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Armia Krajowa

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          History of Poland (1939–1945)

   The Armia Krajowa (Home Army) or AK functioned as the dominant Polish
   resistance movement in World War II in German- occupied Poland, which
   was active in all areas of the country from September 1939 until its
   disbanding in January 1945. The Armia Krajowa, which was by far the
   largest underground resistance movement, with over 300 000 members
   during World War II, formed the armed wing of what subsequently became
   known as the " underground state" (państwo podziemne).

History

Second World War

   The AK originated from the Służba Zwycięstwu Polski (Polish Victory
   Service), set up on 27 September 1939 by General Michał
   Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski. On 17 November 1939 General Władysław Sikorski
   replaced this organization with the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union for
   Armed Struggle), which after joining with the Polski Związek Powstanczy
   (Polish Union of Resistance) became the AK on 14 February 1942. While
   those two were the founders of AK, other Polish resistance movements
   existed, yet most of them eventually joined AK: Narodowa Organizacja
   Wojskowa (fall 1942/summer 1943, partially), Konfederacja Narodu (fall
   1943), Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (summer 1944, partially), Bataliony
   Chłopskie (partially), Gwardia Ludowa (1943, partially). The most
   notable movement that did not join with AK was Armia Ludowa.
   Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski.
   Enlarge
   Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski.

   Stefan Rowecki (pseudonym Grot, or "Arrowhead"), served as the AK's
   first commander until his arrest in 1943; Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski
   commanded from July 1943 until his capture in September 1944. Leopold
   Okulicki, pseudonym Niedzwiadek ("Bear Cub") led the organisation in
   its final days.

   While the AK did not engender a general revolt, its forces did carry
   out intensive economic and armed sabotage in addition to engaging the
   occupying forces in guerilla attacks. In 1944 it acted on a broad
   scale, notably in initiating the Warsaw Uprising, which broke out on 1
   August 1944 with the aim of liberating Warsaw before the arrival of the
   Soviet Red Army. While the insurgents released a few hundred prisoners
   from the Gesia St. concentration camp and carried out fierce
   street-fighting, the Germans eventually defeated the rebels and burned
   the city, finally quelling the Uprising only on 2 October 1944.

   Throughout the period of its existence AK units carried out thousands
   of armed raids and daring intelligence operations, bombed hundreds of
   railway shipments, and participated in many partisan clashes and
   battles with German police and Wehrmacht units. AK also conducted
   retaliatory operations to assassinate Gestapo officials in response to
   Nazi terror tactics imposed on the civilian population of Poland.

   There are some accusations of negative actions committed by the AK
   towards ethnic minorities, particularly the Lithuanians (see below).

   Major military and sabotage operations included:
     * Operation Belt
     * Operation Tempest
          + Wilno Uprising
          + Lwów Uprising
          + Warsaw Uprising

   Armia Krajowa supplied valuable intelligence information to the Allies,
   for example, about V-1 and V-2 flying bombs.

   Axis casualties due to the actions of the Polish underground, of which
   AK formed the bulk of, are estimated at around 11,000 -150,000.

Postwar

   The AK officially disbanded on 19 January 1945 to avoid armed conflict
   with the Soviets and a civil war. However, many units decided to
   continue their struggle under new circumstances.

   Soviet Union and Polish communists viewed the underground loyal to the
   Polish government in exile as a force which had to be removed before
   they could gain complete control over Poland. Future General Secretary
   of PZPR, Władysław Gomułka, is quoted as saying: "Soldiers of AK are a
   hostile element which must be removed without mercy". Another prominent
   Polish communist, Roman Zambrowski, said that AK had to be
   "exterminated".

   The first AK structure designed primarily to deal with the Soviet
   threat was NIE, formed in the mid-1943. NIE's goals was not to engage
   the Soviet forces in combat, but rather to observe and conduct
   espionage while the Polish governent in exile decided how to deal with
   the Soviets; at that time the exiled government still believed that the
   solution could be found through negotiations. On 7 May 1945 NIE ("NO")
   was disbanded and transformed into Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych na Kraj
   ("Homeland Armed Forces Delegation"), this organization however lasted
   only until 8 August 1945, when the decision was made to disband the
   organization and stop partisan resistance on Polish territories.

