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32-445: Second Department may refer to: Second Department of Polish General Staff , Poland's military intelligence arm, 1918–1939 New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Second Department . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

64-577: A bunch of worthless German documents, such as train schedules, telephone directories, press articles and forms. Soon afterwards, however, one of the German agents, Captain Bulang, decided to check the so-called Legions Fort, located on Zakroczymska Street. To his surprise, he found there the documents of the Bydgoszcz office of the department. They had been evacuated by Zychon, who abandoned all papers there. Altogether,

96-451: A mobile reserve . The brigades were given new names, after the area they were stationed in: The newly created regiments were named as follows: In early 1937 the organisation was modified. Wilno, Nowogródek and Wołyń brigades were disbanded and reorganised into three regiments: "Czortków" regiment was also disbanded and split onto two separate battalions ("Wilejka" and "Berezwecz"). Also, several new units were created and were pressed into

128-575: The Polish General Staff and the government. Since mid-June 1939, daily meetings took place at the office, with reports sent to Polish Commander-in-chief . Before WWI , radio intelligence was an important source of information. Polish cryptologists managed to break the codes of German Enigma machine . On July 25, 1939, in a forest near Pyry , Polish experts handed a copy of Enigma to French and British specialists in Pyry (see also Biuro Szyfrów ). At

160-587: The General Staff , was formed under Major Mieczysław Mackiewicz . It handled both offensive and defensive intelligence services, evidence, and military ciphers. Until c. 1921, the Polish military used the word "defensive", while describing intelligence. Due to various political events, changes in the organizational structure of the General Staff in the early 1920s were frequent. During the Polish-Soviet War and in

192-497: The Germans on September 5, the agents immediately occupied offices of the local branch of the department, headed by Jan Zychon. They failed to seize any documents, except for the business card of Zychon himself, left on a desk. Warsaw capitulated on September 28, and a group of Abwehr agents immediately entered the office of the department, located on Pilsudski Square. After opening over one hundred armoured wardrobes, they only came across

224-516: The KOP was to become the backbone of reserve divisions formed behind the Polish lines. In the fight against the German invasion , KOP units took part among other battles in the battle of Węgierska Górka . After Soviet invasion on 17 September , Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza which had 25 battalions were unable to defend the eastern border and were further ordered by Edward Rydz-Śmigły to fall back and not to engage

256-719: The Second Department of the Polish General Staff was divided into Samodzielne Referaty Informacyjne (SRI; English: Independent Information Offices ), outposts, posts, branches. Also, its officers operated in Polish Army garrisons, and outposts of the Border Protection Corps . During the 1939 Invasion of Poland , the Abwehr was extremely interested in the archives of the department. As the Germans had failed to capture

288-542: The area command in Jasło . In March KOP reached the peak of its strength. However, soon the formation started to be stripped of various units sent to the western border. At first four infantry battalions and most of the artillery were sent to Łódź area. Soon they were joined by the KOP cavalry regiment. In April three additional battalions were sent to the West and in May yet another battalion

320-700: The borders with the Soviet Union. KOP ceased to exist with the fall of Poland in September 1939. In 1940, some of its former officers formed an underground armed resistance organization fighting against the German occupiers, the Komenda Obrońców Polski. After the Polish–Soviet War , the Polish eastern frontier was stretched from the border with Latvia to the north, to the Prut river and Romanian border to

352-584: The country's eastern borders against armed Soviet incursions and local bandits. Other borders were under the jurisdiction of a separate, regular Border Guard state security agency. Though the corps was part of the Polish Army , it was commanded directly by the Ministry of Internal Affairs rather than the Ministry of Military Affairs . It consisted of elite soldiers from all parts of Poland. Initially KOP comprised 6 brigades and 5 regiments, each guarding part of

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384-410: The defence of the eastern frontier. It also granted significant amounts of money for construction of fortified barracks and police stations in the area. Until November of the same year more than 3,5 million zlotys were spent on that purpose. On September 17, 1924, the new formation was officially created under the name of Border Defence Corps. In November 1924 the three first brigades of KOP arrived to

416-429: The documents filled six trucks. After initial selection and analysis, all were transported to Germany, and soon afterwards, first arrests of Polish agents took place. Most of the agents were beheaded. The analysys of the documents enabled the Germans to expose weaknesses within their own intelligence, and improve the procedures. As Walter Schellenberg later recalled, after the return from Warsaw, where he had taken part in

448-527: The documents of Czechoslovak military intelligence (in March 1939 they were transported by air to Britain), Admiral Wilhelm Canaris decided to form small groups of agents, which were attached to the frontline Wehrmacht units. Their task was to immediately seize all kinds of documents. Main group of such agents was commanded by Major Oskar Reile , Abwehr resident in the Free City of Danzig . In Bydgoszcz, captured by

480-546: The early 1920s, Polish services managed to convince an ethnic Pole, Bolesław Kontrym , who commanded Red Army 's 28th Rifle Brigade, to change sides. Kontrym crossed the border, and was soon employed by the Polish Police. Beginning in 1919, the department actively operated against Germany, with 30 outposts located there. The most important was the outpost in Berlin , called In.3. It was headed by Jerzy Sosnowski , who came there in

512-462: The eastern border of Poland, in the areas of Volhynia and Polesie . In April 1925 additional two brigades took over the frontier in Southern Polesie and Galicia . Finally, in March 1926 the sixth brigade took over the border with Lithuania and Latvia . Altogether the forces of KOP included 24 battalions of infantry and 20 squadrons of cavalry. The soldiers of KOP were trained to combine

