

In the summers of 1943 and 1944 AK reached its highest membership numbers. Estimates of AK membership in the first half of 1944 range from 200,000 to 400,000, with an average being over 300,000, including a cadre of more than 10,000 officers. That the number of sympathizers was much higher, but the number of armed members participating in actions would be smaller. Such numbers made Armia Krajowa not only the largest of the Polish resistance movements, but also the second largest in the world, after the Yugoslavian partisans who numbered over 800,000. Casualties during the war are estimated at about 34,000-100,000, plus about 20,000-50,000 after the war (casualties and imprisonment).

AK soldiers could be divided into three groups. The first two consisted of "full-time members": the undercover operatives, living mostly in urban setting under false identities (most senior AK officers belonged to this group) and uniformed (to a certain extent) partisans, living in the forested regions (see leśni), and fighting Germans openly (the numbers of that group can be estimated at about 40 groups numbering in total 1,200-4,000 in early 1943 but the numbers would grow significantly during Operation Tempest). The largest group consisted of "part-time members", sympathizers leading 'double life', under their real names in their real homes, receiving no payment for their services, staying in touch with their undercover unit commander, but usually not called for any actions, as AK was planning to use them only during the planned nationwide uprising.

AK was a representative of the Polish nation, as its members were recruited from all social parties and classes (the communists of Armia Ludowa (People's Army) being the only notable exception). Most of the other Polish underground armies became incorporated into the AK (retaining a varying amount of autonomy) including:

• The Konfederacja Narodu (Confederation of the Nation). Created in 1940 by far-right Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny (National Radical Camp) and opposed to more center SZP-ZWZ, it would partially merge with ZWZ around 1941 and finally join AK around fall 1943.
• The Bataliony Chłopskie (Peasants' Battalions). Created by leftist Stronnictwo Ludowe (People's Party) around 1940-1941, it would partially merge with AK around 1942-1943, although in 1944 parts would split and join the AL.
• The Gwardia Ludowa WRN (People's Guard of WRN) of Polish Socialist Party (PPS) (joined ZWZ around 1940) and Socjalistyczna Organizacja Bojowa (Socialist Fighting Organisation) created in 1943 and subordinated to AK,
• The Narodowa Organizacja Wojskowa (National Military Organisation), (joined AK around the fall 1942/summer 1943) established by the Stronnictwo Narodowe (National Party).
• The Obóz Polski Walczącej (Camp of Fighting Poland), established by the Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego (Camp of National Unity) around 1942, subordinated to AK in 1943.
• From March to summer 1944, parts of the extreme right-wing organization, the Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (National Armed Forces) were also subordinated to AK.

The largest group which refused to join AK was the pro-Soviet and communist Armia Ludowa (AL), which at its height in 1944 numbered 30,000 people. As a result, individual AK units varied significantly in their political outlooks (notably in their attitude towards ethic minorities or the Soviets).

Structure

Headquarters

AK's Headquarters was divided into five sections, two bureaus and several other specialized units:

• Section I: Organizations
• Section II: Information and Espionage
• Section III: Operations
• Section IV: Logistics
• Section V: Communications
• Bureau of Information and Propaganda
• Bureau of Finances and Control
• Kedyw (acronym for Kierownictwo Dywersji, Polish for Directorate of Diversion), a highly independent special operations section
• Directorate of Underground Resistance
• others

The Commanders of AK were subordinated to the Polish commander-in-chief (General Inspector of the Armed Forces) of the Government in Exile in the military chain of command and responsible to the Government Delegate's at Home in the civilian chain of command.

Commanders of AK

	Name	Codename	Period	Replaced because	Fate	Photo
1.	General Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski Technically, commander of Służba Zwycięstwu Polski and Związek Walki Zbrojnej as AK 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 the United Kingdom.
2.	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 has started.	File:Rowecki Stefan.jpg
3.	General Tadeusz Komorowski	Bór	July 1943-2 September 1944	Surrendered after the end of Warsaw Uprising.	Emigrated to United Kingdom.
4.	General Leopold Okulicki	Niedźwiadek	3 October 1944-17 January 1945	Dissolved AK trying to lessen the Polish-Soviet tensions.	Arrested by the Soviets, sentenced for imprisonment in the Trial of the Sixteen. Likely executed in 1946.