   The first Polish communist government, PKWN, formed in July 1944,
   declined jurisdiction over AK soldiers, therefore for more than a year
   it was the Soviet Union agencies like NKVD that took care of dealing
   with AK. By the end of the war approximately 60,000 soldiers of AK were
   arrested, 50,000 of them were deported to Soviet Union's Gulags and
   prisons; most of those soldiers were captured by Soviets during or in
   the aftermath of Operation Tempest, when many AK units tried to
   cooperate with the Soviets in a nationwide uprising against the
   Germans. Other veterans were arrested when they decided to approach the
   government officials after being promised amnesty. After such broken
   promises during the first few years of communist control, AK soldiers
   stopped trusting the government.

   The third AK organization was Wolność i Niezawisłość ("Freedom and
   Sovereignty"). Again its primary goal was not combat. Rather, it was
   designed to help the AK soldiers in transition from the life of
   partisans into that of civilians; the secrecy and conspiracy were
   necessary in the light of increasing persecution of AK veterans by the
   communist government. WiN was however in much need of funds, to pay for
   false documents and to provide resources for the partisans, many of
   whom had lost their homes and entire life's saving in the war. Viewed
   as enemies of the state, starved of resources, and with a vocal faction
   advocating armed resistance against the Soviets and their Polish
   proxies, WiN was far from efficient. A significant victory for the NKVD
   and the newly created Polish secret police, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, came
   in the second half of 1945, when they managed to convince several
   leaders of AK and WiN that they truly wanted to offer amnesty to AK
   members. In a few months they managed to gain information about vast
   numbers of AK/WiN resources and people. Several months later when the
   (imprisoned) AK and WiN leaders realised their mistake, the
   organization was crippled and thousands more of their members were
   arrested. WiN was finally disbanded in 1952.
   Momunent to AK in Sopot.
   Enlarge
   Momunent to AK in Sopot.

   NKVD and UB were certainly not beyond using force. In Autumn of 1946 a
   group of 100-200 soldiers of NSZ group were lured into a trap and then
   massacred. By 1947 a colonel of the communist forces declared that
   "Terrorist and political underground has ceased to be a threatening
   force, although there are still man of the forests" that need to be
   dealt with.

   The persecution of AK was only part of the big picture of stalinism in
   Poland. In the period of 1944-1956, approximately 2 million people were
   arrested, over 20 thousand, such as the hero of Auschwitz, Witold
   Pilecki, were executed or murdered in communist prisons, and 6 million
   Polish citizens (i.e. every third adult Pole) were classifed as a
   'reactionary or criminal element' and subject to invigilation by state
   agencies. In 1956 an amnesty released 35,000 former AK soldiers from
   prisons: for the crime of fighting for their homeland they had spent
   sometimes over 10 years in prisons. Still, some partisans remained in
   the countryside, unwilling or simply unable to rejoin the community;
   they became known as the cursed soldiers. Stanisław Marchewska "Ryba"
   was killed in 1957, and the last AK partisan, Józef Franczak "Lalek",
   was killed in 1963 - almost 2 decades after the Second World War ended.
   It was only four years later, in 1967, that Adam Boryczka, a soldier of
   AK and a member of the elite, Britain-trained Cichociemny ("The Silent
   and Hidden") intelligence and support group, was released from prison.
   Until the end of the People's Republic of Poland AK soldiers were under
   investigation by the secret police, and it was only in 1989, after the
   fall of communism, that the sentences of AK soldiers were finally
   declared invalid and annulled by the Polish courts.

Structure and membership

   In the summer of 1943 AK reached it's highest membership numbers,
   estimated at about 380,000. Estimates of AK membership in the first
   half of 1944 range from 250,000 to 350,000, with an average being over
   300,000 , including a cadre of more than 10,000 officers. Casualties
   during the war are estimated at about 34,000 -100,000, plus about
   20,000 -50,000 after the war (casualties and imprisonment).

