Editing Home Army

{{short description|Polish resistance movement in World War II}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2014}}
{{other uses|Home guard}}
{{pp-protected|small=yes}}
{{Infobox War Faction
|native_name = ''Armia Krajowa'' (AK)
|image = Flaga PPP.svg
|image_size = 260px
|caption = Polish red-and-white flag with superposed ''[[Kotwica]]'' ({{lit|anchor}}) emblem of the [[Polish Underground State]] and Home Army
|dates = 14 February 1942 – 19 January 1945
|country = [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|German-occupied Poland]]
|allegiance = [[Polish Underground State]], [[Polish government-in-exile]]
|type =
| ideology         = {{ubl
|[[Polish nationalism]]
|[[Anti-communism]]
|[[Anti-fascism]]
|'''Factions:'''
|[[Antisemitism]]|group=nb}}
|size = {{circa}} 400,000 (1944)
| leaders          = [[Tadeusz Komorowski]]<br />[[Stefan Rowecki]]<br />[[Leopold Okulicki]]<br />[[Emil August Fieldorf]]<br />[[Antoni Chruściel]]
| allies           = * {{flag|Soviet Union|1936}}
| opponents        = * {{flag|Nazi Germany}}
* {{flag|Soviet Union|1936}} <small>(Locally)</small><ref name=":4">{{Cite book|author=Grzegorz Motyka |title=From the Volhynian Massacre to Operation Vistula |year=2022 |publisher=Brill U Schoningh |isbn=978-3506795373|page=111|quote=At the end of February of that year [1943], Panteleimon Ponomarenko ordered local partisans to carry out activities aimed at incorporating western Belarus into the Soviet Union. As a result, in late April and early May, attacks on Polish conspirators in the Novogrudok region began. In the following months, a kind of Polish-Soviet partisan war unfolded in this area.}}</ref>
* [[File:OUN-r Flag 1941.svg|23px|border|link]] [[Ukrainian Insurgent Army]]
* {{flagdeco|Lithuania}} [[Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force]]
| battles          = {{collapsible list|title = {{nobold|''See list''}}|{{tree list}}
*[[World War II]]
**[[Polish resistance movement in World War II|Anti-German insurgency]]
***'''[[Zamość uprising]]'''
***[[Operation Wieniec]]
***[[1943 Pinsk Prison raid]]
***[[Operation Heads]]
***[[Operation Arsenal]]
***[[Iwieniec Uprising]]
***[[Ghetto Action]]
***[[Operation Bürkl]]
***[[Operation Belt]]
***[[Operation Góral]]
***[[Operation Fruhwirth]]
***[[Operation Most III]]
***'''[[Operation Tempest]]'''
****[[Battle of Porytowe Wzgórze]]
****[[Battle of Osuchy]]
****[[Operation Ostra Brama]]
****[[Lwów Uprising]]
***[[Operation Kutschera]]
***[[Operation Bielany]]
***[[Raid on Truskaw]]
***[[Kraków Uprising (1944)]]
***'''[[Warsaw Uprising]]'''
****[[Battle of Pęcice]]
**Polish–Lithuanian conflict
***[[Battle of Graużyszki]]
***[[Battle of Murowana Oszmianka]]
**[[Polish–Ukrainian conflict (1939–1947)|Polish–Ukrainian conflict]]
***[[Battles of Prehoryłe]]
***[[Battle of Vilya]]
***[[Kuty (Kąty) defence]]
***[[Defense of Huta Stepańska and Wyrka]]
***[[Defence of Zasmyki]]
***[[Battle of Moczulanka]]
***[[Defense of Przebraże]]
***[[Battle of Mieniany]]
***[[Battle of Małków]]
***[[Battle of Zabłocie]]
***[[Battle of Gnojno]]
***[[Battle of Oździutycze]]
***'''[[Hrubieszów Revolution]]'''
***[[Attack of Maziarnia Wawrzkowa]]
***[[Battles of Nabróż]]
***[[Battles of Narol]]
***[[Battle of Ulhówek and Rzeczyca]]
{{tree list/end}}
}}
}}

The '''Home Army''' ({{langx|pl|Armia Krajowa}}, {{IPA|pl|ˈarmja kraˈjɔva|pron}}; abbreviated '''AK''') was the dominant [[Polish resistance movement in World War II|resistance movement]] in [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|German-occupied Poland]] during [[World War II]]. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier [[Związek Walki Zbrojnej]] (Armed Resistance) established in the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasions in September 1939. Over the next two years, the Home Army absorbed most of the other [[Polish resistance movement in World War II|Polish partisans]] and underground forces. Its allegiance was to the [[Polish government-in-exile]] in London, and it constituted the armed wing of what came to be known as the [[Polish Underground State]]. Estimates of the Home Army's 1944 strength range between 200,000 and 600,000. The latter number made the Home Army not only Poland's largest underground resistance movement but, along with [[Soviet partisans|Soviet]] and [[Yugoslav Partisans|Yugoslav]] partisans, one of Europe's largest World War II underground movements.{{efn|name=a}}

The Home Army sabotaged German transports bound for the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] in the Soviet Union, destroying German supplies and tying down substantial German forces. It also fought pitched battles against the Germans, particularly in 1943 and in [[Operation Tempest]] from January 1944. The Home Army's most widely known operation was the [[Warsaw Uprising]] of August–October 1944. The Home Army also defended Polish civilians against [[Ethnic violence|atrocities]] by Germany's Ukrainian and Lithuanian [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|collaborators]]. Its attitude toward Jews remains a controversial topic.

As [[Polish–Soviet relations]] deteriorated, conflict grew between the Home Army and Soviet forces. The Home Army's allegiance to the Polish government-in-exile caused the Soviet government to consider the Home Army to be an impediment to the introduction of a [[Communism in Poland|communist]]-friendly government in Poland, which hindered cooperation and in some cases led to outright conflict. On 19 January 1945, after the [[Red Army]] had cleared most Polish territory of German forces, the Home Army was disbanded. After the war, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, communist government propaganda portrayed the Home Army as an oppressive and reactionary force. Thousands of ex-Home Army personnel were deported to [[gulag]]s and Soviet prisons, while other ex-members, including a number of senior commanders, were executed. After the [[Revolutions of 1989|fall of communism]] in Central and Eastern Europe, the portrayal of the Home Army was no longer subject to government censorship and propaganda.

==Origins==
{{Polish Underground State sidebar}}
The Home Army originated in the [[Service for Poland's Victory]] (''Służba Zwycięstwu Polski''), which General [[Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski]] set up on 27 September 1939, just as the coordinated [[German invasion of Poland|German]] and [[Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)|Soviet invasions of Poland]] neared completion.<ref name="MNK"/> Seven weeks later, on 17 November 1939, on orders from General [[Władysław Sikorski]], the Service for Poland's Victory was superseded by the [[Union for Armed Struggle|Armed Resistance]] (''Związek Walki Zbrojnej''), which in turn, a little over two years later, on 14 February 1942, became the Home Army.<ref name="MNK"/><ref name="Enc. PWN: AK"/> During that time, many other resistance organisations remained active in Poland,<ref name="Strzembosz 1996"/> although most of them, merged with the Armed Resistance or with its successor, the Home Army, and substantially augmented its numbers between 1939 and 1944.<ref name="Enc. PWN: AK"/><ref name="Strzembosz 1996"/>

The Home Army was loyal to the [[Polish government-in-exile]] and to its agency in occupied Poland, the [[Government Delegation for Poland]] (''Delegatura''). The Polish civilian government envisioned the Home Army as an apolitical, nationwide resistance organisation. The supreme command defined the Home Army's chief tasks as partisan warfare against the German occupiers, the re-creation of armed forces underground and, near the end of the German occupation, a general armed rising to be prosecuted until victory. Home Army plans envisioned, at war's end, the restoration of the pre-war government following the return of the government-in-exile to Poland.<ref name="Prazmowska2004">{{cite book |last=Prazmowska |first=A. |title=Civil War in Poland 1942-1948 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ReF8DAAAQBAJ&pg=PR10 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |date=29 July 2004 |page=10 |isbn=978-0-230-50488-2}}</ref><ref name="MNK" /><ref name="Enc. PWN: AK" /><ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK" /><ref name="Wróbel2014">{{cite book |last=Wróbel |first=Piotr |title=Historical Dictionary of Poland 1945-1996 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U2O2AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1872 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=27 January 2014 |page=1872 |isbn=978-1-135-92701-1}}</ref><ref name="RozettSpector2013">{{cite book |last1=Rozett |first1=Robert |last2=Spector |first2=Shmuel |title=Encyclopedia of the Holocaust |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d5MuAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT506 |publisher=Routledge |date=26 November 2013 |pages=506– |isbn=978-1-135-96957-8}}</ref>

The Home Army, though in theory subordinate to the civil authorities and to the government-in-exile, often acted somewhat independently, with neither the Home Army's commanders in Poland nor the "London government" fully aware of the other's situation.{{r|Leslie|pp=235–236}}

After [[Operation Barbarossa|Germany started its invasion of the Soviet Union]] on 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union joined the [[Allies in World War II|Allies]] and signed the [[Anglo-Soviet Agreement]] on 12 July 1941. This put the Polish government in a difficult position since it had previously pursued a policy of "two enemies". Although a [[Sikorski–Mayski Agreement|Polish–Soviet agreement]] was signed in August 1941, cooperation continued to be difficult and deteriorated further after 1943 when Nazi Germany publicised the [[Katyn massacre]] of 1940.<ref name="Michta 1990" />

Until the major rising in 1944, the Home Army concentrated on self-defense (the freeing of prisoners and hostages, defense against German pacification operations) and on attacks against German forces. Home Army units carried out thousands of armed raids and intelligence operations, sabotaged hundreds of railway shipments, and participated in many [[partisan (military)|partisan]] clashes and battles with German police and [[Wehrmacht]] units. The Home Army also assassinated prominent [[Collaboration during World War II|Nazi collaborators]] and [[Gestapo]] officials in retaliation against Nazi terror inflicted on Poland's civilian population; prominent individuals assassinated by the Home Army included [[Igo Sym]] (1941) and [[Franz Kutschera]] (1944).<ref name="MNK" /><ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK" />

==Membership==
===Size===
In February 1942, when the Home Army was formed from the Armed Resistance, it numbered around 100,000 members.<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK" /> Less than a year later, at the start of 1943, it had reached a strength of around 200,000.<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK" /> In the summer of 1944, when [[Operation Tempest]] began, the Home Army reached its highest membership:<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK" /> estimates of membership in the first half and summer of 1944 range from 200,000,{{r|Leslie|p=234}} through 300,000,<ref name="Embassy PR 2006" /> 380,000<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK" /> and 400,000<ref name="Laqueur 2019">{{cite book |last=Laqueur |first=Walter |title=Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Study |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-429-69636-7 |location=Milton |chapter=5. The Twentieth Century (II): Partisans against Hitler |oclc=1090493874}}</ref> to 450,000–500,000,<ref name="Salm 1994" /> though most estimates average at about 400,000; the strength estimates vary due to the constant integration of other resistance organisations into the Home Army, and that while the number of members was high and that of sympathizers was even higher, the number of armed members participating in operations at any given time was smaller—as little as one per cent in 1943, and as many as five to ten per cent in 1944<ref name="Laqueur 2019" />—due to an insufficient number of weapons.<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK" /><ref name="Laqueur" />{{r|Leslie|p=234}}

Home Army numbers in 1944 included a cadre of over 10,000–11,000 officers, 7,500 officers-in-training (singular: ''[[podchorąży]]'') and 88,000 [[non-commissioned officer]]s (NCOs).<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/> The officer cadre was formed from prewar officers and NCOs, graduates of underground courses, and elite operatives usually parachuted in from the West (the [[Silent Unseen]]).<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/> The basic organizational unit was the platoon, numbering 35–50 people, with an unmobilized skeleton version of 16–25; in February 1944, the Home Army had 6,287 regular and 2,613 skeleton platoons operational.<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/> Such numbers made the Home Army not only the largest Polish resistance movement, but one of the two largest in World War II Europe.{{efn|name=a}} Casualties during the war are estimated at 34,000<ref name="Embassy PR 2006"/> to 100,000,<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/> plus some 20,000<ref name="Embassy PR 2006"/>–50,000<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/> after the war (casualties and imprisonment).

===Demographics===
The Home Army was intended to be a mass organisation that was founded by a core of prewar officers.<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/> Home Army soldiers fell into three groups. The first two consisted of "full-time members": undercover operatives, living mostly in urban settings under false identities (most senior Home Army officers belonged to this group); and uniformed (to a certain extent) partisans, living in forested regions (''leśni'', or "forest people"), who openly fought the Germans (the forest people are estimated at some 40 groups, numbering 1,200–4,000 persons in early 1943, but their numbers grew substantially during [[Operation Tempest]]).{{r|Leslie|pp=234–235}} The third, largest group were "part-time members": sympathisers who led "double lives" under their real names in their real homes, received no payment for their services, and stayed in touch with their undercover unit commanders but were seldom mustered for operations, as the Home Army planned to use them only during a planned nationwide rising.{{r|Leslie|pp=234–235}}

The Home Army was intended to be representative of the Polish nation, and its members were recruited from most parties and social classes.{{r|Leslie|pp=235–236}} Its growth was largely based on integrating scores of smaller resistance organisations into its ranks; most of the other Polish underground armed organizations were incorporated into the Home Army, though they retained varying degrees of autonomy.<ref name="Enc. PWN: AK"/> The largest organization that merged into the Home Army was the leftist Peasants' Battalions ({{lang|pl|[[Bataliony Chłopskie]]}}) around 1943–1944,<ref name=WPH>{{cite book|title=Wojskowy przegla̜d historyczny|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xFJpAAAAMAAJ|year=1996|publisher=s.n.|page=134|language=pl}}</ref> and parts of the National Armed Forces (''[[Narodowe Siły Zbrojne]]'') became subordinate to the Home Army.<ref name="KonopkaKonopka1999">{{cite book|author1=Hanna Konopka|author2=Adrian Konopka|title=Leksykon historii Polski po II wojnie światowej 1944–1997|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vqe1AAAAIAAJ|date=1 January 1999|publisher=Graf-Punkt|isbn=978-83-87988-08-1|page=130|language=pl}}</ref> In turn, individual Home Army units varied substantially in their political outlooks, notably in their attitudes toward ethnic minorities and toward the Soviets.{{r|Leslie|pp=235–236}} The largest group that completely refused to join the Home Army was the pro-Soviet, communist People's Army (''[[Armia Ludowa]]''), which numbered 30,000 people at its height in 1944.<ref name="Enc. PWN: AL"/>

===Women===
[[File:Polish Boy Scouts fighting in the Warsaw Uprising.jpg|thumb|Young [[Radosław Group]] soldiers, 2 September 1944, a month into the [[Warsaw Uprising]]. They had just marched several hours through Warsaw sewers.]]

