Hubal pacifications

In the last days of the September Campaign, Major Henryk Dobrzański of the 110th Reserve Uhlan Regiment [pl] gathered around him a group of officers and soldiers determined to continue fighting the Germans.

[3] Initially, Dobrzański planned to come to the aid of besieged Warsaw, and when he received news of its capitulation, he decided to break through to Hungary and from there reach the rebuilding Polish Army in France.

[4] In the first days of October 1939, the unit made its way to the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, where an enthusiastic reception from the local population convinced the major that the September defeat had not broken the will of the Polish society to resist.

[9] Major Hubal gained great popularity and authority among the local population,[10] and his activities contributed to breaking the prevailing apathy and discouragement in Polish society.

[11] Meanwhile, in mid-March 1940, the leadership of the Union of Armed Struggle, whose concepts of fighting the occupier were drastically different from Hubal’s plans, attempted to disband the unit.

On the order of the commander of the Łódź District of the Home Army, Colonel Leopold Okulicki, codenamed Miller, a significant number of officers and soldiers left the ranks (on March 13).

In March 1940, the Germans began preparations to deal with Hubal, but jurisdictional disputes between the Wehrmacht and the police authorities of the General Government temporarily delayed the start of the hunt.

[16] On the same day that the battle at Hucisko took place, the advancing second wave of the Ordnungspolizei unit detained all the men present in the village of Stefanków, totaling 77 individuals.

[25] The detainees from both villages were marched on foot to Gielniów, from where they were transported by trucks to the estate in Korytków, where the Germans arrested two more individuals (the local landowner and his son).

[43][44]Command and communication were entirely inadequate [...] The behavior of the police formations regarding reconnaissance, security, and combat posture did not meet even the most basic requirements [...] They shot at everything in sight – at women and crows alike [...] On April 5, it was reported that SS-Obergruppenführer Krüger was in the field, personally directing the retaliatory action.

The head of the internal affairs department in the office of the governor of the Radom District, who was present, announced that the Polish armed uprising would be suppressed with absolute force, and "wherever the population cooperated with the bandits, villages will be burned, and the inhabitants shot".

[46] That same day, Albrecht issued a proclamation falsely reporting the destruction of Hubal's unit and threatening:[47]It has been noted that inciters and agitators have been active for months in various localities in the district, receiving weapons, uniforms, horses, food supplies, and volunteers from the civilian population, about which I have not been informed by the village heads and mayors in every case.

[40] In Koprusa, policemen from the 111th Ordnungspolizei Battalion murdered the family of Marian Gut – both his parents and two siblings aged 3 and 12 – and burned their farm (April 4).

From 15 villages and an indeterminate number of hamlets, they rounded up all the men (from 1,500 to 2,000 people), gathering them at assembly points in Pieradła, Serbinów, Smyków, and Zaborowice.

[54] During the operation, the detainees were beaten and terrorized – some had mock executions staged, were photographed holding weapons, and were threatened with the harshest penalties for aiding "bandits".

[55] At the assembly points, the Germans checked the detainees' identities, trying to identify Jews,[d] village heads, teachers, members of the Military Training Corps [pl], small traders, and those registered for less than three months.

[54] Zygmunt Kosztyła suspected that these crimes – like the earlier pacification of Szałas Stary – were ordered by SS-Obergruppenführer Krüger to cover up the failure of SS and police units during the manhunt in the Mniów–Sielpia Wielka–Stąporków triangle.

[92][93] In less than two weeks, various forms of repression affected 31 villages[94][95] in the pre-war counties of Końskie, Kielce, and Opoczno:[f][96] The Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland established that during the Hubal pacifications, 712 civilians were murdered, including two women and six children.

[101] However, Robert Seidel, in his 2006 book on German occupation policy in the Radom District, relied on Polish sources, following them in concluding that 713 Poles died as a result of the pacification actions.

[103] The inhabitants of the pacified villages did not take direct part in the fight against the Germans, and in many cases, they had no connections with the Polish Armed Forces' Detached Unit.

[104] Robert Seidel considered the Hubal pacifications to mark the beginning of a new phase in German occupation policy in the Radom District, as they represented an expansion of mass terror to groups beyond just the intelligentsia.

In a report dated 15 April 1940, Colonel Stefan Rowecki informed General Kazimierz Sosnkowski:[106]In Końskie, there was an insane outburst by Hubal (Major Do), who twice disobeyed the order to disband the partisans and initiated an armed uprising, albeit a brief one, costing the lives of many peasants who were shot in nearby villages.

[108] Wolfgang Jacobmeyer indicated that the mere existence of his unit indirectly posed a threat to the civilian population, as the German occupying authorities needed only the slightest suspicion to impose ruthless reprisals.

[110][111][112][113] They also emphasized that one of the key reasons Hubal intended to avoid serious confrontations with the enemy until the start of the Allied offensive was to prevent reprisals against the civilian population.

He still had the right to assume that the non-combatants were protected by the Hague Convention and good military customs.According to the findings of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland, the manhunt for Hubal’s unit and the reprisals against the civilian population were led by the SS and Police Leader in the General Government (HSSPF Ost), SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, and the SS and Police Leader in the Radom District (SSPF Radom), SS-Oberführer Fritz Katzmann.

[120] Katzmann also took part in the operation against Hubal’s forces and, as SSPF Radom, bore responsibility for all crimes committed by SS and police units in the area under his jurisdiction.

[128] In the 1970s, the Munich prosecutor's office identified the names of 285 living participants in the operation against Hubal’s unit, but no trial was ultimately initiated in the case.

[130] In the archives of the SD and Security Police Commander's Office for the Radom District, a folder containing 11 documents (reports, orders, interrogation protocols) related to the actions taken by the Germans against Hubal’s unit was found after the war.

[135] Crosses, memorial plaques, and small monuments in honor of the victims of the Hubal pacifications have been erected in Gałki,[136] Hucisko,[134] Królewiec,[135] Stefanków,[135] and Szałas.

[139] References to the crimes committed by the Germans in retaliation for the activities of Major Dobrzański's unit are included in the report Hubalczycy by Melchior Wańkowicz (part of the collection Wrzesień żagwiący).