Military Organization Lizard Union

Organizacja Wojskowa Związek Jaszczurczy (Military Organization Lizard Union, short form: Związek Jaszczurczy, abbreviated OW ZJ) was an organization of Polish resistance in World War II. Created in 1939 and transformed into National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) in 1942, it represented the far-right of the Polish political spectrum (related to the National Radical Camp (Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny, ONR) political party) and thus refused to recognize the Polish Underground State (although there was some uneasy tactical cooperation for practical reasons).

The organisation was created in October 1939 by Group Szaniec, itself originating from the far right ONR-ABC, a faction of the National Radical Camp (Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny, ONR). On a structural level it was subordinated to Organizacja Polska, a military department of ONR.

ONR-ABC was not supportive of the mainstream Polish Underground State related to the Polish government in exile, and thus OW ZJ became an alternate Polish military, a counterweight to the ZWZ-AK of the Underground State. Perhaps ironically, the OW ZJ and its nemesis, the communist NKVD-controlled Gwardia Ludowa/Armia Ludowa, were the two major factions of Polish resistance that did not recognize the mainstream ZWZ-AK.

The Związek Jaszczurczy conducted intelligence and sabotage operations within territory of Nazi occupied Poland as well as in and around Berlin, Brandenburg area, München, Silesia, Bavaria, Westfalen, Ruhr Basin, Hamburg, Bremen, western and eastern Pomerania area including Krolewiec, and Gdańsk. The eradication of the Związek Jaszczurczy became of such importance to the Nazis, that already at the end of 1940, the Gestapo created dedicated unit, known as the SS-Sonderkommando ZJ [ger. Special Unit ZJ], in order to stop its sabotage and intelligence activities. In December 1941 the first wave of arrests of the NSZ / Zwiazek Jaszczurczy's agents began. At the end of 1943 alone, 80 individuals were arrested. The Military Tribunal of III Reich, German military laws, more rigorously expanded during war, dealt with those arrested mercilessly. From among dozens of arrested, only 3 individuals (among them one German national) were found not guilty. The others were sentenced to lengthy imprisonment, and half of them were sentenced to death. The names of the ZJ agents of the Intelligence Unit “West” sentenced to death and executed by the Nazis by beheading at the Moabit prison in Berlin, are immortalized on a commemorative plaque at the St. Brigida's Basilica in Gdańsk, Poland.

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