Edmund Charaszkiewicz - Covert Operations

Covert Operations

It appears that, as of 1935, Office 2 employed 11 officers, seven of them in Office "A" (for the West—Germany, East Prussia, Danzig, Czechoslovakia), headed by Ankerstein, and 22 civilian contract workers. The officer cadre were fairly stable; most of the officers served in Office 2 for at least six years.

A principal task of Office 2 was organizing and conducting clandestine operations outside Poland, chiefly in bordering countries, and preparing resistance cells in areas of Poland that, in the event of war, might be occupied by enemy forces. Office "B" (responsible for the East), headed in 1937–39 by Major Dąbrowski, prepared clandestine actions against the Soviet Union, conducting "Promethean operations" among non-Russian peoples (e.g. Caucasus, Tatar, Ukrainian and Cossack émigrés) and creating covert organizations at Poland's borders with Soviet Belarus and Ukraine. Office "A" (the West) was tasked with preparing and running clandestine operations against "Western" countries of interest.

Agents of Office 2 operated in Germany, Danzig, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania. They also penetrated anti-Hitler German émigré communities in Czechoslovakia and especially in France. In 1935 Charaszkiewicz and Ankerstein organized in the Free City of Danzig a covert "Group Zygmunt", which in September 1939, on the outbreak of World War II, would conspicuously defend the Polish Post Office in Danzig. "Group Zygmunt's" networks were to cover Poland's western border, Pomerania and the Free City of Danzig, and were to concentrate on sabotage and clandestine operations in the event of these areas' temporary occupation by the enemy.

The signing of the Polish-German Non-aggression Pact of January 26, 1934, had produced a reorientation in Polish foreign policy. Czechoslovakia's Zaolzie area (which was in dispute between Poland and Czechoslovakia) had lain outside Office 2's sphere of interest, but from spring 1934 covert propaganda and clandestine operations began to be developed there.

Charaszkiewicz suggested to an old Polish Legions comrade, Wiktor Tomir Drymmer — from September 15, 1933, to the outbreak of World War II, director of the Polish Foreign Ministry's Consular Department — the creation of an organization covering all countries that harbored substantial Polish communities. They agreed that this would be necessary due to the inevitability of war with Nazi Germany. They were also agreed that the organization was to be strictly covert, both in Poland and abroad; was to be of a nationalist character; and was to be elite rather than large-scale in nature. The organization's regulations were drawn up by Captain Ankerstein.

Eventually it was decided that the organization should be run by a "Committee of Seven" (K-7) comprising half Foreign Ministry personnel — Drymmer, his political deputy Dr. Władysław Józef Zaleski, Tadeusz Kowalski, and the latter's deputy Tadeusz Kawalec — and half Office 2 personnel: Charaszkiewicz, Ankerstein and the latter's deputy, Captain Wojciech Lipiński. Later, Lieutenant Colonel Ludwik Zych, chief of staff of Poland's Border Guard (Straż Graniczna), would be coopted.

K-7 set about recruiting young Poles residing in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania's Bukovina. They were trained in small groups in Poland, to be deployed in wartime. Beginning in May 1938, K-7 conducted courses in Warsaw, Gdynia and several other Polish localities.

In Zaolzie, about 1935, the first Polish clandestine operations had taken place; later, during Poland's 1938 annexation of that territory, K-7 members participated. The proceedings were directed from Warsaw by Drymmer and Charaszkiewicz, and on the ground by Ankerstein and later Zych.

After the Zaolzie takeover, preparations began on October 7, 1938, for a covert operation codenamed Łom ("Crowbar") in easternmost Czechoslovakia's Carpathian Rus, coordinated with Hungarian operations conducted from the south. The Polish commander on the ground was again Major Ankerstein, while at Warsaw Charaszkiewicz was again in overall command. The operation took place in October and November 1938 and helped bring about the First Vienna Award (November 2, 1938). In mid-March 1939, the operation's objective was fully accomplished: the restoration of Carpathian Rus to its pre-World War I master, Hungary, and thereby also the recreation of the historic common Polish-Hungarian border.

Six months later, during the September 1939 invasion of Poland, the common Polish-Hungarian border would become of pivotal importance when Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy's government, as a matter of "Hungarian honor," declined Hitler's request for permission to send German forces across Carpathian Rus into southeastern Poland to speed Poland's conquest. Horthy's refusal allowed the Polish government and tens of thousands of Polish military to escape into neighboring Hungary and Romania; and from there, to France and French-mandated Syria, to carry on the war as the third-strongest Allied belligerent after Britain and France.