Regional

Geographically, AK was divided into regional branches or areas (obszar). Below the branches (or areas) were the subregions (or subareas) (podokręg) or independent areas (okręgi samodzielne). Smaller organizational units involved ; inspectorates (inspektorat) of which there was eighty-nine (89) and districts (obwód) of which there was two hundred seventy eight (278).

There were three to five areas: Warsaw (Obszar Warszawski, with some sources differentiating between left- and right-bank areas - Obszar Warszawski prawo- i lewobrzeżny), Western (Obszar Zachodni in the Pomerania and Poznań regions), South-Eastern (Obszar Południowo-Wschodni in the Lwów area); sources vary on whether there was a North-Eastern Area (centered in Białystok - Obszar Białystocki) or whether Białystok was classified as an independent area (Okręg samodzielny Białystok).

Area	Districts	Codenames	Units created during the reconstruction of Polish Army in Operation Tempest
Warsaw area Codenames: Cegielnia (Brickworks), Woda (Water), Rzeka (River) Warsaw Col. Albin Skroczyński Łaszcz	Eastern Warsaw-Praga Col. Hieronim Suszczyński Szeliga	Struga (stream), Krynica (source), Gorzelnia (distillery)	10th Infantry Division
	Western Warsaw Col. Franciszek Jachieć Roman	Hallerowo (Hallertown), Hajduki, Cukrownia (Sugar factory)	28th Infantry Division
	Northern Warsaw Lt. Col. Zygmunt Marszewski Kazimierz	Olsztyn, Tuchola, Królewiec, Garbarnia (tannery)	8th Infantry Division
South-Eastern area Codenames: Lux, Lutnia (lute), Orzech (nut) Lwów Col. Władysław Filipkowski Janka	Lwów Lwów - divided into two areas Okręg Lwów Zachód (West) and Okręg Lwów Wschód (East) Col. Stefan Czerwiński Luśnia	Dukat (ducat), Lira (lire), Promień (ray)	5th Infantry Division
	Stanisławów Stanisławów Capt. Władysław Herman Żuraw	Karaś (crucian carp), Struga (stream), Światła (lights)	11th Infantry Division
	Tarnopol Tarnopol Maj. Bronisław Zawadzki	Komar (mosquito), Tarcza (shield), Ton (tone)	12th Infantry Division
Western area Codename: Zamek (Castle) Poznań Col. Zygmunt Miłkowski Denhoff	Pomerania Gdynia Col. Janusz Pałubicki Piorun	Borówki (berries), Pomnik (monument)
	Poznań Poznań Col. Henryk Kowalówka	Pałac (palace), Parcela (lot)
Independent areas	Wilno Wilno Col. Aleksander Krzyżanowski Wilk	Miód (honey), Wiano (dowry) (subunit "Kaunas Lithuania")
	Nowogródek Nowogródek Lt.Col. Janusz Szlaski Borsuk	Cyranka (garganey), Nów (new moon)	Zgrupowanie Okręgu AK Nowogródek
	Warsaw Warsaw Col. Antoni Chruściel Monter	Drapacz (sky-scraper), Przystań (harbour), Wydra (otter), Prom (shuttle)
	Polesie Pińsk Col. Henryk Krajewski Leśny	Kwadra (quarter), Twierdza (keep), Żuraw (crane)	30th Infantry Division
	Wołyń Równe Col. Kazimierz Bąbiński Luboń	Hreczka (buckwheat), Konopie (hemp)	27th Infantry Division
	Białystok Białystok Col. Władysław Liniarski Mścisław	Lin (tench), Czapla (aigrette), Pełnia (full moon)	29th Infantry Division
	Lublin Lublin Col. Kazimierz Tumidajski Marcin	Len (linnen), Salon (saloon), Żyto (rye)	3rd Legions' Infantry Division 9th Infantry Division
	Kraków Kraków various commanders, incl. Col. Julian Filipowicz Róg	Gobelin, Godło (coat of arms), Muzeum (museum)	6th Infantry Division 106th Infantry Division 21st Infantry Division 22nd Infantry Division 24th Infantry Division Kraków Motorized Cavalry Brigade
	Silesia Katowice various commanders, incl. Col. Zygmunt Janke Zygmunt	Kilof (pick), Komin (chimney), Kuźnia (foundry), Serce (heart)
	Kielce-Radom Kielce, Radom Col. Jan Zientarski Mieczysław	Rolnik (farmer), Jodła (fir)	2nd Legions' Infantry Division 7th Infantry Division
	Łódź Łódź Col. Michał Stempkowski Grzegorz	Arka (ark), Barka (barge), Łania (bath)	25th Infantry Division 26th Infantry Division
Foreign areas	Hungary Budapest Lt.Col. Jan Korkozowicz	Liszt
	Reich Berlin	Blok (block)

