The Arrests of November 1939 and their Role in the Policy of the German Occupation Authorities Towards the Polish Intelligentsia

• Authors: Paczynska I.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

One of the main objectives of Nazi policy in the occupied Poland was the wiping out of the Polish intelligentsia and the manner of dealing with it was spelled out in a series of directives from Hitler and other top Nazi officials (quoted in extenso in the article). In the first phase of the occupation the so-called special actions were conducted by task forces of the security police and the SS security service, liasing with the German armies operating on the territory of Poland. 'The political cleansing of the occupied territories' was carried out with remarkable speed and ruthlessness in Poland's northern and western provinces which were incorporated into the German Reich. There over 40 000 people were executed in the first days and weeks of the war. In the territories placed under a separate German administration the elimination of the Polish intelligentsia was to proceed within a longer time-scale. The article focuses in particular on the actions undertaken in November 1939. Einsatzkommando 2 of the Einsatzgruppe I, headed by SS-Sturmbahnführer Bruno Müller, conducted a number of raids and arrests in Cracow, including the arrest of the professors of the Jagiellonian University. Einsatzkommando 3, commanded by SS-Sturmbahnführer Alfred Hasselberg, conducted its operations first in the Rzeszów and then in the Lublin District. Einsatzkommando 2 under SS-Sturmbahnführer Fritz Liphardt from Einsatzgruppe III operated in the Radom District. The wave of arrests in November 1939 were merely the first stage of the war against the Polish intelligentsia in the General-Gouvernement. Stage Two, a large-scale 'pacification' code-named Außerordentliche Befriedigungsaktion, followed in the spring of 1940. Operations of this kind, aimed against the Polish intelligentsia, were repeated throughout the occupation period.

Keywords

EN

NAZI POLICY (POLAND); WIPING OF INTELLIGENTSIA (POLAND)

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Księgarnia Akademicka
• Journal: Studia Historyczne
• Year: 2005
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 61-74
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Paczynska I.

• I.Paczynska, ul. Golebia 13, 31-007 Kraków, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

05PLAAAA0026579