Vikipeedia:GLAM/Estonia-Poland relations/5

Story 5

Polish-Estonian diplomatic relations at the eve of World War II

By the spring of 1939, Germany's demands on Poland had become intense and relations between the two countries were in a critical situation. The Estonian Embassy in Poland sent confidential documents to the Estonian Foreign Minister mostly consisting descriptive information.

While on 30 March the Estonian ambassadors are speaking about the reduction of political tensions and German invasion was considered almost impossible, the situation soon became alarming. In the spring of 1939, obtaining information and its reliability became a big problem for Estonian ambassadors in Poland. The letters sent to the Estonian Foreign Minister reflected the confusion, information blockade and rumors. A lot of information is obtained from the third parties of dubious value, and the secrecy of Polish colleagues is often considered to be an issue. This was caused by the fact that Latvia and Estonia, which were both considered to be important partners for Poland, started various cooperation projects with Germany. For example, Tomasz Arciszewski, an assistant to the Polish Foreign Minister at the time, said: “Latvians go from one extreme to another, first cooperating too much with the Soviet Union and now with the Germans. By now, they are already completely swimming in German water. ”(20) The Polish government was equally alarmed by Estonia's behavior. It was thought that Estonia's relations with Germany and Russia had gone much further than the policy of neutrality of the Baltic States should go. Tensions persisted until the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939. Poland believed in the full support of Estonia and Latvia, hoping that if their relations with Germany went critical, the two Baltic states mentioned above would also take the steps against Germans. Contrary to expectations, Latvia and Estonia increased cooperation with Germany. (55)

Initially, it seemed to Estonian diplomats that the current escalation of events will be stopped with the negotiations between the British and the Polish. Sadly the negotiations which began on 6th of April took very long time, ending with the Anglo-Polish military alliance on the 25th of August. For a moment, there was hope that Japan would offer to mediate between the two countries and find a solution. In my opinion, Estonian ambassadors were naive about events in Poland. Estonian diplomats only described various promising meetings, positive negotiations and options for the escalation, but largely ignored the growing threat of war.

As by that time the security threats had also risen in Estonia with its eastern neighbor, Russia. Tense atmosphere prevailed in Poland, almost all correspondence between Estonian embassy in Poland and foreign ministry of Estonia was entitled "secret" and the use of telegraphs, which had become popular at that time, was carried out according to strict rules. The Estonian government sent schiffer codes to the diplomats, which had to be memorised and then burned.

When the war began, most of the employees of the Estonian embassy fled to their homeland. The secret archive “Schmidt” (60) was destroyed at the Warsaw Estonian embassy, and the employees of the Estonian embassy in Poland gave regular reports of the war and situation.

Sources

Eesti rahvusarhiiv, ERA.957.14.698

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