Cursed Soldiers - Historical Background

Historical Background

With the advance of Soviet forces across Poland against Nazi Germany, the Soviet and Polish communists who set up the brand new government called the Polish Committee of National Liberation in 1944, realized that the Polish Secret State loyal to the Polish government-in-exile, had to be abolished before they could gain complete control over Poland. Future General Secretary of Polish United Workers' Party, Władysław Gomułka, pronounced that "Soldiers of AK are a hostile element which must be removed without mercy". Another prominent communist, Roman Zambrowski, said that the AK had to be "exterminated".

Armia Krajowa (or simply AK) – the main Polish resistance movement in World War II – had officially disbanded on 19 January 1945 to prevent a slide into armed conflict with the Red Army including an increasing threat of civil war over Poland's sovereignty. However, many units decided to continue on their struggle under new circumstances, seeing the Soviet forces as new occupiers. Meanwhile, Soviet partisans in Poland had already been ordered by Moscow on June 22, 1943 to engage Polish Leśni partisans in combat. They commonly fought Poles more often than they did the Germans. The main forces of the Red Army (Northern Group of Forces) and the NKVD began conducting operations against AK partisans already during and directly after the Polish Operation Tempest designed by the Poles as a preventive action to assure Polish rather than Soviet control of the cities after the German withdrawal. Soviet premier Joseph Stalin aimed to ensure that an independent Poland would never reemerge in the postwar period.