Antoni Szylling
Antoni Szylling (born August 31, 1884 in Płoniawy , now Poland , † June 17, 1971 in Montreal , Canada ) was a Polish division general in World War II . In 1939 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Kraków Army.
Life
From November 1905 to August 1907 he completed basic military training with Infantry Regiment No. 90 of the Tsarist Army. In the years 1910–1912 he studied economics at the University of Warsaw . After the outbreak of the First World War he was mobilized for the Russian army and fought on the Polish and Romanian fronts . During this time he was promoted to lieutenant (1915), first lieutenant (1916) and captain (1917).
After the fall of the tsar, he joined the independence movement in Chisinau in October 1917 and the newly founded Polish 2nd Corps in December 1917. He was initially in command of the 5th Rifle Regiment and was then assigned directly to the corps commander General Józef Haller as an officer for special assignments . In the spring of 1918 he was promoted to major and took part in the battle near Kaniów (May 11, 1918), where he was captured by the German units and imprisoned in Güstrow . After his release in January 1919, served until May 1919 as a member of the Commission of the Personnel Department of the Polish General Staff. He then took over command of the 2nd Rifle Regiment (later 44th Rifle Regiment), with which he participated in the Soviet-Polish War and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. From October 1920 to September 1921 he was in command of the 25th Infantry Brigade. He later commanded the 13th Infantry Division (September 1921 - March 1922) and was made a colonel . In March 1922 he was transferred to the reserve at his own request and stayed in Grodno for the next few years .
In January 1926 he returned to military service and initially took over the position of commander of the 28th Infantry Division in Warsaw and then of the 23rd Infantry Division in Katowice . In 1927 he graduated from the Higher Military School in Warsaw and took over command of the 8th Infantry Division in Modlin from May 1928 . In May 1929 he was promoted to brigadier general.
In 1937 he took over the position of General Inspector in the General Inspectorate of the Armed Forces of the Silesian Section. During the attack on Poland in 1939 he was commander-in-chief of the "Armia Kraków", which defended the southern wing of the Polish front in Upper Silesia . When retreating, he led his forces to the eastern bank of the Vistula and was defeated in the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski . He was captured on September 20, 1939 and remained imprisoned in the German POW Camp VII A in Murnau until the end of the war. After his liberation by the US Army, he went first to France, then to Great Britain. Eventually he emigrated to Canada and settled in Montreal. In 1946 he was promoted to the rank of division general by decision of the Polish Commission in Exile . He died in Montreal on June 17, 1971 and was buried in the local Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts cemetery.
See also
Web links
- Antoni Szylling in dzieje.pl (Polish)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Antoni Szylling (Polish) in the www.1939.pl
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Szylling, Antoni |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 31, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Płoniawy |
| DATE OF DEATH | 17th June 1971 |
| Place of death | Montreal , Canada |