Germany’s Genocide Against the Polish Nation (1939-1945): A Historical-Legal Study, by Maciej Jan Mazurkiewicz
(For professors, college and high-school students, and interested adults) This work by Maciej Jan Mazurkiewicz explains step by step how one of the largest, although as yet unnamed, genocides of the 20th century took place, i.e., Germany’s genocide of Poles. It is an attempt to demonstrate and justify Germany’s international legal responsibility for the crimes of genocide it committed during World War II against the Poles as a national group, as well as against their reborn state, the Republic of Poland, which was recreated in 1918. It is available as a PDF document and can be downloaded at this link.
The photo on the front cover shows one of many Polish civilians burned by a Nebelwerfer rocket (smoke grenade launcher) fired by German forces during the Warsaw Uprising that began on 1 August, 1944. The first of two maps shows the occupation of Poland by Hitler in the western part and Stalin in the eastern part between October 1939 and June 1941. The second map shows the territories of Poland occupied by Hitler following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
As the author points out, scholarly considerations relating to the crime of genocide, i.e., genocide studies, have not yet covered the actions of the German state against the Poles, which is a fundamental research gap. A holistic view of the criminal policy pursued by the German occupying forces against Poles during World War II provides unique comparative material and makes it possible to update the assessment of the situation of Poland and Poles during the tragic period of occupation and it provides a broader perspective in the analysis of individual cases of German atrocities.
The paragraphs below are the author’s “Word to the English-speaking reader.”
“Providing the English-language reader with the translation of this monograph, published in Polish in 2021, may be the first contact with the issue of genocide committed by the German state against the Polish nation during World War II.
Not only in world literature, but also in Polish literature, there is a lack of comprehensive studies on the issue of the criminal policy of the Reich in occupied Poland. We will find even less information on looking at this issue from the point of view of international law. In general, the authors, mainly historians, stop at the analysis of a specific example of cruelty. Therefore, they do not consider how a specific crime relates to thousands of others committed by the German occupier at a similar time and against a precisely defined category of victims.
The issues I explore in this book do not remain only in the sphere of theoretical considerations. Persecution, displacement, theft of property, extermination of elites, slave labor, pseudo-medical experiments, forced Germanization, imprisonment in camps, in short, the attempt to eliminate the Polish nation affected directly or indirectly, to a greater or lesser extent, many of its members, i.e., several million people. This is currently the generation of my grandparents.
In the future, research on the genocide of the Polish nation should become the subject of broader interest of scientists, especially in Poland, Germany, but not only. They constitute another important, although not yet fully discovered, case study for genocide studies specialists. After mass crimes committed far from the borders of the countries responsible for them, the time has come to publicize this cruel neighborly crime, about which the perpetrators would prefer to remain silent and not have to answer for it, even in a symbolic dimension.”
Maciej Jan Mazurkiewicz, PhD
