Dmitry Kiselyov has a particularly biased attitude towards Poland. In Vesti Nedeli, he more than once talked about what a wicked country it was, and called it the "hyena of Europe", groundlessly attributing this formulation to Winston Churchill. This time, he was inspired to another anti-Polish monologue by the decision of the Poles to call the city of Kaliningrad not by a Soviet toponym, but by an old Polish one:
“It turns out that there is a state commission in Warsaw, which is authorized to rename foreign geographical names to more euphonious to the Polish ear. For a long time our toponym Kaliningrad “scratched” them. Here a Pole glides across the map with an anxious look and suddenly stumbles upon Kaliningrad. It's scary to even say. We decided, at least for ourselves, to rename . Now they have this Krulevets. So they are calmer.
Krulewiec is the Polish name of the city in the distant Middle Ages, in the 16th-17th centuries. <…> For many centuries it was Koenigsberg, but according to the results of World War II, by the decision of the allies at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Koenigsberg, and with it a third of East Prussia, was ceded to the USSR. And just then grandfather Kalinin died – the "all-Union headman", as he was called – and in the wake of grief they decided to perpetuate the name.
By the way, by the decision of the allies, at the insistence of Stalin, Poland acquired vast German territories. This is a large part of East Prussia, a significant part of Schleswig-Holstein – now Polish Silesia, and also such once German cities as Danzig – now Gdansk, Alstein (Olsztyn), Stetin (Szczecin), Elbing (Elblag), Breslau (Wroclaw).
Poland has gone too far. It demands huge reparations from Germany following the results of the Second World War, and plans to demand them from Russia as well. But if we rewind back, then what about the lands acquired then? Maybe, also for the sake of justice, start by returning their German names? As a step towards building trust with Germany. I think it would be appreciated.
But seriously, the Poles have already supported Nazism in their history. And it cost them dearly – they lost the country. Driven by predatory feelings, they were the first to conclude a non-aggression pact with Germany, known as the Piłsudski-Hitler Pact, back in 1934. And then Poland is a faithful assistant to the Nazi regime. In gratitude from Hitler, after the Munich agreement, the Teszyn region of Czechoslovakia fell to her. But this was not enough for Poland. Polish diplomats spoke frankly about their appetites.
The Polish envoy to Iran, Jan Karszlo-Sedlowski, declared in December 1938: “The political outlook for the European East is clear. In a few years, Germany will be at war with the Soviet Union, and Poland will support, voluntarily or involuntarily, Germany in this war. It is better for Poland to (quite definitely) take the side of Germany before the conflict, since the territorial interests of Poland in the West and the political goals of Poland in the East, primarily in Ukraine, can only be ensured through a Polish-German agreement reached in advance.
The same line is painfully recognizable in the current actions of Poland. How to profit at the expense of Russia, dragging Hitler into the war with her then, and now America and NATO. And let for this you need to take the side of the Nazis. And what? Not the first time.
From the report of the intelligence department of the General Staff of the Polish Army in December 1938: “The dismemberment of Russia lies at the heart of Polish policy in the East. Therefore, our possible position will be reduced to the following formula: who will take part in the division? Poland must not remain passive at this remarkable historical moment. The task is to prepare well in advance physically and spiritually. The main goal is to weaken and defeat Russia.”
Directly familiar dislocation of Polish history. They played out then, and they will play out now. And you say Krulevets… It will not be limited to this.”
In the history of geography, Kiselev was frankly confused: Schleswig-Holstein is a land in northern Germany, bordering Denmark. Poland is far from there, and no part of this land has ever been transferred to Poland. Danzig was a German city only before the First World War; after it, it was a free city under the control of the League of Nations, moreover, part of the Polish customs zone; its foreign affairs were also conducted by Poland, although the majority of the population of the city were Germans. Kiselev also confused the German name of Olsztyn: the city was called Allenstein.
However, these are just trifles, although they show the depth of the TV propagandist's acquaintance with the topic he has chosen. Much more important is this. The phrase of the newly appointed Polish envoy to Iran, Jan Karsho-Sedlevsky (his last name Kiselev, by the way, also distorted) was heard in a conversation with the secretary of the German Embassy in Warsaw, Rudolf von Shelia (laterturned out to be an agent of Soviet intelligence) and is known in his program. Apparently, this was nothing more than a diplomatic courtesy, since shortly before this, Karsho-Sedlevsky expressed completely different views on the upcoming war and relations with Germany in a conversation with priest Zygmunt Kwasniewski. The Polish historian Robert Kusniezh in his work “Jan Karszo-Sedlevsky’s Activities in the Interests of the Catholic Church in 1935–1937 Based on the Materials of Soviet Counterintelligence Spying on Him” wrote :
“Karsho-Sedlevsky entered into a political conversation begun by Kwashnevsky. To his remark that Germany was looking for war with the USSR, the adviser “categorically and proudly” replied that “Poland will not allow war. She will resist in every possible way the madness of the military adventure.”
