Domen said:
where German national chauvinists and Nazi supporters were recruited to those units.
And not only them - also some ethnic Polish traitors were recruited by German Abwehr.
For example Captain of the Polish Army Witalis Wieder - who was chief of the Association of Reserve Officers of the Polish army - was an agent of Abwher. Also one of pre-war officers of the Polish Counter-Intelligence Service (Unit 2 of the General Staff of the Polish Army) whose surname was Starykon was a German agent.
Other German agents were for example Leon Adamczyk from the Command of the Border Guard (Straż Graniczna), Lieutenant Wybocki from the Command of Corps District (DOK) No. VIII Torun (Thorn).
Another German agent was for example this guy:
Major Władysław Boczoń - pseudonym "Panther" - in 1939 chief of officer outpost in Poznan, one of officers of the Polish Counter-Intelligence Service, in September he was a liaison officer responsible for communication between Armies "Poznan" and "Lodz" (I don't have to add that he didn't perform his task very well...). Also for example Major Haraszymowicz and an ethnic Ukrainian guy - Major Diaczenko - were German agents in ranks of the Polish Army.
After the war in Communist Poland there were 276 trials for pre-war collaboration with Abwehr. Leon Adamczyk was sentenced to death and executed. So was Starykon from Counter-Intelligence Service. Witalis Wieder was sentenced to death as well but he escaped from Poland in January 1945.
Major Haraszymowicz was executed by Polish Underground resistance movement already during the war.
German Intelligence Service also infiltrated with at least one spy into the structures of the Polish Army's High Command during September 1939.
That spy was an officer of Abwehr, who pretended to be a civilian clerk, Mayor of Siemianowice Slaskie, escaping from the Germans - he joined the motorized column of the High Command during its withdrawal from Warsaw to Brest-Litovsk. There was a working radio station in his car.
Polish military code / cipher was also captured by Germans - so they could read Polish encoded reports.
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As the result of that sabotage, many Germans were executed on the basis of accusation of either being the saboteurs or helping the saboteurs.
Most of those executions were carried out legally, on the basis of legally valid sentences pronounced by wartime court-martials.
However - as it usually happens in the heat of such events and during wartime chaos - there were also some extrajudicial executions.
Below several episodes illustrating such executions:
In first days of September 1939, Polish army discovered a secret radio station in Nowa Wies Krolewska (Königlich Neudorf). This radio station was operated by three Germans from Nowa Wies Krolewska and one German from Biechowo (17 - 66 years old) as well as one ethnic Pole from Nowa Wies Krolewska (17 years old). They were sentenced by the Martial Court to death and were executed in Krzywagora in the afternoon of 6 September 1939 (together with three men aged 19 - 22, inhabitants of the Jarocin County).
As we can see not only ethnic Germans but also ethnic Poles ditto suffered consequences of their illegal actions. There was no "special treatment" depending on ethnicity of perpetrators.
A similar episode took place in Gorazdowo, where local Germans were using radio stations to inform about units of the Polish army stationing there (as the result positions of those units were attacked by Luftwaffe). These saboteurs were escorted to Września and imprisoned there.
A similar situation, but on a larger scale, also took place in Sokolniki (Hamlet Sockelstein), where local Poles interned 41 local Germans (only men - between 15 and 73 years old) and intended to escort them to the nearest police station in Strzalkowo and then to Slupca. However, it turned out that police stations were no longer functioning (due to evacuation of police to the east) and in Sompolno (Deutschen Eck) Germans were handed over to the encountered Polish Army unit, which executed them as saboteurs. On 7 September 1939 these Germans of Sokolniki were buried in the evangelical cemetery in Sompolno, but later (in November) their remnants were exhumated to Sokolniki.
In the night from 4 to 5 September Polish soldiers arrested - on charge of sabotage - 15 Germans from Sobiesiernie (men and women between 19 and 67 years old) and on 5 September at 18:00 executed all of them on the field between Sobiesiernie and Grzybowo (one of these Germans survived the execution).
All these episodes took place during the war, not before the war.
I don't know even a single example of such execution before the war.
Many Germans suspected by Polish Counter-Intelligence Service or by Police of being agents or saboteurs employed by Abwehr (III Reich's Intelligence Service), were arrested before the war, during the Summer of 1939. In most cases there were no mistakes commited by Polish Counter-Intelligence, and those arrested Germans really were Abwehr agents. However, they were not executed - they were only imprisoned or interned in Eastern Poland.
About the internment of dangerous German activists before the war - below several examples of such actions:
Excerpts from initial chapters of the book "Battle of Mlawa 1939" by Ryszard Juszkiewicz:
This refers to the "Cold War" between Poland and Germany, which was taking place in the Summer of 1939, before the real invasion started:
Sorry if quality of translation is not the best:
From page 16 of the book:
"[...] German staffs were also trying to cause psychosis of fear, uncertainty and disbelief in Polish Armed Forces also with use of non military means. Among them broadcasts of German radio in Konigsberg. They were saying in these broadcasts about "shortage of casual men in Poland", about "possibility of finding a well-paid job in Germany", to encourage people to escape to Germany. However, it is characteristic that although economic situation in the borderland in 1939 did not improve, only not numerous escaped to East Prussia. [...] Germans were disappointed because they calculated that because of the propaganda thousands of men would escape, in this way weakening the strength of the Polish Army. Attempt failed. Due to the Sentence of the Regional Court in Mława for an attempt of organizing illegal overruns of the border in 1939 the following people were sentenced: Emma Bergeisten, Rudolf and Marta Weissens, Reingold Elgert, Alfred and Freda Scheins and Franciszek and Józef Szpejewskis.
