The Magdeburg's Airport

© A visit to the Airport. Col. Albrecht asks point blank Rienhard Gehlen: "These cadets get military pilot training?" He hesitates and changes the subject.
"THE GERMAN PEOPLE NEED A LIVING SPACE. THE FERTILE LAND OF UKRAINE IS WASTED BY SOVIETS. DURING COLLECTIVIZATION DRIVE THE SMALL FARMERS REBELLED. STALIN STARVED THEM TO DEATH. OVER 13 MILLION STARVED IN TWO YEARS. POLISH HISTORICAL LAND IS IN UKRAINE. UP TO THE URAL MOUNTAINS WAS THE LAND OF SLAVES. TO REALIZE YOUR DESTINY YOU SHOULD CONQUER THE LAND LOST TO TARTARS AND NOW REDS."
"So, you can expend over our land?"
"NO, NATURALLY SOME BORDER ADJUSTMENTS WILL HAVE TO BE MADE, LIKE THE ISSUE OF DANZING. ON THE OTHER HAND, OUR TEUTONIC BROTHERS UNITED WITH ESTONIA LONG BEFORE US. THE LATVIANS WILL DO THE SAME SOON."
"The Prussia's Living Room?"
"A CULTURAL ARIAN DESTINY. ONE PEOPLE ONE LAND. SCANDINAVIANS AS LATVIANS ARE ARIAN TRIBES. EVEN OUR LANGUAGES ARE OF THE SAME ROOT. THE SAME GOES FOR ESTONIANS AND FINNS. THE CENTURY OF ARIAN REVOLUTION IS AHEAD OF US. THE ISSUES ARE OF BLOOD PURITY. THE INFERIOR QUALITIES OF DARK RACES LIKE NEGROES, ARABS OR THEIR BROTHERS; JEWS, WERE MIXED WITH ARIAN BLOOD IN COLONIAL COUNTRIES LIKE ENGLAND, FRANCE OR HOLLAND AND ESPECIALLY IN AMERICA. ONLY CLEAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY..."

The Magdeburg Sting 1936

Polish Victory 1920

On 31 August, in the early morning, a bolshevik cavalry brigade crossed the belt of swamps to the north of Polish positions. At the same time the 11th Cavalry Division was engaged by Polish infantry in the village of Lubianki while 6th Cavalry Division was cut out overnight by Polish infantry to the west of Zamość. A large Russian tabor was spotted by 200 men strong Polish 2nd "Rokitna" Cavalry Regiment, disorganised and mixed with a much larger unit of bolshevik cavalry. With no time to hesitate, the Poles charged the enemy inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy rear units. Meanwhile, the village of Wolica Zniatycka, lost to the bolshevik cavalry, was charged by Polish 8th "Prince Józef Poniatowski" Uhlans Regiment After a short fight the disorganised bolshevik forces were forced to retreat, leaving behind large part of their heavy equipment and Budyonny's staff car The Russian commander himself evaded being captured The bolshevik 4th Cavalry Division was routed. At 12 o'clock the Polish 9th regiment started another charge down the hill on Russian 11th Cavalry Division that replaced the withdrawing 4th Division. The assault was repelled with heavy casualties on both sides. After approximately 30 minutes the Russian forces were forced to retreat, however the forces of Polish VII Cavalry Brigade were seriously depleted. Also, the 9th regiment suffered serious casualties from friendly artillery fire.

The Polish VI Cavalry Brigade, until then kept as a reserve, started a pursuit. After a cavalry charge on the left flank of the withdrawing bolshevik cavalry, the latter started a disorganised retreat towards Zamość. The pursuit was carried over by Polish 12th "Podolian" Uhlan Regiment under captain (later general) Tadeusz Komorowski. During the retreat the Poles inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. After the pursuit ended, the fighting was halted until 5 pm.

At approximately 5 pm the 8th Regiment near the village of Wolica Zniatycka was yet again assaulted by bolshevik cavalry. To counter the threat, the colonel Rómmel ordered whole VI Cavalry Brigade (1st, 12th and 14th Uhlan Regiments) to charge the enemy's flank. After a huge clash the Russian forces in the area fell back northwards.