Office 2's next task was organizing "behind-the-lines covert-operation networks" (siatki dywersji pozafrontowej) that were to undertake intelligence, sabotage and covert operations upon the outbreak of war, especially in areas occupied by the Germans. Charaszkiewicz was a conceptual founder of these networks. Particularly intensive work on them began early in May 1939. These structures were given diverse names such as "Secret Military Organization" (Tajna Organizacja Wojskowa, or TOW) and "Mobile Combat Units" (Lotne Oddziały Bojowe). In many cases — in Silesia, in southwestern Poland, and in western Poland — after Poland had been overrun by Germany in September 1939, these networks became the foundations for the first local underground resistance organizations, which in many cases later became part of the Union for Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, or ZWZ).

One such organization that arose on the foundation of a "behind-the-lines covert-operation network," in Kraków on September 22, 1939, was the White Eagle Organization (Organizacja Orła Białego, or OOB), which soon, in 1940, became part of ZWZ. The OOB was a major organization that, in addition to southern Poland, also held some sway in Silesia, Warsaw and Lublin. The order to form OOB was issued by Charaszkiewicz's deputy, Major Ankerstein, who had returned from Hungary to Kraków expressly for that purpose. He also conducted a three-day covert-operations training for Organization members before making his way back to Hungary and proceeding on to the West.

Before the war, a network of clandestine groups was created, tasked with paralyzing lines of communication and destroying enemy supply depots and command networks. Their membership was drawn from varied backgrounds, including the Riflemen's Association (Związek Strzelecki), Reserve Noncommissioned Officers' Association (Związek Podoficerów Rezerwy), Reserve Officers' Association (Związek Oficerów Rezerwy), referrals by County Offices of Physical Education and Military Training (Powiatowe Urzędy Wychowania Fizycznego i Przysposobienia Wojskowego, or PUWFiPW), the Polish Scouting Association (Związek Harcerzy Polskich, or ZHP), the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), and a host of other organizations.

The preparatory work was coordinated by a Department for Planning Wartime Intelligence and Covert Operations (Wydział Planowania Wywiadu I Dywersji Wojennej), created in late 1937. Its tasks included organizing mobilization procedures for the foreign intelligence network and assuring its functioning under wartime conditions, as well as securing covert support for the army at the front.

Spring 1938 saw expanded training of clandestine networks. Courses organized by Office 2, disguised as civil-defense training, might cover cryptology, intelligence microphotography, toxicology, railway sabotage, hand-to-hand combat, new weapons, explosives, and suppression of fires. In view of the enemy's growing preponderance in armor, artillery and especially air forces, it had been decided to increase the tasks set for covert-operations networks. On June 3, 1939, Section II sent, to army commanders, regulations for covert operations; among other things, it was set down that only those members of a covert unit should know each other who were to carry out practically defined assignments.

In summer 1939, weapons and explosives began to be distributed to clandestine centers and patrols. Deliveries were also made to networks created within the Third Reich. Despite the secrecy of the preparations, German intelligence obtained information on the Polish networks, and German security agencies received orders to suppress the Polish networks. When overt war did come in September 1939, the mass terror applied to the Polish population by the Germans, in many instances — though by no means universally — paralyzed the Polish clandestine networks.

In September 1939, during the Polish retreat before advancing German forces, Drymmer and other clandestine-operations leaders, as early as their stop at Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula River, left behind K-7 members and freshly sworn-in individuals. Likewise, at a Polish consulate in Romania's Bukovina, K-7 trained a group of young men in covert action. Major Charaszkiewicz himself, at the outbreak of war, became head of Department (Wydział) F at the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief and carried on this function from September 1 to September 20, 1939. According to other information, he was special-assignments officer to the Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, and in that capacity with the Marshal's approval commissioned the creation of at least one underground organization about September 12. Next Charaszkiewicz, along with other K-7 members, crossed Poland's border into Romania. There he organized a group of officers who were to return to occupied Poland to set up another underground organization.

In Romania, Charaszkiewicz established ties with a Sanation group, the "Schaetzel-Drymmer group," that was ill-disposed to Marshal Rydz-Śmigły and supportive of Foreign Minister Józef Beck. Charaszkiewicz also played a substantial role in creating an Office (Ekspozytura) "R" of Polish intelligence headquartered in Bucharest, with satellite outposts scattered about Romania. It was important not only to the conduct of intelligence work but to liaison with occupied Poland.

In Bucharest, in October 1939, Charaszkiewicz received from his British colleague, Lt. Col. Colin Gubbins — soon to become the prime mover of the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.) — a very warm letter informing him that Gubbins had been personally searching for him, and offering every possible assistance, including financial (Charaszkiewicz declined the money). Through Gubbins' good offices, Charaszkiewicz obtained from the British military attaché a British visa.