The Armia Krajowa and Polish Partisan Warfare, 1939–43

Abstract

Partisan warfare in Poland during World War II differed in some significant ways from the other case studies considered in this book. The focus in this chapter is not so much at the tactical or operational level, but rather the strategic-level thinking that guided the development of Polish partisan warfare between 1939 and 1943. Indeed, it is the strategic-level policy that shaped what happened at the operational and tactical level regarding partisan warfare in the Polish context. Although there was major armed resistance to the occupation of Poland, the Polish Union for Armed Struggle (Zwiqzek Walki Zbrojnej — ZWZ) and its successor the Home Army (Armia Krajowa — AK)¹ with their close link to the Polish Government-in-Exile in London followed a measured and calculated policy of resistance. Such an approach, it was thought, offered the greatest military impact with potentially the smallest cost to the civilian population.