Abstract
Documents highlighting the experiences of British diplomats in early post-war Poland describe conditions in an environment dealing with the aftermath of conflict, involving the rebuilding and recasting of state and society by an externally backed new order.1 This chapter highlights three main areas pertaining to the process. First, it illustrates Foreign Office (FO) reporting, frequently the product of experienced officials who had served in Poland before 1939. Secondly, it outlines the British position on Poland as the Iron Curtain descended. Finally, the chapter focuses on the situation in Stettin, the most insecure of Poland’s post-war western territories.
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Notes
R. Butler and M.E. Pelly (eds), Documents on British Policy Overseas (hereinafter DBPO), Series 1, Volume I, The Conference at Potsdam July–August 1945 (London: HMSO, 1984);
M.E. Pelly, H.J. Yasamee and K.A. Hamilton (eds), DBPO, Series 1, Volume VI, Eastern Europe 1945–1946 (London: HMSO, 1991).
Warsaw had been reduced to rubble by a combination of Luftwaffe bombing and fighting in September 1939, the eradication of the Jewish ghetto (April–May 1943), the heavy street fighting of the Warsaw Rising (1 August–3 October 1944) and systematic German demolitions following the Rising’s brutal suppression. On the political background see especially A.J. Prazmowska, Civil War in Poland, 1942–1948 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
DBPO, Series 1, Volume VI, document 4. The Hotel Polonia was a former railway hotel which had served as a wartime German headquarters. The US Embassy was also housed in it and ambassador Lane described the dining room as ‘spy-infested and garish’: Arthur Bliss Lane, I Saw Freedom Betrayed (London: Regency Publications, 1949), p. 111.
Cavendish-Bentinck, later 9th Duke of Portland (1897–1990), was known as Bill Bentinck. Colleagues recalled his demeanour as Chairman of the JIC and noted that he may have been the youngest member of that body ‘but he did not stand in awe of admirals, generals or air marshals’. He was uniquely well informed about intrigues within the offices of the War Cabinet and adopting a tactic he would later use in Warsaw he would not disclose his sources but instead would grip the attention of his audience by remarking ‘My dog Angus tells me… ’: Noel Annan, Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany (London: HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 60–61.
Stephen Dorril, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London: Fourth Estate, 2000), p. 255.
Ibid., pp. 254–256. Patrick Howarth, Intelligence Chief Extraordinary: the life of the Ninth Duke of Portland (London: Bodley Head, 1986), 213–215. As a comparison with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration relief workers’ knowledge of Poland,
see Jessica Reinisch, ‘“We Shall Build Anew a Powerful Nation”: UNRRA, Internationalism and National Reconstruction in Poland’, Journal of Contemporary History, 43/3, (2008), pp. 451–476, particularly, pp. 462–64.
Foreign Office, Weekly Political Intelligence Summaries, Volume 11, January–June 1945 (London: Kraus International Publications, 1983), No. 296, 6 June 1945.
David Dilks (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan (London: Cassell, 1971), p. 768.
Foreign Office, Weekly Political Intelligence Summaries, Volume 12, July–December 1945 (London: Kraus International Publications, 1983), No. 305, 8 August 1945.
Clement R. Attlee, As It Happened (London: William Heinemann, 1954), p. 149.
Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, The Pattern of Soviet Domination (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1948), pp. 81, 114–116.
Thorolf Hillblad, Twilight of the Gods (Solihull: Helion, 2004), p. 21.
Foreign Office, Weekly Political Intelligence Summaries, Volume 12, No. 303, 25 July 1945.
Foreign Office, Weekly Political Intelligence Summaries, Volume 12, No. 305, 8 August 1945.
Ibid., pp. 221–223; Percy Cradock, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (London: John Murray, 2002), p. 24. See also The Times, 28 March 1947, 7 November 1947 and 6 July 1948.
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© 2013 Alastair Noble
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Noble, A. (2013). ‘Journey into a Desert’: British Perceptions of Poland’s Western Territories, 1945–48. In: Young, J.W., Pedaliu, E.G.H., Kandiah, M.D. (eds) Britain in Global Politics Volume 2. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313584_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313584_2
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