After a short rest, the whole Russian 6th Cavalry Division, the strongest unit in the area, managed to finally break through Polish infantry encirclement and arrived to the battlefield. Polish VI Brigade was resting in and around the village of Niewirków, where it retreated after the successful pursuit several hours before. The VII brigade started its march north-eastwards to join with the forces of VI Brigade near Niewirków. Halfway it spotted a huge Russian line emerging from the forests around Wolica Zniatycka.

The Russian 6th Division (6 regiments strong) formed a line, but did not start the assault just yet. Juliusz Rómmel ordered all his available units to an all-out assault before the Russians start their attack. The 8th and 9th regiments started a frontal charge, while 1st Uhlans Regiment was ordered to attack the left flank of the enemy. Soon it was joined by the remaining elements of the 12th Regiment from Niewirków, charging the enemy positions from the rear. After a 30 minutes long clash, Budionnyi ordered his division to retreat.

The only available way lead eastwards, through the positions of dug-in 2nd Legions Infantry Division under Colonel Michal Lyzwinski. The retreating Reds managed to break through, but suffered heavy casualties. By the end of the day the battle was over.

By the end of August, 1920, the 4th and 15th Red Armies had been defeated in the field, and their remnants crossed the border into East Prussia and were disarmed. Nevertheless the troops were soon released and again fought against Poland. The bolshevik 3rd Army retreated east so quickly that Polish forces could not catch up with them, and so that army sustained the fewest losses. The bolshevik 16th Army disintegrated at Białystok, and most of its men become prisoners of war. The Soviet cavalry group that was trying to encircle Warsaw from the west became helplessly isolated from the main forces. Panic started, several major officers abandoned their troops and escaped by cars to Białystok Gay-Chan took the command, cruelly restored discipline, abandoned everything that would hinder fast march (in that number, he got rid of several thousand Polish prisoners of war, having their throats slashed), and moved his troops so fast, that pursuit was impossible; they found refuge in East Prussia.

On September 2, the Polish VI Cavalry Brigade reached Laszczów, where it successfully outflanked the Russian 44th Infantry Division and annihilated one of its regiments. Only 100 POWs survived the battle.

On 6 September, decimated Buidonny's 1st Cavalry Army retreated towards Wlodzimierz Wolynski and was soon again defeated at the Battle of Hrubieszów. The Polish Army lost approximately 500 KIA and 700 horses No Poles were taken POW by the Red Army. The exact losses of Buidonny's 1st Cavalry Army are unknown and were never made public. It is assumed that it lost at least 3,000 men during the battle and immediately afterwards. It was the battle fought mostly by cavalry units, in which traditional cavalry tactics were used and sabers and lances played a vital role. Suwalszczyzna was recaptured from the Lithuanian forces.

In September, 1920 Tukhachevski managed to reorganize the eastward-retreating forces and established a new defensive line running from the Polish-Lithuanian border to the north to the area of Polesie, with the central point in the city of Grodno in Belarus.

On 12 September Polish offensive in Wolyn under General Sikorski started.

On 18 September Polish forces recaptured Równe. After Polish forces crossed the Niemen River, captured Lida and Pilsk, between September 15 and September 25, 1920, the Polish forces defeated and outflanked the bolshevik forces, which were forced to retreat again. The Polish military successes in autumn 1920 allowed Poland to reclaim the city of Wilno, but the control over city had been transferred to Lithuanians by the retreating Soviets.

In October 9, 1920, with Lithuanians unwilling to enter into an alliance with Poland, and wishing to avoid a full-out conflict and international condemnation, Poland staged a fake rebellion by Polish army units (under command by gen. Lucjan Zeligowski) in the Wilno area, which allowed the Polish army to take control of the city. The fighting ended that month. Despite the Poles claim to it, the League of Nations chose to ask Poland to withdraw. The Poles did not.

Between 8 and 12 October, in Ukraine, Polish cavalry under General J Rómmel reached Korosten. After the mid-October Battle of the Szczara River, the Polish Army had reached the Tarnopol-Dubno-Minsk-Drisa line.

The bolsheviks sued for peace and the Poles, exhausted and constantly pressured by the Western governments, with Polish army now controlling majority of disputed territories, agreed to try diplomatic solution once again. A ceasefire was signed October 12 and went into effect October 18, 1920.

