Process of Sixteen

The Trial of Sixteen (Polish: Proces szesnastu ) was a Stalinist show trial from June 18 to June 21, 1945 in Moscow against 16 delegates of the Polish government-in-exile kidnapped by the Soviet NKVD .

Trial of Sixteen, Moscow, June 1945

backgrounds

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945 it was decided to replace the Stalin-loyal Provisional Polish Government with a "Government of National Unity", which should be obliged to "hold free elections on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot". This government should be placed on a broader basis, especially democratic leaders from the circle of the Polish government in exile. Four parties were represented in the government in exile:

the Polish Socialist Party , Social Democrats (PPS)
the Polish People's Party , Peasant Party (SL, PSL)
the National Party , National Democrats (SN)
the Labor Party , Christian Democrats (SP)

Stalin had no interest in accepting representatives of the government-in-exile who wanted an independent Poland and who enjoyed great popularity among the population in the Polish government. His plan was to make Poland an obedient vassal state of the Soviet Union .

In order to realize this plan, Stalin and the Politburo of the Communist Party began deliberately to destroy the Polish elite before the war began. Characteristic of these extermination actions is Stalin's endeavor either to give them a legal coating through show trials or to blame the German fascists for them.

As early as 1937 to 1938 he had 143,810 Soviet citizens of Polish descent arrested in the Polish operation of the NKVD in the Soviet Union, with Polish-sounding names, with contacts in Poland or with a place of residence near the border. Of these, 139,885 were convicted in show trials and 111,091 shot.
In the course of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland in 1939, the Soviets deported 330,000 people to Siberia and Central Asia . About half of them died due to poor living conditions on the transport and in the camps.
In the Katyn massacre in 1940, between 22,000 and 25,000 professional or reserve officers, police officers and intellectuals who belonged to the prewar elites of the independent Second Polish Republic were shot in the Katyn Forest and elsewhere . Stalin tried to portray this mass murder as committed by the Germans.
In 1945 the Red Army fought together with the Polish Home Army in Poland against the German Wehrmacht . However, as soon as these combined forces liberated a Polish city or region, the soldiers of the Polish Home Army involved were disarmed by the Russian Red Army and partly shot and partly deported.

History of the process

The process of 16 is part of this event. As early as 1944, Stalin began to prepare for the takeover of Poland as a vassal state. To do this, he made use of a communist Polish committee set up by him , which later passed into the government of this Polish vassal state. Stalin's efforts focused on eliminating any influence from the Polish underground government and the Home Army . The Warsaw Uprising (August 1 to October 2, 1944) was very favorable to Stalin's plan . Here the leading forces of the underground and the Home Army were murdered by the Germans, while the Red Army watched this battle inactive on the Vistula. In particular, Stalin actively prevented British and American support for the insurgents , which was already reluctantly .

On July 26, 1944, an agreement was reached between the chairman of the committee, Edward Osóbka-Morawski , and the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov . It was stipulated that all actions of the Polish people that are classified as hostile towards the Red Army would be examined by the Soviet authorities under Soviet law. With this, Stalin created the basis for the crackdown on the Polish underground and the later show trials. These measures were implemented by the Russian secret service NKVD . Based on the agreement of July 26, 1944, a decree was issued on August 24 to dissolve all underground organizations in the liberated areas of Poland. This made the Home Army and the underground organization illegal. Another decree was passed on August 31 stating the underground organization as Nazi criminals and traitors to the Polish nation. Thus those Poles who fought alongside the Russian army against the German fascists were now designated as allies of these German fascists.

The victory of the Germans over the Warsaw Uprising and the subsequent murder of the Home Army and the Warsaw population and the complete destruction of Warsaw by the Germans combined with the measures of Stalin led to the collapse of the Home Army and the underground. This resulted in the Stalin-controlled Polish communists taking power over Polish society and establishing a government for Poland. The Soviets retained the original Polish party structure, but infiltrated all parties with communists. From the beginning, Stalin had completely subverted and infiltrated the Polish underground and the Home Army through his secret service NKVD. This enabled him to have mass arrests made in early 1945 immediately after the victory of the Red Army and to disarm and eliminate the members of the underground and the Home Army who were still active. Not only in Poland, but also in London, the NKVD knew all members of the underground by name, rank, place of residence and alias.

