The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War by Halik Kochanski

The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War Reviews

• 
  Paul

  Recently published here in the UK and soon to be followed in the USA. This is a big mighty tome and worth its weight in gold. This is a very comprehensive history of Poland and her people during the WW2. She pulls no punches when she brings in the September Campaign and then how the Soviet joined the war in support of Nazi Germany and how they divided the country between them. This book examines all parts of Polish history and shines lights in to the darker parts some people would prefer not to mention.
  
  I recently used it as part of a source for reference while writing an overview on aspects of Polish war events and this was a valuable source of information. The book is not for the faint hearted as it is delves into the past.
  
  If you want to know why those of Poles do not really consider that the war ended in 1945 but 1989 then read this book. If you are interested in all aspects of Eastern Europe and WW2 this book is a must buy.
• 
  Manray9

  Thorough, complete and instructive. Highly recommended.
• 
  Jenny

  Bracing myself to yet again try to gain more knowledge and understanding of the lives of my parents and why I was born in Australia so far away from the homes of my ancestors.
  
  Yet again I am reading with tears in my eyes. As Halik Kochanski relates the story of what happened to Poles (my father, Jan) and Belorussians (my mother, Alexandra) I think of my grandmothers, my grandfathers and other relatives of whom I know nothing.
  
  My parents could not speak of their experience of WW2 - I only know they lost my brother, Zygmush (4) and my sister, Irena (11 mths). My mother lost touch with all her family forever. Halik's clear, factual and compassionate text explains why this happened.
  
  As Hitler and Stalin played their cruel Chess game of power - people died, people suffered. My parents survived - but with wounds so deep they could not share. They poured all their love into their only child, her husband and their three beautiful grandchildren.
  
  I can read this book only a chapter at a time. Thank you Halik for writing this history.
• 
  Mikey B.

  Page 536 (my book): “A war begun in the defence of the inviolability and independence of Poland has ended with the deprivation of Polish independence and the placing of the country under the rule of a foreign power.”
  
  This book traces the sad history of Poland during World War II. No country suffered more than Poland, which faced, at the beginning, two occupations by Germany and the Soviet Union, then Germany from 1941- 44, and at wars’ end that of the Soviet Union. In a very real sense Poland’s occupation ended only after the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. It could be argued (which is not a debate I have any inclination to be involved in) that the Soviet Union suffered more than Poland during the Second World War, but proportionately more Poles were victimized and Poland’s war started in 1939.
  
  The author describes all the events beginning with the dual occupation and the division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union – both were vicious occupiers. Even though Poland was a poor country, the Soviets were impressed in 1939 by the abundance they found, and abruptly started to take everything. I was not aware that during its occupation the Soviet Union killed and/or deported to their extensive Gulag system - thousands upon thousands of Poles. Many starved to death – and many that were sent to the Western Allies after 1941 from their Gulags, via the circuitous route of Iran, were in a deplorable physical state.
  
  There are chapters on the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the Holocaust, the Warsaw uprising of 1944 with Soviet troops looking on sixty kilometres away. As an aside, the author points out the extreme arrogance of the French army who did not consult with the remnants of the Polish army after 1939 – the French were next on the German “chopping block”.
  
  The author recounts the Katyn massacre of Polish officers in 1940 and its constant denial by the Soviet Union – the guilt of this was only acknowledged by both Gorbachev and Yeltsin in the early 1990’s. There is a direct link between the Katyn massacre “controversy” and Stalin’s non-recognition of the exiled Polish government in London in April of 1943.
  
  
  
  Yalta, Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, The Polish London Government (or Polish exile government) & Lublin Polish Government (Stalin’s puppets)
  
  There is a strong tendency I wish to comment on throughout this book to blame the Western Allies – particularly Roosevelt and Churchill – for allowing Stalin to set up his own puppet regime in Poland – which started in 1944. It is Stalin who set up a cruel dictatorship in Poland, not the Western Allies.
  
