The Second World War – the bloodiest conflict in world history – was unleashed by two totalitarian states – the Third Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These mortal enemies, until 1939, united, destroying the order that had prevailed in Europe for nearly twenty years. And the first victim of their alliance was, unfortunately, the Second Republic.
The Polish state, formally established in 1918 but still defending its sovereignty and borders for more than two years, did not stand a chance against two armies: the German army, which began its invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, and the Soviet army, which completed the act of destroying the Republic of Poland by crossing the border of our country on 17 September tr. Unfortunately, their efforts were not successful. Although the fighting with the invaders, sometimes bloody and heroic, lasted until the beginning of October, Warsaw capitulated on 28 September 1939. On that day, the relevant document was signed by two high-ranking officers at the „Skoda” aircraft engine factory in Warsaw’s Okęcie airport. On the Polish side, the act was initialled by General Tadeusz Kutrzeba. On the German side, the same gesture was made by General Johannes Blaskowitz.
Thus, at least in terms of the textbook definition, the Polish state ceased to exist. Despite being robbed of their sovereignty, self-determination and borders, the Poles did not lay down their arms but went into conspiracy, fighting in secret between the two cruel partitioners who divided the territory of the Second Republic between them.
The first division of the Polish state was agreed between the Germans and the Soviets in the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which took its name from the German Foreign Minister and the Soviet People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs. The signing of this document took place on 23 August 1939 in Moscow. In the contents of the so-called secret protocol, representatives of both countries decided that Poland would be divided along the rivers Narew, Vistula and San. This was where the new border between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union was to be located.
While fighting was still raging on Polish territory, diplomats from both countries – Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia – met again in Moscow. There, the arrangements of the above-mentioned Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were once again discussed, and in fact clarified. In the end, the talks between the two sides ended with the signing of the so-called Second Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (the document was initialled by the same politicians), which was called, on the one hand pathetically, and on the other, knowing what happened later, even amusingly, the „Treaty of Borders and Friendship” between the Third Reich and the USSR.
This act was divided, like the earlier document, into two parts: public and confidential. In the first part, Article I contained the following provision: „The Government of the German Reich and the Government of the USSR establish as the boundary of their mutual national interests on the territory of the former Polish state the line marked on the attached map, which will be described in detail in the supplementary protocol”. Thus, the two countries were no longer hiding the fact that the territory of the Polish state had been divided between them. Indeed, the above quotation was made public.
More interesting, and perhaps also more important, however, were the three secret protocols of the treaty, two of which concerned Poland directly. The first clearly specified the division of the sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe. The Germans agreed to cede the whole of Lithuania to the Soviet Union, in exchange for the former Lublin Voivodeship and part of the Warsaw Voivodeship. The contents of the second secret protocol, on the other hand, are worth quoting in full: „Both sides will not tolerate on their territories any Polish propaganda which concerns the territories of the other side. They will suppress on their respective territories any instances of such propaganda and will inform each other with regard to appropriate measures for this purpose”.
The above quotation was extremely important, as it obliged both the Germans and the Soviets to cooperate at the level of the secret services. In a word, the Nazi Gestapo and the Soviet NKVD were to enter into cooperation with the aim of destroying the Polish underground. Obviously, at the time the document was signed, reference was made to exterminating Polish propaganda, as none of the occupying powers thought that the Poles would create a phenomenal creation to direct underground activity, namely the Polish Underground State.
Significantly, however, the secret protocol cited above resulted in joint Gestapo-NKVD conferences, which were held in various parts of occupied Poland. The first such conference took place at the end of November 1939 in Brest and concerned the problem of combating the Polish underground, which was already beginning to function very dynamically at that time, the best evidence of which was the planned assassination attempt on Hitler, which was to be carried out at the beginning of October 1939 in Warsaw.
In summary, working meetings between the NKVD and the Gestapo occurred relatively frequently in the years 1939-1940 or 1941. During them, information was exchanged concerning the Polish underground, the elimination of the elite of the Polish nation or the problem of the nationalisation of Poles. These were therefore extremely important issues, and their origins lay in the 'Treaty on Borders and Friendship’ concluded on 28 September 1939 in Moscow by representatives of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.
