Kwestia Niemieckiej Listy Narodowej w audycjach rozgłośni im. T. Kościuszki

Abstract

After the attack of Germany on the Soviet Union there was a need to conduct an intensive propaganda action. The Communist International, supervised by the Soviet authority, established 16 secret national stations. One of them was the Polish language T. Kościuszko broadcasting station. It functioned in the Soviet Union from August 1941 to August 22, 1944. It broadcast for Poland, which was occupied by the Third Reich. It was to encourage Poles to fight against Germans, helping at the same time Soviet authorities during the difficult time of Soviet military defeats. When the Communist International was dissolved, the T. Kościuszko broadcasting station fulfilled this goal under the supervision of the International Information Department of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Among numerous matters discussed by the Polish language editorial board, there was an issue of the German People’s List – functioning in Poland under the German occupation. The Polish language station encouraged people living in the territories annexed by the Third Reich (Wielkopolska, Pomorze, Górny Śląsk) to boycott the process of Germanization of Polish nationals. The process, consisting in granting citizenship of the Third Reich, obliged to military service in Wehrmacht. The radio deterred its listeners from joining German military forces, which was to have its consequences for the events in the Eastern Front: the authors of the broadcasts intended to indirectly support the Red Army fighting against the Nazi aggressor.