Jozef Haller

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Józef Haller (before 1939)

Józef Haller von Hallenburg (born August 13, 1873 in Jurczyce near Krakow , Austria-Hungary , † June 4, 1960 in London ) was a general of the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939).

Life

Early years and youth

Józef Haller came from the Kraków Haller family and was born on the Jurczyce family estate near Skawina , in what was then Galicia, as the third child of Henryk Haller and his wife Olga. Treads born. The strictly Catholic family (both the father and Jozef were Franciscan lay brothers ) had great services in the fight for Polish independence: the father fought in the January uprising of 1863, the maternal grandfather was captain of the Polish army in 1830 and knight of the Virtuti Militari order . On August 1, 1795, the paternal great-grandfather, Martin Aloys , was ennobled by Emperor Franz II as an Austro-Hereditary noble Haller von Hallenburg . The family was of German origin: The first Haller, Johann , a famous publisher and printer (* 1467 in Rothenburg ob der Tauber , † 1525 in Krakow ), came to Poland around 1482 and became the ancestor of a long line of very wealthy merchants, scholars and Landowners in Krakow and the surrounding area.

In 1882 the family moved to Lemberg , where Haller began his studies at the German grammar school there. After completing his studies in Lemberg, he went to Kaschau , where he attended the military secondary school, and then to Mährisch Weißkirchen , where he studied at the higher military secondary school. After graduating from high school , he began studying at the Artillery Faculty of the Technical Academy in Vienna , graduated as a lieutenant and joined the Austro-Hungarian army in 1895 .

In the Austro-Hungarian Army

Haller served 15 years, until 1910, in the 11th Artillery Regiment, which was stationed in Lemberg. He left the Austro-Hungarian army as a captain and later told about it in his memoirs: "I couldn't learn anything new, so I left the army to serve my fatherland in a different way." During his time in Lviv he married Alexandra in 1903 Sala and had a son, Erik, from her in 1910. After leaving the army, he was active in the consumer cooperative and in the boy scout movement in Galicia (the badge of the Polish boy scouts, which is still valid today, goes back to his design from 1913), he also organized working groups for the Sokół gymnastics movement ("Falcon" ), which was close to the National Democratic Party.

In the first World War

Haller's general uniform as commander of the Blue Army (Warsaw Military Museum)

On August 27, 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War , the Austro-Hungarian government announced the formation of Polish legions . The so-called Eastern Legion was to be formed in Lemberg, whereby Haller developed a vigorous activity: he succeeded in allocating the first battalions from such diverse political groups as members of the “falcon movement” (national democrats), the peasant movement and the “rifle movement” loyal to Piłsudski in which citizens of Congress Poland also served. The defeat of the Austro-Hungarian army in the fight against the Russians led to the fact that Eastern Galicia with Lemberg was occupied by the Russian army . The emerging Eastern Legion could not take part in combat operations and was disbanded in the summer of 1914. Soon, however, new legions were organized in which Haller (now promoted to lieutenant colonel) was given command of the 3rd regiment in the 2nd brigade of General Count Stanisław Szeptycki , while the legendary 1st brigade was commanded by Józef Piłsudski himself. Together with his brigade, Haller went to the front in the Eastern Carpathians on September 30, 1914 , where the legionaries protected the Hungarian border from the Russian attack under very difficult climatic conditions. From September 29, 1914 to January 24, 1915, the 2nd Brigade waged a heavy trench war against the Russians in Galicia, which ended with a victory for the Poles in the Battle of Rafajlowa on January 24. In the grueling fighting, however, half of the brigade's soldiers had died. On January 25, 1915, Haller was promoted to colonel .

In May 1915, Haller was seriously injured in a car accident and had to spend ten months in a military hospital. After returning to the Legions, he was appointed commander of the 2nd Legions Brigade in July 1916. In protest against the provisions of the peace in Brest-Litovsk (see: Regency Kingdom of Poland ), Haller and his brigade broke through the Russian-Austrian front line on February 15, 1918 and united with Polish formations in Ukraine , which consisted of former soldiers of the Tsarist Army. On March 28, 1918, he was promoted to commander of the 2nd Polish Corps and seven days later to major general. However, the German military authorities saw the presence of this corps in the Ukraine as a violation of the Brest-Litovsk peace and attacked Haller's soldiers at Kaniow on May 10 . After heavy fighting (1,500 on the German side and 1,000 dead and wounded on the Polish side), the 2nd Corps had to capitulate. The general managed to flee via Kiev to Moscow , where he took over the chairmanship of the Polish Military Committee.

