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The Home Army was formed exactly 81 years ago by the order of General Władysław Sikorski. Throughout Nazi occupation during World War II, it was a clandestine armed formation of the Polish underground state.
On February 14, 1942, the Union of Armed Struggle (Polish: Związek Walki Zbrojnej) was transformed into the Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa, AK). The underground army, a phenomenon in German-occupied Europe, brought together almost the entire patriotic part of the Polish nation. The name “Home Army,” even in later years, became one of the most important symbols of the drive for independence.
The largest military operation of the Home Army was Operation Tempest (Polish: akcja “Burza”) and, as part of it, the Warsaw Uprising. The strategic, though the unrealized, goal of the Home Army was to carry out a general uprising in occupied Poland, in the final phase of World War II.