They were officers of the Polish Army transferred to Poland by the Soviets. Working with the Home Army, they created one of the most effective intelligence networks of World War II. Today hardly anyone remembers about them.
In early August 1941, the situation of the Red Army looked almost catastrophic. German troops pressed deep into the Soviet Union. In the cauldrons near Smolensk and Uman, over 400,000 people were captured. soldiers. The Germans obtained enormous amounts of weapons and supplies there.
In order to be able to continue to defend themselves, the Soviets desperately needed information about the enemy's strength, the movements of his troops, places of concentration, etc. Agents and subversive groups, often hastily and poorly trained, began to be moved to the rear of the German armies. .
On the territory of Poland, through which the main transit route of German troops and supplies ran, such units arrived at the beginning of July 1941.
Group "Michael"
After the German attack on the USSR, several dozen "left-wing" NCOs and officers of the Polish Army from the camps in Griazowiec and Kozielsk II expressed a desire for military cooperation with the Soviets . In mid-July 1941, 54 Polish prisoners of war were sent for subversive and reconnaissance training to the Soviet intelligence training center in Schodni near Moscow.
Panzer IV Ausf. E in Vitebsk during the Battle of Smolensk (photo Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-351-1427-21A / Jakobsen [Jacobsen] / CC-BY-SA 3.0).
After a month of training, the first Polish sabotage group was created. It consisted of five officers and was given the code name "Michał". The commander of the branch was Cpt. Mikołaj Arciszewski, a pre-war journalist and caricaturist, defender of Warsaw in September 1939. Moreover, the group included second lieutenants:Zbigniew Romanowski, Igor Mickiewicz, Jerzy Ziółkowski and Stanisław Wiński.On the evening of August 16, 1941, Polish saboteurs from the group "Michał" took off in a transport Lisunov Li-2 from the airport in Kiev. The branch was to be dropped off near Włoszczowa. The task of the Poles was to conduct reconnaissance in the area of Gdynia, Gdańsk, Poznań, Toruń and Kutno.
The discharge took place after midnight on August 17. The Soviet pilot made a mistake however and paratroopers landed near the village of Zofiówka, 30 km from Łódź, right on the border with the General Government. Fortunately, they managed to establish contact with the local cell of the Union for Armed Struggle. Thanks to them, they were transferred across the border to the General Government.
On board such a plane, soldiers from the "Michał" group reached Poland (photo:MarkusundMeli, CC BY 3.0).
Intelligence robot
Arciszewski's branch eventually settled in Warsaw. The radio station with the operator, Sec. Mickiewicz, was placed in an abandoned house in Świder. Soon the painstaking and dangerous work of organizing the intelligence network began. The results that were obtained surpassed my wildest expectations.
Arciszewski and his subordinates managed to recruit many railroad workers in Warsaw, Lublin, Radom, Kielce, Przemyśl, Kraków, Rzeszów, Brześć nad Bugiem, Łuków and Lviv.
It was especially valuable to establish contact with Arciszewski's pre-war acquaintances from Gdynia. One of them, Jerzy Czaplicki, worked in the directorate of the German Eastern Railways (Ostbahn), which managed and coordinated rail transport in the General Government.
Czaplicki secretly copied the most important reports and sent them via courier to Mickiewicz, to Świder. There was so much of this data that once Mickiewicz, against all rules of the underground, broadcast to Moscow almost continuously for 36 hours!
Informants located in Gdynia, the then great Kriegsmarine base renamed Gotenhafen, sent in turn complete data on the dislocations and movements of German ships and air units in this area.
There is no smart man above Warszawiak
An interesting fact is that "blue birds" from Targówek were engaged in intelligence activities at the Warsaw railway junction. They were robbing German railway transports. On one occasion they gave the alarming information that there was a series of cold stores with strong security going to the east. There were suspicions that the wagons might contain warfare gases, so the contents had to be checked at all costs.
Lt. Romanowski found out how this action proceeded when he met one of those "smarts" from Targówek:
It was found out that in refrigerated wagons, southern fruit was transported to the eastern front, a special treat at that time, hence the strict protection of transport. Our boys then organized a formal attack on the train, some distracted the Germans, while others broke into the car. There were victims, but such things were reluctantly discussed in this company.
