The Last ReportMarian DlugoleckiMarion Dlugolecki is the father of Andrew, one of our members from Scotland. Andrew has just finished making a résumé of his father’s memoirs, the first part of which is reproduced below. Marion was an intelligence officer for the Polish army in Germany just before WW2, so he had a unique view of the build-up. On July 10th 1939 I reported for duty to the Polish consulate in Breslau (now Wroclaw) in the German province of Silesia, just 40 miles from the Polish frontier. I was a second lieutenant in the regulars, aged 27 and I had just finished a four week course in intelligence work in Warsaw. My cover was Press Attaché - I spoke good German from school and had improved it on leave in Austria in 1937. Week 1July 10-16 My first meeting with my new boss Major Grajek was not a success. He had been highly decorated in the Russo-Polish War of 1920 and clearly felt I was too junior. He disdainfully handed me one message from a bundle of telegrams from HQ to investigate. The assignment was to establish whether the 7th Flak Regiment was still at its barracks. Later that day I came back, having visited the area, and pointed out that it would take some time to establish this without more resources, but I suggested that we could telephone the barracks on some pretext. This confirmed his low opinion of me. He took back the telegram, and indicated that our meeting was over. (I later learned that that task had taken a few days and that in fact the unit had left the barracks within the week). Our territory, Lower Silesia, was a German salient that jutted east into Poland. It was claimed by both countries at the end of World War I, and had a sizeable minority of Poles. Our sources of information were the local press, extracts from soldiers' correspondence, the local population especially those of Polish origin, together with our own observations. We almost never contacted our neighbouring intelligence units in Germany. It became my job to collect military information from the press, to plans our motor reconnaissance, to deal with matters concerned with telegrams, to do the encoding, and to deal with callers to our section when the boss was out. As well I enrolled for a course of driving lessons because my Polish driving licence was not valid in Germany. Our team was definitely too small. There was the chief, Major Brunon Grajek and his wife Maria, our courier Jan Matuszczak and his wife Rozalia, both locals, and me. I had no independent means of transport, but eventually we worked as three teams: Major and Mrs Grajek; the Matuszczaks; and myself with Mrs Matuszczak as driver. Excursions were always combined with a visit to some historical site to keep up a semblance of innocence. Our office was very meagrely equipped. We had one typewriter, maps, tracing paper for making copies, codebooks, a large fireproof safe, a small radio (receiver only), and some chemicals for destroying documents, but neither a camera for photographing documents, nor binoculars. There were two private cars at our disposal- Major Grajek's and the courier's. Once a week, the courier took reports and private correspondence by car to Poland. The second method of communication was by telegrams sent through the German postal service. There was no contingency plan for any emergency. The Germans kept us under close surveillance. Unfortunately, working together meant I attracted any suspicion which hung over the others and vice versa. I investigated who was watching me, and whether their surveillance was constant or intermittent for a few days, and by a process of elimination I came to the conclusion that there were two of "them". I encountered these men singly or together in various places. I decided to find one or two spots in town where it would be possible to disappear easily. One such place was the department store called AWAG, which had an escalator, very advanced for those days. I had no one to help me in my legwork. The members of the consulate knew very well what I did but for their sake I did not involve them. A second person would not only have made the work easier, but their presence increased your feeling of security particularly at night. Awareness of an unfriendly "companion" constantly behind you following you from street to street is not a pleasant experience. To make the work of the police more difficult I often left the consulate very early in the morning and spent time travelling by tram through various districts and in exceptional cases I left the consulate by the back door. I spent as much free time as possible in town in order to adapt as fast as I could to my new surroundings. In the first few days I felt that military personnel in particular were looking at me suspiciously but by the end of the week I had relaxed. As it turned out I was even a little too confident. On my first Sunday in Breslau I went out with Major Grajek and his wife to a public fete at the conclusion of a training course for German troops. There was a bar, plenty of beer, and a lot of people from the surrounding villages. At one stall there was a shooting gallery with prizes. I watched the soldiers missing the targets repeatedly and recalled how, not so long before, I had been training snipers in my regiment. I could not resist the temptation. I threw down some coins and chose a target. I won one prize, then another… The stallholder was looking on unable to believe his eyes. I noticed that a brimming tankard of beer had appeared before me and I was surrounded by a group of soldiers. Mrs Grajek noticed what was happening and called to me. I suddenly realised where I was and rejoined the Grajeks somewhat abashed. Week 2 July 17- 23 The aim of our unit was to assess the size of the German forces that would take part in the attack on Poland, and where and when it would be. Particularly important was the forward movement of troops to positions close to our frontier. Large -scale movements would be carried out by rail, starting with the transit of units through our