Poland's Place in Europe: General Sikorski and the Origin of the Oder-Neisse Line, 1939-1943

by Sarah Meiklejohn Terry

Overview

The author explores a variety of questions related to General Sikorski's policies, such as his effort to maintain an independent Polish Arms' in the Soviet Union. Drawing on extensive British, American, and Polish archives, her work describes the defeat of a radical solution to the perennial instability of Central Europe.

Originally published in 1983.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691641508
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #623
Pages:	412
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 10.20(h) x 1.10(d)

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Poland's Place in Europe

General Sikorski and the Origin of The Oder-Neisse Line, 1939-1943

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By Sarah Meiklejohn Terry

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1983 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-10136-1

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The so-called "Polish Question" in World War II is one of those issues which have been so overworked in the literature of recent European history that the author rash enough to reopen any aspect of it has an obligation to reveal at the outset what new and dramatic evidence has been unearthed to make the exercise worth the reader's time. In this case, it is the question of the origin of the Polish-German boundary on the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers that I propose to reopen and, in particular, the contribution made to the concept of such a boundary by the first prime minister of the Polish Government-in-Exile, General Wladyslaw Sikorski. My justification for doing so is summed up in a brief memorandum, dated December 4, 1942, and submitted by Sikorski the following day, together with three longer supporting memoranda, to President Roosevelt (or, more accurately, to Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles for transmittal to Roosevelt). Because the contents of this memorandum are virtually unknown, and because it and the accompanying papers have been the subject of considerable controversy, it seems appropriate to quote it here in full:

MEMORANDUM CONCERNING THE WESTERN BOUNDARIES

I. Our approach to the problem of [Poland's] western boundaries is dictated by the necessity of:

— a lasting guarantee of the territories most basic to the economic development and defensive potential of the Polish-Czech federation, that is, the mouth of the Vistula and the industrial center in Silesia;

— the liquidation of the permanent threat such as East Prussia and Silesia constitute [when] held in the hands of the Germans as their base of attack;

— control over the mouth of the Oder, which possesses paramount importance for the federation as the artery directly linking our common center of Silesian industry with the sea;

— the opening to us permanently of a route through the Baltic and the guaranteeing of communication with allies (naval bases on Bornholm, Rügen and Fehmarn);

— the creation of conditions for our effective and rapid intervention against Germany should it attempt to remilitarize. In this regard, Western Pomerania based on the lower Oder and, secondly, the northwestern part of the Sudetes with an outlet toward Leipzig are of paramount importance for the federation.

II. The problem of occupation consists in guaranteeing the freedom to execute in Germany the conditions of surrender imposed on her and, on the other hand, in creating for us the possibility of rapid economic, political and military reconstruction of our country.

In this connection the range of our (federated Poland's) interests includes:

a) the zone up to the Oder and Lusatian Neisse with bridgeheads on the left bank (as on the line of the Rhine);

b) key points on the western Baltic as well as [points] connecting it with the North Sea (Bornholm, Rügen, Fehmarn, the Kiel Canal) as a joint zone of Polish, British and American interests.

III. A Central-European Federation is a fundamental condition of the economic existence and, therefore, also of the security of the states along the Belgrade-Warsaw axis.

A federation based on strong foundations will be a guarantee likewise of the security of the United States, both in relation to Germany and also to any other forces which might again bring Europe to a state of chaos and, consequently, of war.

According to our conception, the basic elements of the federation include: Poland (with Lithuania), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, (and Hungary).

Although not all aspects of the above memorandum are self-explanatory, its immediate impact is to call into question what one might describe as the conventional wisdom concerning the origin and geopolitical significance of the Oder-Neisse line. This conventional wisdom is based on a stark black-and-white distinction between the policies of the "Moscow" and "London" Poles which holds, on the one hand:

— that the Polish-German boundary as established at the end of World War II was essentially a communist contrivance, fostered with Stalin's support by the wartime Union of Polish Patriots in Moscow and later by the Lublin Committee;

— that, despite the symbolic importance of a return to her historical boundaries in the west, from a practical standpoint the primary function of the Oder-Neisse line was to compensate Poland economically and territorially for the land she had lost in the east; and

— that, with respect to Poland's political orientation, a major consequence of this boundary was to bind her irrevocably to Russia, since Germany would never accept the loss of some 20 percent of her prewar territory.

By contrast, with respect to the London Poles this view holds:

— that the primary concerns of the Polish Government-in-Exile were retention of Poland's prewar eastern provinces (kresy, or "borderlands," as they were called) and the construction of a Central European federation as a barrier to the westward expansion of Soviet influence;

— that, being unwilling to countenance either territorial concessions in the east or the political dependence that would, inevitably in this view, follow from the absorption of so much German land in the west, the London Poles rejected the Oder line (with either Eastern or Western Neisse variant); and

— that, instead, the exile government sought only modest rectifications of Poland's borders with Germany, specifically removal of the East Prussian enclave and a straightening of the prewar frontier in eastern Pomerania and Upper Silesia.

