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On the 3rd of May, 1952, the RFE Polish Section commenced broadcasting from Munich. Europe was divided into two cold war blocks. In 1953 Stalin died, in Poland Primate Wyszyński was arrested, and Józef Światło, lieutenant colonel of Security Service escaped to the West. What he revealed on the air of RFE shook the system of power. Radio Free Europe got involved into defending Poles in the USSR. Khrushchev’s secret lecture at the XX Soviet Party convention in 1956 brought about a political thaw, and the incidents in Poznan together with October ’56 induced a political crisis which saw Gomulka taking over.
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RFE comments on faction struggles in the Polish United Workers' Party and on Moczar’s increasing influence. Before celebrating the Millennium of the Baptism of Poland, the Polish bishops address the German bishops with a call for reconciliation. A letter from 34 intellectuals and the “Open letter to the Party” written by Kuroń and Modzelewski, as well as the actions of the “commando” ignite the students' and intellectuals' revolt. After March ’68 and a provoked anti-Semite campaign, Poles of Jewish origin leave the country. The political crisis and the events of December ’70 on the Coast lead to Gomulka’s demission.
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Edward Gierek’s reign is a decade of “propaganda of success”. Economic growth was stimulated through taking out credits from Western countries. In 1971, Andrzej Czechowicz, a Security Service snitch in RFE, returns to Poland. In 1975, Jan Nowak-Jezioranski gives up his post as the head of RFE Polish Section. The events of June ’76 lead to the rise of democratic opposition. RFE publicizes the activities of these groups, reports from trials, informs about the censorship-free press. In 1978, Cardinal Wojtyla becomes Pope and a year later his first Polish pilgrimage gives an impulse to the emergence of Solidarity.
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In August 1980, after a wave of walkouts, Solidarity, the first free labour union in the communist world, is created. But the time of unprecedented freedom in the People’s Republic of Poland is ended with the introduction of the state of martial law. RFE spreads the knowledge of the authorities’ war on Polish nation. The movement of Perestroika in USSR leads in 1989 to the Autumn of Nations. In Poland, after the Round Table Agreement and as a result of semi-free election, Tadeusz Maziowiecki forms a new government. The Berlin Wall falls and entails communism in Central Europe.
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In 1990 RFE sets up its Office in Warsaw to coordinate a network of correspondents throughout Central Europe. In 1991 the USSR collapses, thus ending the Warsaw Pact. A long-term war in former Yugoslavia is ignited. In 1993, the European Union is created under the Maastricht Treaty. A year later, the RFE Polish Section broadcasts its last programme from Munich; in 1996 RFE Warsaw follows suit. RFE and Radio Liberty continue to broadcast from Prague in 28 languages to 21 countries.