22.05.2005 

Part I: Polish intelligence 1918-1944

The origin of Polish security services

The history of the Polish security services is linked inseparably with the modern history of Poland. In 1918, immediately after becoming an independent state within the framework of the Versailles Agreement, within the General Staff of the newborn Polish army the so-called " Second bureau" was founded. This body engaged in intelligence information gathering, basically of the military type. Its first trial took place in 1920, during the war with the Soviet Union, which the Polish army and its intelligence service won. In the same year, the Polish secret services representative in Bern managed to obtain a confidential letter from the Soviet leader Lenin to one of his colleagues in Switzerland, containing information on the Soviet refusal to follow the Red Army plan for passing via Poland to Germany. However, at that time Polish military intelligence suffered two serious blows inflicted by the Soviets: its representative in Petrograd (the future Leningrad), Viktor Kiyakowsky-Steckiewizc, defected to Soviet Russia and the Soviet counterespionage body VCHK arrested a Polish agent in Moscow, Ignaty Dobrzinsky.

Before the WWII

From the Polish-Soviet war of 1920 until 1938, Polish military intelligence basically focused on its work on the Soviet Union. In the twenties within the "Second bureau" of the General Staff a special structure, which received the name "Ekspozitura" was created. Its main tasks were: gathering military, political and technical information abroad, counterespionage inside the country, and also deciphering and encryption of foreign messages. The Polish military intelligence of that period deserved an excellent evaluation from its western colleagues, first of all the French, its deciphering - encryption service in general was considered one of the best in the world. It is necessary to note in particular the creation of an intelligence station under cover of the Polish consulate in Kiev (the Soviet Union) one of the greatest achievements of "Ekspozitura" in the thirties. Only after the seizure of the eastern part of Poland in September, 1939 by the USSR, did the Soviet counterespionage realize, to its fearful amazement, that the successes of their Polish "colleagues" in Soviet territory were much more significant than Moscow assumed. "Ekspozitura" agents operated not only in the Ukraine, but also in the far regions of Soviet territory. However, the most significant and best known achievement of Polish intelligence was the breaking of the code of the German cryptographic machine "Enigma" in 1938.
The deciphering/decoding department of the Polish General Staff started to work on this as early as 1929, supported by specialists from the Faculty of Mathematics in the University of Poznan. Considerable aid during decoding resulted from cooperation with French intelligence, which managed to acquire documents encoded by "Enigma" directly from its sources on the German General Staff.

Also during 1938 Polish military intelligence switched to actively gathering information in Germany itself. An intelligence network, headed by a very talented officer, Jerzy Sosnowski, was created in Berlin in just one year. Sosnowski`s most significant success was the recruitment of two women, who served in the Operations Department of the German General Staff.
The detailed plans of the Germany’s Polish offensive were received from them. Unfortunately, Sosnowski’s supervisors in Warsaw committed a serious error , and considered this information to be German disinformation. As a result, the Polish General Staff made no use of it and gained no benefit from this major accomplishment of the intelligence service. Another important success of Polish military intelligence before WW II was the detection of the German espionage network in Italy, which was focused against France. The Poles handed this information to their French colleagues.
Nevertheless, "Ekspozitura`s" counterespionage department also made a number of grave mistakes. For example, it could not find and neutralize the German "mole", known under the pseudonym "Markowsky", who was working on the Polish General Staff. 
During the WWII

The Polish intelligence network in Europe did not stop its activity after the occupation of Poland by the German armies in the autumn of 1939. "Ekspozitura`s" stations in Bern (Switzerland), in occupied France and in Budapest continued working with the active support of French, and later British intelligence. The Budapest station ("Ekspozitura-W") managed to organize the delivery of information from occupied Warsaw to France through Hungary, Slovakia and Yugoslavia.
In addition, during WW II the Polish agents operated within the framework of Polish General Anders` army in Africa, and also within Poland, in the ranks of the underground organization "Armia Krajowa" (AK). The best-known success of the ?? agents was the capture of the prototype model of the well-known German rocket "V-2" and its transfer to British intelligence in July 1944. The intelligence network of the AK, connected to the Polish government in exile (in London), preserved its structure in Poland even after the German armies retreated. Its activity posed a serious problem to the new Communist leadership of the country. The best-known AK intelligence network in 1944-46 was the "Liceum" unit under the direction of Barbara Sadowska. The network's center was in the city of Lodz and its agents were scattered across Poland in large cities such as Warsaw, Lublin, Katowice and Gdansk.

Read about the intelligence activity of the Polish special services during the Communist period (1944-1989) in the next part of the article 

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