Weapons and equipment

File:1Comp obwSambor inspecDrohobycz Burza2.jpg

Soldiers of the 1st company of Sambor command, Drohobycz inspectorate during the Operation Tempest; the soldier on the right is equipped with Kb wz.98a while the one on the left with a German MP40 machine pistol

As a clandestine army operating in a country occupied by the enemy, separated by over a thousand kilometers from any friendly territory, the AK faced unique challenges in acquiring arms and equipment. AK was able to overcome these difficulties to some extent and put tens of thousands of armed soldiers into the field. Nevertheless, the difficult conditions meant that only infantry forces armed with light weapons could be fielded. Any use of artillery, armor or aviation was impossible (except for a few instances during the Warsaw Uprising, like the Kubuś armored car). 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.

In contrast, their opponents - the German armed forces and their allies – were almost universally supplied with plentiful arms and ammunition, and could count on a full array of support forces. Unit for unit, its German opponents enjoyed a crushing material superiority over the AK. This severely restricted the kind of operations that it could successfully undertake.

The arms and equipment for Armia Krajowa mostly came from four sources: arms buried by the Polish armies on the battlefields after the Invasion of Poland in 1939, arms purchased or captured from the Germans and their allies, arms clandestinely manufactured by Armia Krajowa itself, and arms received from Allied air drops.

AK manufactured grenades: Sidolówka (left) and Filipinka (right) on exhibition in the Museum of the Warsaw Rising

From the arms caches hidden in 1939, the AK 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, because of inadequate preservation which had to be improvised in the chaos of the September campaign, most of these guns were in poor condition. Of those that were hidden in the ground and dug up in 1944 during preparation for Operation Tempest, only 30% were usable.

Sometimes arms were purchased on the black market from German soldiers or their allies or stolen from German supply depots or transports. Purchases were made by individual units and sometimes by individual soldiers. As Germany's prospects for victory diminished and the morale in German units dropped, the number of soldiers willing to sell their weapons correspondingly increased and thus made this source more important. All such purchases were highly risky, as the Gestapo was well aware of this black market in arms and tried to check it by setting up sting operations. For the most part this trade was limited to personal weapons, but occasionally light and heavy machine guns could also be purchased. It was much easier to trade with Italian and Hungarian units stationed in Poland, which more willingly sold their arms to the Polish underground as long as they could conceal this trade from the Germans.

The efforts to capture weapons from Germans also proved highly successful. Raids were conducted on trains carrying equipment to the front, as well as guardhouses and gendarmerie posts. Sometimes weapons were taken from individual German soldiers accosted in the street. During the Warsaw Uprising, the AK even managed to capture a few German armored vehicles.

Polish insurgent weapons, including the Błyskawica submachine gun - one of very few weapon designed and mass produced covertly in occupied Europe.

