THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE WARTIME OPERATIONS OF 1939 FOR THE POLICE FORCE IN EASTERN LITTLE POLAND

• Authors: Litwinski R.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

This article discusses the organisation of the State Police in Eastern Little Poland and the impact exerted by the campaign of September 1939. The region's complicated political situation was the reason why Polish administration was introduced with a certain delay. The organisation of the police force in the voivodeships of Lvov, Stanislawow and Tarnopol was not completed until 1921. An essential determinant of the terrains in question was their specific national composition, with the Poles comprising a decided ethnic majority only in the western counties of the voivodeship of Lvov. This is the reason why the Polish state authorities attached considerable attention to ensuring public order and security, which assumed the form of, i. a. the designation of police reserve detachments. The outbreak of the war disorganised the functioning of the police, intensified by the Soviet invasion, with the Red Army crossing the frontiers of the Second Republic. Despite the fact that the proximity of Hungary and Romania could have guaranteed a rapid evacuation of the police force from Eastern Little Poland, in many cases this solution was never applied. Consequently, we can distinguish several groups, the first being those functionaries who perished as a result of the armed operations carried out by the German or Soviet armies or by the Ukrainian population. The second group is composed of policemen–prisoners of war interned at the camp in Ostaszkow. The next group included officers murdered in Ukraine (the so–called Ukrainian list), followed by those evacuated to Hungary and Romania. The fifth group are men who went into hiding in terrains annexed by the Soviet Union and were subsequently arrested. The successive group consists of police functionaries who found themselves in terrains occupied by the Germans (the western counties of the voivodeship of Lvov), and the final group is composed of those policemen who despite their interment by the Soviet authorities survived the war.

Keywords

EN

POLICE FORCE IN EASTERN LITTLE POLAND; POLISH ADMINISTRATION IN 1939

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Dzieje Najnowsze
• Year: 2007
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 77-95
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Litwinski R.

• R. Litwinski, Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej w Lublinie, Instytut Historii, pl. M. Curie-Sklodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

07PLAAAA03206618