Sicherheitsdienst und Denunziation in Volkspolen

Using sources from the late 1940s and early 1950s, the article demonstrates how the Soviet NKWD es tablished and developed its Polish equivalent. One main characteristic of this Soviet-type security force (and its sur rounding network of other police and army units) was the enormously large number of persons involved. The author focuses mainly on the F?hrungsoffiziere and analyses with the help of interviews conducted during the 1990s their specific and complex role in the system. The second part of the article scrutinises the history of denunciation in Poland from the beginning of the German and Soviet occu pation to the present. It stresses the many difficulties of the current Polish society in legally confronting such past injus tices committed both by occupants and Poles.