   The executive branch of the AK was the operational command, composed of
   many units. Most of the other Polish underground armies became
   incorporated into the AK, including:
     * The Konfederacja Narodu (Confederation of the People) (1943).
     * The Bataliony Chłopskie ( Peasants' Battalions).
     * A large military organization of the Stronnictwo Ludowe (People's
       Party).
     * The Socjalistyczna Organizacja Bojowa ( Socialist Fighting
       Organization), established by the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna
       (Polish Socialist Party).
     * The Narodowa Organizacja Wojskowa (National Military Organisation),
       established by the Stronnictwo Narodowe (National Party).
     * From March 1944, part of the extreme right-wing organization, the
       Narodowe Siły Zbrojne (National Armed Forces).

   The largest group which refused to join AK was the pro- Soviet and
   communist Armia Ludowa (AL), which at it's height in 1944 numbered
   30,000 people .

   The AK divided itself organizationally into sixteen regional branches,
   subdivided in turn into eighty-nine inspectorates, which further
   comprised 278 districts. The supreme command defined the main tasks of
   the AK as preparation for action and, after the termination of German
   occupation, general armed revolt until victory. At that stage plans
   envisaged the seizure of power in Poland by the delegatura
   establishment, the representatives of the London-based Polish
   government in exile; and by the government-in-exile itself, which would
   return to Poland.
   Area Districts Code-names Sub-units Operation Tempest
   Warsaw area
   Warsaw
   Col. Łaszcz Eastern
   Warsaw- Praga
   Col. Szeliga Struga (stream), Krynica (source), Gorzelnia (distillery)
   10th Infantry Division
   Western
   Warsaw
   Col. Roman Hallerowo ( Hallertown), Hajduki, Cukrownia (Sugar factory)
   28th Infantry Division
   Northern
   Warsaw
   Lt. Col. Kazimierz Olsztyn, Tuchola, Królewiec, Garbarnia (tannery) 8th
   Infantry Division
   South-Eastern area
   Lwów
   Col. Janka Lwów
   Lwów
   Col. Luśnia Dukat (ducat), Lira (lire), Promień (ray) 5th Infantry
   Division
   Stanisławów
   Stanisławów
   Capt. Żuraw Karaś ( crucian carp), Struga (stream), Światła (lights)
   11th Infantry Division
   Tarnopol
   Tarnopol
   Maj. Zawadzki Komar (mosquito), Tarcza (shield), Ton (tone) 12th
   Infantry Division
   Western area
   Poznań
   Col. Denhoff Pomerania
   Gdynia
   Col. Piorun Borówki (berries), Pomnik (monument)
   Poznań
   Poznań
   Col. Kowalówka Pałac (palace), Parcela (lot)
   Independent areas Wilno
   Wilno
   Col. Wilk Miód (honey), Wiano (dowry) "Kaunas Lithuania"
   Nowogródek
   Nowogródek
   Lt.Col. Borsuk Cyranka (duck), Nów (new moon) Zgrupowanie Okręgu AK
   Nowogródek
   Warsaw
   Warsaw
   Col. Monter Drapacz (sky-scraper), Przystań (harbour),
   Wydra (otter), Prom (shuttle)
   Polesie
   Pińsk
   Col. Leśny Kwadra (quarter), Twierdza (keep), Żuraw (crane) 30th
   Infantry Division
   Wołyń
   Równe
   Col. Luboń Hreczka (buckwheat), Konopie (hemp) 27th Infantry Division
   Białystok
   Białystok
   Col. Mścisław Lin (tench), Czapla (aigrette), Pełnia (full moon) 29th
   Infantry Division
   Lublin
   Lublin
   Col. Marcin Len (linnen), Salon (saloon), Żyto (rye) 3rd Legions'
   Infantry Division
   9th Infantry Division
   Kraków
   Kraków
   various commanders, incl. Col. Róg Gobelin, Godło (coat of arms),
   Muzeum (museum) 6th Infantry Division
   106th Infantry Division
   21st Infantry Division
   22nd Infantry Division
   24th Infantry Division
   Kraków Motorized Cavalry Brigade
   Silesia
   Katowice
   various commanders, incl. Col. Zygmunt Kilof (pick), Komin (chimney),
   Kuźnia (foundry), Serce (heart)
   Kielce-Radom
   Kielce, Radom
   Col. Mieczysław Rolnik (farmer), Jodła (fir) 2nd Legions' Infantry
   Division
   7th Infantry Division
   Łódź
   Łódź
   Col. Grzegorz Arka (ark), Barka (barge), Łania (bath) 25th Infantry
   Division
   26th Infantry Division
   Foreign areas Hungary
   Budapest
   Lt.Col. Korkozowicz Liszt
   Reich
   Berlin
   Blok (block)