Arms were clandestinely manufactured by the AK in its own secret workshops, and also by its members working in German armament factories. In this way the AK was able to procure submachine guns (copies of British Sten, indigenous Błyskawica and KIS), pistols (Vis), flamethrowers, explosive devices, road mines and hand grenades (Filipinka and Sidolówka). Hundreds of people were involved in this manufacturing effort. AK did not produce its own ammunition, but relied on supplies stolen by Polish workers from German-run factories.

The final source of supply were Allied air drops. This was the only way to obtain more exotic but highly useful equipment such as plastic explosives or antitank weapons (PIAT). During the war 485 air drop missions from the West (about half of which was flown by Polish airmen) delivered sbout 600 tons of supplies for Polish resistance. Besides equipment, the planes also parachuted highly qualified instructors (the Cichociemni), of whom 316 were inserted into Poland during the war. Due to the large distance from bases in Britain and the Mediterranean, and lukewarm political support, the airdrops were only a fraction of those carried out in support of French, Yugoslavian, Greek or other resistance movements.

In the end despite their efforts most of AK forces had inadequate weaponry. In 1944, when AK numbers where at their peak strength (200,000-400,000 according to various estimates), AK had enough weaponry only for about 32,000 soldiers. On 1 August 1944 when Warsaw Uprising started, only one sixth of AK fighters in Warsaw were armed.

Relations with other forces

Relations with Jews

Henryk Woliński, the head of the "Jewish Department" in AK's Bureau of Information and Propaganda, one of the Polish Righteous among the Nations.

In February 1942, the Operational Command of the AK Information and Propaganda Office set up the Section for Jewish Affairs, directed by Henryk Woliński. This section collected data about the situation of the Jewish population, drafted reports and sent information to London. It also centralized contacts between Polish and Jewish military organizations. The AK also supported the Relief Council for Jews in Poland (codenamed Żegota) as well as the formation of Jewish resistance organizations in Poland. One member of the AK, Witold Pilecki, was the only person to volunteer for imprisonment in Auschwitz. The information he gathered proved crucial in convincing Western Allies about the fate of Jewish population.

The AK provided the Warsaw Ghetto with about some firearms, ammunition and explosives. During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, AK units tried twice to blow up the ghetto wall, carried out holding actions outside the ghetto walls, and together with GL forces sporadically attacked German sentry units near the ghetto walls. Security Cadre (Kadra Bezpieczeństwa or KB), one of the organizations subordinate to the AK, under the command of Henryk Iwański took a direct part in fights inside the ghetto together with Jewish fighters from ŻZW and ŻOB. During the Warsaw Uprising a year later, Batalion Zośka, one of the most notable units of the Uprising, liberated hundreds of Jews from the Warsaw Concentration Camp.

While AK was largely untainted with collaboration with Nazis in the Holocaust, there are criticism that AK was reluctant to accept Jews into its ranks, as well as accusations of the complicity of single AK members or groups in anti-Jewish violence. Attitude towards Jews widely varied between AK individual units, and while the bulk of anti-semitic behavior can be ascribed to only a small minority of AK members, the fact that AK has failed to protect the Jews from the extremists in their ranks (often related to far-right endecja spectrum of the Polish political scene, whose National Armed Forces organization was only partially incorporated into AK) has reflected negatively on the image of Armia Krajowa in Jewish historiography, leading some sources to generalizations characterizing the entire army as anti-Semitic. The issue remains a controversial one and is subject to a difficult debate.

Relations with Lithuanians

Further information: Polish-Lithuanian relations during the World War II

Aleksander Krzyżanowski, commandant of the Armia Krajowa in the Wilno (now Vilnius) region.

Although Lithuanian and Polish resistance movements had in principle the same enemies – Nazi Germany and Soviet Union – they started cooperating only in 1944-1945, after the Soviet re-occupation, when they both fought against the Soviet occupiers. The main obstacle in forming an earlier alliance was a territorial dispute centering on Vilnius (see Żeligowski's Mutiny for background).