Fixings in Yalta

After the end of the war, the victorious powers negotiated the future status of Poland. During these negotiations, the Polish underground government in London tried to get the government to participate in the future Polish government. A major problem with this was that a list of government officials and negotiators should be drawn up. However, such a list could have served the Soviet authorities as a list for arrests. From the beginning it was suspected that the aim of the Soviets was to usurp and eradicate the leaders of the underground. Neither the English nor the Americans were ready to guarantee these people any protection.

Negotiations with the Soviets

With the knowledge and consent of Wincenty Witos , who lived in Piotrków Trybunalski , a meeting of the Polish People's Party took place in Warsaw in March 1945. At this meeting a delegation was appointed to negotiate with the Soviets. It consisted of Kazimierz Bagiński , Adam Bień and Stanisław Mierzwa .

Together with representatives of the other parties, they began negotiations with the Soviets. The Soviets were very friendly and accommodating, so that optimism spread among the Polish delegation. However, the Soviets very persistently insisted that they wanted to negotiate not only with representatives of the underground, but also with the leading figures Jan Stanisław Jankowski and Leopold Okulicki . Eventually they were persuaded to do so, although they suspected a trap by the Russians.

Abduction of the delegates

Memorial plaque for those accused of the Trial of Sixteen at the villa in Pruszków, where they were abducted by the Soviets

On March 27, 1945 Kazimierz Pużak , Jankowski and Okulicki met with Pimienov for talks. These discussions took place in a villa in Pruszków, southwest of Warsaw. On March 28, 1945, they were lured into an airplane under the pretense of being flown to London. This plane took them to Moscow to the NKVD Lubyanka prison .

Another delegation of the individual parties, consisting of Kazimierz Bagiński, Adam Bień, Józef Chaciński, Eugeniusz Czarnowski, Stanisław Jasiukowicz, Kazimierz Kobylański, Stanisław Mierzwa, Stanisław Michałowski, Antoni Pajńdak, Zbignkiewicz and Stypułowski was on March 28, 1945 with Francis kidnapped and held in Włochy until March 29 . The Soviets then took them by plane to Ivanovo- Voznjeßjensk and from there by train to Moscow to the NKVD Lubyanka prison, where they arrived on March 30, 1945.

Trial and convictions

The trial took place from June 18 to June 21, 1945. Charges were

Organization of conspiratorial armed units of the Home Army behind the back of the Red Army;
Foundation of a military-political underground organization Independence ( Niepodległość , NIE );
terrorist, subversive and espionage activities by the conspiratorial armed units of the Home Army and NIE ;
the work of illegal Home Army radio stations and the Polish underground government behind the back of the Red Army;
the plan to prepare a war together with Germany against the USSR.

All three executives, Okulicki, Jankowski and Pużak, died in prison in the following years. The protests of the Western powers, made by the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and the American Secretary of State Edward Stettinius junior , against the treatment of the concerned were completely ignored by the Soviet government.

At the same time, negotiations took place on the Polish government, with the result that out of 21 government members, only three were members of the underground government. The rest were Moscow-loyal Stalinists.

