Description

The AB-Aktion was the second stage of the Nazi German campaign of violence in Poland early in World War II, taking place between March and September 1940. As with the previous Intelligenzaktion, during the 1939 invasion of Poland, it aimed to eliminate the intellectuals and the upper classes of the Second Polish Republic. While the Intelligenzaktion had taken place in the territories of western Poland annexed by Germany, perpetrated by Einsatzgruppen following closely behind the German Army, AB took place in the General Government (GG), the territories that were merely occupied and remained nominally part of Poland. Both primarily targeted present and former government officials, social and political activists, artists, educators, local business leaders and priests, all of whom the Germans believed would be instrumental in leading resistance to their rule, regardless of whether those targeted were actually inclined to do so. With the intellectuals eliminated, the Germans believed the remaining Polish population would be docile and useful to them as unskilled labour while they completed their plans to Germanize Poland and extirpate Polish cultural, ethnic and national identity.