If there were any escapes to the Reich, they were only carried out by ethnic German minority members living in Northern Mazovia. For example from Iłów - to avoid recruitment to the Polish Army - two sons of Wilhelm Sowa, two members of Prejs family and two Radzanowski brothers escaped to Prussia. Escapes of Poles from the border poviats of this region were not recorded. [...]"
Page 17:
"[...] Another mean, which was to cause atmosphere of uncertainty and disorganize the political life, were messages spread by the German secret service, saying that peasants should not work in their fields, because it is a vain effort in the face of imminent war. German agents were gathering and buying Polish coins. Limited amount of coins in circulations was causing among some people willingness to tesaurisate silver and nickel coins as these - according to commonly spread gossips - would retain their value during the war.
Also behaviour of Germans living in Poland changed. They became even more arrogant and provocative. Local press was saying about numerous indictments to the Polish courts from Polish civilians, about insults and abuses of impudent Germans - informed about imminent war - towards ethnic Poles. [...]"
Pages 25 - 27:
"[...] To protect the resources of the future frontline in the end of August few hundreds of the most active Germans were displaced from Northern Mazovia to the central parts of the country.
In the last few hours before the war many German agents were arrested - thanks to that assembled for a long time intelligence agencies and sabotage networks in several poviats / counties were disorganized.
Another serious success of the local "dwójka" ["dwójka" = Section II of the Main Headquarters = Polish counterintelligence] was "cracking" the activity of Edward Lenc, inhabitant of Mława. His occupation was surveyor and due to this he could freely go anywhere he wanted outside Mława and he was gathering spy information. Moreover together with Brunon Hirsz, occupation - teacher, he was officially working as director of the local PCK in Mława and... was directing the V Column of the local ethnic Germans, number of which in the Mława poviat yet before the war was around 850. "New Mławska Newspaper" from 16.04.1939 in article titled "Germans in the mławski poviat" was saying, that German colonists were living mainly near the locality Szreńsk. In village Stołowo only Germans were living. In village Ostrów there were 60% Germans, in Rochnia - 50%, in Wola Proszkowska - 40%, and three German families in Proszkowo. Two young Krugers were the go-between of the German colony and the Reich.
The whole German colony was fully benefiting from the civil rights of the citizens of the Polish state. It had got its own school with German language of instruction and its own prayer house. Polish authorities did not use any harassments towards the German minority. On the eve of the war only several dangerously active Germans were displaced - on the strength of the decision of administration authorities - from the Mława poviat to the łukowski poviat - for example Brunon Hirsz and owner of the brickyard - Karol Baran.
Edward Lenc was detained for the first time on the border in the beginning of August of 1939. He was soon released, but he was being carefully surveillanced since that time. Lenc, convinced of the incompetence of the Polish secret service, very quickly provided convincing evidence to arrest him as well as the whole intelligence agency, which he had created. During search in his house spy materials and installed broadcaster were found. He was transported to Warsaw and - on the basis of a court sentence - executed during the first days of war.
For his spy contribution Lenc received substantial sums of cash, which he exploited for example for building a big house (near J. Lelewela street 9) in Mława, buying expensive furniture and a car. He was investing his earnings in the bank account in Warsaw.
In 1940 "Deutsche Ostwacht" in an article titled "Silent heroism of a woman and terrible murder of a German - Lenc. Mlawa example for many" presented the activity of Lenc as great heroism - example to imitate - and his arrest and further execution - on the strength of a legally valid court sentence - as example of bestiality of Poles, not respecting basic rules of a citizens' freedom, murdering him only because he was German. The Lenc's case was treated as another proof of suffering allegedly inflicted to the German minority by Polish authorities.
More or less in the same time in a small town Iłów, located 9 kilometres from Mława, Polish authorities liquidated - to which Andrzej Ziółkowski contributed - a spy network of Wilhelm Sowa. Also a German storage of weapons and ammunition located in the house of Radzanowski near Szkolna street 9 was detected and liquidated.
German spies and members of V Column could not be arrested earlier not because of the lack of information about German agents operating in this area, or idleness of the Polish security service, but orders from the political factors - mainly from Ministry of Foreign Affairs - to keep maximal caution, not provoke and soften the international situation. [...]"
Page 28:
"Characteristic phenomenon for the last period before the war were numerous illegal migrations of young people in recruiting age on both sides of the border. In the mławski poviat many people in beggar clothes appeared. On the other hand young Germans were escaping from Poland to avoid being enlisted to the Polish Army or to avoid detentions in case if they were members of spy networks or V Column. Due to these facts on 30.04.1939 Polish authorities issued the "Law about Special Criminal Liability In Case of Illegal Escapes to the Enemy or Outside the Borders of the State". On the strength of this law Polish courts punished many ethnic Germans. But it did not prevent all escapes. In August of 1939 many young Germans appeared along the border. Captured by Polish Border Guard or Police, they were explaining that they were escaping from the upcoming war, that they hated Hitler, that they were good Catholics persecuted by German authorities. Polish security authorities usually interpreted reasons of these escapes correctly - that is, contraband of saboteurs to the Polish territory. But many circles - including the local press and Catholic clergy - assumed that stories about massive escapes from religious reasons were true, they were cheated and treated exodus of "refugees" as preview of soon crisis in godless Germany. Indeed, there were also such persons, who were really escaping from the Nazi terror, but it was several years before the beginning of the war. For example in 1936 a German deserter with full equipment escaped from the garrison in Olsztyn [Allenstein] to Poland - his name was Heinz Keller."
As you can see Nazi propaganda depicted executions of Nazi Germany's agents and spies in Poland, as
"persecution of German minority in Poland".
