THE CO-OPERATION OF THE CONSULAR SERVICE OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND WITH MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

• Authors: Skóra W.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The inter-war period witnessed the development of two basic forms of co-operation between the consular service and Polish military Intelligence. The first consisted of entrusting espionage to consular officials, who carried them out on the margin of their work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, conducting 'white Intelligence' and realizing the simplest counter-Intelligence tasks.The second, more advanced and intensive form of co-operation exploited the official structures of the consulates for concealing full-time Intelligence officers. it appears that the Intelligence of the Second Republic - both shallow and strategic - benefited to a considerable degree from the support rendered by the consular service. In the basic trends of the reconnaissance performed by the Second Department of the Supreme Staff, i. e. in Germany and the Soviet Union, the participation of consulates in the organisation of Intelligence was so extensive that we may speak about a certain norm and a fragment of official pragmatic. During the 1930s Polish Intelligence networks in those countries were based on consular outposts and in order to avoid conflicts several conventions signed at the beginning of the 1920s regulated the co-operation between the consulates and the Intelligence employees. The fundamental convention, completed in January 1922, remained in force until the end of the 1930s. After the May 1926 coup d'etat that swerved Poland onto a path of building an authoritarian system of power dominated by the military, the heads of Polish Intelligence paid increasingly less attention to the opinions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a stand rendered possible by the influx of officers into the Ministry. In 1931 the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs found itself in the hands of former Intelligence officers. As a consequence, the significance of Intelligence officers working in consulates increased: they exerted a large impact upon the personnel policy, enjoyed independence, and to a certain extent controlled the work carried out by the consulates. This situation produced multiple conflicts, ultimately eliminated by the encroaching war.

Keywords

EN

ESPIONAGE; POLISH DIPLOMACY; POLISH MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Dzieje Najnowsze
• Year: 2004
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 21-43
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Skóra W.

• W. Skóra, Pomorska Akademia Pedagogiczna w Slupsku, Instytut Historii Pomocniczej, ul. Arciszewskiego 22a, 76-200 Slupsk, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

04PLAAAA0025555