Ruins of the German torpedo house in Gdynia (photo:Joymaster, public domain).
Apparently the whole of Targówek and a half of Warsaw was eating German oranges back then . On another occasion, a wagon of cigarettes was manipulated. The next day, Bulgarian cigarettes were traded all over the capital.
Cooperation with ZWZ-AK
All the successes of the "Michał" group would not have been possible without the cooperation with conspirators from the ZWZ-AK. They also provided intelligence, made courier communication between individual cells of the network, and organized safe premises.
The group "Michał" was also actively supported by scouts from the 12th Warsaw Scout Team, commanded by 2nd Lt. Stefan Wyrobek ps. "Vein". One of the scouts, 16-year-old Grzegorz Zalewski, who later became a soldier of the "Parasol" Battalion, recalled his cooperation with the Arciszewski unit:
we were told right away at the first meeting, at the first interview, that we would be soldiers cooperating with soldiers. (...) Only when we grew up, when the war ended, many things happened, we understood how important it was to emphasize that we work only with the Army.
The grave of Wojciech Wyrobek at the Bródno Cemetery in Warsaw (photo:Witold Pietrusiewicz, CC BY-SA 3.0).
(...) I will add here that thanks to Mikołaj Arciszewski I understood what it means to follow someone into fire , he was a real born, great commander, you could do anything for him, for real. That is why we worked so effectively, we did not feel tired. Some of the tasks were such that for two, three, four days without a break on your feet you had to stay awake and without blinking your eyelids. It was done with a sense of satisfaction and pride.
Tragic Final
The end of the activity of Arciszewski's group came unexpectedly. On July 27, 1942, the Gestapo and the military police with dogs surrounded the house in Józefów near Warsaw. At that time, Mickiewicz was broadcasting a report and probably thanks to this, the German goniometric cars located the location of the radio station. Apart from him, there were also Mikołaj Arciszewski and Irmina Krupowicz and Bogusław Kopka cooperating with the group.
There was a shootout in which the Poles had no chance. Irmina Krupowicz was shot in the stomach. Arciszewski, severely wounded in his legs, fell unconscious. Mickiewicz, who fought to the end, intended the last bullet for himself. Only Kopka jumped out of the window under the hail of bullets and somehow escaped.
The prison corridor in Pawiak, today a museum (photo:Adrian Grycuk, CC BY-SA 3.0 PL).
As it turned out later, all three captured survived the manhunt. They were placed in the hospital in Pawiak. Even Mickiewicz, who had a nasty head wound, was rescued. Despite a heavy investigation, Arciszewski refused to cooperate with the Gestapo. On May 11, 1943 was led outside the Pawiak walls and murdered in the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto . The rest were sent to concentration camps. Mickiewicz probably died in Buchenwald. Irmina Krupowicz survived.
Just don't tell Hitler about it!
It was actually the end of the intelligence network organized by Arciszewski. Several of its members were arrested by the Gestapo, others were in hiding. On the other hand, the Germans, when they decoded the materials obtained in the manhunt, were terrified :
The radiographs give a complete picture of the German concentration of troops for the 1942 summer offensive. Not only the concentration was detailed and correctly specified, but also the objectives, plans for introducing units to action and transports of corps and squadrons .
German soldiers in the Caucasus, December 1942 (photo Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-031-2417-09 / Poetsch / CC-BY-SA 3.0).
Paul-Otto Schmidt, the head of translators at the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recalled that the incident caused panic in the Abwehr leadership. General Erich Fellgiebel, head of communications in the German army, flatly refused to inform the whole Hitler affair because this would only upset the Führer .
The Soviets drew the appropriate conclusions from the information sent by Arciszewski's group. On May 12, 1942, Marshal Timoshenko's armies made a pre-emptive strike on the Germans preparing to attack. Although the Red Army, despite their initial successes, failed, the German offensive in the Caucasus was delayed by six weeks.
Although the Wehrmacht reached oil fields, it was unable to hold them. On December 28, 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the evacuation of German troops from the Caucasus. Perhaps the Germans were just those six weeks away from success.