The pact with the devil or the alliance that did not exist. 1939 and the two variants of relations with the Third Reich in Poland’s contemporary historiographical and popular discourse

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the interwar period (1918–1939), Polish political decision-makers focused on ensuring international security for the country that had regained its independence after the Great War. International relations became more sophisticated since the early 1930s and saw the Versailles order being challenged and weakened. The Polish policy of maintaining an equal distance between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union assumed the rejection of the idea of a Polish-German or Polish-Soviet alliance that would deprive Poland of self-reliance regarding the decision-making process and could provoke one of its neighbors to attack. By rejecting German offers presented starting in the autumn of 1938 (the annexation of Gdansk to the Third Reich, the construction of an extraterritorial highway running through Polish Pomerania, or most importantly, accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact seen as an action against the Soviet Union), Poland decided to defend its sovereignty and independence by establishing military alliances with Great Britain and France. In the twenty-first century, the majority of Polish historians have emphasized the impossibility of a ‘pact with the devil’ (an alliance with a totalitarian regime that held international law, rules of democracy, and human laws in contempt), the lack of possibilities for alternative alliances (no alternative for the Polish-British-French alliance) or the negative consequences thereof, with the possible pact between Berlin and Warsaw seen as an alliance between Gulliver and Lilliputians. However, for 30 years, the so-called counterfactual history has been coming to the forefront, with its supporters claiming that in late 1938 and early 1939, Poland should have seriously considered and even agreed to the offers presented by Germany. The main aim of this article is to analyze this historical and popular cultural discourse held by professional historians, journalists, and other publicists in contemporary Poland.