  For instance on page 508 of my book: “Ultimately the success of the Yalta conference would rest on whether Churchill and Roosevelt had been correct in assuming that the Soviets could be trusted not to impose communist dominated governments on the countries of Eastern Europe.” This is pointing in the wrong direction. The question should be: would Stalin live up to his agreements at Yalta – which he clearly did not. He never allowed any opposition parties in Poland (in fact many were arrested and killed) and “unfettered and free elections” as called for at Yalta, did not happen until after 1990. The author also points out that Stalin had 2 million Red Army troops in Poland – he had all the cards – having over 10 million troops in Eastern Europe. Going to war with Stalin after the Germans had been defeated was not an option. Stalin wanted his puppets in Poland and there was very little the Western Allies could do about it. Stalin had “boots on the ground” in Eastern Europe, the Western Allies did not. With these “boots on the ground” Stalin was able to build his own government – and sadly, this became a rule by terror with massive population resettlements and the arrest of thousands of members of the Polish resistance.
  
  The author on page 358: “But for Stalin... to ensure political dominance over the entire population of Poland the authority of the Polish government in London had to be undermined”. I find this statement unrealistic. The Polish government in London never had authority in Poland after September 1939. It was a government in absentia. Much closer to the truth is the author’s statement from Stalin (page 510): “Churchill wants the Soviet Union to share a border with a bourgeois Poland, alien to us, but we cannot allow this to happen.” Did this London Polish government really think that a person of Stalin’s’ nature was going to merely let them waltz into Warsaw and set up a democratic government?
  
  On page 436: “The Polish government (in London) wanted the British and United States governments to give guarantees that they would uphold Poland’s post-war frontiers and that the Soviet occupation of Poland would end as soon as the war did”. This guarantee would have merely been a paper guarantee which was worthless in front of Stalin’s Red Army in Eastern Europe. As mentioned on page 439 by Roosevelt to the Polish ambassador: “Do you expect us to declare war on Joe Stalin if they cross your previous frontier?” On page 479: “The men of the II Polish Corps held on to the belief that after Germany was defeated they could go into action against the Soviet Union.” This was a delusion.
  
  Up until the end of the Second World War the Soviet Union was viewed as an ally – and correctly so. Beginning in 1943 it was the Red Army that was primarily defeating Germany, which was the main objective. They were hardly viewed as someone to go to war with. Unfortunately Churchill and Roosevelt needed Stalin more than the London Polish Government (and the same applied to DeGaulle). It was only after the war – and the beginning of the Cold War – that many saw the Soviet Union for what it was: a despotic dictatorship that waged war against its own people.
  
  One must realize that Poland’s vulnerable geography places it directly between two of Europe’s most dangerous nations – sadly Poland risks being emasculated by one of the two.
  
  Despite all, this book is still very worthwhile. There is a thorough examination on the ramifications of the Warsaw Uprising along with Russia’s intransigence. I did feel the author went on too long about Polish participation with the Western Allies (like in Italy) – but it does make us understand more the dismay and bitterness of the Polish people when their country became usurped, once more, under the yoke of a powerful neighbor.
  
  One further quote:
  Page xxix: “In 1939 Poland was a heterogeneous country with significant national minorities of Ukrainians, Belorussians, Lithuanian, Germans and Jews, but in 1945 Poland became a homogenous country.”
• 
  Danusha Goska

  In my work on the Brute Polak stereotype, I attempt to explain why so many otherwise Politically Correct people, who find stereotyping of African Americans, homosexuals, and women to be utterly beyond the pale, feel free to engage in the most egregious stereotyping of Poles. One justification for anti-Polish stereotyping: "Poles have not suffered." Others have suffered, and they must be shielded from verbal assault. Poles, on the other hand, have not suffered, and deserve no such protection.
  
  Poles have not suffered: that anyone could say this, never mind as an excuse for stereotyping, demonstrates that Poles have not adequately communicated their story on college campuses, in literature, through museums or in the political arena. In addition, there are pressures against Poles speaking the truth. In 1939, a week before the Nazi blitzkrieg in Poland, Hitler stated, "I put ready my Death's Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language." I was once told that I could not include that quote in a scholarly work if I wished to see my work published. Referencing Polish suffering, I was told, would be interpreted as an attempt to minimize Jewish suffering.
  
