Turmoil in Poland.

On the morning of 10 April a Polish plane carrying the Polish President and a high ranking team of politicians and military men, due to land in Smolensk, crashed killing all those on board. The event marks the end of an estrangement between Poland and Russia which can be traced to the outbreak of the Second World War. It also might become the beginning of what most hope will be a period of constructive co-existence which will be marked by realpolitik rather than nationalist posturing

Współpraca Polski i Niemiec w obszarze bezpieczeństwa: dwadzieścia pięć lat wspólnych doświadczeń

When in December 1970 Willie Brand, the Chancellor of the German Federal Republic and Józef Cyrankiewicz the Prime Minister of the Polish People’ signed a normalisation treaty, the one which came to be known as the Treaty of Warsaw, this represented Gomułka’s life time achievement. In his role as First Secretary of the United Polish Worker’s Party (Zjednoczona Polska Partia Robotnicza – PZPR) since October 1956 he had consistently tried to obtain guarantees of Poland’s western border. The signing of the treaty confirmed that the Oder-Neisse line was henceforth Poland’s internationally recognised border and, at the same time, a confirmation that the GFR would not challenge the post war territorial changes. To Gomułka this meant that Poland’s territorial security was guaranteed for the first time since the war. The achievement had a personal and a political dimension

Britain, Poland and the Eastern Front, 1939

This book offers a revisionist interpretation of British foreign policy towards Poland and the role of the Anglo-Polish relationship during the period March-September 1939. It challenges and questions hitherto held views on the British determination to defend Poland and oppose German expansion eastwards. It includes a study of foreign policy, economic policy and military planning. This book is a major contribution to our knowledge of the outbreak of the war because it contains a unique and original study of the role of the Poles in British proposals for an eastern front and the Polish perception of their relationship with Germany. Finally the inconclusive nature of British approaches to the Soviet Union and the Rumanian government are put into the context of the abortive proposal for an eastern front against Germany