Pacification actions in German-occupied Poland

The pacification actions in German-occupied Poland during World War II were one of many punitive measures designed to inflict terror on the civilian population of local villages and towns with the use of military and police force. They were an integral part of the war of aggression against the Polish nation waged by Nazi Germany since September 1, 1939. The projected goal of pacification operations was to prevent and suppress the Polish resistance movement in World War II nevertheless, among the victims were children as young as 1.5 year old, women, fathers attempting to save their families, farmers rushing to rescue livestock from burning buildings, patients, victims already wounded, and hostages of many ethnicities including Poles and Jews.

War crimes committed during pacification actions in occupied Poland were probed by the West German Central Office of Justice in Ludwigsburg in September 1959 and, in accordance with the German Criminal Code (§ 78/3 pt. 2, and § 212), ultimately thrown out as already expired due to German statutes of limitations. No further investigations were conducted until June 1971 when the 1939 crimes of the 1st Panzer Division in Poland (Polenfeldzug) were also thrown out as unlikely after statement by Major Walther Wenck, which was accepted on good faith. The inquiries by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance into massacres in specific locations are ongoing. Historical data collected in Poland confirms the complete destruction of 554,000 farms valued at 6.062 million złoty (1938 level) with 8 million dead cattle and horses, on top of terrible human losses. Several hundred villages were wiped off the map. In just a year and a half between January 1, 1943, and July 31, 1944, the Wehrmacht army alone conducted 1,106 pacification actions in occupied Poland, independent of the killing operations by Einsatzgruppen and auxiliary forces, and the ongoing Holocaust of the Jews.

Background


The so-called "pacification operations" were introduced along with all other extermination policies directed against Poland already in September 1939, and were of a large scale, resulting in the confirmed murder of approximately 20,000 villagers. Massacres were conducted in the areas of General Government, Pomorze, and in the vicinities of Białystok and Greater Poland. The number of Polish settlements targeted in these operations is approximately 825. The regular German army conducted 760 mass executions during their march across central Poland. Material losses from wonton destruction of Polish countryside unrelated to military maneuvers are estimated at 30 million złoty in the area of General Government alone.

Notably, the pacification actions were conducted also in the eastern Kresy regions re-captured from the USSR in 1941, including in the Polesie Voivodeship, Nowogródek Voivodeship and others, comprising most of contemporary West Belarus. These tactics were the main local means of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Some 627 villages were razed in eastern Poland by the SS with the help of collaborationist battalions including Belarusian, Ukrainian and others, during 60 pacification and 80 punitive operations there. The battalions of Belarusian Home Defence (BKA) alone massacred some 30,000 Jews during pacification of villages. Collective punishment was used during such operations to discourage offering shelter to Soviet POWs and providing aid to any guerrilla forces. Pacifications included the extermination of entire villages including women and children, expulsions, the burning of homes, confiscation of private property, and arrests. In many instances the operations of this kind conducted jointly by the Einsatzgruppen and the German Order Police battalions, were characterized by extreme brutality. An example of such tactics was the burning alive of 91 hostages including 31 women and 31 children in the village of Jabłoń-Dobki in the Białystok region on March 8, 1944. Once the fire got going, a grenade was thrown in.

German advance into Poland
The first pacification action, conducted on the ground by the Wehrmacht officers and soldiers, took place in Złoczew on September 3 and 4, 1939, in which the German soldiers murdered some 200 Poles.

The Polish Institute of National Remembrance has documented the use of military force with the goal of suppressing Polish resistance. One example was a reprisal action by units of the XIX Panzer Corps taken for the operations of the Suwalska Cavalry Brigade. During the evening of 13 September 1939 thirteen people from Olszewo and ten people from the nearby village of Pietkowo were killed. The victims among the villagers include women and children who were murdered in several ways, such as stabbing by bayonets, shooting, being blown apart by grenades, and being burned alive in a barn.

According to article by Witold Kulesza published in Komentarze Historyczne by the Institute of National Remembrance, German Regiment SS-Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler" of the 17th Division arrived in Złoczew on September 3, 1939 on motorcycles and on bicycles. The burning of the town and mass killings began the same night. According to eye-witness Janina Modrzewska, who survived the pacification of Złoczew, the soldiers were killing everyone they saw. Total casualties amounted to 200 dead victims. From the air, Luftwaffe planes bombed the villages of Momoty Dolne, Momoty Górne, Pawłów, Tokary, Sochy and Klew. Some places were subjected to multiple pacification operations. In the town of Aleksandrów in Biłgoraj County between 1939 and 1944, German authorities murdered 290 civilians (444 according to WIEM), wounded 43, deported 434 to forced labour camps, and burned at least 113 households.

The Białystok region fell under German occupation twice. Overrun by the Wehrmacht in 1939 it was the site of mass pacification actions even before it was ceded to the Soviets two weeks later in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet pact. It was invaded again in the course of Operation Barbarossa with similar results. At least 750 villages there had at least 10 inhabitants murdered, and at least 75 villages were destroyed completely (see: table for partial list of names of villages and the number of dead victims). Modern international law considers these types of actions against civilians to constitute genocide, whether conducted within national boundaries or in occupied territories.

Villages and dead victims
Investigations by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance into pacifications of specific villages focus on locations within contemporary Poland. They are exponentially greater within the prewar borders of the Republic.

The list of pacified villages within the borders of postwar Poland was arranged by the IPN according to one of Poland's eleven voivodeships (administrative regions) which were not a part of Nazi Germany upon the 1939 invasion of Poland. Likewise, all settlements presently within the borders of post-Soviet Ukraine and Belarus are excluded from the list. They belonged to Poland's prewar Lwów Voivodeship, Nowogródek Voivodeship (1919–39), Polesie Voivodeship, Stanisławów Voivodeship, Tarnopol Voivodeship, Wilno Voivodeship (1926–39), and Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–39). The number of pacified villages for each of the present-day voivodeships is as follows.
 * 1) Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship: 29
 * 2) Lubelskie Voivodeship: 103
 * 3) Łódzkie Voivodeship: 26
 * 4) Małopolskie Voivodeship: 24
 * 5) Podkarpackie Voivodeship: 21
 * 6) Podlaskie Voivodeship: 34
 * 7) Pomorskie Voivodeship: 6
 * 8) Śląskie Voivodeship: 15
 * 9) Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship: 53
 * 10) Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship: 2
 * 11) Wielkopolskie Voivodeship: 26