  According to the Harvard University Press webpage, in "'The Eagle Unbowed,' Halik Kochanski tells, for the first time, the story of Poland’s war in its entirety." It's been a long wait, but now that Kochanski's book is here, one thing is clear: if the word "genocide" cannot be applied to Poland during World War II, then the word "genocide" has no meaning.
  
  The sadism and suffering recorded in these pages is overwhelming. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia invaded Poland in September, 1939. Both intended to erase Poland. Both explicitly stated as much. Both Germany and Russia had, for hundreds of years, tried to erase Poland. Both performed genocidal acts, including mass murder of non-combatant civilians, mass murder of political, religions, cultural, and military leaders, targeting children for persecution, outlawing education, outlawing Polish language, focused attempts to erase Polish culture, mass deportations, enslavement, and resettlement of former Polish territory with non-Poles. Both had clear and plausible plans for the ultimate elimination of Poland and Polishness; the German was named Generalplan Ost.
  
  Polish priests in Dachau concentration c& Polish professors in the Sachsenhausen concentration c& Polish military officers mass murdered by the Soviets in Katyn; Polish children kidnapped by Nazis; some to be raised as Nazis, some to be gassed; Polish children starved to death in the Soviet Gulag; Polish villages destroyed by the Nazis; Polish villagers massacred by Soviet partisans; Polish villagers massacred by Ukrainians; Polish museums, factories, forests, libraries, artworks, burned, bombed, despoiled, crated up and carted away; Poland abandoned and betrayed by her allies France, England, and America: If the word "genocide" cannot be applied to this, the word "genocide" has no meaning. It does not belittle others' suffering to state that Poland was a victim of genocide during World War II. It demeans humanity to refuse to say so.
  
  We've read bits and pieces of this history in other volumes. If Harvard's advertising is correct, this is the first English-language overview of WW II in Poland. It is the first such book I have read. Even though I am familiar with this history, reading it all in one sitting is an emotional and spiritual challenge.
  
  Kochanski's style is brisk and no-nonsense. She covers a massive amount of material – addressing diplomacy, military maneuvers, espionage, torture – in the most efficient manner possible. She does not linger over the heartbreaking aspect of her narrative. She does select quotes that do the work of bringing to brief life the emotional impact of massive human evil. These quotes flame out on the page, and, like lit matchsticks, go out quickly, as we return to the forced march through hell. At times, Kochanski's text can be dry. This is especially true of the opening chapters that hurry the reader through a necessary introduction to Polish history. Even when discussing highly contested material, such as the role of Polish non-Jews in the Nazi genocide of Jews, Kochanski is dispassionate and quick. This book will never be a bestseller, but anyone who has any interest in Poland owes it to himself to read it, indeed, to soldier through it.
  
  I am not a historian, and I am not qualified to assess this massive amount of data. I have read professional reviews of "The Eagle Unbowed" and been positively impressed. I've also read two critical reviews of the book, one by Antony Polonsky, the other by John Connelly. Polonsky praises the book on its handling of military history and the Second Polish Republic. Polonsky cites errors of fact, errors that could easily be corrected in subsequent editions. Polonsky faults the book for not citing recent work by Barbara Engelking, Andrzej Zbikowski and Jan Grabowski, including work that depicts Polish-Jewish relations during World War II in a less favorable light.
  
  In his December 3 review of "The Eagle Unbowed" in The Nation, John Connelly mimes a tone of forced befuddlement. He doesn't understand how Poles can be sometimes stereotyped as noble, and, at other times, as base scum. Connelly would benefit from reading "Bieganski, The Brute Polak Stereotype." Ironically, Connelly chastises Kochanski for not being aware of current scholarship. This current scholarship, Connelly writes, demonstrates that Poles, inspired by their own anti-Semitism, collaborated with Nazis in the Final Solution. He also criticizes Kochanski for citing anti-Communism as the cause of Polish hostility to Jews, for example, in territory often occupied by the Soviets. In sum, Connelly writes, Kochanski is to be faulted because the Polish viewpoint prevails in her book.
  
