Poles in the Luftwaffe

[noggin]

I got contacted regarding the history of a Polish man by his grandson. The details didn't quite add up, so I started looking at some photos also included within the email as well as contacting Piotr at the Lista Krystka. Turns out this man hadn't joined 301 Squadron until September 1944 in Italy. One photo showed a close up of him working on an engine, the squadron marking to his left was of 6/ Sturzkampfgeschwader 77. Around 90,000 former Polish Wehrmacht soldiers served in Anders' Second Corps at the end of the war. 30% of the entire corps. Has anybody details of Poles serving in the Luftwaffe or if Sturzkampfgeschwader 77 served in Italy ? He was from Silesia, but since his family still live there and weren't expelled after WW2 I assume he was Polish not ethnic German.

[Franek Grabowski]

Strictly speaking, they had to be made German citizens first, on various excuses. It is estimated some 350 thousands were drafted, and no way to check them all. They served all branches. The only way to learn is to check personal files from MoD and BAMA.
BTW
There was an elusive guy, Kurt Podleska, who reputedly flew as a gunner on Stukas, deserted to the Polish Home Army, and was killed in action in 1944.

[VtwinVince]

This is a very complex issue and a massive rabbit-hole. Who was German, and who was Polish? When you get to the border regions such as Silesia, the subject becomes very muddled indeed.

[edwest2]

It needs to be untangled. After the invasion of 1939, there was a massacre of Polish troops. Polish General Anders was captured by the Russians and held in Lubyanka Prison, a former luxury hotel hotel where it was said the pile of the carpet was so thick, you could not hear men walking across it. The Russians tried to convince him to join their Army.

Other members of the Polish Armed Forces fled to other countries. Some members of the Polish Air Force fled to France and began flying against the Germans. Eventually, General Anders was released and other Polish troops joined the British Armed Forces. Part of the story is in the book, An Army in Exile by Wladyslaw Anders.

There were ethnic Poles in German territory and as I'm sure others have noticed, there are Luftwaffe pilots with distinctly Polish last names.

[Franek Grabowski]

Germany annexed a fair bit of Polish territory and incorporated it into III Reich. They could not draft Polish citizens, so they established system of granting citizenship either by an administrative decision or by enforcing it. In the effect numerous soldiers of Wehrmacht did not speak German at all.

[VtwinVince]

It's worth remembering, although most don't, that the Soviet Union was a co-belligerent in 1939 and was responsible for notable massacres, such as that at Katyn. And I don't believe Anders ever did return to his 'homeland'.

[edwest2]

My father, who was in the Polish Army, never returned. He ended up in the United States, but he never became a citizen. When I was a boy, I found out he had to complete an Alien Address Form every year. The U.S. wanted to know where he was because Poland was now a Communist country. General Patton was quite upset because he believed that the Allies had liberated Europe from Nazi rule. The Soviets got Eastern Europe. And new forward bases and troops.

I spent the 1980s reading military journals in libraries. Page after page about attack/response scenarios if the Soviets decided to move west.

Look up UNRRA or the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Polish refugees who had even distant relatives in the United States could enter at New York. Those who did not ended up in Canada.

[noggin]

This man returned to Poland.

[Franek Grabowski]

Noggin
You need to approach MoD, BAMA, as well as IPN and CAW.


Of course, USSR was an ally of Germany, and their crimes were parallel. Quite, Anders has not returned as have not hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers and refugees. They were dispersed around the globe.