Home Army ranks included a number of female operatives.<ref name="zbiorowy2015">{{cite book|author=autor zbiorowy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=drg9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT294|title=Wielka Księga Armii Krajowej|date=23 November 2015|publisher=Otwarte|isbn=978-83-240-3431-4|page=294}}</ref> Most women worked in the communications branch, where many held leadership roles or served as couriers.<ref name=drap/> Approximately a seventh to a tenth of the Home Army insurgents were female.<ref name=":0"/><ref name=drap>{{cite journal|last=Drapikowska|first=Barbara|date=2013|title=Militarna partycypacja kobiet w Siłach Zbrojnych RP|url=https://yadda.icm.edu.pl/baztech/element/bwmeta1.element.baztech-74054546-5d38-4cce-bbbb-050e74b7659b|journal=Zeszyty Naukowe AON|volume=2|issue=91|pages=166–194|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230509110612/https://yadda.icm.edu.pl/baztech/element/bwmeta1.element.baztech-74054546-5d38-4cce-bbbb-050e74b7659b|archive-date=May 9, 2023}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite journal|last=Drapikowska|first=Barbara|date=2016|title=Kobiety w polskiej armii – ujęcie historyczne|url=http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-15ce8cd4-ff88-4a9f-93ac-3edebf946e9f|journal=Czasopismo Naukowe Instytutu Studiów Kobiecych|language=pl|issue=1|pages=45–65|doi=10.15290/cnisk.2016.01.01.03|issn=2451-3539|doi-access=free|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230516023825/http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-15ce8cd4-ff88-4a9f-93ac-3edebf946e9f|archive-date= May 16, 2023}}</ref>

Notable women in the Home Army included [[Elżbieta Zawacka]], an underground courier who was sometimes called the only female ''[[Cichociemna]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Półturzycki|first=Józef|date=2014|title=Spór o Elżbietę Zawacką – żołnierza i pedagoga|url=https://apcz.umk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/RA/article/view/RA.2014.023|journal=Rocznik Andragogiczny|language=pl|volume=21|pages=317–332|doi=10.12775/RA.2014.023|issn=2391-7571|doi-access=free|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111181739/https://apcz.umk.pl/RA/article/view/RA.2014.023|archive-date= January 11, 2023}}</ref> {{ill|Grażyna Lipińska|pl|Grażyna Lipińska}} organised an intelligence network in German-occupied [[Belarus]] in 1942–1944.<ref>{{cite web|language=pl|url=https://www.bip.pw.edu.pl/var/pw/storage/original/application/972c82c82689938ad5b317e0ce8fb859.pdf|work=Załącznik do Uchwały Senatu PW nr 202/XLVI/2007 z dnia 27 June 2007 r.|title=Grażyna Lipińska – życiorys|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230507232736/https://www.bip.pw.edu.pl/var/pw/storage/original/application/972c82c82689938ad5b317e0ce8fb859.pdf|archive-date= May 7, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Turonek1992">{{cite book|author=Jerzy Turonek|title=Wacław Iwanowski i odrodzenie Białorusi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bz4UAAAAIAAJ|year=1992|publisher=Warszawska Oficyna Wydawnicza "Gryf"|isbn=978-83-85209-12-6|page=118|language=pl}}</ref> {{ill|Janina Karasiówna|pl|Janina Karasiówna}} and [[Emilia Malessa]] were high-ranking officers described as "holding top posts" within the communication branch of the organisation.<ref name=drap/> {{ill|Wanda Kraszewska-Ancerewicz|pl|Wanda Kraszewska-Ancerewicz}} headed the distribution branch.<ref name=drap/> Several all-female units existed within the AK structures, including ''{{ill|Dysk|pl|Oddział Dysk}}'', an entirely female sabotage unit led by [[Wanda Gertz]], who carried out assassinations of female [[Gestapo]] informants in addition to sabotage.<ref name=drap/><ref>{{cite journal|last=Marcinkiewicz-Kaczmarczyk|first=Anna|date=18 November 2015|title=Żeńskie oddziały sabotażowo-dywersyjne w strukturach armii podziemnej w latach 1940–1944 na podstawie relacji i wspomnień ich członkiń|url=http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-94b7ed3d-0f3f-4463-aee5-a184c5e077b2|journal=Pamięć I Sprawiedliwość|volume=2|issue=26|pages=115–138|via=cejsh.icm.edu.pl}}</ref> During the [[Warsaw Uprising]], two all-female units were created—a demolition unit and a sewer system unit.<ref name=":0"/>

Many women participated in the Warsaw Uprising, particularly as medics or scouts;<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3621391/The-Warsaw-women-who-took-on-Hitler.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3621391/The-Warsaw-women-who-took-on-Hitler.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=The Warsaw women who took on Hitler|first=Bernadeta|last=Tendyra|date=26 July 2004|via=www.telegraph.co.uk}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref name="Fidelis2010">{{cite book|author=Malgorzata Fidelis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RlT4A7xvIA0C&pg=PA38|title=Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland|date=21 June 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-19687-1|page=38}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lyZYS_GxglIC&pg=PA472|title=Women and War: A Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2006|isbn=978-1-85109-770-8|pages=472}}</ref> they were estimated to form about 75% of the insurgent medical personnel.<ref name=":2" /> By the end of the uprising, there were about 5,000 female casualties among the insurgents, with over 2,000 female soldiers taken captive; the latter number reported in contemporary press caused a "European sensation".<ref name=drap/>

==Structure==
[[File:Armia krajowa 1 en.png|thumb|Regional organization, 1944]]

Home Army Headquarters was divided into five sections, two bureaus and several other specialized units:<ref name="MNK"/><ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/><ref name="Ney-Krwawicz1993-1825">{{cite book|author=Marek Ney-Krwawicz|title=Armia Krajowa: siła zbrojna Polskiego Państwa Polskiego|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c9WAAAAAIAAJ|year=1993|publisher=Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne|isbn=978-83-02-05061-9|pages=18–25|language=pl}}</ref>
* Section I: Organization – personnel, justice, religion
* Section II: Intelligence and Counterintelligence
* Section III: Operations and Training – coordination, planning, preparation for a nationwide uprising
* Section IV: Logistics
* Section V: Communication – including with the Western Allies; air drops
* [[Bureau of Information and Propaganda]] (sometimes called "Section VI") – information and propaganda
* Bureau of Finances (sometimes called "Section VII") – finances
* [[Kedyw]] (acronym for ''Kierownictwo Dywersji'', Polish for "Directorate of Diversion") – special operations
* [[Directorate of Underground Resistance]]

The Home Army's commander was subordinate in the military [[chain of command]] to the Polish Commander-in-Chief ([[General Inspector of the Armed Forces]]) of the Polish government-in-exile and answered in the civilian chain of command to the Government Delegation for Poland.<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/><ref name="Prazmowska2004"/>

The Home Army's first commander, until his arrest by the Germans in 1943, was [[Stefan Rowecki]] (''[[nom de guerre]]'' "''Grot''", "Spearhead"). [[Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski]] (Tadeusz Komorowski, ''nom de guerre'' "''Bór''", "Forest") commanded from July 1943 until his surrender to the Germans when the Warsaw Uprising was suppressed in October 1944. [[Leopold Okulicki]], ''nom de guerre'' ''Niedzwiadek'' ("Bear"), led the Home Army in its final days.<ref name="MNK"/><ref>{{Cite journal|last=LERSKI|first=GEORGE J.|date=1982|title=Review of GENERAŁ: Opowieść o Leopoldzie Okulickim (The General: Story of Leopold Okulicki), Jerzy R. Krzyżanowski |journal=The Polish Review|volume=27|issue=1/2|pages=166–168|jstor=25777876|issn=0032-2970}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nowak-Jeziorański|first=Jan|date=2003|title=Gestapo i NKWD|url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=2829|journal=Karta|language=pl|issue=37|pages=88–97|issn=0867-3764}}</ref><ref name="LerskiLerski1996">{{cite book|author1=Jerzy Jan Lerski|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QTUTqE2difgC|title=Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945|author2=George J. Lerski|author3=Halina T. Lerski|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=1996|isbn=978-0-313-26007-0|pages=47, 401, 513-514, 605-505}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable collapsible sortable"
!Home Army commander
!Codename
!Period
!Replaced because
!Fate
!Photo
|-
|General [[Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski]]<br /><small>Technically, commander of [[Służba Zwycięstwu Polski]] and [[Związek Walki Zbrojnej]] as Armia Krajowa was not named such until 1942</small>
|''Torwid''
|{{Date table sorting|27 September 1939}} – March 1940
| Arrested by the Soviets
| Joined the [[Anders Army]], fought in the [[Polish Armed Forces in the West]]. Emigrated to United Kingdom.
| [[File:M. Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski.jpg|100px]]
|-
|General [[Stefan Rowecki]]
|''Grot''
|{{Date table sorting|18 June 1940}} – 30 June 1943
| Discovered and arrested by German [[Gestapo]]
| Imprisoned in [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp]]. Executed by personal decree of [[Heinrich Himmler]] after [[Warsaw Uprising]] had begun.
| [[File:Stefan Rowecki - 1930s.jpg|100px]]
|-
|General [[Tadeusz Komorowski]]
|''Bór''
|{{Date table sorting|July 1943}} – 2 September 1944
| Surrendered after end of [[Warsaw Uprising]].
| Emigrated to United Kingdom.
| [[File:Tadeusz Bor Komorowski.jpg|100px]]
|-
|General [[Leopold Okulicki]]
|''Niedźwiadek''
|{{Date table sorting|3 October 1944}} – 17 January 1945
| Dissolved AK trying to lessen the Polish-Soviet tensions.
| Arrested by the Soviets, sentenced to imprisonment in the [[Trial of the Sixteen]]. Likely executed in 1946.
| [[File:Okulicki.jpg|100px]]
|}

===Regions===
The Home Army was divided geographically into regional branches or areas (''obszar''),<ref name="MNK" /> which were subdivided into subregions or subareas (''podokręg'') or independent areas (''okręgi samodzielne''). There were 89 inspectorates (''inspektorat'') and 280 (as of early 1944) districts (''obwód'') as smaller organisational units.<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK" /> Overall, the Home Army regional structure largely resembled Poland's interwar administration division, with an ''okręg'' being similar to a [[voivodeships of Poland|voivodeship]] (see [[Administrative division of Second Polish Republic]]).<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/>

There were three to five areas: [[Warsaw]] (''Obszar Warszawski'', with some sources differentiating between left- and right-bank areas – ''Obszar Warszawski prawo- i lewobrzeżny''), Western (''Obszar Zachodni'', in the [[Pomerania]] and [[Poznań]] regions), and Southeastern (''Obszar Południowo-Wschodni'', in the [[Lwów]] area); sources vary on whether there was a Northeastern Area (centered in [[Białystok]] – ''Obszar Białystocki'') or whether Białystok was classified as an independent area (''Okręg samodzielny Białystok'').<ref name="Wiąk2003">{{cite book|author=Wiesław Józef Wiąk|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mtYhAQAAIAAJ|title=Struktura organizacyjna Armii Krajowej 1939-1944|publisher=UPJW|year=2003|isbn=978-83-916862-7-0|pages=5; 82|language=pl}}</ref>

{| style="font-size: 90%" class="wikitable collapsible sortable"
|-
! Area
! Districts
! Codenames
! Units (re)created during the<br />reconstruction of the Polish<br />Army in [[Operation Tempest]]
|-
| ROWSPAN=3 | Warsaw area<br />Codenames: Cegielnia (Brickworks), Woda (Water), Rzeka (River)<br />[[Warsaw]]<br />Col. [[Albin Skroczyński]] ''Łaszcz''
| Eastern<br />Warsaw-[[Praga]]<br />Col. [[Hieronim Suszczyński]] ''Szeliga''
| Struga (stream), Krynica (source), Gorzelnia (distillery)
| [[Polish 10th Infantry Division|10th Infantry Division]]
|-
| Western<br />Warsaw<br />Col. [[Franciszek Jachieć]] ''Roman''
| Hallerowo ([[Stanisław Haller|Hallertown]]), [[Hajduk]]i, Cukrownia (Sugar factory)
| [[Polish 28th Infantry Division|28th Infantry Division]]
|-
| Northern<br />Warsaw<br />Lt. Col. [[Zygmunt Marszewski]] ''Kazimierz''
| [[Olsztyn]], [[Tuchola]], [[Kaliningrad|Królewiec]], Garbarnia (tannery)
| [[Polish 8th Infantry Division|8th Infantry Division]]
|-
| ROWSPAN=3 | Southeastern area<br />Codenames: Lux, Lutnia (Lute), Orzech (Nut)<br />[[Lwów]]<br />Col. [[Władysław Filipkowski]] ''Janka''
| Lwów<br />[[Lwów]] – divided into two areas<br />Okręg Lwów Zachód (West) and Okręg Lwów Wschód (East)<br />Col. [[Stefan Czerwiński]] ''Luśnia''
| Dukat (ducat), Lira (lire), Promień (ray)
| [[Polish 5th Infantry Division|5th Infantry Division]]
|-
| Stanisławów<br />[[Ivano-Frankivsk|Stanisławów]]<br />Capt. [[Władysław Herman]] ''Żuraw''
| Karaś ([[crucian carp]]), Struga (stream), Światła (lights)
| [[Polish 11th Infantry Division|11th Infantry Division]]
|-
| Tarnopol<br />[[Tarnopol]]<br />Maj. [[Bronisław Zawadzki]]
| Komar (mosquito), Tarcza (shield), Ton (tone)
| [[Polish 12th Infantry Division|12th Infantry Division]]
|-
| ROWSPAN=2 | Western area<br />Codename: Zamek (Castle)<br />[[Poznań]]<br />Col. [[Zygmunt Miłkowski]] ''Denhoff''
| Pomerania<br />[[Gdynia]]<br />Col. [[Janusz Pałubicki]] ''Piorun''
| Borówki (berries), Pomnik (monument)
|
|-
| Poznań<br />[[Poznań]]<br />Col. [[Henryk Kowalówka]]
| Pałac (palace), Parcela (lot)
|
|-
| ROWSPAN=11 | Independent areas
| Wilno<br />[[Wilno]]<br />Col. [[Aleksander Krzyżanowski]] ''Wilk''
| Miód (honey), Wiano (dowry) (subunit "Kaunas Lithuania")
|
|-
| Nowogródek<br />[[Nowogródek]]<br />Lt.Col. [[Janusz Szlaski]] ''Borsuk''
| Cyranka (garganey), Nów (new moon)
| [[Zgrupowanie Okręgu AK Nowogródek]]
|-
| [[District of Warsaw (of Armia Krajowa)|Warsaw]]<br />Warsaw<br />Col. [[Antoni Chruściel]] ''Monter''
| Drapacz (sky-scraper), Przystań (harbour),<br />Wydra (otter), Prom (shuttle)
|
|-
| [[Polesie]]<br />[[Pińsk]]<br />Col. [[Henryk Krajewski]] ''Leśny''
| Kwadra (quarter), Twierdza (keep), Żuraw (crane)
| [[Polish 30th Infantry Division|30th Infantry Division]]
|-
| [[Wołyń]]<br />[[Rivne|Równe]]<br />Col. [[Kazimierz Bąbiński]] ''Luboń''
| Hreczka (buckwheat), Konopie (hemp)
| [[Polish 27th Infantry Division|27th Infantry Division]]
|-
| Białystok<br />[[Białystok]]<br />Col. [[Władysław Liniarski]] ''Mścisław''
| Lin (tench), Czapla (aigrette), Pełnia (full moon)
| [[Polish 29th Infantry Division|29th Infantry Division]]
|-
| Lublin<br />[[Lublin]]<br />Col. [[Kazimierz Tumidajski]] ''Marcin''
| Len (linnen), Salon (saloon), Żyto (rye)
| [[Polish 3rd Legions' Infantry Division|3rd Legions' Infantry Division]]<br />[[Polish 9th Infantry Division|9th Infantry Division]]
|-
| Kraków<br />[[Kraków]]<br />various commanders, incl. Col. [[Julian Filipowicz]] ''Róg''
| Gobelin, Godło (coat of arms), Muzeum (museum)
| [[Polish 6th Infantry Division|6th Infantry Division]]<br />[[Polish 106th Infantry Division|106th Infantry Division]]<br />[[Polish 21st Infantry Division|21st Infantry Division]]<br />[[Polish 22nd Infantry Division|22nd Infantry Division]]<br />[[Polish 24th Infantry Division|24th Infantry Division]]<br />[[Kraków Motorized Cavalry Brigade]]
|-
| [[Silesia]]<br />[[Katowice]]<br />various commanders, incl. Col. [[Zygmunt Janke]] ''Zygmunt''
| Kilof (pick), Komin (chimney), Kuźnia (foundry), Serce (heart)
|
|-
| Kielce-Radom<br />[[Kielce]], [[Radom]]<br />Col. [[Jan Zientarski]] ''Mieczysław''
| Rolnik (farmer), [[Jodła]] (fir)
| [[Polish 2nd Legions' Infantry Division|2nd Legions' Infantry Division]]<br />[[Polish 7th Infantry Division|7th Infantry Division]]
|-
| Łódź<br />[[Łódź]]<br />Col. [[Michał Stempkowski]] ''Grzegorz''
| Arka (ark), Barka (barge), Łania (bath)
| [[Polish 25th Infantry Division|25th Infantry Division]]<br />[[Polish 26th Infantry Division|26th Infantry Division]]
|-
| ROWSPAN=2 | Foreign areas
| Hungary<br />[[Budapest]]<br />Lt.Col. [[Jan Korkozowicz]]
| [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]]
|
|-
| [[Reich]]<br />[[Berlin]]
| Blok (block)
|
|}

