Suchergebnisse

The proclamation of Polish statehood and the establishment of the Regency Council in 1917 enabled the undertaking of diplomatic activities in the Central Powers to ensure the conditions for the Polish state to be viable. The aim of the paper is to present the construction of the foundations of Polish politics – the diplomacy of the Regency Council administration through its government offices, as well as to seek answers to the questions whether the assumed intentions were implemented and what was the result of initiatives and activities in this area on the international arena?

From October 1938 to March 1939, the German Nazi government was trying to achieve a "general solution" (Gesamtlösung) in the relations with Poland. Hitler wanted not only the incorporation of Gdańsk (Danzig) and extraterritorial connection to Eastern Prussia, but also to have Poland as a satellite state. The demands were not accepted by the Foreign Minister of Poland col. Beck. Many exhaustive studies on Polish-German relations were published in the last phase of peace (1938–1939), but there was no work on the role of the so called "Jewish problem" in the Nazi plans concerning Poland. The author of the article tries to prove that this question was an integral element of German negotiation strategy with Warsaw. There is no doubt that the Nazi government wanted to impose principally anti-Jewish collaboration on Poland. Fortunately, the project was rejected by the Polish government.

Artykuł jest krytycznym komentarzem do książki Włodzimierza Mędrzeckiego, Kresowy kalejdoskop. Wędrówki przez ziemie wschodnie Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej 1918–1939 (2018). Autor podejmuje pytania o bilans historyczny polskiego posiadania ziem wschodnich, uzyskanych w następstwie zwycięskiej dla Polski wojny z Rosją sowiecką w latach 1919–1920.

Autor krytycznie analizuje książkę Krzysztofa Raka Polska – niespełniony sojusznik Hitlera (2019). Monografia stanowi próbę nowego spojrzenia na stosunki polsko-niemieckie w latach 1933–1939. Zawiera jednak uproszczenia i nieuprawnione interpretacje. Autor bezkrytycznie przyjmuje za rzeczywistość niemieckie starania o antysowiecki sojusz z Polską. Bezpodstawnie sugeruje ustalenie między rządami Polski i Niemiec wspólnego modus operandi przeciw Czechosłowacji w 1938 r. Politykę polską w 1939 r. przedstawia w sposób karykaturalny.

Security of the Second Polish Republic: Polish ideas and geopolitical realities (1919–1932) The aim of the paper is to provide a critical perspective on the concepts of the international security of Poland as defined by the policy makers responsible for the international policy in 1918–1932, that is, before Józef Beck became the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which gave rise to the doctrine of balance between Germany and the Soviet Union. The author's main conclusion is that the attempts to provide the Polish state with real "material"security in the reality of unstable international order were like squaring the circle. The hopes for alliance with the victorious superpowers of the Entente were not fulfilled because the United States had returned to isolationism and Great Britain did not give any guarantees to any state of continental Europe except France in Locarno. The multilateralism offered by the League of Nations did not yield any fruit because the idea of the collective security turned out to be an illusion. Both the Central-European Bloc and the Intermarium project were merely theoretical concepts. Basically, it is impossible for a historian to provide an ex post outline of a convincing alternative to the activities of Polish diplomacy in relation to those of which we know, no matter how critical their assessment of those actions would be.