  No doubt historians will debate whether or not Kochanski is too soft on, or underrepresents, Polish anti-Semitism, and whether or not the book is representational. I am not an historian, and I can only watch from the sidelines of such a debate. No matter the outcome, the book as it stands now is one that must be read by anyone who wants to talk about Poland during WW II.
  
• 
  Ania

  Finished at last! My gosh that was horrible. A real review will come tomorrow (if I can remember that it...)
• 
  Binston Birchill

  Every student of history knows, generally, what happened to the Polish people during WWII, but this is one of those situations where, when you read a 600 page book dedicated to the subject, it turns out to be so much worse than you thought. From relocation to political missteps, countless atrocities to their war contributions, the westward shifting of their borders to more relocations, Halik Kochanski does a superb job of bringing together the whole of the Polish experience during the Second World War, concluding with a final chapter of the aftermath. During almost any other time the Polish experience would have been the focal point of justifiable outrage, but the Holocaust (which included approximately 3,000,000 Polish Jews) casts a long shadow, and unfortunately, the story of the Polish people has been seen, if seen at all, as an insignificant side-story. This is one of those books that sticks with you long after the final page is turned.
• 
  Anntonette

  Horror story, history, expose, explanation and cautionary tale. Also, completely true, impeccably researched and documented.
• 
  Eric Wishman

  I started The Eagle Unbowed for two main reasons. First to get out of my comfort zone. Most of my reading on World War II has come from an American perspective so I wanted to branch out to be introduced to other experiences during the war and other views about the war. The second reason was that it was highly recommended by a loyal contributor to the Goodreads World War Two group.
  
  I'm thankful for the recommendation as I found the Eagle Unbowed to be engaging, informative, and comprehensive. The author covered every facet of the war that touched Poland and Poles. She started with a history of the country including its reformation after the First World War. She moves to Poland's foreign relations before the war then moves on to Germany's invasion and the subsequent atrocities inflicted on the country until after the war. Other topics the author explored includes deportations to Russia; German occupation; military engagements of Polish forces; the underground army and government; plus much more. I was surprised to learn that Polish forces fought in Norway and France in 1940. This isn't typically covered in western narratives of these battles. The book ends after the 1947 elections.
  
  I highly recommend this book!!
• 
  Kirk

  Allow me to explain what led me to The Eagle Unbowed. First and foremost, I am mostly Polish and I have always had an interest in history. In high school and college (majored in History) the most I ever learned of Poland was that it was partitioned several times in the 18th and 19th centuries, and that it was invaded by Germany in September, 1939. Clearly, there was a lot of history there that I'd been missing out on. By the time I graduated I was so burnt-out on history that I never dug any further. It wasn't until I recently saw three films by Polish director Andrzej Wajda (mentioned briefly near the end of the book) that I regained an interest in Polish history circa WWII. These films were A Generation (Pokolonie) (1955), Kanal (1957), and Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i diament) (1958); they're all great and I recommend watching them in order (as well as the interviews afterwards, if you get the Criterion Collection editions). In each, Wajda portrays a group of people: Polish communists resisting the Germans, Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa or AK)in the Warsaw Uprising, and the post-war remnants of the Home Army resisting communist takeover, respectively.
  
  Now my interest was really piqued. I found The Eagle Unbowed (TEU) at the library after searching for Polish history books about WWII and the years after. What I thought I'd be most interested in were the years just after the war (as depicted in Ashes and Diamonds), but I think this was just because I didn't realize how much was going on in Poland during the war. TEU gives a brief history of Poland's rise to prominence and eventual "pickle in the middle" status with Austria, Prussia, and Russia; WWI and the intervening years, including the war with the Soviet Union in the 1920s, are also reviewed. The main focus of the book is WWII itself, from the mythical cavalry charge on German tanks to the "end" of the war in 1945, which, as Kochanski and other reviewers note, was no end at all for the Poles.
  