area, then the arrival of new units from different parts of Germany to our area, and finally the positioning of the Silesian or Breslau divisions which would most probably be used in their own area. Details concerning the call-up of reserves were doubly important as they helped to establish the probable departure dates of units. On the pretext of calling up reserve troops for routine manoeuvres a secret mobilisation was taking place. Another type of German preparation for war was fieldworks. These operations often required a considerable time and so they were some of the first signals of Germany's true intentions. These fieldworks included all types of fortifications, repairs to roads and bridges, work on railway stations, the extension of communications towards the border and preparation of supply depots for food and fuel. During this week we observed a troop train full of infantry and their equipment leaving Breslau towards the south, and fieldworks in the border zone to the north. The presence of the soldiers carrying out the work made it impossible for the moment to make any close observation, but the courier passed through that area and could monitor progress. Acquainting me with the military situation in our area was vital. The simplest way to tackle it would have been for Grajek to sit down a couple of times with a map of our region marked with the known positions of German units, but he seemed unable to open up. However, the rapid progress of German preparations simply forced us to a more realistic approach, and after some weeks we undertook a systematic analysis of the whole range of German preparations. Generally speaking social contact among our group was non-existent. I knew only their ranks and names and they mine. Week 3 24/7- 30/7 I had moved into accommodation within easy reach of the consulate. In my second week there, I was returning after a night of observation. I had hardly set foot in the hallway when the landlady's daughter dashed up to me newspaper in hand. "Just read that! Here you are enjoying our hospitality and your people in Poland are ill-treating our fellow countrymen." Her mother hurried over to us and hustled her into the kitchen. I had already decided to move back to the consulate and this gave me the perfect excuse. Staying any longer would be unpleasant and also dangerous. By now we found a marked increase in vigilance among the inhabitants of the villages in the frontier area. Once few minutes after we went into the local inn, a German aged about 30 appeared and began to behave so aggressively that we were forced to withdraw. Another time when I was out we noticed that we were "relayed" from one little town to the next. As we left one place there were usually two young lads or one with a bike waiting. As soon as they saw which direction we were taking they dashed off to pass on this information. On another occasion, there was a police check and the documents of all those in the cars were examined. The arrival in the Jawor district of a large motorised unit took us completely by surprise, as there had been no indication of it as we approached the town. The whole market square was packed with vehicles and we had great difficulty in making our way through to the other side of it. I noticed that in one village soldiers were painting out the regimental signs of the vehicles. Standing side by side were trucks with both the new and the old markings. I knew the structure of such a unit and I had seen it in figures on paper but coming up against it in reality for the first time made a tremendous impression on me. This was only one such unit and there were so many more. I felt myself in the grip of terrible anxiety. The fieldworks so far were defensive. On the other hand any build-up in communications in the border zone would give a clear indication of the direction of future military action. This was very important, and so we decided to investigate without delay. We realised we would be close to the border and that our stay in that area would be very risky. To confuse the Germans I planned a "rally" with our cars. The courier took the consular car to Poland, and at the same time the other two cars set out on the same route, then branched off to search for evidence. It was a great success. One car found signal cables stretching for miles, which had not yet been concealed, and at a railway station we noted that the siding had been extended and a field telephone line now led to the station building. There were similar preparations at many other railway stations. One of our contacts of Polish origin was in the fire service in Breslau, and provided us with plans of factories working for the German military machine. This information would have been very valuable, but before they reached us these plans passed through many hands, a procedure that in itself was dangerous. Equally risky was the copying of the plans, which had to be traced since we had no camera. The decision was finally taken to abort this scheme. However we continued assiduously collecting data about the products made in the factories and the quantities produced. This was sent routinely to the fire service, which had to know about such matters. From this same source we obtained all sorts of samples that were filed with the authorities. We received information from purely German sources too. This information was carefully checked several times over. Often the reports contained confidential information which showed how not only the military machine but the whole civil administration was being geared up for war. Once when preparing a report together with Grajek, I remarked that a certain report was rather alarmist, at which he retorted rather sharply "Every bit of information coming from the Party." -he caught himself. Many years later Mrs Grajek told me that her neighbour was a Nazi official, whose wife took against him. Though German, she had been raised in Poland, and so she decided to spite him by passing all sorts of information to Mrs Grajek. |