Concept
Polish Underground State
Related concepts (22)
Polish resistance movement in World War II
The Polish resistance movement in World War II (Polski ruch oporu w czasie II wojny światowej), with the Polish Home Army at its forefront covered both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish resistance is notable among others for disrupting German supply lines to the Eastern Front (damaging or destroying 1/8 of all rail transports), and providing intelligence reports to the British intelligence agencies (providing 43% of all reports from occupied Europe). It was a part of the Polish Underground State.
Western betrayal
Western betrayal is the view that the United Kingdom, France, and sometimes the United States failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military, and moral obligations with respect to the Czechoslovak and Polish states during the prelude to and aftermath of World War II. It also sometimes refers to the treatment of other Central and Eastern European states at the time. The term refers to several events, including the treatment of Czechoslovakia during the Munich Agreement and the resulting occupation by Germany, as well as the failure of France and the UK to aid Poland when the country was invaded by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939.
Kedyw
Kedyw (ˈkɛdɨf, partial acronym of Kierownictwo Dywersji ("Directorate of Diversion") was a Polish World War II Home Army unit that conducted active and passive sabotage, propaganda and armed operations against Nazi German forces and collaborators. Kedyw was created on January 22, 1943, from two pre-existing Armia Krajowa organisations: Związek Odwetu (Association of Retaliation), and Wachlarz. Initially, the units were small and town-based. Eventually, as more were formed, some moved into forested areas to begin partisan warfare.
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD ("People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs", the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. Though the killings also occurred in the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered by German Nazi forces.
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, government, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization, destabilization, division, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a saboteur. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identities because of the consequences of their actions and to avoid invoking legal and organizational requirements for addressing sabotage.
Military history of Poland during World War II
In World War Two, the Polish armed forces were the fourth largest Allied forces in Europe, after those of the Soviet Union, United States, and Britain. Poles made substantial contributions to the Allied effort throughout the war, fighting on land, sea, and in the air. Polish forces in the east, fighting alongside the Red army and under Soviet high command, took part in the Soviet offensives across Belarus and Ukraine into Poland and across the Vistula and Oder Rivers to the Battle of Berlin.
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising (powstanie warszawskie; Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army (Armia Krajowa). The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation.
Allies of World War II
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, and the Kingdom of Italy. Its principal members by the end of 1941 were the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China. Membership in the Allies varied during the course of the war. When the conflict broke out on 1 September 1939, the Allied coalition consisted of the United Kingdom, France, and Poland, as well as their respective dependencies, such as British India.
Operation Tempest
Operation Tempest (akcja „Burza”, sometimes referred to in English as "Operation Storm") was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II against occupying German forces by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK), the dominant force in the Polish resistance. Operation Tempest's objective was to seize control of German-occupied cities and areas while the Germans were preparing their defenses against the advancing Soviet Red Army. Polish underground civil authorities hoped to take power before the Soviets arrived.
Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic, which brought to an end the Second Polish Republic.