  One of the things I was most impressed by while reading TEU was how confusing everything is. I'm not saying that Kochanski's writing is confusing; in fact, her appendices and name guides were helpful in keeping things straight(relatively speaking); rather, how confusing it must have been to be a Pole at that time. Which of the numerous groups do you ally with? Who are their allies? What do the other powers want for Poland or from Poland? On top of that, every power wants them to move east or west, or just vanish from existence entirely. And in spite of all this, a great many Poles were able to organize and effectively combat the Nazis and Soviets all around the world. I imagine myself as a Pole in the 1940's carrying around this book and scratching my head trying to get things figured out. Basically, if the book is confusing, it's because the history itself was confusing, as much for those living it as for those studying it.
  
  Also mind-boggling is the staggering number of people killed in such a short time. Kochanski throws a lot of numbers at us during all the battles, executions, forced migrations, etc., and I admit that by about halfway through I was glossing over the stats; part of this was laziness, but I think part of it is the mind's inability to comprehend such destruction, like "I can't even fathom 40,000 people dying in one spot in one day so I'm going to skim over this paragraph."
  
  TEU helped to fill in the massive knowledge gaps left by my formal education, and at the same time it increased my pride in being Polish and my gratitude at not having to be alive at such a horrifying time (not that the world's a sunny paradise in 2013 but that's another story).
  
  Kochanski should be commended for writing a comprehensive history on Poland in the years around WWII. Regardless of her Polish name, I did not get the feeling, as some of you did, that Kochanski was unjustly opinionated without the backing of facts and excerpts from primary sources at her side. I also appreciated her guide on Polish pronunciation at the beginning of the book enough to tab it and constantly flip back to it until I could remember what letters made what sound. It makes a big difference to me when reading a book with foreign names to be able to pronounce them correctly. It also helps me to remember names better when I say them aloud and in their appropriate accent. For TEU I read all of the names in the voice of Andrzej Wajda, as heard in the Criterion interviews mentioned above.
  
  A few suggestions of improvements for future editions: a second section of pictures, fix the typos (I can remember almost a dozen obvious ones), and redesign the maps so that the different portions stand out better in black and white (sometimes it was hard to tell dark gray from slightly darker gray). Apart from those minor complaints, I recommend reading this book in conjunction with the three Wajda films to get a better idea of the story.
• 
  Andrew Davis

  One of the best books on history of Poland during the Second World War. Addresses a number of issues from different perspectives. Quotes Churchill's reaction to the Katyn murder of Polish officers: "if they are dead nothing you can do will bring them back" (page 343). However, on the whole it portrays Churchill as an advocate of Polish people, a man of high moral principles and most human of the allied troika.
  Among many examples of objective addressing of Polish history are an explanation why the First Polish army formed in USSR under Anders left to Palestine, and why Polish soldiers were not invited by British government to the Victory Parade to commemorate VE Day.
  An Excellent book for all those interested in the Second World War and the fate of Poland, the only country fighting along Allied armies that ended up with its borders and without freedom for another 45 years, with majority of its educated leadership murdered by Germans and Russians, and those who survived persecuted by the Communist regime for years after.
• 
  Matthew Griffiths

  A excellent documenting of the incredibly important role that the poles played in the various theatres of World War 2. I will initially confess that prior to reading this of knowing only really about the fierce defence that the poles enacted after the invasion of Poland and their role in the battle of Britain, I had no idea of the importance that they played on the eastern front and particularly at Monte Cassino. This book covers a great deal in its pages and for a fascinating account of a lesser known side of the history of WW2 I couldn't recommend a better starting point.
• 
  Philip

  This is a great book. I think most folks know the bits anecdotally, but this puts the whole World War II experience in context. And it is horrendous. The Poles suffered hugely, especially but not limited to their Jewish population. And the politics of the Allies, Britain, US, and the Soviet Union are daunting and sad. A great book.
• 
  Rita