In 1943 the Home Army began recreating the organization of the prewar Polish Army, its various units now being designated as platoons, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, and [[operational group]]s.<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK"/>

==Operations==

=== Intelligence ===
{{further|History of Polish intelligence services#1939–1945}}
[[File:The Third Reich - polish resistance poster, German-occupied Poland, 1943.jpg|thumb|''Der Klabautermann'' (an [[Operation N]] magazine), 3 January 1943 issue, satirizing Nazi terror and genocide. From the right, emerging from the "III" (Roman numeral three", of the "[[Nazi Germany|Third Reich]]"): [[Himmler]], [[Hitler]], and [[Death]].]]
The Home Army supplied valuable [[Intelligence (information gathering)|intelligence]] to the Allies; 48 per cent of all reports received by the [[British secret services]] from continental Europe between 1939 and 1945 came from Polish sources.<ref name="Kochanski2012">{{cite book |last=Kochanski |first=Halik |title=The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EJ5vIyDBpLcC&pg=PA234 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |date=13 November 2012 |pages=234–236 |isbn=978-0-674-06816-2}}</ref> The total number of those reports is estimated at 80,000, and 85 per cent of them were deemed to be high quality or better.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Soybel |first=Phyllis L. |title=Intelligence Cooperation between Poland and Great Britain during World War II. The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=134025 |journal=[[Sarmatian Review]] |volume=XXVII |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=1266–1267 |issn=1059-5872}}</ref> The Polish intelligence network grew rapidly; near the end of the war, it had over 1,600 registered agents.<ref name="Kochanski2012" />

The Western Allies had limited intelligence assets in Central and Eastern Europe. The extensive in-place Polish intelligence network proved a major resource; between the French capitulation and other Allied networks that were undeveloped at the time, it was even described as "the only [A]llied intelligence assets on the Continent".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Schwonek|first=Matthew R.|date=2006-04-19|title=Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland and Great Britain during World War II: The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee, vol. 1 (review)|journal=The Journal of Military History|volume=70|issue=2 |pages=528–529 |s2cid=161747036 |issn=1543-7795 |doi=10.1353/jmh.2006.0128}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Peszke|first=Michael Alfred|date=2006-12-01|title=A Review of: "Intelligence Co-Operation between Poland and Great Britain during World War II — The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee"|journal=The Journal of Slavic Military Studies|volume=19|issue=4 |pages=787–790|doi=10.1080/13518040601028578|s2cid=219626554 |issn=1351-8046}}</ref><ref name="Kochanski2012" /> According to {{ill|Marek Ney-Krwawicz|pl|Marek Ney-Krwawicz}}, for the Western Allies, the intelligence provided by the Home Army was considered to be the best source of information on the Eastern Front.{{sfnp|Ney-Krwawicz|2001|p=98}}

Home Army intelligence provided the Allies with information on [[German concentration camps]] and [[the Holocaust in Poland]] (including [[Karski's reports|the first reports]] on this subject received by the Allies{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=54}}<ref name="Engel">{{Cite journal|last=Engel|first=David|date=1983|title=An Early Account of Polish Jewry under Nazi and Soviet Occupation Presented to the Polish Government-In-Exile, February 1940|journal=Jewish Social Studies|volume=45|issue=1|pages=1–16|issn=0021-6704|jstor=4467201}}</ref>), German submarine operations, and, most famously, [[Home Army and V1 and V2|the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket]].<ref name="MNK" />{{sfnp|Ney-Krwawicz|2001|p=98}} In one [[Project Big Ben]] mission ([[Operation Most III|Operation Wildhorn III]];<ref name="Wildhorn" /> Polish [[cryptonym]], ''Most III'', "Bridge III"), a stripped-for-lightness RAF twin-engine [[Douglas Dakota|Dakota]] flew from [[Brindisi]], [[Italy]], to an abandoned German airfield in Poland to pick up intelligence prepared by Polish aircraft-designer [[Antoni Kocjan]], including {{convert|100|lb|abbr=on}} of [[V-2 rocket]] wreckage from a [[Peenemünde]] launch, a ''Special Report 1/R, no. 242'', photographs, eight key V-2 parts, and drawings of the wreckage.<ref name="Kocjan" /> Polish agents also provided reports on the German war production, morale, and troop movements.<ref name="Kochanski2012" /> The Polish intelligence network extended beyond Poland and even beyond Europe: for example, the intelligence network organized by Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski in North Africa has been described as "the only [A]llied ... network in North Africa".<ref name="Kochanski2012" /> The Polish network even had two agents in the German high command itself.<ref name="Kochanski2012" />

The researchers who produced the first Polish–British in-depth monograph on Home Army intelligence (''Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II: Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee'', 2005) described contributions of Polish intelligence to the Allied victory as "disproportionally large"<ref name="StirlingNałęcz2005-32">{{cite book|title=Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II: Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee |editor1=Tessa Stirling|editor2=Daria Nałęcz|editor3=Tadeusz Dubicki|publisher=Vallentine Mitchell|year=2005|isbn=978-0-85303-656-2|page=32|quote=This tendency influenced the unwillingness to recognize the disproportionally large contribution of Polish Intelligence to the Allied victory over Germany|author=Anglo-Polish Historical Committee}}</ref> and argued that "the work performed by Home Army intelligence undoubtedly supported the Allied armed effort much more effectively than subversive and guerilla activities".<ref name="StirlingNałęcz2005-410">{{cite book|editor1=Tessa Stirling|editor2=Daria Nałęcz|editor3=Tadeusz Dubicki|author=Anglo-Polish Historical Committee|title=Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II: Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee|year=2005|publisher=Vallentine Mitchell|isbn=978-0-85303-656-2|page=410}}</ref>

=== Subversion and propaganda ===
The Home Army also conducted [[psychological warfare]]. Its [[Operation N]] created the illusion of a German movement opposing [[Adolf Hitler]] within Germany itself.<ref name="MNK" />

The Home Army published a weekly ''[[Biuletyn Informacyjny]]'' (Information Bulletin), with a top circulation (on 25 November 1943) of 50,000 copies.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mbc.cyfrowemazowsze.pl/dlibra/publication/6932?tab=1|title=Biuletyn Informacyjny : wydanie codzienne|access-date=8 December 2019|website=dLibra Digital Library|publisher=Warsaw Public Library}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=24 November 2011|title="Biuletyn Informacyjny" wychodził w konspiracji co tydzień przez pięć lat. Rekordowy nakład - 50 tys. egzemplarzy|url=http://wpolityce.pl/polityka/122558-biuletyn-informacyjny-wychodzil-w-konspiracji-co-tydzien-przez-piec-lat-rekordowy-naklad-50-tys-egzemplarzy|access-date=2021-01-25|website=wpolityce.pl}}</ref>

===Major operations===
Sabotage was coordinated by the [[Union of Retaliation]] and later by ''[[Wachlarz]]'' and ''[[Kedyw]]'' units.<ref name="Enc. PWN: AK" />

Major Home Army military and sabotage operations included:
* the [[Zamość Uprising|Zamość Rising]] of 1942–1943, with the Home Army sabotaging German plans to [[Expulsion of Poles by Germany#Zamość|expel Poles]] under ''[[Generalplan Ost]]''<ref name="Enc. PWN: AK" />
* the protection of the Polish population from the [[massacres of Poles in Volhynia]] in 1943–1944<ref name="Enc. PWN: AK" />
* [[Operation Wieniec|Operation Garland]], in 1942, sabotaging German rail transport<ref name="Enc. PWN: AK" />
* [[Operation Belt]] in 1943, a series of attacks on German border outposts on the frontier between the [[General Government]] and the territories annexed by Germany
* Operation Jula, in 1944, another rail-sabotage operation<ref name="Enc. PWN: AK" />
* most notably [[Operation Tempest]]; in 1944, a series of nationwide risings which aimed primarily to seize control of cities and areas where German forces were preparing  defenses against the Soviet Red Army, so that Polish underground civil authorities could take power before the arrival of Soviet forces.<ref name="Enc. PWN: Burza" />
* May 1945, [[Attack on the NKVD Camp in Rembertów]]

[[File:Warsaw Uprising poster 345.jpg|thumb|"To arms!" Home Army poster during the 1944 [[Warsaw Uprising]]]]
The largest and best-known of the Operation Tempest battles, the Warsaw Uprising, constituted an attempt to liberate Poland's capital and began on 1 August 1944. Polish forces took control of substantial parts of the city and resisted the German-led forces until 2 October (a total of 63 days). With the Poles receiving no aid from the approaching Red Army, the Germans eventually defeated the insurrectionists and burned the city, quelling the Uprising on 2 October 1944.<ref name="MNK" /> Other major Home Army city risings included [[Operation Ostra Brama]] in [[Wilno]] and the [[Lwów Uprising]]. The Home Army also prepared for a [[Kraków Uprising (1944)|rising in Kraków]] but aborted due to various circumstances. While the Home Army managed to liberate a number of places from German control—for example, the [[Lublin]] area, where regional structures were able to set up a functioning government—they ultimately failed to secure sufficient territory to enable the government-in-exile to return to Poland due to Soviet hostility.<ref name="MNK" /><ref name="Enc. PWN: AK" /><ref name="Enc. PWN: Burza" />

The Home Army also [[sabotage]]d German rail- and road-transports to the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] in the Soviet Union.<ref name="Crampton 1994" /> [[Richard J. Crampton]] estimated that an eighth of all German transports to the Eastern Front were destroyed or substantially delayed due to Home Army operations.<ref name="Crampton 1994" />

{| # !! align="center" class="wikitable collapsible sortable state=collapsed"
|+ Confirmed sabotage and covert operations of the Armed Resistance (''ZWZ'') and Home Army (''AK'') <br />from 1 January 1941 to 30 June 1944, listed by type{{sfnp|Ney-Krwawicz|2001|p=166}}<ref name="Ney-Krwawicz1993-214">{{cite book|author=Marek Ney-Krwawicz|title=Armia Krajowa: siła zbrojna Polskiego Państwa Polskiego|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c9WAAAAAIAAJ|year=1993|publisher=Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne|isbn=978-83-02-05061-9|page=214|language=pl}}</ref>
!Sabotage / covert-operation type
!Total numbers
|-
|Damaged locomotives
|align=right |6,930
|-
|Damaged railway wagons
|align=right |19,058
|-
|Delayed repairs to locomotives
|align=right |803
|-
|Derailed transports
|align=right |732
|-
|Transports set on fire
|align=right |443
|-
|Blown-up railway bridges
|align=right |38
|-
|Disruptions to electricity supply in the Warsaw grid
|align=right |638
|-
|Damaged or destroyed army vehicles
|align=right |4,326
|-
|Damaged aeroplanes
|align=right |28
|-
|Destroyed fuel-tanks
|align=right |1,167
|-
|Destroyed fuel (in tonnes)
|align=right |4,674
|-
|Blocked oil wells
|align=right |5
|-
|Destroyed [[wood wool]] wagons
|align=right |150
|-
|Burned down military stores
|align=right |130
|-
|Disruptions in factory production
|align=right |7
|-
|Built-in flaws in aircraft engines parts
|align=right |4,710
|-
|Built-in flaws in cannon muzzles
|align=right |203
|-
|Built-in flaws in artillery projectiles
|align=right |92,000
|-
|Built-in flaws in air-traffic radio stations
|align=right |107
|-
|Built-in flaws in condensers
|align=right |70,000
|-
|Built-in flaws in electro-industrial lathes
|align=right |1,700
|-
|Damage to important factory machinery
|align=right |2,872
|-
|Acts of sabotage
|align=right |25,145
|-
|Assassinations of Nazi Germans
|align=right |5,733
|}