Implicit in this view, though not always articulated, are the additional assumptions that the Great Powers, acting more or less in concert, in fact offered the exile government substantial territorial gains in the west in exchange for Poland's prewar east as a firm and consistent quid pro quo; and that Britain and the United States backed away from supporting the final Oder-Neisse line only because it went too far (to the Western rather than Eastern Neisse) and because, by the time of the Potsdam Conference, it was clear that Poland would be a communist state.

One cannot deny, of course, that there is some truth to this conventional wisdom. It is unquestionably true, for instance, that the Communists emerged from the war as the only organized political force that fully, indeed enthusiastically, supported all aspects of Poland's territorial shift. It is equally true that, in the final stage of the war, the Government-in-Exile wittingly rejected an Oder-Neisse frontier in the west just as it had, consistently throughout the war years, rejected the Curzon line in the east; that the exchange of eastern kresy for "Recovered Territories" has generally been regarded by the outside world, if not by the Poles themselves, as a matter of simple compensation; and that, for twenty-five years after the end of the war, the perpetuation of the Polish-German border quarrel, aggravated by the failure of the non-communist world to recognize the Oder-Neisse, did in fact serve to reinforce Warsaw's dependence on Moscow.

What is wrong with such statements and the assumptions that underlie them is not that they are untruths, but that they are half-truths whose continual repetition, almost in chorus, by virtually all parties at interest (a point to which I shall return momentarily) has been an all-too-effective deterrent to more critical scrutiny. They are half-truths in the sense that they are ahistorical, reflecting only the end product of events that unfolded over a period of six convulsive years. Moreover, they do so from a Cold War perspective, presenting the Oder-Neisse both as a product of and as a weapon in the competition between East and West. The result is a stereotyped view which gives little quarter to the complexities and ironies of Polish wartime politics and consequently distorts the policies not only of both the London and Moscow Poles, but of the Great Powers as well. It is a view that obscures the fact that the divisions within the London exile community were fully as deep and bitter as those between the London and Moscow camps and were occasioned by the same issue, i.e., the age-old question of "Poland's place in Europe." It is a view, moreover, that cannot fully appreciate the irony of the Communists' appropriation of an "Endek" dream.

In opposition to this first set of assumptions I propose a second set, perhaps better referred to for the moment as hypotheses, and reflecting among other things the substance of the memorandum quoted above:

— first, that the concept of a Poland extended westward to the Oder and Neisse, as a practical policy rather than just an historical conception, first gained currency not among Polish Communists in Moscow, but within exile circles in London and in the non-communist Underground;

— that General Sikorski, as prime minister of the Polish Government-in-Exile from its inception in September 1939 until his death in July 1943, was the first Polish spokesman formally to propose such a boundary;

— that he did so within the framework of an overall reorientation of Poland's international posture based on a reconciliation with the Soviet Union — including a compromise settlement of the Polish-Soviet boundary dispute — as well as on a federation with Czechoslovakia and potentially with other Central European nations;

— that Sikorski did not conceive of territorial gains in the north and west primarily as compensation for possible losses in the east, but rather as justified in their own right by Poland's economic and strategic needs and by the needs of the federation;

— further, that he did not foresee absorption of so much German territory as inevitably rendering Poland dependent on Moscow, but as one prerequisite for the creation of a new balance of power in Central Europe — one in which Poland and the other small nations between Germany and Russia would cease to be the perennial flashpoints of Europe and become instead masters in their own houses and a positive factor in European prosperity and stability;

— that Sikorski was unsuccessful in implementing his policy in large measure because he failed to win over to his conceptions either a majority of his own countrymen or Poland's major allies — that, far from being assured a comprehensive settlement, he was subjected to a double standard whereby he was repeatedly urged to accept far-reaching concessions in the east with little prospect of more than minimal gains in the west;

— and, finally, that only after the collapse of Sikorski's policy — the collapse not only of his territorial program but, equally important, of the federation — did the Communists take up the Oder-Neisse idea, but only gradually and within a more limited context.

Perhaps the most startling realization of all is that the main period of Sikorski's pursuit fell in the two-and-one-half years between mid-1940 and the end of 1942, before Teheran (not to mention Yalta and/or Potsdam), before the Katyn discovery and the break in relations with Moscow, before the Polish Communists began to formulate their own boundary program, much of it while the latter were still in political limbo and while the Soviets were denying the very existence of Poland — in other words, before most of the landmark events that we now think of as having shaped the Polish settlement after the war.

If the above scenario even remotely approaches the truth, then we are faced with a very intriguing question: why has the first set of assumptions concerning the origin of the Oder-Neisse line, what I have called the conventional wisdom, been so widely accepted for so long, while the second set has remained obscured or at best only dimly and incompletely perceived? The reasons are deceptively simple and fall roughly into two categories.