  Most people usually remember the brutality of D-Day, the miracle at Dunkirk and the notoriety of the Japanese attack on Pearl Habour when speaking about World War II. Most of the time, we see the war from the Western, more specifically the British and American perspectives. Seldom do we concern ourselves with the plight and misery of the one country that lost one fifth of the pre-war population and even its sovereignty after the war despite fighting alongside the Allies from the beginning until the very end - Poland. Halik Kochanski’s The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War chronicles and deconstructs in details how Poland’s rebirth after the First World War left her surrounded by hostile neighbours, how Britain and France failed to come to Poland’s help despite having guaranteed military actions against any German military advances on Polish soils, the devastation and suffering inflicted upon Poland and its people by the policies of two of the most diabolical regimes, how the Poles contributed to the allied war efforts against the Nazi war machine, most notably during the Battle of Britain and how Poland was left alone and abandoned, with the connivance of Churchill and Roosevelt, at the mercy of Stalin after the war. This book thoroughly examines how and why the Poles felt completely betrayed by the Allies. And most importantly, the inconvenient truth buried underneath the popular myth advocated by the West that the Second World War was a ‘good war’. Yes, it was to most countries liberated by the Allies but to the Poles, it was never a ‘good war’, only a war that they lost twice - “The end of the war did not bring liberation to the Poles. In the battlegrounds of Central Europe, it simply meant swapping one form of evil for another, Hitler’s henchmen for Stalin’s.”
• 
  Peter Jowers

  I read it mainly to find out how Polish soldiers had contributed to the allied cause, as I was familiar with the brilliant record of the Polish RAF squadrons.
  I learnt that many thousands served and may well have been the ones who cracked deadlocks at Monte Casino and the Falaise Gap. Their code breakers gave the Bletchley crowd a head start by sending over an Enigma machine a few years before WW2. The politic and diplomatic activity before, during and for long after the war is heavy going and distressing due betrayal in 1939 and 1945. Congratulations to the author for the amazing amount of research she must have done!
• 
  Michael Bazulka

  A comprehensive account of the actions of the Polish nation in WWII. A must read book for anyone who wants to get beyond the propaganda of Soviet Russia and the indifference of the West. A true accounting of the Polish people in WWII and their betrayal by Britain and the United States. The cowardice of the west in the face of Russia that continues to this day. Leaving Poland once again as the unheralded protector of the West against the aggressors from the East.
• 
  Chris

  History everyone should know
  
  An amazing story told soberly and without sensation about a country and a people that were brutalised, used and then left for dead. Important book for people that are interested not only in modern history, but humanity's ability for good and horrible evil
• 
  Jan

  Thorough and tough tome that provides a solid overview and isight into the multiple tragedies and treasons that constitute the Polish World War 2 experience. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to understand the extent of the sacrifice and toil that the Polish nation and people were subjected to during the war.
• 
  Czarny Pies