544-640: The existing structure. After 1937 the KOP had 3 brigade headquarters and 7 regiments. It was composed of 32 battalions of infantry and 21 squadrons of cavalry. As the war was nearing and the crisis in Czechoslovakia exposed the Polish southern border to enemy threat, in 1939 two additional regiments were created. Those were 1st and 2nd KOP Infantry Regiments "Karpaty", each composed of two battalions of infantry (named "Skole", "Delatyn", " Komańcza " and " Dukla "). Soon three additional mountain infantry brigades were formed (" Sanok ", " Nowy Sącz ", " Sucha ") as well as

576-418: The existing units were renamed. Each brigade was attached to part of the Polish border which was further divided into battalion areas organised around small forts along the border. In turn, each of the battalions commanded several smaller strongholds and outposts organised by companies. All the rear troops (including the engineers, artillery and cavalry) formed the second line of the defence and were to be used as

608-494: The following departments: Organizational, Offensive A, Offensive B, Defensive, Foreign Propaganda, and Home. The Second Department cooperated with a number of both civilian and military institutions of the Second Polish Republic . Among them were Police, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Straż Graniczna , Border Protection Corps and others. Since 1932, it also concentrated some of its efforts on industrial espionage , after

640-604: The formation of Polish Agency of Trade Information . Following Polish–Soviet War , the Second Department formed its outposts in main cities of the Soviet Union : Moscow , Leningrad , Kharkov , Kiev and Tiflis . Furthermore, with support from the Border Protection Corps , it carried out several raids along the Polish–Soviet border, established in 1921. The purpose of these raids was to find information about Soviet military installations, also to enroll agents or informants. In

672-462: The high morale and skills, the soldiers allowed into the KOP were carefully examined. Most of them were inhabitants of western voivodships , many of them were of German nationality. All volunteers had to gather experience in the regular units of the Polish Army before they were allowed in. In July 1929, the Border Defence Corps was reorganised. Six additional regiments were created, and all

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704-551: The immediate postwar period, the Information Department had a well-developed network of informants and local units, reaching as far as China , Persia , Siberia and Japan . Following the Polish victory in the war, in which Polish intelligence played a significant role, the Information Department was expanded and renamed into the Second Department of the Polish General Staff . It also was restructured, and divided into

736-411: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Department&oldid=1148337302 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Second Department of Polish General Staff Section II

768-492: The regular police could not cope with the problem and suggested that the control of the border be handed over to the Polish Army . In one of the reports it was stated that the police waits for the army, while the army waits for the police . To prevent such problems in the future it was decided to combine the police with the army. On August 8, the Council of Ministers decided that a special militarised border police be created for

800-417: The south. Although the peace treaty had been signed, the eastern border of Poland was insecure. Armed bands of saboteurs were crossing the border on a daily basis and the weak police forces in the area could not cope with the problem. In 1924 the town of Stołpce located 20 kilometres from the border was seized by Soviet saboteurs and pillaged . Polish Minister of War Affairs, Władysław Sikorski , decided that

832-556: The spring of 1926. In 1924 – 27, Bydgoszcz office of the department, commanded by Major Marian Steifer, successfully carried out Operation Cart ( Operacja Wozek ), during which German correspondence between Berlin and East Prussia was controlled. In April 1939, the Independent Situational Office Germany ( Samodzielny Referat Sytuacyjny Niemcy ) was formed. This office gathered all kinds of information regarding Nazi Germany , presenting daily and weekly reports to

864-424: The tactics of the army, police forces and border guards. They guarded the borders actively, not only by patrols, but also through reconnaissance, ambushes, provocation and intelligence gathering. During the first year of its existence, the KOP arrested more than 5,000 people trying to cross the border illegally. In addition, 89 armed skirmishes were fought, mainly against the bandits from the Soviet Union . To maintain

896-697: The time the department was closed in 1939, it comprised a number of bureaus and sub-departments. The chain of command consisted of the department's director, followed by the first deputy and second deputy. The head office was supported by the Organizational Bureau, Training Bureau, and Budget Bureau, as well as the chancellery and its archive. The departments independent Bureau's included: the General Independent Bureau, Independent Technical Bureau, and Independent Situational Bureau Germany. Its sub-departments consisted of: The territorial structure of

928-548: The victory parade (5 October 1939), he analyzed the captured documents for two days. In his opinion, the quantity and quality of the archives was astounding, especially the information about German war industry, gathered by Polish agents. With Polish documents in hand, the Germans managed to arrest several agents, including an ethnic Pole, living in Germany, who was a manager in one of the factories. Altogether, over 100 people were arrested, most of them were executed. Among those executed

960-421: Was Paulina Tyszewska, secretary and lover of a high ranking Abwehr officer from Danzig. Another agent, Abwehr Colonel Gunther Rudloff, who had cooperated with Jerzy Sosnowski , committed suicide after arrest. Border Protection Corps The Border Protection Corps ( Polish : Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza, KOP ) was a military formation of the Second Polish Republic that was created in 1924 to defend

992-601: Was responsible for military intelligence , counterintelligence , cryptography , analysis of foreign military forces, and foreign affairs of the Polish Armed Forces . It existed 1918–1939. In the second Polish Republic, the first intelligence units were formed soon after the creation of the General Staff of the Polish Army under General Tadeusz Rozwadowski . In mid-October 1918, the Information Department of

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1024-405: Was sent to Hel, Poland . Although most of the units were later reconstructed at the eastern border, their combat value was much lower. The recruits lacked experience and training and the units of KOP were deprived of almost all heavy weaponry. On August 30 the KOP was formally mobilised . General Wilhelm Orlik-Rückemann became its commander. According to the Polish plans for the forthcoming war,

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