The internment of the Second Rifle Division in the Polish-Swiss diplomatic relations 1940-1941

Bibliogr. s. 552-554

This article concerns the problem of mutual diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Polish authorities in exile after the collapse of France in June 1940. During this period of time the fate of the Polish division interned was unstable, due to the position of the Swiss Federal Political Department. Its chief Marcel Pilet Golaz intended to send the Poles back to France and tried to get the German approval for his purpose. It was in blatant contradiction to the intention of Polish commander-in-chief Władysław Sikorski and his endeavours to preserve the Polish division as a military unit able to continue the fight against the Third Reich. The tactic proposed by Polish envoy in Bern Aleksander Ładoś was more flexible. He advised his superiors to release from service the persons living in France before the outbreak of war in order to maintain the rest of the Polish soldiers as an efficient combat unit. Despite the formal agreement from January 1941, combined with the German reluctance to receive Polish soldiers, the chief of Helvetian diplomacy didn’t give up his plans until the German’s assault on the Soviet Union in June 1941.