German agent in UB

Maciej Marosz

Independent.PL






Filip Blazejowski/Gazeta Polska



During the Extraordinary legislature of Polish Judges, justice Marek Safjan described the 2 judges as “sad” by describing the past of their parents. Meanwhile, “Gazeta Polska” reached fresh papers concerning the past of the father of Safjan. He was not only an associate of Communist Military Information, but besides an officer of Nazi Grenzschutz, fighting the National Army.

Some of the facts described here have already been disclosed in the publications of prof. Andrzej Nowak, Maciej Replewicz or Joanna Siedlecka. However, the “Gazeta Polska” reached the papers found in the Central Military Archive, including Safjan's personnel file from his post-war service on the LWP's Chief Political Board.

In Grenzschutz as a volunteer

According to the documents, From 1943 to 1944 Zbigniew Safjan served in the uniform of Nazi police Grenzschutz, besides called “Zoll”. He volunteered. He then lived in the village of Rozana. The Germans arranged a judaic ghetto in this settlement of the Brest region. In 1942, they began its liquidation. They deported its inhabitants to a camp in Wołkowysk, where they were shortly taken to Treblinka gas chambers. More than 120 people were murdered in Rozana. Many were killed during the march to Volkovsk.

Różana and surrounding areas were an inflammatory region close the 3rd Reich border with Belarus. Safjan witnessed these dramatic events. He was wearing a Nazi uniform and a gun. His photograph was preserved in the uniform of the Nazi state police. Her troops were active in fighting anti-Hitler guerrillas.

According to the information she received in 1950, the Peerel Military Prosecutor's Office,

"Safjan erstwhile in a conflict with guerrillas specially distinguished himself, received praise from the military German authorities and was set as a model of a good soldier."



Shot by a tip from Safjana

With the formation of Safjana – the Grenzschutz police – the AK troops, among others, clashed. It was at the hands of these officers that Commander Tadeusz Zawadzki “Zośka” was killed in action in Sieczych. Safjan fled with the German army in 1944 erstwhile the russian army front moved west. In unexplained – besides by communist safety – Safjan's circumstances then crossed the front line and joined the Red Army. From there he went to the ranks of the Second Army of the WP.

After the war, he began to make a fast career and shortly became head of the propaganda department of the Chief Political Board. He was liable for the political training of soldiers and instilling Marxist-Leninian propaganda.

In 1945, Safjan filed a Russian study to Military Information for his fellow military officer. A 21-year-old AK soldier Jan Nessler was incorporated into the army commanded by General Karol Świerczewski. He confided in Safjan that he did not know whether to take an oath of allegiance to the creature led by Bolesław Bierut or to flee to the independency partisan.

Nessler was in fact convicted by a military court for his membership of the AK. He was accused of wanting to affect Safjan in his cooperation to keep the AK in contact with the civilian population. The conviction – the death punishment – was executed.

"Politically rather sure"

In the Safjan army, he rapidly deserved the flattering opinions of his superiors. His commanders stated that "he is an officer sincerely devoted to the origin of Democratic Poland". On the occasion of the application for promotion to Lieutenant, it was written in 1946 that he "worked politically eagerly, perfectly understood the political situation of the country, politically completely sure, democratic views".

Safjan was distinguished by the management of the GZP (the Chief Political Board of the Polish Army) for political awareness of the staff and the fight against "right-nationalist deviations". Due to the 32nd anniversary of the large Socialist Revolution of October, Major Safjan was awarded a cash bonus of PLN 6000. After a year he besides received specified a distinction. At that time, the head of political training of soldiers besides applied for vacation cards for his wife and kid at a military vacation center in Jurat.

More than life

He hid his cooperation with the German occupier Safjan from communist power. However, erstwhile the full fact came out during the interrogation before being recruited by Military Information, Safjan admitted to lying in his résumé, concealing the fact of service in the Nazi formation.

Although after Safjana's cooperation with the Nazis was revealed, he was removed from the army, demoted to a private and excluded from the party, this did not origin his public death. On the contrary, then a fresh phase of his large career opened as an influential figure of the Polish People's Republic, and later the 3rd Republic of Poland. In civilians he could proceed to work as a propagandist and proceed his journalistic work already begun in the military. He besides conducted literary activities, became the author of bestsellers specified as “Then there will be silence”, “To the blood of the last” or the banner ‘Stakes greater than life’,in which he created it as the "hero" of the PRL agent NKWD Hans Kloss.

In 1951, Safjan was recruited as a TW by Military Information, choosing ps. “Zeran”. In his commitment to co-operation, he stated that he was aware of the criminal work for the crimes committed by concealing from the military authorities the fact that he belonged to the organisation “Zoll” during the business and cooperation with Germany.

“I undertake to cooperate with the MON Information Authorities in revealing spies, diversions and another enemies of Democratic Poland and the Polish Army,” Safjan said.

After years of break, since 1967, he has acted again in the PZPR, being among others an activist of the Warsaw organization Committee. In the state of war he went to the Provisional Council of the National Patriotic National Rebirth Movement. He was besides in the national authorities of the Polish-Soviet relationship Society.

Marek Safjan: Father left our family

The boy of screenwriter Marek Safjan, erstwhile head of the Constitutional Court, stood in the first line of the rocoche justice against the regulation of the Law and Justice.

The situation is borderline. Very dangerous – he talked about the conflict around the TK before the Extraordinary legislature of Polish Judges in Warsaw.

– There is simply a very serious threat to democracy – said Marek Safjan.

When asked about his household pedigree, he stated:

– What do I gotta do with my father? He left our household erstwhile I was three. I objected to his views. The combination of my résumé with his biography is simply a primitive discussion about the state," he said.


Are you certain Mark Safjan had nothing to do with his father?

As head of the Constitutional Court, he published in the letter “Jewish Word” which his father had led since 2006. It was then in the text “Reflexions from Crete” that he signed the full message by Jan Tomasz Gross from the book “Fear” about the anti-Semitism of Poles. Gross's publication was apologetic, not seeing forgeries and drawing unauthorised, slanderous conclusions for Poland.