In July 1918 Haller drove to France via Murmansk , where he was commissioned by the Polish National Committee , an organization of the National Democratic Party , to organize a Polish army. It consisted of Poles who served in the French army, Polish prisoners of war in the Austro-Hungarian Army and some Polish- speaking volunteers from the USA (22,000 men) and even Brazil (300 men). The army received French (blue) uniforms and was therefore called the Blue Army . On September 28, 1918, it was recognized by the Entente states as the only legitimate and allied Polish army.

It carried out its first combat operations under Haller's orders against the Germans in the Vosges and Champagne . At the end of the First World War there were 100,000 excellently trained and equipped soldiers.

In the Second Polish Republic (1919–1939)

Józef Haller in the Blue Army

After the end of the war, the Blue Army was transported in sealed wagons by rail through Germany via Mainz, Erfurt and Leipzig to Poland until the end of June 1919. Haller even appeared in Warsaw on 21 April 1919 was greeted enthusiastically by the public and by the magistrate of the city of Warsaw to honor citizens appointed. At that time Poland was at war with Ukraine . a. about the possession of the city of Lemberg and other areas that had a strong Polish minority and often, like Lemberg, a majority.

From 1919 to 1920 Haller and his troops supervised the transfer of the Polish Corridor and some parts of West Prussia to Poland in accordance with the provisions of the Versailles Treaty . Around this time he was promoted to full general (three-star general). On February 10, 1920 in Putzig he was the main character of the solemn ceremony of “Poland's marriage to the sea”: In the presence of high-ranking state dignitaries, he threw a gold ring with the Polish national coat of arms into the sea. In 1920 the Polish officer Henryk Bagiński bought twenty hectares of forest on the corridors of Großendorf on the northern tip of the Pomeranian Voivodeship on the Baltic Sea and founded a settlement there, which he named Hallerowo in honor of General Haller . In the same year Haller himself acquired parts of the village that became a destination for excursions.

Since 1919 the Polish-Soviet war raged . Haller was appointed inspector general of the volunteer army, which he was excellent at organizing. During the Battle of Warsaw , his troops stood in front of the Polish capital. At the end of the war he was in command of the northeast front.

The following career Haller in the army was rather short and only lasted until 1926: Until this year, he was inspector general of artillery and was after the May Coup of Józef Pilsudski offset from May 1926 to retire because he sided with the toppled government had asked. From 1921 he was chairman of the Union of Polish Scouts and until 1927 a member of the Sejm on the list of Christian Democrats. As a retired man, he ran his Gorzuchowo estate near Chełmno and stayed away from politics for a while, until in 1936 he headed the opposition grouped around Ignacy Paderewski ( Morges Front ) against the post-Piłsudski regime in Poland. In 1937 he became chairman of the new Christian Democratic Labor Party .

World War II and post-war period

Monument to Józef Haller von Hallenburg, created by Stanisław Szendungowicz, erected in 1993 in Großendorf ( Władysławowo ), in the area of ​​the Polish Corridor in the Polish Pomeranian Voivodeship

After the outbreak of World War II , Haller escaped to France via Romania , where he placed himself at the disposal of the new head of the Polish government in exile , Władysław Sikorski , but was only appointed minister without a job. In 1940, after the defeat of France, he went to London , where he held the position of minister of culture in Sikorski's government in exile until 1943 .

After the war ended, Haller stayed in London and died there in 1960 at the age of 87. He did not concern himself with the politics of the Polish exile circles. He was buried in Gunnersbury Cemetery in London. On April 23, 1993, the urn with his ashes was transferred to Krakow and buried in the crypt of the garrison church of St. Agnes .

In 1990, a memorial for the general and his “Blue Army” was set up in Haller's former summer house “Hallerówka” in the Baltic Sea resort of Hallerowo, today part of the city of Władysławowo .

Awards

Haller was a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle , the Order Virtuti Militari and Commander of the Order Polonia Restituta , as well as the Legion of Honor . He received four times the Polish Cross of the Brave , the Military Merit Medal (Austria), the Freedom Cross 2nd Class (Estonia), the Croix de Guerre , the Order of the Crown of Italy 2nd Class and the Order of St. Sava (Yugoslavia ).

literature

  • Józef Haller: Pamiętniki. Z wyborem dokumentów i zdjęc. Katolicki Ośrodek Wydawniczy “Veritas”, London 1964 ( memories ).

Web links

Commons : Józef Haller  - collection of images, videos and audio files