===Assassination of Nazi leaders===
{{Main|Operation Heads}}
[[File:Bekanntmachung Warschau 1943.jpg|thumb|upright|German poster listing 100 Polish hostages executed in reprisal for assassinations of German police and SS by a Polish "terrorist organization in the service of the English", Warsaw, 2 October 1943]]
The Polish Resistance carried out dozens of attacks on German commanders in Poland, the largest [[serial assassinations|series]] being that codenamed "[[Operation Heads]]". Dozens of additional assassinations were carried out, the best-known being:
* [[Operation Bürkl]]—[[Franz Bürkl]], ''[[SS]]-[[Oberscharführer]]'', [[Gestapo]] officer, and commandant of the [[Pawiak]] prison, assassinated 7 September 1943.{{sfnp|Strzembosz|1983|pp=343-346}}
* [[Operation Kutschera]]—[[Franz Kutschera]], SS-''[[Brigadeführer]]'' and ''[[Generalmajor]]'' of ''[[Ordnungspolizei]]''; [[SS and Police Leader]] of the Warsaw District, assassinated 1 February 1944.{{sfnp|Strzembosz|1983|p=423}}

==Weapons and equipment==
[[File:MWP Kubus 3.JPG|thumb|upright|''[[Kubuś]]'', armored car used by the resistance during the 1944 [[Warsaw Uprising]]]]

As a clandestine army operating in an enemy-occupied country and separated by over a thousand kilometers from any friendly territory, the Home Army faced unique challenges in acquiring arms and equipment,<ref name="Stolarski"/> though it was able to overcome these difficulties to some extent and to field tens of thousands of armed soldiers. Nevertheless, the difficult conditions meant that only infantry forces armed with light weapons could be fielded. Any use of artillery, armor or aircraft was impossible (except for a few instances during the Warsaw Uprising, such as the ''[[Kubuś]]'' [[armored car (military)|armored car]]).<ref name="Stolarski"/><ref name="McGilvray2015" /> Even these light-infantry units were as a rule armed with a mixture of weapons of various types, usually in quantities sufficient to arm only a fraction of a unit's soldiers.<ref name="Laqueur"/>{{r|Leslie|p=234}}<ref name="Stolarski"/>

Home Army arms and equipment came mostly from four sources: arms that had been buried by the Polish armies on battlefields after the 1939 [[Invasion of Poland (1939)|invasion of Poland]], arms purchased or captured from the Germans and their allies, arms clandestinely manufactured by the Home Army itself, and arms received from Allied air drops.<ref name="Stolarski"/> From arms caches hidden in 1939, the Home Army obtained 614 heavy machine guns, 1,193 light machine guns, 33,052 rifles, 6,732 pistols, 28 antitank light field guns, 25 antitank rifles, and 43,154 hand grenades. However, due to their inadequate preservation, which had to be improvised in the chaos of the September Campaign, most of the guns were in poor condition. Of those that had been buried in the ground and had been dug up in 1944 during preparations for Operation Tempest, only 30% were usable.<ref name="Korb"/>{{rp|63}}

Arms were sometimes purchased on the [[black market]] from German soldiers or their allies, or stolen from German supply depots or transports.<ref name="Stolarski"/> Efforts to capture weapons from the Germans also proved highly successful. Raids were conducted on trains carrying equipment to the front, as well as on guardhouses and [[gendarmerie]] posts. Sometimes weapons were taken from individual German soldiers accosted in the street. During the Warsaw Uprising, the Home Army even managed to capture several German armored vehicles, most notably a [[Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer]] light tank destroyer renamed {{ill|Chwat|pl|Działo pancerne „Chwat”}} and an armored troop transport [[SdKfz 251]] renamed {{ill|Grey Wolf (vehicle)|lt=Grey Wolf|pl|Szary Wilk (transporter opancerzony)}}.<ref name="McGilvray2015">{{cite book|author=Evan McGilvray|title=Days of Adversity: The Warsaw Uprising 1944|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YYQwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR6|date=19 July 2015|publisher=Helion & Company|isbn=978-1-912174-34-8|pages=6–}}</ref>

[[File:Błyskawica and other insurgent weapons.jpg|thumb|Polish weapons, including (''top'') [[Błyskawica submachine gun|''Błyskawica'' ("Lightning") submachine gun]], one of very few weapons designed and mass-produced covertly in occupied Europe. [[Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego|Warsaw Uprising Museum]].]]
<!--[[File:Filipinka sidolówka.jpg|thumb|Home Army-made ''[[Sidolówka]]'' (left) and ''[[Filipinka]]'' (right) [[grenade]]s, [[Museum of the Warsaw Rising]]]] commenting out per talk, least interesting of the three images of equipment mentioned here-->
Arms were clandestinely manufactured by the Home Army in its own secret workshops, and by Home Army members working in German armaments factories.<ref name="Stolarski"/> In this way the Home Army was able to procure [[submachine gun]]s (copies of British [[Sten]]s, indigenous ''[[Błyskawica submachine gun|Błyskawica]]s'' and ''[[KIS (weapon)|KIS]]''), pistols (''[[Vis (weapon)|Vis]]''), flamethrowers, explosive devices, road mines, and ''[[Filipinka]]'' and ''[[Sidolówka]]'' [[hand grenade]]s.<ref name="Stolarski"/> Hundreds of people were involved in the manufacturing effort. The Home Army did not produce its own ammunition, but relied on supplies stolen by Polish workers from German-run factories.<ref name="Stolarski"/>

The final source of supply was Allied [[air drop]]s, which was the only way to obtain more exotic, highly useful equipment such as [[plastic explosives]] and antitank weapons such as the British [[PIAT]]. During the war, 485 air-drop missions from the West (about half of them flown by Polish airmen) delivered some 600 tons of supplies for the Polish resistance.<ref name="Peszke 2005"/> 

Besides equipment, the planes also parachuted in highly qualified instructors ([[Cichociemni]]), 316 of whom were inserted into Poland during the war.<ref name="Embassy PR 2006"/><ref name="Bałuk2009">{{cite book|author=Stefan Bałuk|title=Silent and Unseen: I was a Polish WWII Special Ops Commando|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GuJLAQAAIAAJ|year=2009|publisher=Askon|isbn=978-83-7452-036-2|language=pl|page=125}}</ref> Allied air drops to the Home Army were infrequent; deliveries from the Western Allies were limited by [[Joseph Stalin]]'s refusal to let their planes land on Soviet territory, the low priority placed by Allied commanders on delivery flights to Poland and the extremely heavy losses sustained by Polish Special Duties Flight personnel. The Western Allies refused to provide significant supplies to the Home Army to avoid antagonizing Stalin.{{sfnp|Peszke|2013|loc=''passim''}} 

In the end, despite all efforts, most Home Army forces had inadequate weaponry. In 1944, when the Home Army was at its peak strength (200,000–600,000, according to various estimates), the Home Army had enough weaponry for only about 32,000 soldiers."{{r|Leslie|p=234}} On 1 August 1944, when the [[Warsaw Uprising]] began, only a sixth of Home Army fighters in Warsaw were armed.{{r|Leslie|p=234}}

==Relations with ethnic groups==

===Jews===
{{see also|The Holocaust in Poland|Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust}}
[[File:Gesiowka.jpg|thumb|Jewish prisoners of [[Gęsiówka|Gęsiówka concentration camp]] with Polish resistance fighters of the Home Army after the camp's liberation during the [[Warsaw Uprising]], August 1944]]
Home Army members' attitudes toward [[Jews]] varied widely from unit to unit,<ref name="Radzilowski"/><ref>{{cite book|author1=Robert D. Cherry|author2=Annamaria Orla-Bukowska|title=Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vkLTSB7NHwgC&pg=PA105|date=1 January 2007|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-4666-0|page=105}}</ref>{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=418}} and the topic remains controversial.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Jeffrey|last=Blutinger|jstor=10.5703/shofar.29.1.73|title=An Inconvenient Past: Post-Communist Holocaust Memorialization|journal=Shofar|volume=29|issue=1|pages=73–94|date=Fall 2010|doi=10.1353/sho.2010.0093|s2cid=144954562|issn=0882-8539 }}</ref> The Home Army answered to the National Council of the Polish government-in-exile, where some Jews served in leadership positions (e.g. [[Ignacy Schwarzbart]] and [[Szmul Zygielbojm]]),<ref>{{cite book|title=Jewish Responses to Persecution: 1938–1940|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphWriAuuJYC&pg=PA478|year=2011|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7591-2039-6|page=478}}</ref> though there were no Jewish representatives in the Government Delegation for Poland.{{r|Baumgarten 2009|p=110–114}} Traditionally, Polish historiography has presented the Home Army interactions with Jews in a positive light, while Jewish historiography has been mostly negative; most Jewish authors attribute the Home Army's hostility to endemic [[antisemitism in Poland]].<ref name="Armstrong 1994">{{cite journal |last1=Armstrong |first1=John Lowell |title=The Polish Underground and the Jews: A Reassessment of Home Army Commander Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski's Order 116 against Banditry |journal=The Slavonic and East European Review |date=1994 |volume=72 |issue=2 |pages=259–276 |jstor=4211476 |issn=0037-6795}}</ref> More recent scholarship has presented a mixed, ambivalent view of Home Army–Jewish relations. Both "profoundly disturbing acts of violence as well as extraordinary acts of aid and compassion" have been reported. In an analysis by [[Joshua D. Zimmerman]], postwar testimonies of Holocaust survivors reveal that their experiences with the Home Army were mixed even if predominantly negative.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zimmerman |first1=Joshua D. |author-link1=Joshua D. Zimmerman |title=The Polish Underground Home Army (AK) and the Jews: What Postwar Jewish Testimonies and Wartime Documents Reveal |journal=East European Politics and Societies and Cultures |date=2019 |volume=34 |pages=194–220 |doi=10.1177/0888325419844816|s2cid=204482531|doi-access=free }}</ref> Jews trying to seek refuge from Nazi genocidal policies were often exposed to greater danger by open resistance to German occupation.<ref name="Snyder 2015"/>{{rp|273}}

Members of the Home Army were named [[Righteous Among the Nations]] for risking their lives to save Jews, examples include [[Jan Karski]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=%20Jan%20Karski&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4043972&ind=0|title=Karski Jan|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database|access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref> [[Aleksander Kamiński]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=aleksander%20kaminski&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4015530&ind=0|title=Kamiński Aleksander|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database}}</ref> [[Stefan Korboński]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=Stefan%20Korbo%C5%84ski&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4015737&ind=0|title=Korbonski Stefan|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database|access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref> [[Henryk Woliński]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=Henryk%20Woli%C5%84ski&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4018283&ind=0|title=Woliński Henryk|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database|access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref> [[Jan Żabiński]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=Jan%20%C5%BBabi%C5%84ski&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4035464&ind=0|title=Żabiński Jan & Żabińska Antonina (Erdman)|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database|access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref> [[Władysław Bartoszewski]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw%20Bartoszewski&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4013821&ind=0|title=Bartoszewski Władysław|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database|access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref> [[Mieczysław Fogg]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=Mieczys%C5%82aw%20Fogg&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4014853&ind=0|title=Fogg Mieczyslaw|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database|access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref> [[Henryk Iwański]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=Henryk%20Iwa%C5%84ski&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4034632&ind=0|title=Iwański Henryk & Iwańska Wiktoria|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database|access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref> and [[Jan Dobraczyński]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=Jan%20Dobraczy%C5%84ski&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4014595&ind=0|title=Dobraczyński Jan|website=The Righteous Among The Nations Database|access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref> However, Polish historian Ewa Kołomańska noted that many individuals associated with the Home Army, involved in rescuing the Jews, did not receive the Righteous title.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last1=Kołomańska |first1=Ewa |url=https://bip.ipn.gov.pl/download/4/11804/Zalaczniknr2doSIWZMakieta.pdf |title=Żydzi i wojsko polskie w XIX i XX wieku |last2= |first2= |date=2020 |publisher=Instytut Pamięci Narodowej |isbn=978-83-8098-894-1 |editor-last=Domański |editor-first=Tomasz |location=Kielce Warszawa |pages=234-250 |chapter=Polskie podziemie niepodległościowe w ratowaniu Żydów na Kielecczyźnie w latach 1939–1945 |editor-last2=Majcher-Ociesa |editor-first2=Edyta}}</ref>{{Rp|page=243|quote=Jest też znaczna liczba osób powiązanych z AK, które tytułu Sprawiedliwy wśród
Narodów Świata nie otrzymały, jednak ich pomoc pozwoliła przeżyć wielu osobom
narodowości żydowskiej|translation=There is also a significant number of people associated with the Home Army who did not receive the title of Righteous Among the Nations, but their help allowed many people of Jewish nationality to survive.}}

==== Daily operations ====
A Jewish partisan detachment served in the 1944 [[Warsaw Uprising]],<ref>Powstanie warszawskie w walce i dyplomacji - page 23 Janusz Kazimierz Zawodny, Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert  2005</ref><ref name="Krakowski 2003"/> and another in {{ill|Hanaczów|pl|Hanaczów}}.<ref name="pis2003">{{cite journal|url=http://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Pamiec_i_Sprawiedliwosc/Pamiec_i_Sprawiedliwosc-r2003-t2-n2_(4)/Pamiec_i_Sprawiedliwosc-r2003-t2-n2_(4)-s271-300/Pamiec_i_Sprawiedliwosc-r2003-t2-n2_(4)-s271-300.pdf|journal=Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość [Memory and Justice]|volume=2|issue=4|date=2003|author=Adam Puławski|title=Postrzeganie żydowskich oddziałów partyzanckich przez Armię Krajową i Delegaturę Rządu RP na Kraj|page=287|language=pl|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230511122213/https://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Pamiec_i_Sprawiedliwosc/Pamiec_i_Sprawiedliwosc-r2003-t2-n2_(4)/Pamiec_i_Sprawiedliwosc-r2003-t2-n2_(4)-s271-300/Pamiec_i_Sprawiedliwosc-r2003-t2-n2_(4)-s271-300.pdf|archive-date= May 11, 2023}}</ref>{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=317}} The Home Army provided training and supplies to the [[Warsaw Ghetto]]'s [[Jewish Combat Organization]].<ref name="pis2003"/> It is likely that more Jews fought in the Warsaw Uprising than in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, some fought in both.<ref name="Snyder 2015"/>{{rp|273}} Thousands of Jews joined, or claimed to join, the Home Army in order to survive in hiding, but Jews serving in the Home Army were the exception rather than the rule. Most Jews in hiding could not pass as ethnic Poles and would have faced deadly consequences if discovered.{{sfn|Zimmerman|2015|p=5}}<ref name="Snyder 2015"/>{{rp|275}}

