Wasted Opportunity? A Contribution to Sports in the State Police in the Years 1924–1939

Abstract

This text is devoted to selected aspects of the use of sport by the Polish National Police in the years 1924–1939. The article was created primarily on the basis of archival sources held at the Archive of New Records in Warsaw and in the state archives in Lublin, Łódź and Poznań. Based on the above materials, issues related to the initiation of the sports movement in the ranks of the State Police, methods of physical activation of police officers and plans of the State Police Headquarters in the scope of using sports to strengthen the bonds of the police with society were raised.

The text contains information on the territorial distribution of Police Sports Clubs, together with an indication of the reasons for the clear differences between the Silesian Voivodeship and other areas of the Second Republic of Poland. Particular attention was paid to the development of police sports in the interwar Lublin Voivodeship, an area with an average level of social and economic development, taking into account not only the city of Lublin but also peripheral areas such as the Lubartowski and Hrubieszowski Poviats. The analysis also did not omit factors favoring the potential egalitarianism of Police Sports Clubs.