Several are related to the timing and character of the Sikorski period itself. For instance, in the torrent of memoirs, documents, and monographs about the "Polish Question" in World War II, the early years have generally been slighted in favor of the period more or less from the middle of 1943 on — and not without some logic. Not only was the later period with its Great Power conferences more dramatic; it was then that the decisions which in fact determined Poland's postwar territorial and political status were made. By contrast the Sikorski years are a study in frustration and failure. Second, for reasons related both to longstanding divisions in Polish politics and to the essentially disruptive nature of Sikorski's conceptions, the exile community was a hotbed of dissension and intrigue. In particular, his approach to relations with the Soviet Union was a source of intense and bitter dispute. Moreover, from the standpoint of confidentiality, the exile government's bureaucracies had all the virtues of Swiss cheese. Thus it is hardly surprising that the general, himself a controversial figure and by nature something of a loner, chose to keep discussion of his policy within a narrow circle of personal advisors. As a result, although the basic outlines of his strategy were common knowledge throughout the exile community — indeed, they were the subject of heated debate — details of his specific programs were not; and this was especially true of the more sensitive aspects of his policy. Finally, of course, Sikorski did not live to explain and defend his own policy but was killed together with several of his closest aides in a plane crash off Gibraltar on July 4, 1943.

A very different but equally important reason for the persistence of misconceptions about the development of the Oder-Neisse idea relates to the changing political environment in which this line became the boundary between Poland and Germany: first, to the post-Sikorski shift in the policy of the Government-in-Exile away from the general's vision of westward expansion toward a more rigid stand on Poland's prewar eastern boundary; and, second, to the growing rift in the Grand Alliance that made the Oder-Neisse boundary appear less an integral part of a common peace settlement than an opening move in the Cold War maneuvering that followed. In this new atmosphere it redounded to the interests of all parties concerned — of the Poles, both 6migr6 and communist, of the Western powers as well as the Soviets, and also of the Germans — to paint a picture of stark contrasts between the policies of the communist and non-communist camps. What we have as a result is a deceptively uniform impression of Polish exile policy in which the major tenets and rigidities of the post-Sikorski period have been extrapolated backwards and applied to the general himself, who is then portrayed as having been above all a defender of Poland's territorial integrity within her pre-September 1939 boundaries, and as unwilling to seek more than modest gains in the north and west (if indeed the subject of such gains is mentioned at all) in order not to jeopardize Poland's position in the east.

Obviously sources representing such divergent points of view have not all appraised the Sikorski period in the same way. Each group has had its own axe to grind — past actions and policies to justify, as well as current and future interests to protect. Each has emphasized those points and events that best sustain its case, while playing down, distorting or simply ignoring those that might call it into question. Yet, stripped of these differences of interpretation, the overwhelming impression left by those books that have most shaped our understanding of the Polish Question in World War II is that the idea of shifting Poland westward to the Oder and Lusatian Neisse dates from the conversation between Stalin and Churchill at Teheran in late 1943, at which the latter made his now famous matchstick demonstration — "like soldiers taking two steps 'left close.'"

Small wonder that the conventional wisdom concerning the Oder-Neisse boundary has so rarely been challenged, or that it has been carried over into secondary sources of all political colorations. Small wonder, too, that as the boundary has gained acceptance and finally, in 1970, formal recognition by the German Federal Republic, interest in the question of its origin has flagged. Indeed, in view of the fact that with recognition the long controversy over the legitimacy of the Oder-Neisse boundary is now closed — in view also of the fact that Sikorski's efforts were an unmitigated failure, and that the actual establishment of the boundary occurred under circumstances incompatible with the basic premises of his policy — it is reasonable to ask what purpose a study of this sort serves. Is it merely an exercise in historical curiosity? Or does it in some way contribute to a broader understanding of Poland's lot in the last thirty-odd years? There is, of course, a certain satisfaction to be derived from helping to right the historical balance — from fitting into place some of the last missing pieces of a puzzle long unfinished and obscured by more recent history. This is particularly true when those new pieces substantially alter our perspective on the whole picture, in this case our image of the Polish Government-in-Exile. Even if this were the only reason for reassessing General Sikorski's premiership, it would be worth undertaking.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Poland's Place in Europe by Sarah Meiklejohn Terry. Copyright © 1983 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. vii
• Maps, pg. ix
• Preface, pg. xi
• Note on Geographical Terms, pg. xv
• I. Introduction, pg. 3
• II. The Burden of History, pg. 13
• III. The Unlikely Iconoclast, pg. 37
• IV. Sikorski's Russian Gambit, pg. 46
• V. Toward a New Central Europe, pg. 66
• VI. The Eastern Boundary: Encounter with Necessity, pg. 119
• VII. Synthesis: The Precarious Balance, pg. 137
• VIII. Setting for Disaster, pg. 147
• IX. Retreat from Rapprochement, pg. 199
• X. Boundary Politics: East versus West, pg. 245
• XI. The Consequences of Failure, pg. 315
• Epilogue. Sikorski: Realist or Visionary?, pg. 351
• Bibliographical Essay, pg. 359
• Selected Bibliography, pg. 368
• Index, pg. 379