Some Lithuanians, encouraged by Germany's vague promises of autonomy, cooperated with the Nazis in their actions against Poles during the German occupation. In autumn 1943, Armia Krajowa started retaliation operations against the Lithuanian Nazi supporters, primarily the Lithuanian Secret Police, and killed hundreds of mostly Lithuanian policemen and other collaborators during the first half of 1944. In response, Lithuanian police, who had already murdered hundreds of Polish civilians since 1941 (most infamously in the Ponary massacre), intensified their operations against the Poles. Eventually, this led a low-level civil war under German occupation, which culminated in the massacres of Polish and Lithuanian civilians in Glitiškės and Dubingiai villages. In May 1944 in the battle of Murowana Oszmianka AK dealt a significant blow to the Lithuanian Nazi auxiliaries of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force.

The postwar assessment of AK's activities in Lithuania has been a matter of controversy. During the decades of Soviet occupation of Lithuania, the AK were presented as a terrorist organization. Its activities in Lithuania have been investigated by a special Lithuanian government commission in 1993. Only in recent years have Polish and Lithuanian historians been able to reach some compromises, even if they still differ in the interpretation of many events.

Relations with the Soviets

Polish afterwar communist propaganda poster showing soldier of Armia Ludowa and soldier of Armia Krajowa, saying: "The Giant and the spat dwarf of reactionism."

Further information: Soviet partisans in Poland

Armia Krajowa relations with the Soviets became increasingly bad as the war went on. Not only did the Soviet Union invade Poland together with Germany during the Invasion of Poland in 1939, but even after Germans invaded Soviet Union the Soviets saw Polish partisans loyal to the government in exile as more of an enemy to their plans to take control of post-war Poland than as a potential ally. On orders from Moscow sent on June 22 1943, Soviet partisans engaged Polish partisans in combat, and it has been claimed that they actually attacked the Poles more often than they did the Germans.

In late 1943, the actions of Soviet partisans, who were ordered to liquidate the AK forces, resulted even in a limited amount of uneasy cooperation between some units of AK and the Germans. While AK still treated Germans as the enemy and conducted various operations against them, when Germans offered AK some arms and provisions to be used against the Soviet partisans, some Polish units in the Nowogródek and Wilno decided to accept them. However, any such arrangements were purely tactical and did not evidence the type of ideological collaboration as shown by Vichy regime in France or Quisling regime in Norway. The Poles main motivation was to gain intelligence on German morale and preparedness and to acquire some badly needed weapons. There are no known joint Polish-German actions, and the Germans were unsuccessful in their attempt to turn the Poles toward fighting exclusively against Soviet partisans. Further, most of such collaboration of local commanders with the Germans was condemned by AK headquaters. Tadeusz Piotrowski quotes Joseph Rotschild saying "The Polish Home Army was by and large untainted by collaboration" and adds that "the honor of AK as a whole is beyond reproach".

With the Eastern Front entering Polish territories in 1944, AK established an uneasy truce with the Soviets. Even then the main forces of the Red Army and the NKVD conducted operations against the AK partisans, including during or directly after the Polish Operation Tempest, which was designed by the Poles to be a joint Polish-Soviet action against the retreating Germans and to establish Polish claims to those territories. AK helped Soviet units with scouting or organizing uprisings and helping to liberate various cities (ex. Operation Ostra Brama, Lwów Uprising), only to find that immediately afterwards AK troops were arrested, imprisoned – or even executed. Unknown to the Poles, Stalin's aim to ensure that an independent Poland would never reemerge in the postwar period made the Operation Tempest idea fatally flawed from the beginning.

Soviet forces continued to engage the elements of AK long after the war.

Relations with Ukrainians

Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist force and the political arm of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), fighting against the Germans, the Soviets and the Poles – all three seen as occupiers of Ukraine – decided in 1943 to direct most of their attacks against the Poles. Bandera and his followers came to the conclusion that the war would end with the exhaustion of both Germany and the Soviet Union, and thus the Poles, which also laid claims to the territories of East Galicia (seen by Ukrainians as Western Ukraine, and Poles as Eastern Poland), had to be weakened before the Polish state could rise again. The collaboration of some Ukrainian groups with Nazi Germany (although declining in 1943) had discredited Ukrainian partisans as potential Polish allies; Polish pretensions to restore the borders of pre-war Poland were opposed by the Ukrainians.

