28 January – 15 April 2023, Online

The Institute of Polish Military History runs ZOOM lectures during the year on various aspects of Polish Military History by well known authors and experienced lecturers.

The Institute has just released the upcoming four lectures on the 2023 season, which are on the following dates and topics:

28th January 2023 – The 1939 Polish Campaign, Roger Moorhouse

Roger Moorhouse has a MA in history and politics from the University of London. His book ‘Berlin at War’ was listed among the books of the year for 2010.

First to Fight: The Polish War 1939 is his most recent publication and focuses on the German and Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Shortlisted for the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History 2020. In 2014, Moorehouse’s The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939- 1941 was published.

Booking link via Eventbrite:

THE 1939 POLISH CAMPAIGN Tickets, Sat 28 Jan 2023 at 11:30 | Eventbrite

11th February 2023: The Polish Naval Campaign of September 1939, Dr. Andrzej Suchcitz

How did the Polish Navy take on the large German Navy in September 1939, with its 5 subs, 4 destroyers, mine warfare and support vessels?

The first naval campaign of the Second World War is all but unknown in that war’s historiography (apart from in Poland). The small but modern Polish Navy put up a brief but spirited defence of Poland’s coastline against overwhelming German superiority at sea and on land. The article poses the questions whether the Polish Navy was an ill afforded luxury and was it used in 1939 to its full potential. In the event the naval campaign in Poland clearly demonstrated Poland’s right and necessity to its own coastline.

Dr Andrzej Suchcitz, PhD, FrHist.S, studied history at the University of London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies. He is Keeper of the Archives at the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum and The Polish Underground Movement (1939-1945) Study Trust. Among his publications are : ‘Poland’s Contribution to the Allied Victory in the Second World War; General Wladyslaw Sikorski, Poland’s Wartime Leader, 2007; General Wladyslaw Anders. Soldier and Leader of the Free Poles in Exile, 2008.

Booking link via Eventbrite:

THE POLISH NAVAL CAMPAIGN SEPTEMBER 1939 Tickets, Sat 11 Feb 2023 at 11:30 | Eventbrite

18th March 2023: Polish Strategic Challenges since 1945 , Panel Discussion

Jarek Garliński and Professor Bolek Biskupski will be joined by other experts to discuss the strategic and military challenges Poland has faced since the end of the Second World War. This is even more topical in view of the continuing war in Ukraine.

Mieczysław B. Biskupski has a doctorate from Yale University and holds the Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish History at Central Connecticut State University. He has been President of both the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences and the Polish American Historical Association in the United States as well as a Director of the Józef Piłsudski Institute in New York. He has published eighteen books and more than sixty essays.

Jarek Garlinski, educated at the University of Nottingham, the University of Grenoble and the School of Slavonic and East Euroopean Studies at the University of London. After a career in education in the UK, France and the US, Jarek Garliński divides his time between the US and the UK, and translates Polish history.. He is a member of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America and has been decorated by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences for services to Polish culture.

Booking link via Eventbrite:

POLISH SECURITY CHALLENGES SINCE 1945 – A PANEL Tickets, Sat 18 Mar 2023 at 15:30 | Eventbrite

15th April 2023: Polish Armed Forces in the UK During WWII, Jennifer Grant

Jennifer Grant is Postgraduate Researcher specialising in the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Her focus is on the challenges to the integration of Polish soldiers, sailors and airmen into British society and the wider Allied war effort between 1939 and 1947.

Recent Publications ‘Sikorski’s Tourists’, History of War, Issue 92, March 2021.

However, the relationship between the Poles in exile and their British hosts was not a straightforward one. Jennifer Grant examines this connection as well as Polish integration into British society, the Allied military structures, and proceeds to show the influence of Operation Barbarossan on the decline of British-Polish Relations at that time.

Booking link via Eventbrite:

POLISH ARMED FORCES IN THE UK DURING WWII Tickets, Sat 15 Apr 2023 at 11:30 | Eventbrite

More about the Institute of Polish Military History, part of the Polish Heritage Society here:

POLISH ARMED FORCES IN THE UK DURING WWII Tickets, Sat 15 Apr 2023 at 11:30 | Eventbrite