2 Wartime history

The government in exile, based first in Paris and then in London, was recognised by all the Allied governments. Politically, the government was a coalition of the Polish Peasant PartyThe Polish Peasant Party ( Polish: Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe is a political party in Poland. The party's name traces its tradition to an agrarian political party in Austro-Hungarian controlled Galicia, which has sent MPs to the parliament in Vienna., the Polish Socialist Party and the National Democratic PartyThe National Democratic Party was a pre-WWII Polish right-wing political party co-founded by Roman Dmowski. During WWII became part of a coalition which formed the Polish Government in Exile. Closely linked with the controversial Narodowe Sily Zbrojne (Na, although these parties maintained only a vestigial existence in the circumstances of exile.

When Germany attacked the Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR ( Russian: ; tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (SSSR) also called the Soviet Union ( ; tr. Sovetsky Soyuz , was a state in much of the northern region of Eurasia that existed from 1922 until 1 in 19411941 is also the title of a Steven Spielberg movie made in 1979 see 1941 (film). Events January January 6 Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address. January 10 Lend-Lease is introduced into the United St, the Polish government in exile established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, despite Stalin'sIosif (Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin ( Russian: Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin , original name Ioseb Jughashvili ( Georgian: Russian: Iosif Dzhugashvili see Other names section ( December 21 [ December 9, Old Style], 1879 1 March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik rev role in the destruction of Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Soviet Union in eastern Poland in 1939, and many other Polish prisoners and deportees, were released and were allowed to leave the country via IranIran ( Persian: ) is a Middle Eastern country located in southwestern Asia that until 1935 was referred to in the West as Persia''. It borders Pakistan (909km of border) and Afghanistan (936km) to the east, Turkmenistan (1000km) to the northeast, the Casp. They formed the basis for the 2nd Polish Corps led by General Wladyslaw Anders, which together with other earlier created Polish units fought alongside the Allies.

In April 1943 the Germans announced that they had discovered the graves of 4,300 Polish officers who had been taken prisoner in 1939 and murdered by the Soviets, in a mass grave in Katyn Wood near Smolensk. The Germans invited the International Red Cross to visit the site, and they confirmed both that the graves contained Polish officers and that they had been killed with Soviet weapons. The Soviet government said that the Germans had fabricated the discovery. The Allied governments, for diplomatic reasons, formally accepted this, but the Polish government in exile refused to do so.

Stalin then severed relations with the government in exile. Since it was clear that it would be the Soviet Union, not the western Allies, who would liberate Poland from the Germans, this breach had fateful consequences for Poland. In an unfortunate coincidence, Sikorski, the most talented of the Polish exile leaders, was killed in an aircrash near Gibraltar in July. He was succeeded as head of the government in exile by Stanislaw Mikolajczyk.

During 1943 and 1944 the Allied leaders, particularly Winston Churchill, tried to bring about a resumption of talks between Stalin and the government in exile. But these efforts broke down over several issues. One was the massacre at Katyn. Another was Poland's postwar borders. Stalin insisted that the territories annexed in 1939, which had a majority of Ukrainians and Byelorussians, should remain in Soviet hands, and that Poland should be compensated with lands to be annexed from Germany. Mikolajczyk refused to compromise on this issue. A third issue was Mikolajczyk's insistence that Stalin not set up a Communist government in postwar Poland.

3 Postwar history

In November 1944, despite his mistrust of the Soviets, Mikolajczyk resigned to return to Poland and take office in the new government established under the auspices of the Soviet occupation authorities. Many of the Polish exiles opposed this action, believing that this government was a facade for the establishment of Communist rule in Poland, a view that was later proved correct; after losing an election which was later shown to have been fraudulent, Mikolajczyk left Poland again in 1947.

Meanwhile the government in exile had maintained its existence, but the United States and the United Kingdom withdrew their recognition on July 6, 1945. The Polish armed forces in exile were disbanded in 1945 and most of their members, unable to return to Communist Poland, settled in other countries. The London Poles had to leave the embassy on Portland Place and were left only with the president's private residence at 43 Eaton Place. The government in exile then became largely symbolic, serving mainly to symbolise the continued resistance to foreign occupation of Poland, and retaining control of some important archives from pre-war Poland. Ireland and Spain were the last countries to recognize the government in exile.

In 1954 political differences led to a split in the ranks of the government in exile. One group, claiming to represent 80% of 500,000 anti-Communist Poles exiled since the war, was opposed to President August Zaleski 's continuation in office when his seven-year term expired. It formed a Council of National Unity on July 31, 1954, and set up a Council of Three to exercise the functions of head of state, consisting of Tomasz Arciszewski , General Wladyslaw Anders, and Edward Raczynski . Only after Zaleski's death in 1972 did the two factions reunite.

Some supporters of the government in exile eventually returned to Poland, such as Prime Minister Hugon Hanke in 1955 and his predecessor Stanislaw Mackiewicz in 1956. The Warsaw government actively campaigned for the return of the exiles, promising decent and dignified employment and forgiveness of past transgressions.

Despite these setbacks, the government in exile maintained its existence. At the time Communist rule came to an end in Poland in 1989, there was still a president and a cabinet of eight meeting every two weeks in London, commanding the loyalty of many of about 150,000 Polish veterans and their descendants living in Britain, including 35,000 in London alone.

In December 1990, when Lech Walesa became the first post-Communist President of Poland, he received the symbols of the Polish Republic (the red presidential banner, the presidential and state seals, the presidential sashes, and the original text of the 1935 constitution) from the last President of the government in exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski , thus re-establishing the continuity of the Republic and in effect retrospectively recognising the legitimacy of the government in exile. In 1992 military medals and other decorations awarded by the government in exile were officially recognised in Poland.

4 Presidents

• Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz: 30 September 1939 to 6 June 1947
• August Zaleski : 9 June 1947 to 7 April 1972
• Stanislaw Ostrowski : 9 April 1972 to 24 March 1979
• Eduard Raczynski : 8 April 1979 to 8 April 1986
• Kazimierz Sabbat : 8 April 1986 to 19 July 1989
• Ryszard Kaczorowski : 19 July 1989 to 22 December 1990

5 Prime ministers

• Wladyslaw Sikorski: 30 September 1939 to 4 July 1943
• Stanislaw Mikolajczyk: 5 July 1943 to 29 November 1944
• Tomasz Arciszewski : 29 November 1944 to 2 July 1947
• Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski: 2 July 1947 to 7 April 1949
• Tadeusz Tomaszewski : 7 April 1949 to 25 September 1950
• Roman Odzierzynski : 25 September 1950 to 18 January 1954
• Jerzy Hryniewski : 18 January 1954 to 8 June 1954
• Stanislaw Mackiewicz : 8 June 1954 to 8 August 1955
• Hugon Hanke : 8 August 1955 to 11 September 1955
• Antoni Pajak : 11 September 1955 to 25 June 1965
• Aleksander Zawisza : 25 June 1965 to 16 July 1970
• Zygmunt Muchniewski : 16 July 1970 to August 1972
• Alfred Urbanski : August 1972 to 1976
• Kazimierz Sabbat : 1976 to 7 April 1986
• Edward Szczepanik : 7 April 1986 to 22 December 1990

6 See also

• History of Poland (1939-1945)
• People's Republic of Poland
• Polish contribution to World War II
• Jan Karski
• Council of Three

7 External links

• Statement of the Polish government in exile following the death of General Sikorski (1943)
• Publications on the Polish Government (In Exile) 1939-1990
• Stamp Issues by the Polish Government in Exile
• Polish forces in the west during World War II

Polish history World War II resistance movements

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