   In another dimension the AK was divided into seven sections:
   Organizations, Information and Espionage, Operations and Training,
   Logistics, Communications, Information and Propaganda, and finances.

   Other important Armia Krajowa sub-units included:
     * Kedyw (also known as 'special operations eight section')
     * Wachlarz (part of Kedyw)

Weapons and equipment

   As a clandestine army operating in a country occupied by the enemy,
   separated by over a thousand kilometers from any friendly territory,
   the AK faced unique challenges in acquiring arms and equipment. In a
   tremendous achievement, the AK was able to overcome these difficulties
   to some extent and put tens of thousands of armed soldiers into the
   field. Nevertheless, the difficult conditions meant that only infantry
   forces armed with light weapons could be fielded. Any use of artillery,
   armor or aviation was obviously out of the question (except for a few
   instances during the Warsaw Uprising, like the Kubuś armored car). Even
   these light infantry units were as a rule armed with a mixture of
   weapons of various types, usually in quantities sufficient to arm only
   a fraction of a unit's soldiers.

   In contrast, their opponents - the German armed forces and their allies
   - were almost universally supplied with plenty of arms and ammunition,
   and could count on a full array of support forces. Unit for unit, its
   German opponents enjoyed a crushing material superiority over the AK.
   This severely restricted the kind of operations that it could
   successfully undertake.

   The arms and equipment for Armia Krajowa mostly came from four sources:
   arms buried by the Polish armies on the battlefields after the Invasion
   of Poland in 1939, arms purchased or captured from the Germans and
   their allies, arms clandestinely manufactured by Armia Krajowa itself,
   and arms received from Allied air drops.

   From the arms caches hidden in 1939, the AK obtained: 614 heavy machine
   guns, 1,193 light machine guns, 33,052 rifles, 6,732 pistols, 28
   antitank light field guns, 25 antitank rifles and 43,154 hand grenades.
   However, because of inadequate preservation which had to be improvised
   in the chaos of the September campaign, most of these guns were in poor
   condition. Of those that were hidden in the ground and dug up in 1944
   during preparation for Operation Tempest, only 30% were usable.

   Sometimes arms purchases from German soldiers were conducted on a
   "grass roots" level. Purchases were made by individual units and
   sometimes by individual soldiers. As Germany's prospects for victory
   diminished and the morale in German units dropped, the number of
   soldiers willing to sell their weapons correspondingly increased and
   thus made this source more important. All such purchases were highly
   risky, as the Gestapo was well aware of this black market in arms and
   tried to check it by setting up sting operations. For the most part
   this trade was limited to personal weapons, but occasionally light and
   heavy machine guns could also be purchased. It was much easier to trade
   with Italian and Hungarian units stationed in Poland, which willingly
   sold their arms to the Polish underground as long as they could conceal
   this trade from the Germans.

   The efforts to capture weapons from Germans also proved highly
   successful. Raids were conducted on trains carrying equipment to the
   front, as well as guardhouses and gendarmerie posts. Sometimes weapons
   were taken from individual German soldiers accosted in the street.
   During the Warsaw Uprising, the AK even managed to capture a few German
   armored vehicles.

   Arms were clandestinely manufactured by the AK in its own secret
   workshops, and also by its members working in German armament
   factories. In this way the AK was able to procure submachine guns
   (copies of British Sten, indigenous Błyskawica and KIS), pistols (
   Vis), flamethrowers, explosive devices, road mines and hand grenades (
   Filipinka and Sidolówka). Hundreds of people were involved in this
   manufacturing effort.