File:27DPAK 1944.jpg

Soldiers of the 27th Division crossing a forest in early 1944

The OUN decided to attack Polish civilians who constituted about a third of the population of the disputed territories. The OUN equated Ukrainian independence with ethnic homogeneity; the Polish presence had to to be removed completely. By February 1943 OUN started a deliberate campaign of murdering Polish civilians. OUN troops targeted Polish villages, leading to the formation of Polish self-defence units (ex. Przebraże Defence) and fights between Armia Krajowa and OUN. The Germans encourgaed both sides against each other. Erich Koch once said: "We have to do everything possible so that a Pole, while meeting a Ukrainian, would be willing to kill him and conversely, a Ukrainian would be willing to kill a Pole"; a German commissioner from Sarny, when local Poles complained about massacres, answered: "You want Sikorski, the Ukrainians want Bandera. Fight each other". In massacres of Poles in Volhynia in summer 1943 at least 40,000 Poles were killed; the death toll would rise in the following year although by that time Polish resistance would stiffen.

The Polish government in exile in London were taken by surprise; it had not expected a Ukrainian anti-Polish action of such magnitude. There is no evidence that the Polish government in exile contemplated a general policy of revenge against the Ukrainians but local Poles, including commanders of AK units, would engage in various retaliations. Polish partisans of all political stripes attacked OUN, assassinated prominent Ukrainians and burned Ukrainian villages. According to Ukrainian estimates, the AK may have killed in retaliation as many as 20,000 Ukrainians in Volhynia. By winter 1943 and spring 1944 AK was preparing for Operation Tempest; one of the goals of the operation was to reinforce Polish position in Volhynia. Most notably, in January 1944 the 27th Infantry Division of Armia Krajowa, numbering 7,000, was formed, and tasked with defense of Polish civilians, engaging OUN and the German troops. By mid-1944 the region was occupied by the Soviet Red Army; Polish partisans were disbanded or went underground, as did most of the Ukrainians; both would however increasingly concentrate on Soviets as their primary enemy – and both would ultimately be unsuccessful.

Notes

a ^{^} Although several sources note that Armia Krajowa was the largest resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe (ex. Norman Davies wrote "Armia Krajowa (Home Army), the AK, which could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance"; Gregor Dallas wrote "Home Army (Armia Krajowa or AK) in late 1943 numbered around 400000, making it the largest resistance organization in Europe"; Mark Wyman wrote "Armia Krajowa was considered the largest underground resistance unit in wartime Europe"), Anna M. Cienciala have noted that "Poland had the largest underground movement in Europe, with the anti-communist Home Army (Armia Krajowa - A.K) being the largest after (Yugoslavian) Tito's communist-led Partisans (The Armia Krajowa had 400,000 soldiers in August 1944, while Tito's Partisans numbered about 800,000 in 1945)."

Further reading

• Norman Davies, Rising '44, Macmillan, 2003.
• Richard Lukasz, Forgotten Holocaust, The Poles under German Occupation 1939-1944 New York, 1997.
• Marek Ney-Krwawicz, The Polish Home Army, 1939-1945, London, 2001.
• Roger Moorhouse, Killing Hitler, Jonathan Cape, 2006. ISBN 0-224-07121-1
• Michael Alfred Peszke, Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II, McFarland & Company, 2004, ISBN 0-7864-2009-X Google Print
• Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski.Secret Army. Macmillan Company, New York 1951. ISBN 0-89839-082-6.

External links

• Polish resistance - AK - Site edited by the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association
• Warsaw Uprising Museum
• Template:Pl icon Armia Krajowa, whatfor infoportal
• Template:Pl icon Armia Krajowa, information from the pages of Primary School 11 "of Armia Krajowa soldiers" in Nowy Targ
• Template:Pl icon Archiwum Pomorskie Armii Krajowej

See also

• Leśni
• Polish contribution to World War II
• Attack on the NKVD Camp in Rembertów
• Cursed soldiers