In February 1942, the Home Army Operational Command's Office of Information and Propaganda set up a Section for Jewish Affairs, directed by [[Henryk Woliński]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Wolinski.html|title=Henryk Wolinski|website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230509110612/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/henryk-wolinski|archive-date= May 9, 2023}}</ref> This section collected data about the situation of the Jewish population, drafted reports, and sent information to London. It also centralized contacts between Polish and Jewish military organizations. The Home Army also supported the [[Żegota|Relief Council for Jews in Poland]] (''Żegota'') as well as the formation of [[Jewish resistance under Nazi rule|Jewish resistance organizations]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=John Wolffe|author2=Open University|title=Religion in History: Conflict, Conversion and Coexistence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y-QedEtzRncC&pg=PA240|year=2004|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-7107-2|page=240}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|publisher=[[Yad Vashem]] Shoa Resource Center|url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/PDF_Articles/Activites_Zegota.pdf|title=Zegota, page 4/34 of the Report|access-date=17 March 2011|archive-date=21 November 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121061906/http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/PDF_Articles/Activites_Zegota.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Holocaust====
From 1940 onward, the Home Army courier [[Jan Karski]] delivered the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust to the Western powers, after having personally visited the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] and a Nazi concentration camp.{{r|Baumgarten 2009|p=110–114}}<ref name="CherryOrla-Bukowska2007">{{cite book|author1=Robert Cherry|author2=Annamaria Orla-Bukowska|title=Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gUp7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA119|date=7 June 2007|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1-4616-4308-1|pages=119–120}}</ref><ref name="Engel" />{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=54}} Another crucial role was played by [[Witold Pilecki]], who was the only person to volunteer to be imprisoned at [[Auschwitz]] (where he would spend three and a half years) to organize a resistance on the inside and to gather information on the atrocities occurring there to inform the Western Allies about [[The Holocaust|the fate of the Jewish population]].<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://time.com/5635746/the-remarkable-story-of-the-man-who-volunteered-to-enter-auschwitz-and-tell-the-world-about-it/|title=The Remarkable Story of the Man Who Volunteered to Enter Auschwitz|last=Ackerman|first=Elliot|date=26 July 2019|magazine=Time|access-date=9 December 2019|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230508130026/https://time.com/5635746/the-remarkable-story-of-the-man-who-volunteered-to-enter-auschwitz-and-tell-the-world-about-it/|archive-date= May 8, 2023}}</ref> Home Army reports from March 1943 described crimes committed by the Germans against the Jewish populace. AK commander General Stefan Rowecki estimated that 640,000 people had been murdered in Auschwitz between 1940 and March 1943, including 66,000 ethnic Poles and 540,000 Jews from various countries (this figure was revised later to 500,000).{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=188}} The Home Army started carrying out death sentences for [[szmalcownik]]s in Warsaw in the summer of 1943.<ref name="Drzewieniecki2019">{{cite book|editor=Joanna Drzewieniecki|author=Jarosław Piekałkiewicz|title=Dance with Death: A Holistic View of Saving Polish Jews during the Holocaust|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9W8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA256|date=30 November 2019|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7618-7167-5|pages=256–257}}</ref>

[[Antony Polonsky]] observed that "the attitude of the military underground to the genocide is both more complex and more controversial [than its approach towards ''[[szmalcownik]]s'']. Throughout the period when it was being carried out, the Home Army was preoccupied with preparing for ... [the moment when] Nazi rule in Poland collapsed. It was determined to avoid premature military action and to conserve its strength (and weapons) for the crucial confrontation that, it was assumed, would determine the fate of Poland. ... [However,] to the Home Army, the Jews were not a part of 'our nation' and ... action to defend them was not to be taken if it endangered [the Home Army's] other objectives." He added that "it is probably unrealistic to have expected the Home Army—which was neither as well armed nor as well organized as its propaganda claimed—to have been able to do much to aid the Jews. The fact remains that its leadership did not want to do so."{{r|Cesarani & Kavanaugh|p=68}} Rowecki's attitudes shifted in the following months as the brutal reality of the Holocaust became more apparent, and the Polish public support for the Jewish resistance increased. Rowecki was willing to provide Jewish fighters with aid and resources when it contributed to "the greater war effort", but had concluded that providing large quantities of supplies to the Jewish resistance would be futile. This reasoning was the norm among the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]], who believed that the Holocaust could only be halted by a significant military action.{{r|Baumgarten 2009|p=110–122}}

====Warsaw Ghetto Uprising====
{{Main|Warsaw Ghetto Uprising}}
The Home Army provided the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] with firearms, ammunition, and explosives,<ref name="Wdowiński">{{cite book |author=David Wdowiński |title=And we are not saved |year=1963 |page=222 |publisher=Philosophical Library |location=New York |isbn=0-8022-2486-5}} Note: Chariton and Lazar were never co-authors of Wdowiński's memoir. Wdowiński is considered the "single author."</ref> but only after it was convinced of the eagerness of the [[Jewish Combat Organization]] (''Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa'', ŻOB) to fight,{{r|Cesarani & Kavanaugh|p=67}} and after [[Władysław Sikorski]]'s intervention on the Organization's behalf.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rashke|first=Richard|title=Escape from Sobibor|orig-year=1983|year=1995|edition= 2nd|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0252064791|pages=416}}</ref> Zimmerman describes the supplies as "limited but real".{{r|Baumgarten 2009|p=121-122}} Jewish fighters of the [[Jewish Military Union]] (''Żydowski Związek Wojskowy'', ŻZW) received from the Home Army, among other things, 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns, 21 submachine guns, 30 rifles, 50 pistols, and over 400 grenades.{{sfnp|Lukas|2012|p=175}} Some supplies were also provided to the ŻOB, but less than to ŻZW with whom the Home Army had closer ties and ideological similarities.<ref name="Wdowiński2">{{cite book|author=[[Dawid Wdowiński|David Wdowiński]]|title=And we are not saved|publisher=Philosophical Library|year=1963|isbn=0-8022-2486-5|location=New York|page=222}} Note: Chariton and Lazar were never co-authors of Wdowiński's memoir. Wdowiński is considered the "single author".</ref> [[Antoni Chruściel]], commander of the Home Army in Warsaw, ordered the entire armory of the [[Wola (Warsaw)|Wola]] district transferred to the ghetto.<ref name=":3" /> In January 1943 the Home Army delivered a larger shipment of 50 pistols, 50 hand grenades, and several kilograms of explosives, along with a number of smaller shipments that carried a total of 70 pistols, 10 rifles, 2 hand machine guns, 1 light machine gun, ammunition, and over 150 kilograms of explosives.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="BaumgartenKenez2009-2">{{cite book|author=[[Peter Kenez]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPs1Vaf6F9QC&pg=PA110|title=The Attitude of the Polish Home Army (AK) to the Jewish Question during the Holocaust: the Case of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|date=January 2009|publisher=University of Delaware Press|isbn=978-0-87413-039-3|editor1=Murray Baumgarten|pages=121–122|editor2=[[Peter Kenez]]|editor3=Bruce Allan Thompson}}</ref> The number of supplies provided to the ghetto resistance has been sometimes described as insufficient, as the Home Army faced a number of dilemmas which forced it to provide no more than limited assistance to the Jewish resistance, such as supply shortages and the inability to arm its own troops, the view (shared by most of the Jewish resistance) that any wide-scale uprising in 1943 would be premature and futile, and the difficulty of coordinating with the internally divided Jewish resistance, coupled with the pro-Soviet attitude of the ŻOB.<ref name="MKPK-6">Monika Koszyńska, Paweł Kosiński, [https://web.archive.org/web/20230404031935/https://warszawa.ipn.gov.pl/download/88/138115/PomocAKdlaGetta1.pdf Pomoc Armii Krajowej dla powstańców żydowskich w getcie warszawskim (wiosna 1943 r.)], 2012, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. P.6. Quote: W okresie prowadzenia walki bieżącej ZWZ-AK stanowczo unikało starć zbrojnych, które byłyby skazane na niepowodzenie i okupione ofiarami o skali trudnej
do przewidzenia. To podstawowe założenie w praktyce uniemożliwiało AK czynne wystąpienie po stronie Żydów planujących demonstracje zbrojne w likwidowanych przez Niemców gettach... Kłopotem była też niemożność wytypowania przez rozbitą wewnętrznie konspirację żydowską przedstawicieli do prowadzenia rozmów z dowództwem AK.... Ograniczony rozmiar akowskiej pomocy związany był ze stałymi niedoborami uzbrojenia własnych oddziałów... oraz z lewicowym (prosowieckim) obliczem ŻOB...</ref><ref name=":3" /> During the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Home Army units tried to blow up the Ghetto wall twice, carried out diversionary actions outside the Ghetto walls, and attacked German sentries sporadically near the Ghetto walls.<ref name="MKPK-10-18">Monika Koszyńska, Paweł Kosiński, [https://web.archive.org/web/20230404031935/https://warszawa.ipn.gov.pl/download/88/138115/PomocAKdlaGetta1.pdf Pomoc Armii Krajowej dla powstańców żydowskich w getcie warszawskim (wiosna 1943 r.)], 2012, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. P.10-18</ref><ref name="Zimmerman2015-217218">{{cite book|author=Joshua D. Zimmerman|title=The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w4dsCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA217|date=5 June 2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-01426-8|pages=217–218}}</ref> According to [[Marian Fuks (historian)|Marian Fuks]], the Ghetto uprising would not have been possible without supplies from the Polish Home Army.<ref>{{cite interview|url=http://publica.pl/teksty/zimmerman-podziemie-polskie-a-zydzi-solidarnosc-zdrada-i-wszystko-pomiedzy-53475.html|title=Zimmerman: Podziemie polskie a Żydzi. Solidarność, zdrada i wszystko pomiędzy|language=pl|trans-title=Zimmerman: Polish underground and Jews. Solidarity, betrayal and everything in between|subject=Joshua D. Zimmerman|interviewer=Filip Mazurczak|date=October 9, 2015|website=ResPublica}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Fuks|first=Marian|author-link=Marian Fuks (historian)|date=1989|title=Pomoc Polaków bojownikom getta warszawskiego|trans-title=Assistance of Poles in the Warsaw ghetto uprising|url=https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/787962/145/|journal=Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego|language=pl|volume=1|issue=149|pages=43–52, 144|quote=Without assistance of Poles and even their active participation in some actions, without the supply of arms from the Polish underground movement - the outbreak of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto was impossible.}}</ref>

A year later, during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the [[Batalion Zośka|Zośka Battalion]] liberated hundreds of Jewish inmates from the [[Gęsiówka]] section of the [[Warsaw concentration camp]].<ref name="Snyder 2015"/>{{rp|275}}

====Attitude to fugitives====
[[File:Biuletyn Informacyjny 2 września 1943.JPG|thumb|1943 ''[[Biuletyn Informacyjny|Information Bulletin]]'' article on ''[[Kedyw]]'' execution of ''[[szmalcownik]]'' Jan Grabiec, who had blackmailed residents of villages that hid Jews]]
Because it was the largest Polish resistance organization, the Home Army's attitude towards Jewish fugitives often determined their fate.<ref name="Armstrong 1994"/> According to Antony Polonsky the Home Army saw Jewish fugitives as security risks.{{r|Cesarani & Kavanaugh|p=66|q=In general, though, the Home Army tended to see individual Jewish fugitives as security risks that were likely to endanger its own position.}} At the same time, AK's "paper mills" supplied [[Identity document forgery|forged identification documents]] to many Jewish fugitives, enabling them to pass as Poles.<ref name="Snyder 2015"/>{{rp|275}} Home Army published a leaflet in 1943 stating that "Every Pole is obligated to help those in hiding. Those who refuse them aid will be punished on the basis of...treason to the Polish Nation".{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=194}} Nevertheless, Jewish historians have asserted that the main cause for the low survival rates of escaping Jews was the [[antisemitism]] of the Polish population.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Wilhelm Heitmeyer|author2=John Hagan|title=International Handbook of Violence Research|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A4mqsik_VDcC&pg=PA154|date=19 December 2005|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4020-3980-5|page=154}}</ref>

Attitudes towards Jews in the Home Army were mixed.{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=418}} A few AK units actively hunted down Jews,{{r|Bauer 1989|p=238}}{{r|Connelly 2012}} and in particular two district commanders in the northeast of Poland (Władysław Liniarski of Białystok and Janusz Szlaski of Nowogródek) openly and routinely persecuted Jewish partisans and fugitives;{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|pp=267-298}} however, these were the only two provinces, out of seventeen, where such orders were issued by provincial commanders.<ref>Zimmerman, Joshua D. (2 July 2015). "Rethinking the Polish Underground". Interview in Yeshiva University News.</ref> The extent of such behaviors in the Home Army overall has been disputed;{{r|Piotrowski|pp=88-90}}<ref name="Eliach"/> [[Tadeusz Piotrowski (sociologist)|Tadeusz Piotrowski]] wrote that the bulk of the Home Army's antisemitic behavior can be ascribed to a small minority of members,{{r|Piotrowski|pp=88–90}} often affiliated with the far-right [[National Democracy (Poland)|National Democracy]] (ND, or ''Endecja'') party, whose [[National Armed Forces]] organization was mostly integrated into the Home Army in 1944.{{r|Paulsson 2002|p=17}}{{r|Paulsson 2002|p=45}} [[Adam Puławski]] has suggested that some of these incidents are better understood in the context of the Polish–Soviet conflict, as some of the [[Soviet partisans in Poland|Soviet-affiliated partisan units]] that AK units attacked or was attacked by had a sizable Jewish presence.<ref name="pis2003"/> In general, AK units in the east were more likely to be hostile towards Jewish partisans, who in turn were more closely associated with the Soviet underground, while AK units in the west were more helpful towards the Jews. The Home Army had a more favorable attitude towards Jewish civilians and was more hesitant or hostile towards independent Jewish partisans, whom it suspected of pro-Soviet sympathies.{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=299}} General Rowecki believed that antisemitic attitudes in eastern Poland were related to Jewish involvement with Soviet partisans.{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=189}} Some AK units were friendly to Jews,{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=346}} and in Hanaczów Home Army officers hid and protected an entire 250-person Jewish community, and supplied a Jewish Home Army platoon.{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|pp=314-318}} The Home Army leadership punished a number of perpetrators of antisemitic violence in its ranks, in some cases sentencing them to death.{{r|Piotrowski|pp=88-90}}

