German AB-Aktion in Poland

AB-Aktion
A picture taken from a nearby house by the Polish Underground of the Nazi Secret Police dislodging condemned victims from the Polish intelligentsia at the Palmiry forest execution site near Warsaw in 1940
Also known as	German: Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion
Location	Palmiry Forest, and similar locations in occupied Poland
Date	Spring - summer 1940
Incident type	Mass murder with automatic weapons
Perpetrators	Wehrmacht, Einsatzgruppen
Participants	Nazi Germany
Organizations	Waffen-SS, Schutzstaffel, Orpo Battalions, Sicherheitsdienst
Victims	7,000 Polish intellectuals and leaders
Documentation	Pawiak and Gestapo
Memorials	Murder site, and deportation points
Notes	Lethal phase of the invasion of Poland.

The AB-Aktion (German: Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion, English: Extraordinary Operation of Pacification), was a second stage of the Nazi German campaign of violence during World War II aimed to eliminate the intellectuals and the upper classes of Polish society across the territories slated for eventual annexation. Most of the killings were arranged in a form of mass disappearances from multiple cities and towns upon the German arrival. In the spring and summer of 1940, more than 30,000 Poles were arrested by the Nazi authorities in German-occupied central Poland. About 7,000 of them including community leaders, professors, teachers and priests (labeled as suspected of criminal activities) were subsequently massacred secretly at various locations including at the Palmiry forest complex near Palmiry. The others were sent to German concentration camps.

The mass murder of Polish leaders, politicians, artists, aristocrats, the intelligentsia, and people suspected of potential anti-Nazi activity began in fall of 1939, and was seen by Nazi Germany as a pre-emptive measure to keep the Polish resistance scattered and to prevent the Poles from revolting during the planned German invasion of France. The anti-Polish AB-Aktion was prepared by Hans Frank, the commander of the General Government. It was also discussed with the Soviet officials during a series of secretive Gestapo-NKVD Conferences.

The first killings of Polish intelligentsia took place soon after the German invasion, lasting from autumn 1939 until spring 1940. It was called Operation Intelligenzaktion, a plan to eliminate Poland's intelligentsia and leadership in the western part of the country, realized by Einsatzgruppen and Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz. As the result of this operation 60,000 Polish nobles, teachers, entrepreneurs, social workers, priests, judges and political activists were killed in 10 regional actions. The Intelligenzaktion was continued by the German AB-Aktion Operation in occupied territories of central Poland. Both murder operations were conducted in part according to an "enemies of the Reich list" prepared before the war by members of the German minority in Poland and printed ahead of time by the German Intelligence as the Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen (Special Prosecution Book-Poland).