   The final source of supply were Allied air drops. This was the only way
   to obtain more exotic but highly useful equipment such as plastic
   explosives or antitank weapons ( PIAT). During the war 485 Allied
   planes made air drops destined for the AK, delivering 600.9 tons of
   supplies. During these operations, 70 planes and 62 crews (of which 28
   were Polish) were lost. Besides equipment, the planes also parachuted
   highly qualified instructors (the Cichociemni), of whom 316 were
   inserted into Poland during the war. Due to the large distance from
   bases in Britain and the Mediterranean, and lukewarm political support,
   the airdrops were only a fraction of those carried out in support of
   French or Yugoslavian resistance movements.
   Kotwica, one of the symbols of the Armia Krajowa
   Enlarge
   Kotwica, one of the symbols of the Armia Krajowa

Relations with other forces

Relations with Jews

   In February 1942, the Operational Command of the AK Information and
   Propaganda Office set up the Section for Jewish Affairs, directed by
   Henryk Woliński. This section collected data about the situation of the
   Jewish population, drafted reports and sent information to London. It
   also centralized contacts between Polish and Jewish military
   organizations. The AK also organised financial aid for Jews (see
   Żegota). The AK accepted only a few Jews (about one thousand) into its
   own ranks: it generally turned down Jewish applicants, since they could
   be more easily identified by the Nazis.

   One of AK members, Witold Pilecki, was the only person to volunteer for
   imprisonment in Auschwitz. The information he gathered proved crucial
   in convincing Western Allies about the fate of Jewish population.

   The AK provided the Warsaw Ghetto with about sixty revolvers, several
   hundred hand grenades, and ammunition and explosives. During the Warsaw
   Ghetto Uprising in 1943, AK units tried twice to blow up the ghetto
   wall, carried out holding actions outside the ghetto walls, and
   together with GL forces sporadically attacked German sentry units near
   the ghetto walls. Security Cadre (Kadra Bezpieczeństwa or KB), one of
   the organizations subordinate to the AK, under the command of Henryk
   Iwański took a direct part in fights inside the ghetto together with
   Jewish fighters from ŻZW and ŻOB.

   Three out of seven members of the Collective Command of the AK (KG AK)
   had Jewish origins.

   While most historians agree that AK was largely untainted in
   collaboration with Nazis in the Holocaust, the accusations of the
   complicity of single AK members or groups in anti-Jewish violence in
   Poland are frequently brought up to this day. The issue remains a
   controversial one and is subject to a difficult debate.

Relations with Lithuanians

   The issue of Polish and Lithuanian relations during the Second World
   War is a controversial issue, and some modern Lithuanian and Polish
   historians still differ in their interpretations of the related events,
   many of which are related to the operations of Armia Krajowa on
   territories inhabited by Lithuanians and Poles. In recent years a
   number of common academic conferences have started to bridge the gap
   between Lithuanian and Polish interpretations, but significant
   differences still remain.

Conflicting ideologies

   Relations between Lithuanians and Poles were strained during most of
   the interwar period due to conflicts over the Vilnius region and
   Suvalkai region, areas whose population was a mixture of Poles and
   Lithuanians. Germans relocated Lithuanian families to Vilnius region
   from Western parts of Lithuania by force, and this complicated
   situation. During the war these conflicts resulted in thousands of
   deaths, as groups on both sides used the opportunities offered by the
   war to commit violent acts against those they perceived as enemies.

   Polish underground was an amalgam of all Polish prewar political
   currents, hence some portions of it associated with prewar nationalist
   circles held a very negative attitude towards Lithuanians and
   independent Lithuanian state. A significant number of Lithuanians
   started collaborating with the German occupiers , a prominent example
   being the Lithuanian Activist Front party, many members of whom came
   from the National Unionists whose pre-war slogan was 'Lithuania for
   Lithuanians' . The Lithuanian government, encouraged by the Germans,
   and who hoped that the Germans would grant Lithuania as much autonomy
   as it has granted Slovakia . Even through LAF faded after 1941, and
   Germans never granted the Lithuanians the autonomy they desired,
   elements within the Lithuanian government, collaborating with Germans,
   engaged in the program of ethnic and racial purification, targeting
   Jews, Poles and other non-Lithuanian ethnic minorities. . One of the
   most infamous series of incidents took place in the town of Ponary,
   where from 1941 to 1943 Germans and Lithuanians massacred thousands of
   Jews and Poles

