Polish Diplomatic Documents 1943

Editor: Jacek Tebinka, cooperation: Piotr Długołęcki
Warsaw 2024
ISBN: 978-83-67487-73-3
Pages: LXV+1063

The volume Polish Diplomatic Documents 1943 is the thirty first in the series. It contains 349 documents that illustrate Polish foreign policy in 1943. The most significant during the period were contacts with Great Britain and the United States, which were all the more important as these great powers represented the Polish stance in talks with Moscow after the severance of Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations.

The military successes of the anti-Hitler coalition states foreshadowed the imminent prospect of defeat for the Axis states, making the question of defining the war’s aims increasingly important. From the perspective of the Polish government-in-exile, this concerned, in particular, the conditions for the reconstruction and territorial shape of Poland. Despite consultations with Washington and London, the key decisions in this regard were made without Poland’s participation at the conference in Tehran.

The Polish authorities in exile devoted much attention to assisting people in the occupied country and deportees and refugees scattered around the world. The culminating period of the Holocaust, not only of the Polish but also for European Jews, increased the obligations of the Polish authorities to aid the persecuted, to inform about the crimes committed, and to collect evidence to punish the war criminals after the end of hostilities.

The other significant issues were relations with the Holy See, Czechoslovakia’s suspension of negotiations on confederation with Poland due to Moscow’s objections, contacts with other governments in exile and neutral states, and unofficial dealings with Hungarian and Romanian politicians to break Budapest and Bucharest’s alliance with Berlin.

The source base of the volume consists primarily of materials stored at the Hoover Institution in Stanford (based on online records), the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, and the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw. In addition to that, the volume includes documents from the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in New York. The valuable materials used in the volume are also held in the National Archives of the United Kingdom and the Archivum Helveto-Polonicum in Freiburg.

The documents in the volume are arranged in chronological order. A preface, list of documents, list of abbreviations, and an annex on the structure of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs are included. Moreover, the volume contains an index of personal names and a subject index.