The 16 delegates

Surname	function	organization	Sentence	further fate
Leopold Okulicki	Commander of the Home Army, Commander of the Armed Forces of the Country, Commander in Chief of the organization "NIE"	AK	ten years	died on December 24, 1946 in Butyrka prison in Moscow ; possibly killed at the instigation of Soviet bodies
Jan Stanisław Jankowski	Deputy Prime Minister, Government Commissioner for Poland, Labor Party activist, chemical engineer	SP	8 years	died on March 13, 1953, two weeks before the end of his sentence, in Vladimir Prison , RSFSR ; possibly killed at the instigation of Soviet bodies
Adam Bień	First Member of the Government Delegates of the Republic of Poland in the country, activist of the People's Party, member of the National Council of Ministers, lawyer	SL	5 years	released from Moscow prison in August 1949 thanks to the efforts of his wife Sofia; he died on March 4, 1998 after almost three weeks of illness in the government clinic in Warsaw
Stanisław Jasiukowicz	Deputy Government Delegate for Poland, Minister of State Affairs, Vice-President of the National Party, Doctor of Economics	SN	5 years	he died of heart failure in Butyrka prison in 1946
Antoni Pajdak	Commander of the workers 'militia, member of the National Council of Ministers, co-founder of the workers' defense committee and the social self-defense committee, he got another secret trial of his own	PPS-WRN	5 years	Worked as a lumberjack in Siberia from 1950. Returned to Poland in 1955 and worked as a lawyer in Warsaw.
Kazimierz Pużak	Chairman of the National Unity Council ( Rada Jedności Narodowej , RJN), Chairman and co-founder of the conspiratorial group Polish Socialist Party - Freedom, Equality, Independence ( Polska Partia Socjalistyczna - Wolność, Równość, Niepodległość , PPS-WRN)	RJN, PPS	1.5 years	Released on November 1, 1945, he returned to Poland and refused to emigrate. He was arrested again in 1947 by the Ministry of Public Security (UB) in 1947 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He died on April 30, 1950 in Rawicz Prison .
Kazimierz Bagiński	Deputy Chairman of the RJN, Deputy Chairman of the People's Party (SL)	RJN, SL	1 year	released on November 1, 1945 and forced to immigrate to the United States
Aleksander Zwierzyński	Vice-Chairman of the RJN, Chairman of the National Party ( Stronnictwo Narodowe , SN), journalist	RJN, SN	8 months	released on November 1, 1945, returned to Poland
Eugeniusz Czarnowski	Member of the RJN and the Home Army, President of the Democratic Union ( Zjednoczenie Demokratyczne ), which was the Democratic Party's conspiratorial group ( Stronnictwo Demokratyczne , SD), economist	RJN, AK, SD	6 months	released in September 1945
Józef Chaciński	Member of the RJN, President of the Labor Party, lawyer	RJN, SP	4 months	released in August 1945
Stanislaw Mierzwa	Member of the RJN, representative of the People's Party, lawyer	RJN, SL	4 months	released in August 1945. Arrested again in 1946 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Released in 1954
Zbigniew Stypułkowski	Member of the RJN, representative of the National Party, general secretary of the Provisional National Political Council, political arm of the National Armed Forces, lawyer	RJN, SN	4 months	released in August 1945, emigrated to Great Britain in November 1945
Franciszek Urbański	Member of the RJN, representative of the Labor Party, civil servant	RJN, SP	4 months	After his release he returned to Poland. He died in Warsaw in December 1949.
Stanisław Michałowski	Member of the RJN, Vice President of the Democratic Union, lawyer	RJN, ZD	acquittal	Returned to Poland. Arrested again in 1950 and sentenced to 9 years in prison. Released in 1952. Prohibited from working, worked as a warehouse worker. 1980 active in Solidarność .
Kazimierz Kobylański	Member of the RJN, representative of the National Party, member of the staff of the National Military Organization, engineer	RJN, SN	acquittal	Returned to Poland. Arrested by the security service in September 1945 and released on November 11th. Arrested again in July 1947 and sentenced to 8 years in prison. Released December 24, 1954.
Józef Stemler	Deputy Minister of the Information Department of the Polish delegation, teacher, member of the Polish Red Cross, interpreter of the delegation	Polish Red Cross ( Polski Czerwony Krzyż , PCK)	acquittal	Returned to Poland. Arrested again in 1955 and sentenced to 6 years in prison.