   An underground union of Polish leftist parties, the Democratic Union of
   Vilnius (Wileńska Koncentracja Demokratyczna), partly because of the
   pro-Nazi stance of Lithuanian authorities, and partly influenced by the
   nationalist stance of Polish endecja parties, declared in March 1942
   that Lithuanians were not ready for the independence and cannot be
   considered as equal partner of Poland . It stated a plan to occupy
   Lithuania, submit it under the rule of Polish General Commissariat and
   to re-educate "corrupt" Lithuanians. On 15 November, 1943, Council of
   Nationalities (Rada Narodowościowa) at envoy of Polish Underground
   Government in Warsaw decided that in the nearest future Lithuania would
   be annexed by Poland . In 1943 a representative of Polish Government
   for Vilnius region prepared a document containing a plan of dealing
   with Lithuania. Only two options were envisioned – annexation or formal
   independence of Lithuania, but under military dominance of Poland. In
   the second version of the document only the formal autonomy of
   Lithuania as part of Poland was planned. On March 1, 1944, Polish
   Convent of Political Parties issued declaration expressing preparation
   to fight for Eastern territories (Vilnius, Hrodna, Lviv, Lida,
   Navahradak, and Pinsk). It must be noted, however, that such
   declarations of local Polish politicians differed significantly from
   the official statement and actions of the Polish government in exile,
   which was the only country among the anti-Nazi coalition which declared
   its support for the cause of Lithuanian independence post-war .

   Although Lithuanian and Polish resistance movements had the same
   enemies - Nazi Germany and Soviet Union - they never became allies. The
   main obstacle in forming an alliance was the question of Vilnius - the
   Polish government in exile and the Polish resistance regarded Vilnius
   as part of Poland, while Lithuanian resistance regarded Vilnius as the
   capital of Lithuania and aimed for an independent Lithuania, which
   would include Vilnius. Lithuanian resistance saw Soviet Union as the
   main enemy and Nazi Germany as its secondary enemy. Polish resistance
   saw Nazi Germany as the main enemy and had no consensus on the Soviet
   Union. Only in 1944-1945, after the Soviet reoccupation, did Lithuanian
   and Polish resistance started cooperating in the fight against Soviet
   occupants and Soviet activists.

Armed conflict

   Lithuanian authorities had been aiding Germans in their actions against
   Poles since the very beginning of German occupation in 1941, which
   resulted in the deaths of thousands of Poles . In autumn 1943 Armia
   Krajowa started operations against the Lithuanian collaborative
   organization, the Lithuanian Secret Police, which has been aiding
   Germans in their operation since its very creation . Soon a significant
   proportion of AK operations became directed against Germany-allied
   Lithuanian Police and local Lithuanian administration. During the first
   half of 1944 AK killed hundreds of mostly Lithuanian policemen, members
   of self-defence units, servants of local administration, soldiers of
   Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, teachers, foresters and farmers,
   who were judged to be collaborators with the Nazi regime . In responce,
   Lithuanian police, who had murdered hundreds of Polish civilians since
   1941 , increased it's operations against the Poles, executing many
   Polish civilians; this further increased the vicious circle and the
   previously simmering Polish-Lithuanian conflict over the Vilnius area
   deteriorated into a low-level civil war under German occupation .

   In May of 1944, Aleksander Krzyżanowski, AK commander of Vilnius
   region, commanded over 9000 armed Armia Krajowa partisans. The
   relations between Lithuanians and Poles were bad. Thousands of Poles
   were killed by Lithuanian collaborators working with Nazis (like the
   German subordinated Lithuanian Security Police or the Local Lithuanian
   Detachment under the command of general Povilas Plechavičius, many more
   were deported into Germany as slave labour). In return, members of
   Armia Krajowa often terrorised or killed Lithuanians judged to be
   collaborators and looted their property in Vilnius region. From 1943 AK
   especially targeted Lithuanian elementary schools and already in 1943
   successfully paralysed activity of schools

