Marc Bloch — one of the most distinguished 20th Century historians – is the author of Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940. Serving as a staff offi cer, Bloch witnessed the fall of France in 1940 from the front line. This book is so interesting from the methodological point of view, because we are presented here with a historical source created by a historian, who additionally knows how an ideal type of historical evidence ought to be written. This French historian thought that history is also written to give contemporaries lessons on how to avoid the mistakes of the past. This is an important message of Strange Defeat.

The main aim of the article was to present two emerging discourses of contemporary historiography in the field of digital media. In the first example, the authors present the thought of Niels Brügger, called the Web History and Web-minded historiography, which concentrates upon the digital source itself. The other school is marked by the works of Friedrich Kittler and Wolfgang Ernst, and called media archaeology. It underlines the concept of the medium itself as a primary object of research.

This article concludes a series of three articles. The first two, published in 2022, were divided into time periods; 1) until 1989, and 2) since the 1990s. The present one discusses the issue of the fate of police officers after September 1, 1939, and includes a summary and research postulates. The timelines used in the series are not accidental, of course, as they had a significant impact on the way historiography devoted to public security organs was conducted in the interwar period. The literature that deals with pre‑war police is relatively rich in terms of quantity. However, it is worth examining it more carefully as several works raise a number of questions and doubts. Next to very good ones there are some that should not have been published. If we take a closer look at the style of narration in particular publications, we will notice that the authors in the vast majority limit themselves to describing and reporting facts, avoiding factual analysis. Many of the publications deviate from scientific standards, focusing their attention exclusively on creat-ing the preferred image of the public security organisation in a given period of time. Unfortu-nately, this is noticeable not only before 1989, but also later, when the negative image of the pre‑war police was replaced by its excessive glorification or even mythologisation. Despite the fact that more and more issues are raised and some of them are further developed, we still cannot consider the state of research that I am interested in as being satisfactory. The following issues still need to be highlighted and thoroughly investigated: 1) police biography; 2) issues of formation, socialisation and mentality; 3) the state of morale of the police corps; 4) participation in the Polish‑Soviet war; 5) participation in ensuring the internal security of the state; 6) police‑society relations, including the creation of the image of the police in culture texts; 7) police participation in the protection of state dignitaries; 8) international police co-operation; 9) the history of the police in the individual provinces; 10) women’s police service; 11) the functioning of police associations and cultural and educational activities; 12) war pre-parations; 13) the fate of police officers after September 1, 1939.

This article is part one of a discussion that attempts to examine the state of research on the history of the police in the Second Republic of Poland as presented in to‑date historiography. My interest includes literature concerning both the State Police and the Police of the Silesian Voivodeship, two organisations independent from each other. The 1989/1990 timeline is obviously not accidental, as it was of great significance for the way research on public security organs in the interwar period was conducted.
The recent 100‑year anniversary of the National Police created an excellent opportunity to assess the achievements pertaining to its history and the organisation modelled on it, i.e., the Police of the Silesian Voivodeship (PWŚl). Although their history has been the subject of several studies, it is worth taking a closer look at them trying to assess both the problems addressed and the quality of these studies. The author has made an attempt to carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the existing literature, which is to lead to the identification of significant accomplishments, as well as to highlighting unexplored possibilities.
The author has chosen scientific publications as a basis for his analyses. Publications of an occupational nature, that is, manuals, specialist materials, handbooks, course books, etc., remain outside the area of the author’s interest.
The resulting analysis leads to the conclusion that it was not until the late 1980s that the one‑sided image of the pre‑war police, constructed through the discourse of repression against the “progressive” communist and workers’ movements, began to be abandoned. However, still dominating was the factual history, unfortunately not preceded by theoretical reflections.

The present article is part two of the discussion attempting to assess the state of research on the history of the police in the Second Republic of Poland in historiography. This time I focus on the publications since 1990. I am interested in the literature concerning both the State Police and the Police of the Silesian Voivodeship, two independent organisations. The subsequent part deals with works published since 1990, and the last part is focused on the fate of police officers after September 1, 1939. This section also contains more complete summaries and research postulates. Obviously, the 1989/1990 timeline is not accidental, as it had a significant impact on the way historiography dealing with public security organs in the interwar period was conducted. The turn of the 1980s and 1990s was extremely fruitful for Polish historiography, including research on the history of the pre‑war police. On the one hand, access to archival materials became free and easy, thus opening new perspectives for researchers. This unrestricted possibility of using documents from the family archives of police officers and their family members was of great importance for gaining information about the everyday service of police officers. On the other hand, in some publications we notice a prevailing tendency to over‑heroise and sometimes even mythologise the pre‑war police, and this unfortunately is still happening today. All this coincided with the fact that there were an increasing number of authors dealing with the history of the police in the Second Republic, and consequently, the scope of research I was interested in had to expand.