Saturday, October 26, 2019

Home Army, an army of Polish underground

This post was published on our FB page, Killing Warsaw, on August 15th.


The Home Army (Armia Krajowa or AK) was the dominant resistance movement in Poland during World War II. (Interestingly enough, no other military unit in the World used such a name, ever.) It was formed in 1942 from the existing units of underground forces. Its allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile, and it was considered an armed wing of what became known as the "Polish Underground State".
The estimates of its strength are in a range from 200,000 to 600,000, the most commonly cited number being 400,000. This last number would make the Home Army one of the largest in Europe during World War II.
The Home Army (AK) sabotaged German operations such as transports headed for the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union. It also fought several full-scale battles against the Germans, particularly in 1943 and in Operation Tempest in 1944. The Warsaw Uprising was a main part of Operation Tempest.
To this day, every Polish child knows what the acronym AK stands for.