  The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War is an outstanding academic work of synthesis history that presents a single narrative that will address all the questions that individuals of Polish descent living in the English speaking world might have about what happened Poland during WWII. Its appeal to those without a personal connection through ancestry, marriage or friendship to Poland will be considerably less.
  For myself the greatest value of The Eagle Unbowed is the thorough way in which it explains the six years of expulsions, imprisonments and movements of the Polish population during WWII. Throughout 40 years of conversing with my in-laws and relatives, I found the story getting more complicated every year. One large group of Poles were sent to Russia and then arrived in North America via Iran, India or Africa. Another large group was conscripted into forced labour in Germany. Others spent time with the British Army in Palestine, Italy and France. At least half the immigrants in North America, will tell you that theirfamily had lived for many generations in the Ukraine, Lithuania or Belarus before being transported to Silesia. To Kochanski's great credit she is able to explain why and how all these myriad migrations occurred
  Also of value to the reader with partisan ffeelings, Kochanski also analyzes all the major controversies of Polish history during WWII showing where the Poles are the victims of gross calumny and, at the same time, where the criticisms possess a certain legitimacy. Specifically, Kochanski examines the following hot issues.
  - the failure of France and England to wage war against Germany after the invasion of Poland in 1939
  - the legend of Polish cavalry attacking German tanks
  -the reasons why Britain and United States chose to participate in the cover-up of the Katyn Forest massacre
  - the conspiracy theory on the death of wartime Polish Prime Minister Sikorski
  - the reasons why the doomed Warsaw Uprising was started
  - the reasons why the Western Allies provided so little military and diplomatic assistance to the Warsaw uprising
  - the alleged failure of the Polish underground to assist the Warsaw ghetto uprising
  - the extent of Polish involvement in the Endlosung
  - the ethnic cleansing of Poles conducted by other national groups in the Eastern territories
  -the Pogrom of Kielce
  Armed with Kochanski's analysis, reader feeling a loyalty to Poland knows where the Polish actions can be justified and where some contrition is appropriate. The Eagle Unbowed is indeed a useful book for someone wishing to defend the record of Poles during WWII because it also deters specious defences of Polish actions where the justification is lacking.
  
• 
  Stephen Graham

  A reasonably even-handed narrative history of Poland and the Poles in the Second World War. Kochanski does focus primarily on the actions of the London Poles and the allied underground movement in Poland. Coverage is given to the Soviet-backed Lublin movement and the associated military forces. More depth on this side would seem merited, as this is the government that wound up in control of Poland in the post-war era. Kochanski is critical of the London government and its inability to respond to the conditions it faced on the ground. Once it became clear that liberation from the Germans would necessarily be by the Soviets, Polish policies needed to change to reflect that and mostly didn't. Kochanski ends with analysis of the post-war swings in Polish history of the war; the book would have benefited from a final reflection on what happened and what might have been done differently.
• 
  Rob McWilliams

  Kochanski’s book, surely, contains everything the general reader will ever want to know about Poland and the Poles in the Second World War – invasion (by Germany and Russia); occupation; exile; fighting under the British and the Russians; the Holocaust; the risings; and the final inexorable establishment of Soviet domination. The book is readable even through the dullest political passages, although I would have liked to have learned more about the main actors as people – Anders, Sikorski, Mikolajczyk. Kochanski takes up the Polish cause, but does not whitewash the Poles in their relations with Jews, Ukrainians, and even Germans.
• 
  Chris

  An extraordinarily well research and clear account of Poland's tragic history thought and after world war 2. Subject to merciless subjugation by first the Germans and the Soviets, then the Germans alone, and finally the Soviets again, the author takes us through the magnitude of the atrocities that this country suffered throughout the war at the hands of their two conquerors. An important book to more fully understand the terrible war in the East, but helps put into historical context the present day concerns about Russian pressure on countries like Poland, Baltic countries and more immediately Georgia and Ukraine. It's quite a hefty read but worth it.
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  Andrew Helms

  Fantastic book about Poland during World War II. It is absolutely astounding the suffering that took place in Poland and surrounding Central/Eastern Europe during this period and during the Soviet period of domination following the war.
  
  The book is extremely well written, and while certainly more detailed than a common reader would desire, well worth the effort to finish and gain a well-rounded perspective of the World War II period.
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  Tomlikeslife

  What a depressing book. The Poles suffering during the 2nd World War was appalling and this book does a good job describing the atrocities they went through. That being said, the writing was choppy and the author seemed pretty biased.
  
  A good historical read but not a book you will want to curl up with for some light-hearted reading.
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  Robert Johnson

  Lots of detail in this book. I was especially struck by the conditions endured by the Poles who were sent to Siberia and their plight after they were granted amnesty after the Germans invaded Russia. Well worth the read.
  
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Unbowed-P...
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  Alex

  Good account of the political and military groups who tried to keep Poland's independence alive during WWII, first from Germany and later the Soviet Union. The parts that dealt with the experiences of Poles deported to the USSR after the partition was interesting, as was the parts dealing with post V-E Poland.