760C.61/2130: Telegram
The Chargé to the Polish Government in Exile (Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 5—6:55 p.m.]
1. Poles. Frankowski, Under Secretary of Polish Foreign Office, tells me Polish Government will tomorrow issue following declaration:
“In their victorious struggle against the German invader, the Soviet forces are reported to have crossed the frontier of Poland.
This fact is another proof of the breaking down of the German resistance and it foreshadows the inevitable military defeat of Germany. It fills the Polish Nation with the hope that the hour of liberation is drawing near.
Poland was the first nation to take up the German challenge2 and it has been fighting against the invaders for over 4 years at the cost of tremendous sacrifices and sufferings without producing a single Quisling and rejecting any form of compromise or collaboration with the aggressor.
The underground movement among its many activities concentrated upon attacking the Germans in their most sensitive spots, upon sabotage in every possible form and in the carrying out of many death sentences on German officials whose conduct had been particularly outrageous.
The Polish forces, twice reorganised outside their country, have been fighting ceaselessly in the air, at sea and on land, side by side with our Allies. There is no front on which Polish blood has not been mingled with the blood of other defenders of freedom; there is no country in the world where Poles did not contribute to furthering the common cause.
The Polish Nation therefore is entitled to expect full justice and redress as soon as it will be set free of enemy occupation. The first condition of such justice is the earliest reestablishment of Polish sovereign administration in the liberated territories of the Republic of Poland and the protection of life and property of Polish citizens.
The Polish Government, as the only and legal steward and spokesman of the Polish Nation, recognized by Poles at home and abroad as well as by Allied and free Governments, is conscious of the contribution [Page 1217] of Poland to the war and is responsible for the fate of the Nation. It affirms its indestructible right to independence confirmed by the principles of the Atlantic Charter,3 common to all the United Nations, and by binding international treaties. The provisions of those treaties, based on the free agreement of the parties, not on the enforcement of the will of one side to the detriment of the other, cannot be revised by accomplished facts. The conduct of the Polish Nation in the course of the present war has proved that it has never recognized and will not recognize solutions imposed by force.
The Polish Government expects that the Soviet Union, sharing its view as to the importance of future friendly relations between the two countries, in the interest of peace and with the view to preventing a German revenge, will not fail to respect the rights and interests of the Polish Republic and of its citizens.
Acting in that belief, the Polish Government instructed the underground authorities in Poland, on October 27, 1943,4 to continue and intensify the resistance against the German invaders, to avoid all conflicts with the Soviet armies entering Poland in their battle against the Germans, and to enter into cooperation with the Soviet commanders in the event of the resumption of Polish-Soviet relations.
If a Polish-Soviet agreement such as the Polish Government had declared itself willing to conclude, had preceded the crossing of the frontier of Poland by the Soviet forces, such an agreement would have enabled the underground Polish Army to coordinate its action against the Germans with the Soviet military authorities. The Polish Government still considers such an arrangement highly desirable.
At this crucial moment, the importance of which for the course of the war and for its outcome in Europe are evident to everyone, the Polish Government issues the above declaration confident in a final victory and in the triumph of the just principles for which the United Nations stand.”
- For correspondence concerning German aggression against Poland in September 1939, see ibid., 1939, vol. i, pp. 402 ff.↩
- Joint statement of principles by President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill, August 14, 1941, Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 367.↩
- “Instructions for Poland Established by the Polish Cabinet Meeting” were reported to the Department in Polish Series despatch 463 of November 16, 1943, from London, not printed (740.0011 European War 1939/32018). For correspondence on the Polish underground, see pp. 1354 ff.↩