Studnicki-Gizbert, Władysław
Another book by Studnicki, “Sprawa polsko-żydowska” (“The Polish-Jewish Matter”), was published in 1935. In it, as the historian Joanna Michlic points out, he described the Jews as “parasites on the healthy Polish tree”. He called for the creation of a Polish protectorate in Palestine and the gradual expulsion of the Polish Jews (100,000 per year).
In September 1938, following an invitation from Rudolf Hess, Studnicki attended the Nuremberg Rally held by the NSDAP, met Adolf Hitler and had a long conversation with foreign minister von Ribbentrop.
Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Wehrmacht in March 1939, Studnicki criticised the German course of action, while at the same time calling for the Polish government to join the German Reich against Soviet Russia instead of rejecting Hitler’s demands and turning to England and France for support. Otherwise, he said, there was a risk that Poland would fall within Moscow’s orbit of control.
The historian Marek Kornat writes that for several years, as a result of this “prophecy”, Studnicki has been “cast in the light of a perceived saviour of the fatherland” in Poland by right-leaning politicians and commentators. “They are attempting historical revisionism, trying to turn him into a tool for reassessing the nature of Polish society in the past. However, this approach will lead nowhere.”
Kornat continues that Studnicki was unwilling to accept that Hitler was not planning to go to war for Europe as Studnicki imagined it, but rather to conquer “Lebensraum” (“space to live”) in the east. Kornat writes that Poland had no further place in this “Europe” as envisioned by Hitler. “Studnicki failed to understand the fundamental nature of German totalitarianism. To him, Hitler’s Germany was no different from that of the Wilhelmine Empire.”
There was also something tragic about the role that Studnicki ultimately attempted to play during the Second World War. Failing entirely to grasp the true nature of the worldview and political goals of the Nazi regime, he attempted to persuade Hitler to change his policies in occupied Poland. Neither incarceration in Germany nor internment in the notorious “Pawiak” prison in Warsaw could dissuade Studnicki from trying to realise his goal, which included the ludicrous notion of offering Hitler to create new Polish army units to fight alongside the German Reich against Soviet Russia. It is no surprise, therefore, that Studnicki finally described the Warsaw Uprising as a fundamental error.
The result: in communist Poland, Studnicki was regarded as a “collaborator” and his books were banned. There is no doubt that this has only served to increase the level of interest in him over the past few decades (as with other individuals who played a role during the inter-war years), particularly among right-wing nationalists in Poland. However, framing Studnicki as a forgotten pioneer who paved the way for closer German-Polish relations fails to take into account the degree of importance he had in real life, as well as the questionable role that he played in Poland before and after 1939.
Bernd Krebs, May 2024
Bibliography
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