Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation () is a governmental agency created in 1945 in Poland. It is tasked with investigating German atrocities and (since 1991) communist ones. In 1999 it was transformed into the main organizational unit of the investigative department of the Institute of National Remembrance. Naming The commission was created in the aftermath of World War II under leadership of the Polish communist and Auschwitz survivor Alfred Fiderkiewicz, to investigate Nazi crimes against the Polish nation. Following the fall of communism in Poland and revision of its mission in 1991, it was also tasked with investigate communist crimes in Poland. Although the Institute in its contemporary form has been established in 1999 with Commission included as its integral part, the latter predated it by over a half century as a standalone body established in 1945 and has been considered the earliest ancestral form of the IPN. The Commission has since its inception undergone a number of name changes: From 1945 to 1949 it was known as the Chief Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland (Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce). formation in 1949 of the German Democratic Republic as an official ally of Poland within the East Bloc created the need to limit somehow the postwar rampant anti-German sentiment among Poles, e.g. through replacing the object of hate, namely Germans, with the more abstract Hitlerites, therefore, the body became known until 1984 as the Chief Commission for Investigation of Hitlerite [instead of German] Crimes in Poland (Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce) in 1984, the latter name was expanded to include for the first time also the designation of Institute of National Remembrance, initially as a honorary suffix title only, resulting in the body being named the Chief Commission for Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland – Institute of National Remembrance (Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce – Instytut Pamięci Narodowej) until 1991 the end of communism in Poland paved the way for investigating also the crimes perpetrated by the Soviets along with the Polish puppet government installed by them, necessitating in 1991 a fresh rename of the body into the Chief Commission for Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation – Institute of National Remembrance (Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu – Instytut Pamięci Narodowej) which continued under this name until 1999. Subsequently the commission