   On June 23, 1944, in response to an earlier massacre on June 20 of 37
   Polish villagers in Glitiškės (Glinciszki) by Lithuanian self defence
   battalion rogue AK troops acting against specific orders of
   Krzyżanowski which forbade reprisals against civilians but acting upon
   the order of commander of the 5th Vilnian Home Army Brigade Zygmunt
   Szendzielarz "Łupaszka" committed a massacre of Lithuanian civilians,
   at Dubingiai (Dubinki), where 27 Lithuanian civilians, including women
   and children were murdered. In total number of victims of Polish
   revenge action in the end of June of 1944 in Dubingiai and neighbouring
   towns of Joniškis, Inturkė, Bijutiškis, and Giedraičiai (town), was
   70-100 Lithuanian civilians. Massacre at Dubingiai was the only known
   massacre carried out by units of AK, although even the connection of AK
   to that massacre is disputed as the involved Polish forces are
   considered extremists with connections to Narodowe Siły Zbrojne
   (although at that time closely allied to AK). AK forces in the region,
   in addition to "Łupaszka"'s group, consisted also of two other AK
   brigades, "Narocz" and "Brasławska", under Mieczysław Potocki
   "Węgielny", which Krzyżanowski recently ordered to enter the region to
   demonstrate their presence and discourage locals from any further
   anti-Polish actions.

   The scale of other killings is a subject of disagreement. Tadeusz
   Piotrowski notes that thousands of Poles died at the hand of Lithuanian
   collaborators, and tens of thousands were deported. Polish historian
   Jarosław Wołkonowski, living in Lithuania, puts the number of the
   Lithuanians killed by rogue AK elements at under 100. An estimate by a
   Lithuanian investigator Rimas Bružas is that about 500 Lithuanian
   civilians were killed by Poles during the war. Estimates of Juozas
   Lebionka suggest even a higher number of 1000. On 14 July, 1993. The
   nationalist and extremist Lithuanian Vilnija organization claims that
   AK killed 4000 residents in ethnic Lithuanian lands. State commission
   was established by Government of Lithuania to evaluate activities of
   Armia Krajowa in Lithuania which had to present conclusions by 1
   December, 1993. Commission published conclusions that Armia Krajowa was
   acting against integrity of Lithuania and in Eastern Lithuania
   committed crimes against humanity, terrorised and killed innocent
   civilians, mostly Lithuanians. Lithuanian General Prosecutor Office in
   1999 established that "partisan units of AK, not recognising the return
   of Vilnius region in 1939, were performing genocide of the population
   of Lithuania, i.e. terrorised, robbed, murdered civilians of
   Lithuanian, Jewish and Russian ethnicities, hoping that these actions
   will help in the reoccupation of the area after the war."^ .
   Investigation of General Prosecutor Office did not end yet and despite
   the accusations, not a single member of Armia Krajowa, many veterans of
   which live in Lithuania, have been charged with any crimes as of 2001.
   A Lithuanian historian Arūnas Bubnys admits that there were no mass
   murders carried by AK (with the only exception being Dubinki), but that
   AK was guilty of some war crimes against individuals or selected
   families; he also notes that any accusations of genocide are false and
   have an underlying political motive, among them a counteraction to the
   accusations of widespread German-Lithuanian collaboration and crimes
   committed by units such as the Lithuanian Secret Police.

   Polish political and military underground cells were created all over
   Lithuania, Polish partisan attacks were usual not only in Vilnius
   region but across demarcation line as well.

   In 1944 Polish underground published letter of AK commander of Vilnius
   region demanding all Lithuanians to leave region. During the battles
   for Vilnius, the fighting resulted in the death of many soldiers and
   civilians, including Lithuanians, Jews, Poles, Russians and Germans.

   Another issue of the AK's operation in Lithuania is related to
   incidents of co-operation with Nazis against the common enemy, the
   Soviet partisans. During the negotiations between AK and Germans on
   10-12 February, 1944, AK leadership agreed not to attack Germans and to
   help them fight Soviet partisans in Rūdninkai forest. Germans armed
   several AK units operating in the Lithuanian area, in order to
   encourage them to act against the Soviets, just as they did with such
   Lithuanian forces as the Local Lithuanian Detachment. Germans also did
   not allow Lithuanian Security Police to arrest known commanders of AK
   and often released arrested AK commanders from prison .

