"Our Boys" - Poles in the Wehrmacht
The painful collision of history, memory and politics in Poland
When the phrase “our boys” is used in a military context in English-speaking countries, it tends to evoke feelings of pride, endearment, remembrance, and positive emotionality. It conveys the notion that a nation’s young men are sent to fight for all members of that nation, risking injury or even death in the process. It’s an idea that implies those “boys” are or were doing good and noble things for their country.
It’s this image that a hugely controversial exhibition in the Polish city of Gdańsk is using. Entitled “Our Boys: Inhabitants of Gdańsk Pomerania in the German Army”, it talks about a piece of Second World War history that many in Poland consider a taboo: the fact that tens of thousands of Poles were conscripted into the Nazi military, the Wehrmacht.
What does it mean when a country’s “boys” are fighting on the other side? Especially, on the side of an enemy with genocidal intentions against their home nation? That’s an uncomfortable question some Poles would rather not ask. Andrzej Hoja, the chief curator of the exhibition in Gdańsk, says he has received death threats.
"Nasi chłopcy. Mieszkańcy Pomorza Gdańskiego w armii III Rzeszy" opened last month at the Museum of Gdańsk and appears to have triggered one of the most intense cultural controversies in Poland in recent years.
It delves into the history of thousands of Polish men from the Pomerania region who were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht during German occupation. While the curators intended the exhibition to shed light on a neglected and painful part of regional history, many have interpreted it as revisionist and provocative.
That provocation starts with the title: "Nasi chłopcy" — “Our Boys”, inspired by how families in Pomerania referred to their sons, brothers, and fathers who were taken into German service. According to the museum, the goal was to show the tragedy of individuals caught in an impossible position.
The Nazis created a Deutsche Volksliste (German People's List), which classified the inhabitants of Nazi-occupied territories like Poland according to their ethnic desirability for integration into the “Greater Germanic Reich” that Hitler’s regime tried to establish.
Given the intertwined histories of Poland and Germany, with no significant physical obstacles, such as mountains or oceans, separating their territories, many Poles have some German ancestry, and vice versa. During the Second World War, getting a higher status on the Volksliste often came with advantages. It was also a means of protecting oneself and one’s own family members. It was a mixture of this lever and outright coercion under threat of violence that pressed many Poles into military service for an occupying regime.
Many of these men later deserted, joined the Polish resistance, or defected to Allied forces in the West. Some defied orders in smaller ways, as the exhibition shows. Often stationed on the Western Front so that “fraternisation” with their Polish kinsmen was less likely, Poles in the Wehrmacht were supposed to write their letters home in German so that they could be checked by censorship.
Letters displayed in "Nasi chłopcy" sometimes start in German but, knowing that censors had neither the time nor the inclination to read every letter, switched to Polish after a few lines. Yet after the war, Poles’ participation in the German army rendered them social outcasts, caught in a postwar narrative that often branded them as traitors, regardless of the context.
To this day, there is no national consensus on the matter. Controversy erupted almost immediately after the exhibition's opening. Critics, particularly from Poland’s conservative and nationalist circles, decried the title and its implications. Andrzej Duda, who was the President of Poland until he was replaced by Karol Nawrocki 11 days ago, condemned the exhibit as a "moral provocation," accusing it of muddying the distinction between victims and perpetrators.
Others argue that the exhibition's framing could be seen as normalising or even glorifying those who fought for Nazi Germany. The photographs displayed show some of the young men smiling in their Wehrmacht uniforms – jarring images that have an explosive effect in a Polish political context where anti-German resentment is a core strand of campaigning.
Jarosław Kaczyński, co-founder of the Law and Justice (PiS) party and former Prime Minister, described it as “an attack on Polish raison d'état,” implying that the exhibition was part of a broader attempt to rewrite Poland’s wartime history and diminish the heroism of its resistance fighters.
Other political figures joined the chorus of disapproval. Mariusz Błaszczak, former defence minister, accused the curators of promoting a “German narrative” in an institution that should protect Polish memory. The current defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, stated that the exhibition failed to reflect the bravery of Poles who resisted the Nazis, suggesting the museum had lost sight of who should truly be commemorated.
Even at the local level, politicians such as Natalia Nitek-Płażyńska, a Gdańsk councillor, called the exhibition an “obvious lie,” stating that it portrayed Poles as Nazi collaborators. She stressed that Poles were victims of German cruelty. "They were tortured, deported, murdered, taken to extermination camps. Little boys were murdered simply for being Poles. They were our boys! Not Nazi boys.” Many of the most vocal critics seized on the exhibition’s title, arguing that calling Wehrmacht soldiers “our boys” risked equating them with Polish soldiers who resisted the Nazi invasion and Polish victims.
PiS Member of the European Parliament Piotr Müller called for the exhibit’s immediate removal, saying it was “a scandal” and a betrayal of Polish historical truth. He demanded consequences for the museum’s leadership, accusing them of glorifying the enemy while heroes like Witold Pilecki and Maximilian Kolbe went ignored. Tobiasz Bocheński, another PiS politician, was even more blunt: “This is an unbelievable level of idiocy and betrayal. The title is disgusting, misleading, and outrageous.”
In contrast, the curators and cultural institutions involved have stood by the exhibition, insisting that its intent has been grossly misrepresented. Waldemar Ossowski, director of the Museum of Gdańsk, said, "We believe that as an institution of public trust, the museum has an obligation to take on difficult topics—not to justify or accuse, but to explain and deepen understanding". He and his colleagues argue that the work is grounded in careful scholarship and seeks to humanise a group of people long erased from public memory, not to excuse or glorify their actions. They explain that “Nasi chłopcy” reflects a regional and familial way of remembering — not an ideological endorsement.
The Museum of Gdańsk emphasises that the men featured were often teenagers or conscripted adults who had little to no choice under a regime that ruled by terror. They also cautioned against the politicisation of history, suggesting that many of the loudest critics had not even visited the exhibition before forming their opinions.
Curator Hoja reflected, “Service in the Wehrmacht became a taboo after the war.” His hope is that the exhibition can help to lift that taboo and open a space for deeper, more empathetic understanding of lives disrupted and destroyed by war, occupation, and historical judgment.
Ultimately, "Nasi chłopcy" has become more than a museum exhibition; it is a national flashpoint. The emotional intensity of the responses shows how unsettled Poland’s memory of the war remains. It has made clear that history is not only about the past — it’s about how a nation chooses to remember, and whose voices it allows into the conversation.
As a Brit one hesitates to criticise or judge, as I often say we faced a different challenge. Of course the exhibition goes against the orthodoxy of Poland as victim, challenging the account of unmatched courage in the face of an existential threat. Of course the history of these conscripts and Witold Pilecki (see The Volunteer, Jack Fairweather, Penguin 2019) are both true and part of the larger account of Polish history in Second World War. Most, if not all, the occupied nations had men in the service of the Wehrmacht, even the Russians. And the UK, a handful. I can see why the Poles find this exhibition so painful however isn’t it better to deal with the facts? Challenging read with my Sunday morning coffee.
That's an interesting subject to have an exhibition about ,brave or foolhardy but it happened .I imagine the story ir repeated in every occupied country the nazis invaded ,but what choice did the young men realistically have ,I do know that in the Netherlands 34K fought for the Nazis while 10k for the Allies, these are the tough choices which thankfully never had to be made in the UK .Also I guess there would have been the urge to fight against communism as well .
An informative article as always.