During battle of Warsaw, soviet losses were about 10,000 dead, 500 missing, 10,000 wounded and 65,000 captured, compared to Polish losses of approximately 4,500 killed, 22,000 wounded and 10,000 missing. Between 25,000 and 30,000 Soviet troops managed to reach the borders of Germany. After crossing into East Prussia, they were briefly interned, then allowed to leave with their arms and equipment. Poland captured about 231 artillery guns and 1,023 machine-guns.

According to documents found in 2005 at Poland's Central Military Archives, Polish cryptologists broke intercepted Russian ciphers as early as September 1919. At least some of the Polish victories, not only the Battle of Warsaw but throughout the campaign, are attributable to this. Lieutenant Jan Kowalewski, credited with the original breakthrough, received the order of Virtuti Militari in 1921.

March 18, 1921, the exhausted Poles, pressured by the League of Nations, decided to sign the Peace of Riga, splitting the disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Russia. The Ukrainians led by Symon Petliura had been fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Poles, but in Riga the Soviet negotiators were able to talk Poles into betraying them - to the peril of both Poles and Ukrainians. Those short-sighted political calculations made Piłsudski, who was no more "The Leader of the State", and was only an observer during the Riga negotiations, deeply ashamed; he walked out of the room, and told the Ukrainians waiting there for the results of the Riga Conference: "Gentlemen, I deeply apologize to you".

By the end of 1921, the majority of Ukrainian, Byelorussian and White Russian forces had either crossed the Polish border and laid down their arms or had been annihilated by the Soviets.

Bolshevism was not destroyed, however, only contained for a generation. Russia kept control of substantial western territories and their vast resources Soon after the war officially ended, groups of Soviet-sponsored bandits relaying on the support of local jews, began raiding Polish eastern frontier, prompting Poland to create a special, elite Border Defence Corps (Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza) to combat those constant incursions.

The outcome of the Polish-bolshevik War, while welcomed the National Democrat leader Roman Dmowski - who favored a relatively small, ethnically homogeneous state - was a death blow to Piłsudski's dream of reviving the multicultural Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A National Democrat Sejm deputy, Stanisław Stronski, coined the phrase, "Miracle at the Wisła" ("Cud nad Wisła"), to underline his disapproval of Piłsudski's "Ukrainian adventure". Stronski's phrase was adopted by some piously-minded Poles unaware of Stronski's ironic intent.

Military strategy in the Polish-bolshevik War influenced Charles de Gaulle, then an instructor with the Polish Army who fought in several of the battles. He and Władysław Sikorski were the only military officers who, based on their experiences of this war, correctly predicted how the next one would be fought

Among the technical advances ultimately associated with the Polish-bolshevik War was one that would, two decades later, affect the course of World War II and whose story, when revealed decades after that, would astound the world. In the Polish-bolshevik War, Poland's Marshal Piłsudski and his staff enjoyed a vast advantage from their military intelligence decrypting ("breaking") Red Army radio messages. These were encrypted in primitive ciphers and codes, and often involved incredible breaches of security by bolshevik cipher clerks. The Polish cryptologists and commanders were thus regularly able to look over the shoulders of the bolshevik commanders, including Mikhail Tukhachevski himself, and their superior, Leon Trotsky (It is curious that, in this regard, the Red Army repeated mistakes that had been made in World War I by its Tsarist predecessor vis-a-vis the German Army, and that had contributed fundamentally to the Russian 1914 defeat at Tannenberg). Poland's cryptological achievements in the Polish-bolshevik War were a prelude to the spectacular achievements of her General Staff's Cipher Bureau (Biuro Szyfrów), from December 1932, in decrypting German Enigma machine ciphers. Their subsequent decryption in World War II by the Western Allies at Bletchley Park - given a flying head-start by Poland's having revealed her techniques and technology to Britain and France at Warsaw a month before the outbreak of war - substantially affected the outcome of the war.

Bolshevik rags under the boot! Polish soldiers displaying captured Soviet battle flags after the Victory in Polish-bolshevik War 1918-1920.

Prolog Cavalry Players Trip Meeting Airport Boat ride Castle Visiting Bad Harzburg Epilog Executions Photos The End