   The conflict continiued until Soviets effectively destroyed Armia
   Krajowa in the fall of 1945.

Postwar developments

   The postwar assessment of AK's activities in Lithuania was a matter of
   controversy. In Communist Poland the actions of AK in general, and
   particularly the actions of commanders and units operating in
   Lithuania, were presented in a very negative light. The Communist
   regime executed or imprisoned commanders of the AK en masse after the
   war for political reasons, preventing any fair legal examination of
   crimes they may have committed during wartime. Thus Zygmunt
   Szendzielarz "Łupaszka", after several years in the postwar
   underground, was arrested by the Polish Communist authorities,
   sentenced to death and executed on February 8, 1951, in part for the
   crimes of his unit against civilians in the Vilnius region (thus
   including the massacre of Lithuanian civilians in Dubingiai) though the
   Communist indictment was much more broad and focused on his
   anti-communist activities. The assessment of his actions outside of
   Communist Poland was different, and in 1988 he was posthumously awarded
   the Virtuti Militari, the highest Polish military award, by the Polish
   government in exile. Similarly the Lithuanian general Povilas
   Plechavičius who was engaged in fighting the Polish and Soviet
   partisans received a medal from Lithuanian president. For these
   reasons, the AK, despite of its record in saving the Poles of Vilnius,
   are considered to be a controversial organisation in today's Lithuania
   in a manner somewhat similar to the view taken of Soviet partisans.

   In 2004 veterans of AK and some veterans of Local Lithuanian Detachment
   signed a Declaration of Peace. Veterans of Local Lithuanian Detachment
   who signed the declaration did so without approval of Union of Soldiers
   of Local Lithuanian Detachment ( Lithuanian: Lietuvos vietinės
   rinktinės karių sąjunga).

Relation with the Soviets

   Armia Krajowa relations with the Soviets went proverbialy from bad to
   worse. Not only did the Soviet Union invade Poland together with
   Germany during the Invasion of Poland in 1939, but even after Germans
   invaded Soviet Union the Soviets saw Polish partisans loyal to the
   government in exile as more of an enemy to their plans to take control
   of post-war Poland then as a potential ally. As ordered by Moscow on
   June 22 1943 the Soviet partisans engaged Polish partisans in combat,
   and actually they attacked the Poles more often then they did the
   Germans. Similarly, the main forces of the Red Army and the NKVD
   conducted operations against the AK partisans, even during or directly
   after the Polish Operation Tempest which was designed by the Poles to
   be a joint Polish-Soviet action against the retreating Germans.
   Stalin's aim to ensure that an independent Poland would never reemerge
   in the postwar period.

   In late 1943, the actions of Soviet partisans, who were ordered to
   liquidate the AK forces resulted in a limited amount of uneasy
   cooperation between some units of AK and the Germans. While AK still
   treated Germans as the enemy and conducted various operations against
   them, when Germans offered AK some arms and provisions to be used
   against the Soviet paristans, some Polish units in the Nowogródek and
   Wilno decided to accept them. However, any such arrangements were
   purely tactical and did not evidenced a type of ideological
   collaboration as shown by Vichy regime in France, Quisling regime in
   Norway or closer to the region, the Organization of Ukrainian
   Nationalists. The Poles main motivation was to gain intelligence on
   German morale and preparedness and to acquire some badly needed
   weapons. There are no known joint Polish-German actions, and the
   Germans were unsuccessful in their attempt to turn the Poles toward
   fighting exclusively against Soviet partisans. Even so, most of such
   collaboration of local commanders with the Germans was condemned by AK
   High Command. Tadeusz Piotrowski quotes Joseph Rotschild saying "The
   Polish Home Army was by and large untained by collaboration" and adds
   that "the honour of AK as a whole is beyond reproach".

   Soviet forces continued to engage the elements of AK long after the
   war.

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