Most of the underground press was sympathetic towards Jews,{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=188}} and the Home Army's Bureau of Information and Propaganda was led by operatives who were pro-Jewish and represented the liberal wing of Home Army;{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=188}} however, the bureau's anti-communist sub-division, created as a response to communist propaganda, was led by operatives who held strong anti-communist and anti-Jewish views, including the ''[[Żydokomuna]]'' stereotype.<ref>{{cite news|last=Zalesiński|first=Łukasz|date=2017|title=Żołnierze akcji "Antyk" kontra komuniści|work=Polska Zbrojna|url=http://www.polska-zbrojna.pl/home/articleshow/23942?t=Zolnierze-akcji-Antyk-kontra-komunisci}}</ref>{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|p=188}} The perceived association between Jews and communists was actively reinforced by [[Operation Antyk]], whose initial reports "tended to conflate communists with Jews, dangerously disseminating the notion that Jewish loyalties were to Soviet Russia and communism rather than to Poland", and which repeated the notion that antisemitism was a "useful tool in the struggle against Soviet Russia".{{sfnp|Zimmerman|2015|pp=208, 357}}

===Lithuanians===
{{further|Polish–Lithuanian relations during World War II}}
[[File:Aleksander Krzyzanowski.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Aleksander Krzyżanowski]], [[Wilno]]-region Home Army commander]]
Although the [[Resistance in Lithuania during World War II|Lithuanian]] and Polish resistance movements had common enemies—Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—they began working together only in 1944–1945, after the Soviet reoccupation, when both fought the Soviet occupiers.<ref>{{in lang|lt}} [[Arūnas Bubnys]]. [http://www.genocid.lt/Leidyba/7/arunas7.htm ''Lietuvių ir lenkų pasipriešinimo judėjimai 1942–1945&nbsp;m.: sąsajos ir skirtumai''] (Lithuanian and Polish resistance movements 1942–1945), 30 January 2004</ref> The main obstacle to unity was a long-standing territorial dispute over the Vilnius Region.<ref name="Petersen 2002" />

The [[Lithuanian Activist Front]] (''Lietuvos Aktyvistų Frontas'', or LAF){{r|Piotrowski|p=163}} cooperated with Nazi operations against Poles during the German occupation. In autumn 1943, the Home Army carried retaliatory out operations against the Nazis' Lithuanian supporters, mainly the Lithuanian ''[[Schutzmannschaft]]'' battalions, the [[Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force]], and the [[Lithuanian Secret Police]],<ref name="Snyder 2003" /> killing hundreds of mostly Lithuanian policemen and other collaborators during the first half of 1944. In response, the [[Ypatingasis būrys|Lithuanian Sonderkommando]], who had already killed hundreds of Polish civilians since 1941 (particularly the [[Ponary massacre]]),{{r|Piotrowski|pp=168–169}} intensified their operations against the Poles.

In April 1944, the Home Army in the Vilnius Region attempted to open negotiations with [[Povilas Plechavičius]], commander of the [[Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force]], and proposed a non-aggression pact and cooperation against Nazi Germany.<ref name="Piskunowicz 1996" /> The Lithuanian side refused and demanded that the Poles either leave the Vilnius region (disputed between Poles and Lithuanians) or subordinate themselves to the Lithuanians' struggle against the Soviets.<ref name="Piskunowicz 1996" /> In the May 1944 [[Battle of Murowana Oszmianka]], the Home Army dealt a substantial blow to the Nazi-sponsored [[Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force]],{{r|Piotrowski|pp=165–166}}<ref name="Boradyn" /> which resulted in a low-level civil war between anti-Nazi Poles and pro-Nazi Lithuanians that was encouraged by the German authorities;<ref name="Snyder 2003" /> it culminated in the June 1944 massacres of Polish and Lithuanian civilians in the villages of [[Glinciszki massacre|Glitiškės]] (Glinciszki) and [[Dubingiai massacre|Dubingiai]] (Dubinki) respectively.{{r|Piotrowski|pp=168–169}}

Postwar assessments of the Home Army's activities in Lithuania have been controversial. In 1993, the Home Army's activities there were investigated by a special Lithuanian government commission. Only in recent years have Polish and Lithuanian historians been able to approach consensus, though still differing in their interpretations of many events.<ref name="GW 2004" /><ref name="Dovile" />

===Ukrainians===
{{See also|Poland–Ukraine relations||Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia}}
[[File:Wolyn zbrodnie en.png|thumb|[[Volhynia]] self-defense centers organized with Home Army help, 1943]]
In the Southeastern part of occupied Polish territories, there have been long-standing tensions between the Polish and Ukrainian populations. Poland's plans to restore its prewar borders were opposed by the Ukrainians, and some Ukrainian groups' collaboration with Nazi Germany had discredited their partisans as potential Polish allies.<ref name="Snyder 1999" /> While the Polish government-in-exile considered tentative plans about providing a limited autonomy for Ukrainians, in 1942 the staff of the Home Army of [[Lviv]] recommended deporting 1–1.5 million Ukrainians to the Soviet Union and settling the remainder in other parts of Poland once the war ended.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mick|first=Christoph|date=2011-04-07|title=Incompatible Experiences: Poles, Ukrainians and Jews in Lviv under Soviet and German Occupation, 1939-44|journal=Journal of Contemporary History|volume=46|issue=2|pages=336–363|doi=10.1177/0022009410392409|s2cid=159856277|url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/35661/1/0170657-lb-250711-wrap_mick_aufsatz3_2.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230225101956/http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/35661/1/0170657-lb-250711-wrap_mick_aufsatz3_2.pdf|archive-date= February 25, 2023}}</ref> The situation escalated the next year when the [[Ukrainian Insurgent Army]] (Українська повстанська армія, ''Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiya'', UPA), a Ukrainian nationalist force and the military arm of the [[Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists]] (Організація Українських Націоналістів, ''Orhanizatsiya Ukrayins'kykh Natsionalistiv'', OUN),<ref name="Marples286">{{cite book |title=Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine |first1=David R. |last1=Marples |author-link=David R. Marples |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bGPjqNGPc40C&q=Fascists%20Union&pg=PA285 |publisher=Central European University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-9637326981 |pages=285–286}}</ref> directed most of its attacks against Poles and Jews.<ref name="Cooke">{{cite book|last1=Cooke|first1=Philip|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HDpgBgAAQBAJ&q=ethnically+pure|title=Hitler's Europe Ablaze: Occupation, Resistance, and Rebellion during World War II|last2=Shepherd|first2=Ben|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing|year=2014|isbn=978-1-63220-159-1|pages=336–337|quote=Jews who had escaped the Holocaust, and a large Polish minority, passionately hated UPA because it engaged in thorough ethnic cleansing, killing all the Jews it could find, about 50,000 Poles in Volhynia and between 20,000 and 30,000 Poles in Galicia.|author-link=Ben H. Shepherd}}</ref> [[Stepan Bandera]], one of UPA's leaders, and his followers concluded that the war would end in the exhaustion of both Germany and the Soviet Union, leaving only the Poles—who laid claim to [[East Galicia]] (viewed by the Ukrainians as [[western Ukraine]], and by the Poles as ''[[Kresy]]'')—as a significant force, and therefore the Poles had to be weakened before the war's end.<ref name="Snyder 1999"/>

The OUN decided to attack Polish civilians, who constituted about a third of the population of the disputed territories.<ref name="Snyder 1999"/> It equated Ukrainian independence with ethnic homogeneity, which meant the Polish presence had to be completely removed.<ref name="Snyder 1999"/> By February 1943 the OUN began a deliberate campaign of killing Polish civilians.<ref name="Snyder 1999"/> In [[massacres of Poles in Volhynia]] and Eastern Galicia, beginning in the spring of 1943, 100,000 Poles were killed.{{sfnp|Motyka|2011|pp=447–448}}<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=The Effects of the Volhynian Massacres|url=https://volhyniamassacre.eu/zw2/history/179,The-Effects-of-the-Volhynian-Massacres.html|access-date=2019-11-18|website=1943 Volhynia Massacre. Truth and Remembrance|publisher=Institute of National Remembrance}}</ref><ref>J. P. Himka. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130423172827/http://www.foa.ualberta.ca/en/Research/~/media/arts/Research/celebration_jph_march28.pdf Interventions: Challenging the Myths of Twentieth-Century Ukrainian history]. University of Alberta. 28 March 2011. p. 4</ref> OUN forces targeted Polish villages, which prompted the formation of Polish self-defense units (e.g., the [[Przebraże Defence]]) and fights between the Home Army and the OUN.<ref name="Snyder 1999"/>{{sfnp|Motyka|2006|p=324}}{{sfnp|Motyka|2006|p=390}} The Germans encouraged both sides against each other; [[Erich Koch]] said: "We have to do everything possible so that a Pole, when meeting a Ukrainian, will be ready to kill him, and conversely, a Ukrainian will be ready to kill the Pole."  A German commissioner from [[Sarny]], when local Poles complained about massacres, answered: "You want [[Władysław Sikorski|Sikorski]], the Ukrainians want Bandera. Fight each other."<ref name="Kiriczuk 2003" /> On 10 July 1943, [[Zygmunt Rumel]] was sent to talk with local Ukrainians with the goal of ending the massacres; the mission was unsuccessful, and the [[Banderites]] killed the Polish delegation.{{sfnp|Motyka|2006|p=327}} On 20 July that year the Home Army command decided to establish partisan units in Volhynia. Several formations were created, most notably, in January 1944, the [[27th Home Army Infantry Division (Poland)|27th Home Army Infantry Division]]. Between January and March 1944, the division fought 16 major battles with the UPA, expanding its operational base and securing Polish forces against the main attack.{{sfnp|Motyka|2006|pp=358–360}} One of the largest battles between the Home Army and the UPA took place in {{ill|Defense of Hanaczów|lt=Hanaczów|pl|Obrona Hanaczowa|WD=}}, where local self-defence forces managed to fend off two attacks.{{sfnp|Motyka|2006|pp=382, 387}} In March 1944 the Home Army also carried out reprisal attack against UPA in the village of [[Sahryń]], remembered as "[[Sahryń massacre]]", ended in ethnic cleansing operations in which about 700 Ukrainian civilians were killed.<ref name="RDRNAT">[https://books.google.com/books?id=oGmTs2SceAgC&dq=%22Overcoming+Ukrainian+Resistance%22&pg=PA173  Marek Jasiak, "Overcoming Ukrainian Resistance"] ''in:'' {{cite book | title=Redrawing nations: ethnic cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948 |author1=Ther, Philipp |author2=Siljak, Ana | year=2001 | publisher=Rowman & Littfield | location=Oxford | page=174}}</ref>

The Polish government-in-exile in London was taken by surprise; it did not expect Ukrainian anti-Polish actions of such magnitude.<ref name="Snyder 1999" /> There is no evidence that the Polish government-in-exile contemplated a general policy of revenge against the Ukrainians, but local Poles, including Home Army commanders, engaged in retaliatory actions.<ref name="Snyder 1999" /> Polish partisans attacked the OUN, assassinated Ukrainian commanders, and carried out operations against Ukrainian villages.<ref name="Snyder 1999" /> Retaliatory operations aimed at intimidating the Ukrainian population contributed to increased support for the UPA.{{sfnp|Motyka|2016|p=110}} The Home Army command tried to limit operations against Ukrainian civilians to a minimum.{{sfnp|Motyka|2006|p=413}} According to [[Grzegorz Motyka]], the Polish operations resulted in 10,000 to 15,000 Ukrainian deaths in 1943–47,{{sfnp|Motyka|2016|p=120}} including 8,000-10,000 on territory of post-war Poland.{{sfnp|Motyka|2011|p=448}}<ref>Anna Kondek, [http://nauka.pap.pl/palio/html.run?_Instance=cms_nauka.pap.pl&_PageID=7&dep=272760&_CheckSum=534820480 Ukaże się nowa publikacja o konflikcie polsko-ukraińskim], PAP, 2011-02-20. {{Retrieved | access-date=2015-05-13}}</ref> From February to April 1945, mainly in ''Rzeszowszczyzna'' (the [[Rzeszów]] area), Polish units (including affiliates of the Home Army) carried out retaliatory attacks in which about 3,000 Ukrainians were killed; one of the most infamous ones is known as the [[Pawłokoma massacre]].{{sfnp|Motyka|2006|p=578}}<ref name="Rapawy">{{cite book|last=Rapawy|first=Stephen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utd1CwAAQBAJ&q=Paw%25C5%2582okoma%2520Biss&pg=PA220|title=The Culmination of Conflict: The Ukrainian-Polish Civil War and the Expulsion of Ukrainians After the Second World War|date=3 May 2016|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-3-8382-6855-2|pages=220}}</ref>

By mid-1944, most of the disputed regions were occupied by the Soviet Red Army. Polish partisans disbanded or went underground, as did most Ukrainian partisans. Both the Poles and the Ukrainians would increasingly concentrate on the Soviets as their primary enemy&nbsp;– and both would ultimately fail.<ref name="Snyder 1999" />

==Relations with the Soviet Union==
{{further|Soviet partisans in Poland}}
[[File:19440712 soviet and ak soldiers vilnius.jpg|thumb|Soviet and Home Army soldiers patrol together, [[Vilnius Offensive|Wilno]], July 1944]]
Home Army relations with the Soviet [[Red Army]] grew worse as the war progressed. The [[Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)|Soviet Union invaded Poland]] on 17 September 1939 after the [[Invasion of Poland (1939)|German invasion]] that began on 1 September 1939; even though the [[Operation Barbarossa|Germans invaded the Soviet Union]] in June 1941, the Soviets saw [[Polish Underground State|Polish partisans]] loyal to the Polish government-in-exile more as a potential obstacle to Soviet plans to control postwar Poland than as a potential ally.<ref name="Chod" />{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=May 2025}} On orders from the Soviet ''[[Stavka]]'' (high command) issued on 22 June 1943,{{r|Piotrowski|pp=98–99}}{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=May 2025}} Soviet partisans engaged Polish partisans in combat; it has also been claimed that they attacked the Poles more frequently than the Germans.<ref name="Chod" />{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=May 2025}}

In late 1943 the actions of Soviet partisans, who had been ordered to destroy Home Army forces,{{r|Piotrowski|pp=98–99}} even resulted in limited uneasy cooperation between some Home Army units and German forces.{{r|Piotrowski|pp=88–90}} While the Home Army still treated the Germans as the enemy and conducted operations against them,{{r|Piotrowski|pp=88–90}} some Polish units in the [[Nowogródek]] and [[Wilno]] areas accepted them when the Germans offered arms and supplies to the Home Army to be used against the Soviet partisans. However, such arrangements were purely tactical and indicated no ideological collaboration, as demonstrated by France's [[Vichy regime]] or Norway's [[Quisling regime]].{{r|Piotrowski|pp=88–90}} The Poles' main motive was to acquire intelligence on the Germans and to obtain much-needed equipment.<ref name="Radzilowski" /> There were no known joint Polish–German operations, and the Germans were unsuccessful in recruiting the Poles to fight exclusively against the Soviet partisans.{{r|Piotrowski|pp=88–90}} Furthermore, most cooperative efforts between local Home Army commanders and the Germans were condemned by Home Army headquarters.{{r|Piotrowski|pp=88–90}}

With the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] entering Polish territories in 1944, the Home Army established an uneasy truce with the Soviets. Even so, the main [[Red Army]] and [[NKVD]] forces conducted operations against Home Army partisans, including during or directly after Poland's [[Operation Tempest]], which the Poles had envisioned to be a joint Polish–Soviet operation against the retreating Germans which would also establish Polish claims to those territories.<ref name="Rzecz" />{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly / not English|date=November 2019}} The Home Army helped Soviet units with scouting assistance, uprisings, and assistance in liberating some cities (e.g., [[Operation Ostra Brama]] in [[Vilnius]], and the [[Lwów Uprising]]), only to find that Home Army troops were arrested, imprisoned, or executed immediately afterwards.<ref name="Crampton 1994" /> 

[[#Postwar|Long after the war]], Soviet forces continued engaging many Home Army soldiers, who received the moniker of "[[cursed soldiers]]".<ref name="Rzecz" />{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly / not English|date=November 2019}}

==Postwar==
{{See also|Cursed soldiers}}
[[File:Moscow Trial 1945.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|June 1945 [[Moscow]] [[Trial of the Sixteen|show trial of 16 Polish civil and Home Army leaders]]. They were convicted of "planning military action against the U.S.S.R." In March 1945 they had been invited to help organize a Polish Government of National Unity and were arrested by the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[NKVD]]. Despite the court's lenience, 6 years later only two of the men were alive.]]

