East German (GDR) postage stamp commemorating the signing of the Treaty of Zgorzelec, 1951, public domain. Article 1. The High Contracting Parties...
Fine-sounding slogans about peace in Europe, declarations regarding the independence of member states, and—on top of that—”friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance”: these were the highly appealing ideas that opened the text of the Warsaw Pact. Taking these words at face value, one might conclude that the Eastern Bloc nations, led by the Soviet Union, were champions of peace and stability. However, the declared reasons for the pact’s formation and the actual motives and objectives behind it were two entirely different matters.
Naturally, the roots of this decision lay in the mid-1940s, as the Cold War began to unfold between the West—specifically the United States—and the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. One manifestation of this conflict was the 1949 division of Germany into two states: the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), aligned with the United States, and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), subordinate to the Soviet Union. Even more significant was the fact that NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was established that same year, with a membership comprising the USA, Great Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Subsequently, in 1955—pursuant to the Paris Agreements of October 1954—the FRG was also admitted to NATO and slated for remilitarization.
Prose writer, publicist, journalist. One of the most outstanding Polish writers of the 20th century, nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1975 by the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Kansas. Józef Mackiewicz.
On the morning of the October the 29th, 1950, surprising news spread throughout Poland – the previous evening the government had enacted monetary reform. Although the new communist authorities had already made changes in the monetary field in 1944-1945, exchanging money from the years of occupation for the Polish zloty, nevertheless it was the operation in the autumn of 1950 which came to be imprinted in the memory of Poles.
In May 1947 Joseph Stalin decided to dissolve the Comintern, also called the Third International. It was an organisation uniting the communist parties all around the world. Thanks to its functioning the Soviets, who pulled the organisation’s strings, were able to control communist activities in different parts of the globe. The parties who formed the Cominterm were considered to be Moscow spies and not without reason. However, the course of World War II and the disposition for closer cooperation between the West and the Soviet Union forced Stalin to bring about its dissolution. This was his way of showing “good will” to the Americans and British, pointing out that the world communist revolution was no longer in his sphere of interests. But the war finally came to an end, and along with it, Stalin’s “good will”…
They had served Poland for years. Throughout the war, they fought for the country’s independence. They did not want to allow Poland to become dependent on either Germany or the Soviet Union. And although they came from different worlds – among them were politicians, soldiers, lawyers, economists – they were united by their love for their homeland and a common faith, that led them to the courtroom in Moscow.
Benedykt Dybowski: “He lived a long life, almost 100 years, and until the end of his life he retained the freshness of his mind and the ability to do scientific work, and he was active in this field”
Legendary opera singer died on July 25, 2020.
On October 30, 1989 three thousand people with candles in their hands surrounded the KGB building in Moscow. They wanted to show they remember about the victims of the Stalin crimes.
On May 12, 1970, General Władysław Anders, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces in 1944-1945, died in exile in London.
