Działalność Prokuratury Wojskowej Polskich Kolei Państwowych na przykładzie ekspozytury prokuratury przy Dyrekcji Okręgowej Kolei Państwowych w Katowicach w latach 1944–1949

To a large part of Polish society the formal end of the Second World War did not mean its real decline. The so-called ‘war on the tracks’ was still going on, though it was not as much of the military as the political, economic or legal character. The ‘weapon’ used in this war by the Polish authorities was the then legal system and administration of justice, the latter being tightly dependent on the political system of the day. The progressing liberation of Poland from under the German occupation with the country’s simultaneous passing under the Soviet influences, posed, among others, tasks of rebuilding the railways infrastructure to the so-called ‘people’s power’, which was a necessary condition of rebuilding the state as such. Fighting all forms of sabotage aimed at operations of the railways was then one of the main tasks and goals behind the activity of the then state authorities. The militarization of the state railways, which caused the railways-based administration of justice to be put under the army’s justice system, entailed application of specific principles according to which sentences were passed: from then on – in view of their exceptional significance – being much more severe.