The Home Army was officially disbanded on 19 January 1945 to avoid civil war and armed conflict with the Soviets. However, many former Home Army units decided to continue operations. The Soviet Union, and the [[Provisional Government of National Unity|Polish communist government]] that it controlled, viewed the underground, still loyal to the Polish government-in-exile, as a force to be extirpated before they could gain complete control of Poland. Future [[Secretary General]] of the [[Polish United Workers' Party]], [[Władysław Gomułka]], is quoted as saying: "Soldiers of the AK are a hostile element which must be removed without mercy." Another prominent Polish communist, [[Roman Zambrowski]], said that the Home Army had to be "exterminated."<ref name="Rzecz"/>{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly / not English|date=November 2019}}

The first Home Army structure designed primarily to deal with the Soviet threat had been [[NIE (resistance)|NIE]], formed in mid-1943. Its aim was not to engage Soviet forces in combat, but to observe them and to gather intelligence while the Polish Government-in-Exile decided how to deal with the Soviets; at that time, the exiled government still believed in the possibility of constructive negotiations with the Soviets. On 7 May 1945 NIE was disbanded and transformed into the [[Armed Forces Delegation for Poland]] (''Delegatura Sił Zbrojnych na Kraj''), but it was disbanded on 8 August 1945 to stop partisan resistance.<ref name="Rzecz"/>{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly / not English|date=November 2019}}

The first Polish communist government formed in July 1944—the [[Polish Committee of National Liberation]]—declined to accept jurisdiction over Home Army soldiers; as a result, for over a year [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] agencies such as the [[NKVD]] took responsibility for disarming the Home Army. By the end of the war, around 60,000 Home Army soldiers were arrested, 50,000 of whom were deported to Soviet [[gulag]]s and prisons; most of these soldiers had been taken captive by the Soviets during or after [[Operation Tempest]] when many Home Army units tried to work together with the Soviets in a nationwide uprising against the Germans. Other Home Army veterans were arrested when they approached Polish communist government officials after having been promised [[amnesty]]. Home Army soldiers stopped trusting the government after a number of broken promises in the first few years of communist control.<ref name="Rzecz"/>{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly / not English|date=November 2019}}

The third post-Home Army organization was [[Freedom and Independence]] (''Wolność i Niezawisłość'', WiN). Its primary goal was not fighting; rather, it was designed to help Home Army soldiers transition from partisan to civilian life; while secrecy was necessary in light of increasing persecution of Home Army veterans by the communist government.<ref name="Korboński">{{cite book |author=Stefan Korboński |title=Warsaw in Chains |year=1959 |pages=112–123 |publisher=Macmillan Publishing |location=New York |author-link=Stefan Korboński }}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly /outdated|date=October 2020}} WiN was in great need of funds to pay for false documents and provide resources for the partisans, many of whom had lost their homes and life savings in the war. WiN was far from efficient: it was viewed as an enemy of the state, starved of resources, and a vocal faction advocated armed resistance against the Soviets and their Polish proxies. In the second half of 1945, the Soviet [[NKVD]] and the newly created Polish secret police, the [[Urząd Bezpieczeństwa|Department of Security]] (''Urząd Bezpieczeństwa'', UB), managed to convince several Home Army and WiN leaders that they wanted to offer [[amnesty]] to Home Army members, and gained information about large numbers of Home Army and WiN people and resources in the following months. By the time the (imprisoned) Home Army and WiN leaders realised their mistake, the organizations had been crippled, with thousands of their members arrested. WiN was finally disbanded in 1952. By 1947 a colonel of the communist forces declared that "The terrorist and political underground [had] ceased to be a threatening force, though there [were] still men of the forests" to be dealt with.<ref name="Rzecz"/>{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly / not English|date=November 2019}}

[[File:Home Army Members 11 Nov. 2008 Sanok.JPG|thumb|Home Army veterans at [[Sanok]], Poland, 11 November 2008]]
The persecution of the Home Army was only part of the [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] repressions in Poland. In 1944–56, approximately 2 million people were arrested; over 20,000, including Pilecki, organizer of the resistance in [[Auschwitz]], were executed in communist prisons, and 6 million Polish citizens (every third adult Pole) were classified as "reactionary" or "criminal elements", and were subjected to spying by state agencies.<ref name="Rzecz"/>{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly / not English|date=November 2019}}

Most Home Army soldiers were captured by the [[NKVD]] or by Poland's UB political police. They were interrogated and imprisoned on various charges such as "fascism".<ref name="Paczkowski"/><ref>Michał Zając, ''[http://www.polskieradio.pl/zagranica/dokument.aspx?iid=39960 Warsaw Uprising: 5 pm, 1 August 1944]'', Retrieved on 4 July 2007.</ref> Many were sent to [[Gulag]]s, executed, or "disappeared".<ref name="Paczkowski"/> For example, all the members of ''Batalion Zośka'', which had fought in the [[Warsaw Uprising]], were locked up in communist prisons between 1944 and 1956.<ref>Żołnierze Batalionu Armii Krajowej "Zośka" represjonowani w latach 1944–1956," Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warszawa 2008, {{ISBN|978-83-60464-92-2}}</ref> In 1956 an amnesty released 35,000 former Home Army soldiers from prisons.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Persak|first=Krzysztof|date=December 2006|title=The Polish – Soviet Confrontation in 1956 and the Attempted Soviet Military Intervention in Poland.|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=58|issue=8|pages=1285–1310|doi=10.1080/09668130600996549|s2cid=154565213}}</ref>

Even then, some partisans remained in the countryside, and were unwilling or unable to rejoin the community; they became known as the cursed soldiers. Stanisław Marchewka "Ryba" was killed in 1957, and the last AK partisan, [[Józef Franczak|Józef "Lalek" Franczak]], was killed in 1963&nbsp;– almost two decades after World War II had ended. It was only four years later, in 1967, that [[Adam Boryczka]]—a soldier of AK and a member of the elite, Britain-trained [[Cichociemny]] ("Silent Unseen") intelligence and support group—was released from prison. Until the end of the [[People's Republic of Poland]], Home Army soldiers remained under investigation by the secret police, and it was only in 1989, after the [[Revolutions of 1989|fall of communism]], that the sentences of Home Army soldiers were finally declared null and void by Polish courts.<ref name="Rzecz"/>{{Better source needed|reason=not scholarly / not English|date=November 2019}}

Many monuments to the Home Army have since been erected in Poland, including the Polish Underground State and Home Army Monument near the [[Sejm]] building in Warsaw, unveiled in 1999.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://polska.newsweek.pl/panstwo-podziemne-jest-wzorem-dla-wspolczesnych,62725,1,1.html |title=Państwo Podziemne było fenomenem na skalę światową |work=Polska Newsweek |date=2010-01-08 |access-date=19 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224111635/http://polska.newsweek.pl/panstwo-podziemne-jest-wzorem-dla-wspolczesnych,62725,1,1.html |archive-date=24 December 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://puszka.waw.pl/pomnik_polskiego_panstwa_podziemnego_i_armii_krajowej-projekt-pl-788.html |title=Pomnik Polskiego Państwa Podziemnego i Armii Krajowej / pomnik / Jerzy Staniszkis |language=pl |publisher=Puszka.waw.pl |access-date=19 November 2013}}</ref> The Home Army is also commemorated in the [[Armia Krajowa Museum in Kraków|Home Army Museum in Kraków]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.muzeum-ak.pl/index.php|title=Muzeum Armii Krajowej im. Gen. Emila Fieldorfa "Nila" w Krakowie|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015192330/http://www.muzeum-ak.pl/index.php|archive-date=15 October 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref> and in the [[Warsaw Uprising Museum]] in Warsaw.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.1944.pl/ |title=Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego |publisher=1944.pl |access-date=19 November 2013}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Gray Ranks]]
* [[Polish contribution to World War II]]
* [[Polish resistance movement in World War II]]
* [[Western betrayal]]

==Notes==
{{notelist|refs=
{{efn|name=a|1=A number of sources say that the Home Army was the largest resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe. [[Norman Davies]] writes that "Armia Krajowa (Home Army), the AK, ... could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance [organizations]."<ref name="Davies2005">{{cite book|author=Norman Davies|title=God's Playground: 1795 to the present|url=https://archive.org/details/godsplaygroundhi00norm_0|url-access=registration|access-date=30 May 2012|date=28 February 2005|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-12819-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/godsplaygroundhi00norm_0/page/344 344]}}</ref> Gregor Dallas writes that the "Home Army (Armia Krajowa or AK) in late 1943 numbered around 400,000, making it the largest resistance organization in Europe."<ref name="Dallas2005">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LXdVF6LmTa8C&pg=PA79|title=1945: The War that Never Ended|author=Gregor Dallas|publisher=[[Yale University Press]]|year=2005|isbn=978-0-300-10980-1|page=79}}</ref> Mark Wyman writes that "Armia Krajowa was considered the largest underground resistance unit in wartime Europe."<ref name="Wyman1998">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lHNw7MnsmlYC&pg=PA34|title=DPs: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945–51|author=Mark Wyman|date=18 June 1998|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=0-8014-8542-8|page=34}}</ref> The numbers of [[Soviet partisans]] were very similar to those of the Polish resistance.<ref>[[Walter Laqueur]], ''The Guerilla Reader: A Historical Anthology'', New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990, p. 233.</ref><ref>Leonid D. Grenkevich, ''The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941–44: A Critical Historiographical Analysis'', p. 229.</ref>}}
}}

==References==
;Notes
{{reflist|2|refs=

<ref name="Bauer 1989">{{Cite book| edition=  1st American | publisher = Schocken Books| isbn = 978-0-8052-4051-1 | pages = 235–251| editor = François Furet | last = Bauer| first = Yehuda| title = Unanswered questions: Nazi Germany and the genocide of the Jews| chapter = Jewish Resistance and Passivity in the Face of the Holocaust| location = New York| date = 1989}}</ref>

<ref name="Baumgarten 2009">{{cite book|editor1=Murray Baumgarten|editor2=Peter Kenez|editor3=Bruce Allan Thompson|author=Joshua D. Zimmerman|title=Case of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising |work=The Attitude of the Polish Home Army (AK) to the Jewish Question during the Holocaust|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPs1Vaf6F9QC&pg=PA110|date=January 2009|publisher=University of Delaware Press|isbn=978-0-87413-039-3}}</ref>

<ref name="Boradyn">{{in lang|pl}} Henryk Piskunowicz, ''Działalnośc zbrojna Armi Krajowej na Wileńszczyśnie w latach 1942–1944'' in {{cite book | author =Zygmunt Boradyn |author2=Andrzej Chmielarz|author3=Henryk Piskunowicz | title =Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1941–1945) | year =1997 | editor =[[Tomasz Strzembosz]] | pages =40–45 | publisher =Institute of Political Sciences, [[Polish Academy of Sciences]] | location =Warsaw | isbn=((83-907168-0-3)) }}</ref>

<ref name="Cesarani & Kavanaugh">{{cite book| publisher = Routledge| isbn = 978-0-415-27509-5 | volume = 5| editor1 = David Cesarani |editor2=Sarah Kavanaugh | title = Holocaust: Responses to the persecution and mass murder of the Jews| location = London / New York |series = Holocaust: critical concepts in historical studies| date = 2004}} {{page needed|date=November 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="Chod">{{cite journal|url=http://www.ruf.rice.edu/%7Esarmatia/406/262choda.html|title=Review of ''Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrußland''|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120718034701/http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/406/262choda.html|archive-date=18 July 2012|author=Marek Jan Chodakiewicz|journal=[[Sarmatian Review]]|date=April 2006|author-link=Marek Jan Chodakiewicz}}</ref>

<ref name="Connelly 2012">{{cite news |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/noble-and-base-poland-and-holocaust/ |title=The Noble and the Base: Poland and the Holocaust |last=Connelly |first=John |date=2012-11-14 |work=The Nation |access-date=2018-04-22 |language=en-US |issn=0027-8378 |archive-date=23 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180223232415/https://www.thenation.com/article/noble-and-base-poland-and-holocaust/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

<ref name="Crampton 1994">{{cite book |last=Crampton |first=R.J. |title=Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Ro-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA197|year=1994|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-05346-4|pages=197–198}}</ref>

<ref name="Dovile">{{cite book |last=Dovile |first=Budryte |title=Taming Nationalism? |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|date=30 September 2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UJMzpeUHkQcC&pg=PA187 |isbn=0-7546-4281-X}} p.187</ref>

<ref name="Eliach">{{cite news |last=Eliach |first=Yaffa |title=The Pogrom at Eishyshok |url=https://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/27opclassic.html |newspaper=The New York Times |year=2009 |orig-year=1996 |access-date=27 September 2009}}</ref>

<ref name="Embassy PR 2006">{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20051017065000/http://www.polishembassy.ca/files/Polish%20Armed%20Forces%20in%20WWII%20eng.pdf Polish contribution to the Allied victory in World War 2 (1939–1945)]}}. Publications of Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Canada. Retrieved 21 December 2006.</ref>

<ref name="Enc. PWN: AK">{{cite web|language=pl|url=http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3871190|title=Armia Krajowa|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140512221344/http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3871190|archive-date=12 May 2014|work=[[Internetowa encyklopedia PWN|Encyklopedia PWN]]|access-date=14 March 2008}}</ref>

