Armia Ludowa - Operations, Propaganda and Controversies

Operations, Propaganda and Controversies

According to AL's claims, it carried out about 900 operations, killing 20,000 Germans, derailing 350 trains, and destroying 79 bridges. However, GL/AL exploits were significantly exaggerated by the communist propaganda in the People's Republic of Poland. Polish historian Piotr Gontarczyk estimates that only about 5–10% of officially recorded GL/AL action really took place, and that in the majority instances when GL/AL fought the German military it was when GL/AL was defending itself from German anti-partisan operations, with instances of GL/AL attacking Germans on its own initiative being very rare. Rather than engaging military targets, GL/AL preferred softer targets, such as German administration offices. That changed in 1944, when GL/AL grew stronger, and began engaging the German military more actively. According to Polish-American historian Mieczysław B. Biskupski, AL was less concerned with fighting the Germans than with fighting the Home Army. According to Gontarczyk and Janusz Marszal, however, this was relatively uncommon, at least with regards to direct actions; however GL/AL would often pass anonymous tips about AK to the Gestapo.

AL took part in the Warsaw Uprising. Although official claims were that about 1,800 AL soldiers fought there, modern research suggests about 500.

As GL/AL had a much poorer support network compared to the AK, supported by the Polish Underground State, and Soviet air drops were not supplying it with foodstuffs, it often had to resort to forced acquisitions, described by modern historians as "banditry". It often targeted mansions and churches. There were also incidents where GL/AL soldiers murdered Jews, or fought one another.

In one of its most secret and controversial actions, agents of then-GL, on 17 February 1944, seized an important document archive of the Underground State. Documents of importance to the communist activists were taken, and the remainder was turned over to the Gestapo agent who had been duped into participating in the GL operation. Seven members of the Underground State were taken prisoner by the Germans in a clean up operation, and likely, executed soon afterward.