Inferno - Max Hastings [19]
Later allegations that the post-1945 Allied war crimes trials represented “victors’ justice” were powerfully reinforced by the fact that no Russian was ever indicted for Katyn. In October 1939 a Pole under interrogation by NKVD officers demanded bitterly: “How is it possible for the USSR, a progressive and democratic state, to be on friendly terms with a reactionary Nazi Germany?” His inquisitor replied coldly: “You are wrong. Our policy is at present to be neutral during the struggle between England and Germany. Let them bleed—our power will increase. When they are utterly exhausted, we shall come out as the strong and fresh party, decisive during the last stage of the war.” This seems a just representation of Stalin’s aspirations.
Hitler, visiting Warsaw on 5 October, gestured to the ruins and addressed accompanying foreign correspondents: “Gentlemen, you have seen for yourselves what criminal folly it was to try to defend this city … I only wish that certain statesmen in other countries who seem to want to turn all of Europe into a second Warsaw could have the opportunity to see, as you have, the real meaning of war.” Warsaw’s mayor Starzyński was removed to Dachau, where he was murdered four years later. The Polish army had lost 70,000 men killed and 140,000 wounded, together with uncounted thousands of civilian dead. The German army’s casualties amounted to 16,000 killed and 30,000 wounded. Some 700,000 Polish soldiers became Hitler’s prisoners. An unelected Polish exile government was established in London.
Britain’s Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), Gen. Sir Edmund Ironside, met Adrian Carlton de Wiart on that officer’s return from Warsaw and snapped dismissively, “Well, your Poles haven’t done much.” This assertion reflected the frustration of British and French hopes that the Polish army would inflict sufficient injury upon the Wehrmacht to alleviate the Western Allies’ need to do so. Carlton de Wiart replied, “Let us see what others will do, sir.” A remarkable number of Poles made the decision to accept exile, separation from everything they knew and loved, in order to continue the fight against Hitler. Some 150,000 made their way westwards, often after memorable odysseys. This was by far the largest voluntary exodus from any of the nations eventually overrun by Germany, and reflected the Poles’ passion to sustain their struggle. Exiles fleeing west were astonished by the warm reception they received in fascist Italy, where a host of people called to them, “Bravo Polonia!”
Before quitting his home airfield, the fighter instructor Witold Urbanowitz gave a radio and his silk shirts to the woman cleaner of his quarters and his formal evening dress to the porter, then set off by bus with his cadets, down the road to Romania; almost a year later, at the controls of a Hurricane, he became one of the RAF’s foremost aces. Some 30,000 Poles, one-third of them air force pilots and ground crew, reached Britain in 1940, and more came later. One man clutched a wooden propeller, a symbol to which he had clung doggedly through a journey of 3,000 miles. Many others joined the British Army in the Middle East, after their belated release from Stalinist captivity. These men would make a far more notable contribution to the Allied war effort than had Britain to their own.
Poland became the only nation occupied by Hitler in which there was no collaboration between the conquerors and the conquered. The Nazis henceforth classified Poles as slaves, and received in return implacable hatred. As Princess Paul Sapieha crossed the frontier to precarious safety amid a throng of refugees, her small daughter asked, “Will there be bombs in Romania?” The princess answered, “No more bombs now. There’s no war here. We’re going where it will be sunny and where children