760C.61/2091
The Polish Ambassador (Ciechanowski) to the Secretary of State
Acting on instructions of the Polish Government, the Polish Ambassador has the honor to submit to the Secretary of State the following text of a confidential Aide-Mémoire concerning an announcement from Moscow to the effect that the first division formed by the USSR. Government under the aegis of the so-called “Union of Polish Patriots” [Page 456] in the USSR, is now being sent for active duty on the Soviet-German front:
Aide-Mémoire
1) According to an agency telegram from Moscow dated August 28, 1943, the first division formed in the USSR under the aegis of the so-called “Union of Polish Patriots” is being sent to the Soviet-German front.
In view of this information the Polish Government renews all the reservations formulated in its note of May 17, 1943, against the organization by the Soviet Government without either the knowledge or the consent of the Polish Government, of military formations bearing Polish names and with the participation of Polish citizens, which infringe the sovereign rights of Poland and violate the Polish-Soviet agreements of July 30 and August 14, 1941,24 as well as the basic obligations of citizens to their State.
The Polish Government has no doubt that in the fight against the common enemy even those Polish citizens, whose fate is now being illegally decided by a foreign authority, will distinguish themselves through their personal courage.
2) The Polish Government, which is not only in its own eyes but also in the eyes of all the United Nations the only recognized authority duly entitled to take decisions involving the life and blood of Polish citizens,—has in the course of the last four years unhesitatingly directed and continues to direct the armed war effort of the regular Polish Armed Forces fighting under the Polish national flag, a war effort undertaken in the spirit of the greatest sacrifice and unceasingly carried on at the side of Poland’s Allies on land, on sea and in the air against the German invader.
The Polish Government likewise unceasingly directs the organized underground active and passive resistance of occupied Poland. In the abnormal situation, highly dangerous for the common cause which has been created as a result of the conduct of the Soviet Government, referred to in p. 1 of this Aide-Mémoire,25 the Polish Government is forced emphatically to draw the attention of the U.S. Government to the consequences issuing from the real character of and the aims for which these military formations were created by the Soviet Government under a Polish name.
3) The officers’ cadres of the above formations alleged by the Soviets as composed of Polish volunteers, consist mostly of Russian officers; [Page 457] many of the soldiers are Poles previously deported to the USSR, as well as prisoners of war and Poles forcibly inducted in the German army who have escaped from the German ranks. There is no doubt that these Poles are being incorporated to these formations if not in all cases under direct Soviet pressure resulting from the characteristic Soviet way of living and system, then at least under the influence of the impression created by the apparent national Polish character of the formations.
Under war conditions prevailing on the Eastern European front the fighting strength which these formations may constitute has obviously no practical importance to Soviet Russia. Therefore it can be concluded that their importance consists primarily in their role of a political instrument which the USSR. Government desires them to assume, similarly as to the so-called “Union of Polish Patriots” in the event of the entry of the Red Army on Polish territory.
4) It appears superfluous to prove how strong a reaction will be created in the Polish community—both in Poland under German occupation, as abroad, by the state of things described in p. 3,26 which is so basically contradictory to the principles for which, according to the Atlantic Charter, all the United Nations should fight.
Nevertheless the Polish Government, conscious of the importance of United Nations solidarity at the present crucial phase of the war, and in its sincere desire to ease Polish-Russian relations, is determined to do its utmost in order to restrain the Polish people, and especially the Polish press, from statements too emphatically expressing such natural reactions.
These endeavors on the part of the Polish Government would, however, be of little avail if at the same time propaganda of Soviet origin tending to publicize at the cost of the real Polish war effort the activities of these allegedly Polish military formations in the USSR.,—created in reality in order to serve communistic aims,—were to be allowed freely to develop in Allied countries.
The Polish Government is confident that, with the friendly understanding which it has always hitherto shown, the U.S. Government will take this situation into consideration and will use its influence in order to restrain the dissemination of such propaganda of foreign origin detrimental to the real Polish war effort.
No. 49–Sow/SZ–t/251.