List of abbreviations used

abbreviation	Polish / Russian	German	meaning	symbol	Period
AK	Armia Krajowa	Polish Home Army	Polish resistance and military organization in Germany-occupied Poland during World War II		1942–1945, 1945–1963 underground, founded in 1939 as ZWZ
ZWZ	Związek Walki Zbrojnej	Union of Armed Struggle	Forerunner of the AK		1939–1942, was renamed Home Army (AK) in 1942.
NEVER	niepodległość Polski	Polish independence	underground military organization fighting for Poland's independence from the Soviet Union		1943-1945
RJN	Rada Jedności Narodowej	National Unity Council	political representation of the Polish underground state		1944-1945
PPS	Polska Partia Socjalistyczna	Polish Socialist Party	Party with a socialist and social democratic character		1892–1948, then only in exile, reactivated in 1987
PPS-WRN	Polska Partia Socjalistyczna - Wolność, Równość, Niepodległość	Polish Socialist Party - Freedom, Equality, Independence	conspiratorial underground organization of the PPS		1939-1944
SL	Stronnictwo Ludowe	People's Party	Peasant party	Color green	1893-1903
PSL	Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe	Polish People's Party	Peasant party		1903-1926, 1945-1947, reactivated 1989
SN	Stronnictwo Narodowe	National party	nationalistic, conservative, catholic		1928–1945, active underground from 1945, reactivated in 1989
SP	Stronnictwo Pracy	Party of labor	Christian Democratic	Colour blue	1937–1939, from 1939 in exile, reactivated in 1989 initially under the name Chrześcijańsko-Demokratieyczne Stronnictwo Pracy (ChDSP), from 2000 again SP
ZD	Zjednoczenie Demokratyczne	Democratic Union	conspiratorial democratic party. She had a seat in the RJN. In September 1945 the majority of the ZD members joined the SD.		1944-1945
SD	Stronnictwo Demokratyczne	Democratic Party	Initially a center party, partly underground, from 1945 a satellite party of the Communist Workers' Party of Poland		1939 to the present
PCK	Polski Czerwony Krzyż	Polish Red Cross	national organization of the Red Cross in Poland		since 1919
NKVD	НКВД, Народный комиссариат внутренних дел (Narodnyj Kommissariat Wnutrennich Del)	Ministry of Interior of the USSR	soviet secret police, secret service		1917-1954

literature

Piotr Kołakowski: The Polish Home Army: History and Myth of the Armia Krajowa since the Second World War , R. Oldenburg Verlag Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56715-2

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Proces Szesnastu: z Warszawy do Moskwy at historia.org.pl. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Piotr Kołakowski: The Polish Home Army: History and Myth of the Armia Krajowa since the Second World War , R. Oldenburg Verlag Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56715-2 , pp. 212-215, online at books.google .de. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
↑ Leopold Okulicki at sww.w.szu.pl. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
↑ Jan Jankowski at sww.w.szu.pl. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m Porwanie przywódców polskiego podziemia - proces szesnastu at sww.w.szu.pl. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
↑ Kazimierz Pużak at sww.w.szu.pl. Retrieved December 16, 2019.

Web links

Commons : Trial of the Sixteen (1945) - collection of images, videos and audio files

[p16-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Proces Szesnastu: z Warszawy do Moskwy at historia.org.pl. Retrieved December 8, 2019.

[p16deutsch-2] Piotr Kołakowski: The Polish Home Army: History and Myth of the Armia Krajowa since the Second World War , R. Oldenburg Verlag Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56715-2 , pp. 212-215, online at books.google .de. Retrieved December 8, 2019.

[oku-3] Leopold Okulicki at sww.w.szu.pl. Retrieved December 16, 2019.

[jan-4] Jan Jankowski at sww.w.szu.pl. Retrieved December 16, 2019.

[alg-5] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m Porwanie przywódców polskiego podziemia - proces szesnastu at sww.w.szu.pl. Retrieved December 16, 2019.

[puz-6] Kazimierz Pużak at sww.w.szu.pl. Retrieved December 16, 2019.