<ref name="Enc. PWN: AL">{{cite web|language=pl|url=http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3871193|title=Armia Ludowa|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140512231936/http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3871193|archive-date=12 May 2014|work=[[Internetowa encyklopedia PWN|Encyklopedia PWN]]|access-date=21 December 2006}}</ref>

<ref name="Enc. PWN: Burza">{{cite web|language=pl|url=http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3882234|title=Burza|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131003160857/http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3882234|archive-date=3 October 2013|work=[[Internetowa encyklopedia PWN|Encyklopedia PWN]]|access-date=14 March 2008}}</ref>

<ref name="Enc. WIEM: AK">{{in lang|pl}} [http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/59129,,,,armia_krajowa,haslo.html Armia Krajowa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080214130906/http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/59129,,,,armia_krajowa,haslo.html |date=14 February 2008 }}. [[Encyklopedia WIEM]]. Retrieved 2 April 2008.</ref>

<ref name="GW 2004">{{cite news|language=pl|work=[[Gazeta Wyborcza]]|date=2004-09-01|author=Jacek J. Komar|url=http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/swiat/1,34234,2262779.html|title=W Wilnie pojednają się dziś weterani litewskiej armii i polskiej AK|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311013108/http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/swiat/1,34234,2262779.html|archive-date=11 March 2007|trans-title=Today in Vilnius veterans of Lithuanian army and AK will forgive each other|access-date=7 June 2006}}</ref>

<ref name="Kiriczuk 2003">Jurij Kiriczuk, [http://www.ji-magazine.lviv.ua/dyskusija/volyn/gw2304-pol.htm Jak za Jaremy i Krzywonosa], Gazeta Wyborcza 23 April 2003. Retrieved 5 March 2008.</ref>

<ref name="Kocjan">McGovern, James. "Crossbow and Overcast." W. Morrow: New York, 1964. (pg 71)</ref>

<ref name="Korb">[[Stefan Korboński]], ''The Polish Underground State'', Columbia University Press, 1978, {{ISBN|0-914710-32-X}}</ref>

<ref name="Krakowski 2003">{{cite book|author=Shmuel Krakowski|editor=Joshua D. Zimmerman|chapter=The Attitude of the Polish Underground to the Jewish Question during the Second World War|title=Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YMP3ngEACAAJ|date=January 2003|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-3158-8|page=102}}</ref>

<ref name="Laqueur">{{cite book|title=Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HYFmMoZab5MC&pg=PA202|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-1-4128-2488-0|pages=202–203}}</ref>

<ref name="Leslie">{{cite book|author=Roy Francis Leslie|title=The History of Poland Since 1863|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0tYVKUsnw9IC|date=19 May 1983|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-27501-9}}</ref>

<ref name="Michta 1990">{{cite book|title=Red Eagle: The Army in Polish Politics, 1944–1988|author=Andrew A. Michta|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Ff065RmrAsC&q=sikorski+katyn+two+enemies&pg=PA32|page=32|publisher=Hoover Press|year=1990 | isbn=978-0-8179-8861-6}}</ref>

<ref name="MNK">Marek Ney-Krwawicz, ''[http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/2%20Article.htm The Polish Underground State and The Home Army (1939–45)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191103204054/http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/2%20Article.htm |date=3 November 2019 }}''. Translated from Polish by Antoni Bohdanowicz. Article on the pages of the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association. Retrieved 14 March 2008.</ref>

<ref name="Paczkowski">Andrzej Paczkowski. Poland, the "Enemy Nation", pp. 372–375, in ''[[Black Book of Communism]]. Crimes, Terror, Repression''. [[Harvard University Press]], London. See [http://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/nkvd_print.htm online excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230507232736/http://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/nkvd_print.htm |date=7 May 2023 }}.</ref>

<ref name="Peszke 2005">{{cite book|author=Michael Alfred Peszke|title=The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zhb2doihL1wC&pg=PA183|year=2005|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-2009-4|page=183}}</ref>

<ref name="Petersen 2002">{{cite book |last=Petersen |first=Roger |title=Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-century Eastern Europe |publisher=Cambridge University|year=2002|page=152 |isbn=0-521-00774-7}}</ref>

<ref name="Piotrowski">{{cite book|author=Tadeusz Piotrowski|title=Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hC0-dk7vpM8C|year=1998|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-0371-4}}</ref>

<ref name="Radzilowski">John Radzilowski, Review of [[Yaffa Eliach]]'s ''There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok'', [[Journal of Genocide Research]], vol. 1, no. 2 (June 1999), City University of New York.</ref>

<ref name="Rzecz">[[Rzeczpospolita (newspaper)|Rzeczpospolita]], 02.10.04 Nr 232, ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20111106180531/http://www.rzeczpospolita.pl/specjal_041002/specjal_a_6.html Wielkie polowanie: Prześladowania akowców w Polsce Ludowej]'' (Great hunt: the persecutions of AK soldiers in the People's Republic of Poland). Retrieved from Internet Archive.</ref>

<ref name="Salm 1994">Stanisław Salmonowicz, ''Polskie Państwo Podziemne'', Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, Warszawa, 1994, {{ISBN|83-02-05500-X}}, p.317</ref>

<ref name="Snyder 1999">Timothy Snyder, "[http://web.mit.edu/cis/www/migration/pubs/rrwp/9_resolve.html To Resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and for All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943–1947] {{Webarchive|url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20110516045008/http://web.mit.edu/cis/www/migration/pubs/rrwp/9_resolve.html |date=16 May 2011 }}," ''[[Journal of Cold War Studies]]'', Spring 1999 Vol. 1 Issue 2, pp. 86–120</ref>

<ref name="Snyder 2003">{{cite book |last=Snyder |first=Timothy |author-link=Timothy Snyder |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |year=2003 |isbn=0-300-10586-X |title=The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xSpEynLxJ1MC&pg=PA84 |page=84}}</ref>

<ref name="Snyder 2015">{{cite book |last=Snyder |first=Timothy |title=Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning |publisher=Crown/Archetype |date=8 September 2015|isbn=9781101903469}}</ref>

<ref name="Stolarski">Rafal E. Stolarski, ''[http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/25%20Article.htm The Production of Arms and Explosive Materials by the Polish Home Army in the Years 1939–1945]''. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221030101918/http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/25%20Article.htm|date=30 October 2022 }} Translated from Polish by Antoni Bohdanowicz. Article on the pages of the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association. Retrieved 14 March 2008.</ref>

<ref name="Strzembosz 1996">Tomasz Strzembosz, ''Początki ruchy oporu w Polsce. Kilka uwag''. In Krzysztof Komorowski (ed.), ''Rozwój organizacyjny Armii Krajowej'', Bellona, 1996, {{ISBN|83-11-08544-7}}</ref>

<!-- <ref name="Taras2018">{{cite book|author=Raymond Taras|title=Democracy In Poland|edition=2nd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SNJMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT54|date=19 February 2018|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-429-98067-1|page=54|quote=...the Polish resistance movement was arguably the most effective of any established in a Nazi-occupied country. Some 150,000 Germans, including top SS officials, were killed in Poland.}}</ref> -->

<ref name="Wildhorn">Ordway, Frederick I., III. "The Rocket Team." Apogee Books Space Series 36 (pgs 158, 173)</ref>

<ref name="Piskunowicz 1996">{{cite book| first=Henryk |last=Piskunowicz |chapter=Armia Krajowa na Wileńszczyżnie |title=Armia Krajowa: Rozwój organizacyjny |editor=Krzysztof Komorowski |publisher= Wydawnictwo Bellona |year=1996 |isbn=83-11-08544-7 |pages=213–214|language=pl}}</ref>

<!-- <ref name="Kohn">{{cite book|last=Kohn |first=Moshe M. |title=Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Conference on Manifestations of Jewish Resistance, Jerusalem, April 7–11, 1968 |publisher=Yad Vashem|year=1972|edition= 2nd|page=325|quote=As for the strong force, the Armia Krajowa (AK), which was by far the largest part of the Polish Underground – it was almost entirely anti-Semitic.}}</ref> -->

<!-- <ref name="Krakowski 1973">{{cite book|last=Krakowski|first=Shmuel|title=Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance|editor=v.9 |publisher=Yad Vashem|year=1973|chapter=Policy of the Third Reich in Conquered Poland|quote=From not a few Polish sources it is possible to learn quite easily that racialist, anti-Semitic tendencies were widespread in a large part of the AK}}</ref> -->

<!-- <ref name="Krakowski 2013">{{Cite book| publisher = Rutgers University Press| isbn = 978-0-8135-3158-8| editor = Joshua D. Zimmerman | last = Krakowski| first = Shmuel| title = Contested memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and its aftermath| chapter = The attitude of the Polish underground| location = New Brunswick, NJ| date = 2003}}</ref>-->

<!-- <ref name="leonid">{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/belarus/bel129.html|author=Leonid Smilovitsky|title=Jews and Poles Among Belorussian Partisans|publisher=JewishGen, Inc.|access-date=15 July 2009|quote=Anti-Semitism was widespread among the fighters of Armia Krajowa and of the grouping National Armed Forces (Narodowy Sily Zbrojne – NSZ). Jews were regarded as a "pro-Soviet element" – they were persecuted and killed.}}</ref> -->

<!-- <ref name="Marrus 1989">{{cite book|last=Marrus|first= Michael Robert |title=The "Final Solution" Outside Germany|publisher=Meckler|year=1989|volume=v.1|page=27|isbn=0-88736-257-5|quote=Generally speaking, the attitude of the Home Army was antisemitic; no Jews known as such could join its ranks, and when the leaders of the Home Army were asked to help the Jewish Fighting Organization in Warsaw, the amount of help extended was ridiculously and tragically small}}</ref> -->

<ref name="Paulsson 2002">{{cite book|author=Gunnar S. Paulsson|title=Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940–1945|url=https://archive.org/details/secretcityhidden00paul|url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-09546-3}}</ref>

<!-- <ref name="Pell 2004">{{cite book|last1=Pell|first1=Joseph|last2=Rosenbaum|first2=Fred|author-link2=Fred Rosenbaum|title=Taking Risks: A Jewish Youth in the Soviet Partisans and His Unlikely Life in California|publisher=Western Jewish History Center, RDR Books|year=2004|page=100|isbn=1-57143-116-0|quote=We Jews had mixed feelings about this mission because the Home Army was anti-Semitic. It had rejected many Jewish men and women who were qualified to enter its ranks}}</ref> -->

<!-- <ref name="Winstone 2014">{{Cite book| publisher = Tauris| isbn = 978-1-78076-477-1 | last = Winstone| first = Martin| title = The Dark Heart of Hitler's Europe: Nazi rule in Poland under the General Government| location = London| date = 2014}}</ref> -->
}}

==Bibliography==
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* {{cite book|author-link=Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski|first=Tadeusz |last=Bór-Komorowski|title=Secret Army|location=New York|publisher=Macmillan Company|year=1951|isbn=0-89839-082-6}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Norman Davies|first=Norman |last=Davies|title=Rising '44|publisher=Macmillan|year=2003}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Richard C. Lukas|first=Richard C. |last=Lukas|title=Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German Occupation, 1939–1944|location=New York|publisher=Hippocrene Books|year=2012|isbn=978-0-7818-1302-0}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Roger Moorhouse|first=Roger |last=Moorhouse|title=Killing Hitler|publisher=Jonathan Cape|year=2006|isbn=0-224-07121-1}}
* {{Cite book|first=Grzegorz|last=Motyka|title=Ukraińska partyzantka 1942–1960|publisher=Oficyna Wydawnicza RYTM|year=2006|isbn=83-7399-163-8|location=Warsaw}}
* {{Cite book|first=Grzegorz|last=Motyka|title=Od rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji "Wisła" : konflikt polsko-ukraiński 1943–1947|publisher=Wydawnictwo Literackie|year=2011|isbn=978-83-08-04576-3|location=Kraków}}
* {{Cite book|first=Grzegorz|last=Motyka|title=Wołyń'43 Ludobójcza czystka - fakty, analogie, polityka historyczna|publisher=Wydawnictwo Literackie|year=2016|isbn=978-83-08-06207-4|location=Kraków}}
* {{cite book|first=Marek |last=Ney-Krwawicz|title=Polish Home Army, 1939–1945|location=London|publisher=PUMST|year=2001|isbn=978-0-9501348-9-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DtohAQAAIAAJ}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Michael Alfred Peszke|first=Michael Alfred |last=Peszke|title=The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II|publisher=McFarland & Company|year=2005|isbn=978-0-7864-2009-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zhb2doihL1wC}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Michael Alfred Peszke|first=Michael Alfred |last=Peszke|title=The Armed Forces of Poland in the West, 1939–46: Strategic Concepts, Planning, Limited Success but No Victory!|series=Helion Studies in Military History |volume=13|location=[[Solihull]], England|publisher=Helion & Company|year=2013|isbn=978-1-90891-654-9}}
* {{cite book|last=Strzembosz|first=Tomasz|title=Akcje zbrojne podziemnej Warszawy 1939–1944|trans-title=Armed actions of underground Warsaw 1939-1944|publisher=Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy|location=Warszawa|year=1983|language=pl|isbn=83-06-00717-4}}
* {{cite book|first=Jonathan |last=Walker|title=Poland Alone: Britain, SOE and the Collapse of the Polish Resistance, 1944|publisher=The History Press|year=2008|isbn=978-1-86227-474-7}}
* {{cite book|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-01426-8|last=Zimmerman|first=Joshua D.|title=The Polish underground and the Jews, 1939–1945|location=New York|date=2015|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w4dsCQAAQBAJ}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Armia Krajowa}}
* [https://muzeum-ak.pl/ Armia Krajowa Museum in Krakow]
* [http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/ Polish resistance – AK] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210322194724/http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/ |date=22 March 2021 }} – Site edited by the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association
* [http://www.1944.pl/index.php?lang=en&lang_time=1 Warsaw Uprising Museum]
* {{in lang|pl}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20040831070844/http://www.ak.of.pl/ Archiwum Pomorskie Armii Krajowej]
* [http://www.doomedsoldiers.com/ The Home Army After July 1944] Polish Underground Soldiers 1944–1963 – The Untold Story

{{Armia Krajowa}}
{{AK Commanders}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Home Army| ]]
[[Category:Polish underground organisations during World War II]]
[[Category:Military units and formations of Poland in World War II]]
[[Category:Polish Underground State]]
[[Category:Guerrilla organizations]]
[[Category:World War II resistance movements]]
[[Category:1942 establishments in Poland]]
[[Category:1945 disestablishments in Poland]]
[[Category:Military units and formations established in 1942]]
[[Category:Military units and formations disestablished in 1945]]
[[Category:Anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland]]
[[Category:Polish resistance during World War II]]