Leopold Okulicki
Leopold Okulicki (code name Niedźwiadek , born November 12, 1898 in Bratucice near Bochnia , Galicia , † December 24, 1946 in Moscow , Soviet Union ) was Brigadier General of the Polish Army and the last leader of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa or AK).
Life
Leopold Okulicki was born in what was then the Austrian part of divided Poland . During his school career, he joined the Związek Strzelecki , a Polish paramilitary organization. Within this he was trained as a non-commissioned officer at the age of 16. During the First World War , from October 1915 he served in the Polish legions of the Austro-Hungarian Army .
After the end of the war and Poland's independence, Okulicki remained in the Polish army and took part in the Polish-Soviet war . In 1925 he graduated from the Warsaw Military Academy . He was then transferred to a staff post in Grodno . This was followed by a post at the infantry training center in Rembertów . This was followed by command of the 13th Infantry Division.
At the time of the outbreak of war with Germany in 1939, Okulicki became head of a department in the Polish Army High Command. After the commander-in-chief Edward Rydz-Śmigły evacuated the staff from Warsaw, Okulicki stayed in the capital and took part in the defense of the city. After the occupation of Poland by German and Soviet troops, Okulicki managed to evade capture and joined the Polish resistance against the occupying powers. In 1940 he took over command of a resistance cell in Łódź . Then he became the commander of the resistance in the Soviet occupation zone.
Thereupon he was arrested and tortured by the NKVD in 1941 . After Germany's attack on the Soviet Union , he was released in the same year under the Sikorsky-Majski Agreement . He joined the Anders Army, which was set up in the USSR as a result of the agreement, and was appointed Chief of Staff . After a short stay in London, he was dispatched to German-occupied Poland by air to support the AK. In 1944 he held a high post during the Warsaw Uprising . After this failed, however, he was appointed the new AK commander by the then AK commander Tadeusz Komorowski when he went into German captivity. After the complete occupation of Poland by the Red Army , he officially dissolved the AK on January 19, 1945. Nevertheless, he was arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to ten years in a camp in a show trial in Moscow, the Trial of Sixteen . Okulicki no longer saw the camp itself. He died under unexplained circumstances in Moscow's Butyrka prison on December 24, 1946.
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Norman Davies : Rising '44 , London 2004 p. 31f, p. 208, p. 427, p. 464, p. 438, 459, 468ff
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Okulicki, Leopold |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Niedźwiadek |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Leader of the Polish Home Army |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 12, 1898 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bratucice near Bochnia , Poland |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 24, 1946 |
| Place of death | Moscow , Soviet Union |