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• September 1939 marked the beginning of the German occupation (...)
• The task of the elimination (...)
• It would need to be considered (...)
• A place of execution of the Polish elites (...)
• Many Greater Poland insurgents (...)
• Leon Kmiotek, the commandant (...)

Leon Kmiotek, the commandant of the Military Organisation of Western Territories (MOWT) - the largest conspiratorial organisation in Greater Poland - was also involved in insurgent operations in the past. Its main objective was to prepare a military uprising. Furthermore its members conducted social, intelligence and informative (publication of papers) and sabotage activities. In spring 1940 the group was dismantled and many of its members were imprisoned. Kmiotek also went to prison. During World War I he had been conscripted into the German army and sent to the Eastern Front. As soon as the uprising broke out, he got involved in insurgent battles in Czarnków and its surroundings. In 1939, as a soldier of the ”Poznań” Army, he took an active part in the September campaign, and after his return to Poznań, he founded the Greater Poland Military Organisation which, later on, became part of the MOWT. For these conspiratorial activities, he was sentenced to death in June 1942, and executed one year later in Wrocław. 

A separate, so far poorly investigated chapter of insurgent fates, has been the accession of insurgents to the German nationality list. Insurgents, who were often born in Prussian times and served in the German army, could sign the volkslist. Some of them took advantage of the German proposal, others firmly rejected it. 

In the end, it is also necessary to mention the destruction of the tombs of insurgents as well as the monuments and memorial plaques which commemorated this military effort. During the occupation, most of these commemorative objects, which had been built during the inter-war period, were destroyed by the Germans. The Greater Poland Uprising and its memory were supposed to be completely ousted from the public space. The destruction in this case was tremendous. For instance, the monument of the 15th Poznań Uhlan Regiment which was unveiled in 1927 in Poznań was demolished. It was unveiled again as late as in 1982. Also the monument of the Drummer of the Greater Poland Uprising in Śrem was destroyed, it was rebuilt 20 years after the war. It can be added here that most of the monuments destroyed at that time by the German occupants was reconstructed after the war. 

Despite the fact that several decades have passed since the end of World War II, gaining an insight into the stories of Greater Poland insurgents during the period of occupation remains an important research postulate. The characteristics of only certain examples indicate the complexity of the problem. The insurgents died for their patriotism, resisted the invaders, lived in fear and some of them adapted to the new reality. Further studies of the fates of participants of the Greater Poland Uprising may bring many new findings.