Polskie Dokumenty Dyplomatyczne 1940

This 12th volume in the series Polish Diplomatic Documents presents 519 documents on the Polish authorities’ international activity in 1940.

In the first half of the year, the focus was on reconstructing state structures and restoring the Polish military capacity in France. Much attention was devoted to protecting the rights of Poland and Poles in France, and attempts were taken to document the occupants’ actions back home.

In the latter half of the year, following France’s defeat and another evacuation, the Polish government once again undertook to rebuild state structures and restore the military capacity.With the alignment of European forces changed, a need arouse to reorient Polish foreign policy, especially towards the Soviet Union.

A recurrent theme in the proceedings of the government at the time were efforts to help Polish citizens in the occupied homeland and bring relief to refugees abroad.

The bulk of the volume’s primary sources are documents kept in the Central Archives of Modern Records, especially its microfilmed Hoover Institution collections. Other documents come from the Polish Museum and Sikorski Institute, the archives of the Institute for History of Farmers’ Movement in Warsaw, the National Archives at Kew, and the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America.

The bulk of the presented material has not been published before.

The volume contains a name index and an extended subject index; and the preface carries information about the organizational structure and personal movements at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.