Organization of Special Combat Actions
The soldiers of Osa–Kosa 30 carried out several combat operations, including an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Higher SS and Police Leader in the General Government, Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, and bombing attacks in Berlin and Wrocław.
The unit was dismantled after the Gestapo arrested several dozen of its soldiers on 5 June 1943, who were attending a comrade's wedding at St. Alexander's Church in Warsaw.
[1] The unit's operational range covered the entire General Government, and from December 1942, also included pre-war German territory and Polish lands annexed by the Reich.
[1] Osa was entrusted with tasks of special significance, such as the elimination of high-ranking Nazi dignitaries and particularly cruel representatives of the occupation apparatus, as well as conducting major sabotage.
This formally took place on 1 March 1943, although Tomasz Strzembosz suspected that the actual transfer occurred as early as February of that year.
[9] The position of the second deputy commander, who also served as the chief of staff of the unit, was held by Lieutenant Mieczysław Kudelski, codenamed Wiktor.
[15] After the failed assassination attempt on SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, most were evacuated to Warsaw, resulting in the team ceasing to exist.
[26] Key command positions were held by escapees from Oflag II-C in Woldenberg: Zdzisław Pacak-Kuźmirski, Bernard Drzyzga, Jerzy Kleczkowski, Edward Madej, Kazimierz Nowosławski, and Mieczysław Uniejewski.
[47] A preserved German report indicates that the action was not accidental, as the Gestapo had already obtained information that a wedding involving important figures of the Polish underground would take place that day at St. Alexander's Church.
[49] The mentioned German report states that he was associated with the detainees and was secretly brought to Pawiak, where during the confrontation he identified three people: Mieczysław Uniejewski, Aleksandra Sokal, and Krystyna Milli.
[57] In the face of exposure and disbandment of the unit, the Home Army command decided to dissolve it, which occurred at the end of July 1943.
[63] In his memoirs published in 1968, Aleksander Kunicki blamed Stanisław Jaster, codenamed Hel, an Auschwitz-Birkenau escapee and a soldier of the unit, for the exposure of Osa–Kosa 30.
Kunicki claimed, citing alleged findings from an investigation by the Home Army counterintelligence, that Jaster's escape from the camp was staged by the Germans to infiltrate the underground.
Hel supposedly later betrayed the participants of the wedding at St. Alexander's Church, identified detainees at Pawiak, and finally set a trap for Lieutenant Wiktor.
After the latter's arrest, the Gestapo allegedly faked Jaster's escape from a police car; he was supposedly later exposed by the counterintelligence and executed by order of the Polish Underground.
[64] A similar account appeared in the 1969 memoirs of Lieutenant Colonel Emil Kumor, codenamed Krzyś, head of the special department of the Home Army General Staff.
[65] Kunicki and Kumor's accusations sparked a long-standing and emotional debate, as many historians and veterans believed Jaster was innocent and that his death was a tragic mistake.
[66][67][68] Based on the current state of research (2016), especially available archival sources, it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that the accusations against Stanisław Jaster are unfounded.
