The Polish Underground State (1939-45

Abstract

Throughout the history of Europe Great Britain has probably never been so popular among the European nations as during the last war. After the fall of France, not only did she reject Hitler's peace proposals and stand up to him with only minimal help from the allied forces who found themselves in the British Isles, but she also created a secret organization, 'Special Operations Executive' (SOE), which provided assistance for all resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe. It would have seemed likely that these most creditable wartime exploits would be well documented in postwar British historical work. And yet this has not been the case. Only a few documentary works have so far been published on this subject. Among them are: Proceedings of a Conference on Britain and European Resistance, 1939-1945 (a report of a conference held at St. Antony's College, Oxford in 1962), which unfortunately exists only in roneoed form; and Professor M. R. D. Foot's valuable work, SOE in France, published in the same year. There is also a lecture given by the Head of the SOE, Major-General Sir Colin Gubbins, at the Royal United Services Institute in 1948, entitled 'Resistance Movements in the War', which has not been published in book form, and a symposium on resistance movements in Europe during the years 1939-45, organized in Spring 1973 by the University of Salford. The papers presented at this symposium will shortly be appearing in print. There are also many reminiscences and additional publications, but they have little documentary value for the assessment of the British role in the European resistance. Amongst European resistance movements, the activities of the Polish underground take a leading place because of its scope and versatility, but yet again very little has been written in English about it. There is a