Why resist it? Kwasniewski asked.
“Because if Germany wins or loses, the third neutral country, that is, Poland, will suffer from this: it will die,” the diplomat replied.
— And why are you giving up your positions in Gdansk without a fight? Do you think that in return you will receive compensation in the form of Ukraine?
“Regardless of the circumstances, we must give up Gdansk in order to appease our eternal enemy, Germany. My words about the inadmissibility of war with the USSR can be confirmed by Lukasevich, the ambassador in Paris, the [former] ambassador to Moscow. There is no disagreement between us on this issue."
The quote from the report of the intelligence department of the Polish General Staff in Russian has been known for quite a long time; one of the earliest appearances is in the book of the candidate of physical and mathematical sciences Yuri Zhytorchuk (aka Yuri Pobedonostsev) “So who is to blame for the tragedy of 1941?”, Published in 2008. Since then, it has wandered from article to article, but the original remains unknown.
In Polish, it can be found online only on Russian sites, and quite unexpected for such topics, for example, in a long article by Alexander Ognev “Whom did Poland fight against? Polish friends of Hitler. Baptism with fire and blood”, posted on the website mstone.ru/pl/ . The subtitle of the site is: Kreatywność, poezja, przygotowanie do szkoły – "Creativity, poetry, preparation for school." For some reason, the article was placed in the Outdoor Games section – “Outdoor Games”.
Another site with an article in Polish containing the same quote is podarilove.ru/pl/ . There, the quote ended up in a completely surprising context: in a long article about hyenas, after mentioning Churchill and the notorious "hyena of Europe." Other articles on this site are titled "Why do hemorrhoids appear and is it dangerous during pregnancy?", "Names for girls born in November", "See fire in a dream." However, among the typical ladies' materials, there are also such: "History of the General Staff of the GRU: will there be a leadership."
Another site with this quote is the Polish version of weaponews.com . This is no longer a women's site, it is dedicated to military topics. In addition to Polish, it has versions in twelve more; Russian is not among them, but the site server is located in Russia. The content is, of course, pro-Russian.
It is likely that the quote from the report published in Polish on Russian websites is a translation from Russian. The full text of the report is not available online in any language.
Among other things, the very wording about the "dismemberment of Russia" looks rather strange. By 1938, Russia as an independent state had not existed for 15 years, it was a union republic within the USSR, and Poland did not even border on the then RSFSR. It is completely incomprehensible why Polish politicians were so interested in the integrity of Russia. And the very appearance of this phrase in the report of the intelligence department of the General Staff is difficult to explain: why would intelligence officers need to state the fundamental principles of Poland's foreign policy in the report? Military intelligence could hardly be the body that defines these principles, so it would be logical if intelligence officers received such information from higher authorities, and not vice versa.
Sometimes online commentators, along with this phrase about the dismemberment of Russia, mention a certain directive of the Polish General Staff No. 2304/2/37 of August 31, 1937, which allegedly states that "the ultimate goal of Polish policy is the destruction of all Russia." Kiselev, however, refrained from quoting this document, so it would not be worth mentioning it, but his story is rather curious.
The statement about the existence of such a directive is contained in the preface to the collection of documents published in 2009 from the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation "Secrets of Polish Policy" (compiled by Major General Lev Sotskov of the SVR). But in the same collection the document itself was published with the same number and date, and this thesis is not in it. This is not a directive at all, but “Remarks on the reorganization of Prometheus in Paris”, written by the Polish diplomat Wladyslaw Pelz. "Prometheus" is an organization that united emigrants from different parts of the former Russian Empire striving for the independence of their lands. The ideological inspirer of "Prometheus" was the first head of independent Poland, revived in the 20th century, Jozef Pilsudski; after his death in 1935, the organization fell into disrepair. Peltz, proposing to revive it, wrote in his "Remarks":
“… It is extremely important to establish how far the contact of some Promethean figures with the Russian left goes, and by a strong mobilization within the Promethean public opinion to put an end to this contact and curb its initiators. Our ally in this matter would be the radicalism of the youth, proclaiming the fight against all Russia.
Peltz's proposal apparently had no practical implications. But his wording about "any Russia" pleased the general-compiler of the collection so much that he turned it into "the ultimate goal of Polish policy."