Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion (AB-Aktion in short, German for Special Pacification) was a German campaign during the World War II aimed at the Polish leaders and intelligentsia. In the spring and summer of 1940 more than 30,000 Poles were arrested by the German authorities of German-occupied Poland. Roughly 7,000 of them were murdered,[citation needed] while the rest was mostly sent to various German concentration camps.
[edit] History
The anti-Polish campaign was planned by Hans Frank, the commander of the General Government. The mass murder of Polish leaders, politicians, artists, intelligentsia and people suspected of anti-Nazi activity was seen as a pre-emptive measure to keep the Polish resistance scattered and prevent the Poles from revolting during the planned German invasion of France.
Prior to the action, in late 1939 and early 1940, most of the Polish university professors, intellectuals, writers, politicians, teachers and other members of the elite of the Polish society were briefly arrested by the Gestapo and their names registered. The Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion was finally accepted on May 16, 1940 by Hans Frank. In the following weeks, the German police, the Gestapo, SS and the Wehrmacht arrested roughly 30.000 Poles in major Polish cities, including Warsaw, Łódź, Lublin and Kraków. The interned were held in a number of prisons, including the infamous Pawiak, where they were subject to brutal interrogations. After some time in the prisons in Warsaw, Kraków, Radom, Kielce, Nowy Sącz, Tarnów, Lublin or Wiśnicz, the arrested Poles were either transferred to the German concentration camps, most notably to the newly-created camp of Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen. Approximately 3.500 members of the Polish intelligentsia were executed in mass murder sites of Palmiry near Warsaw, Firlej, Wincentynów near Radom and in the Bliżyn forest near Skarżysko-Kamienna.
Among those killed were Maciej Rataj, Mieczysław Niedziałkowski and Janusz Kusociński. Similar actions were started to a similar scale in other Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany. According to many historians, including Norman Davies, the action against Polish leaders was coordinated with the authorities of the Soviet Union, who at the same time prepared an action of mass murder of 22 000 Polish military officers at Katyń and other places.
The active persecution of Polish intellectuals was continued until the end of the war. The direct continuation of the AB Action was a German campaign in the east started after the German invasion of the USSR. Among the most notable mass executions of Polish professors was the massacre of Lwów professors, in which approximately 45 professors of the university in Lwów were murdered together with their families and guests. Among those killed in the massacre were Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, former Polish prime minister Kazimierz Bartel, Włodzimierz Stożek, Stanisław Ruziewicz. Thousands more perished in the massacre in Ponary, in German concentration camps and in ghettos.
[edit] Aftermath
After the war, many people responsible for organisation of the AB Action were tried before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. However, most of the German commanders were never held responsible for the crimes.
