Ludwik Janczyszyn

Admiral Ludwik Janczyszyn (right) during the commissioning of the ORP Iskra , the sailing training ship of the Polish Navy, and the handover of the house flag to Rear Admiral Czesław Dyrcz, who would later be in command of the Naval Academy (August 11, 1982)

Ludwik Janczyszyn (* 11. May 1923 in Krasne , Tarnopol Province , today Ukraine ; † 27. July 1994 in Gdynia ) was a Polish Admiral , politicians of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and diplomat , the 1969-1986 Commander of the Navy of the People's Republic of Poland was. He was the first naval officer in the history of the Polish Navy to be promoted to admiral and had the longest tenure as naval commander. Later he was ambassador to Syria and Jordan .

Life

Training as an officer, World War II and Chief of Staff of the Navy

Janczyszyn completed post-school training at the Officers School of Infantry (Oficerska Szkoła Piechoty) and went after their completion during the Second World War in the Polish Armed Forces in the Soviet Union and then in 1944 by General Zygmunt Berling commanding First Army (1 Armia Wojska Polskiego ) of the newly established Polish People's Army . There he was first platoon leader and then company commander of an infantry company in the 1st Prague Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division. During the Warsaw Uprising and the Battle of East Pomerania near Kołobrzeg , he was wounded twice.

After the war Janczyszyn was in 1946 a member of the Polish Workers 'Party PPR ( Polish Workers' Party ) and in 1948 the Polish United Workers 'Party PZPR (Polish United Workers' Party) was, from 1946 to 1949 graduate of the Naval Officers School (Oficerska Szkoła Marynarki Wojennej) in Gdynia and was then initially deputy head of the political administration of the naval officer school and in 1950 for a short time commander of the minesweeper ORP Orlik , before he was then deputy commander of the destroyer ORP Błyskawica from 1950 to 1952 . After attending navigation and artillery courses at the Naval Academy of the Soviet Union , between 1952 and 1956 he was successively flagship officer, chief of staff and commander of the main naval base (Baza Główna Marynarki Wojennej) in Gdynia.

After attending higher courses, he was first deputy chief of staff in 1957 and, in 1959, as the successor to Rear Admiral Jan Wiśniewski, chief of naval staff (Szef Sztabu Głównego Marynarki Wojennej) . Janczyszyn, who was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1960, held this position for ten years until he was replaced by Rear Admiral Henryk Pietraszkiewicz in 1969. In the meantime, he completed a degree in navigation at the University of the Navy (Wyższa Szkoła Marynarki Wojennej) as an engineer in 1966 .

Navy Commander, Martial Law and Ambassador

On November 19, 1969, Janczyszyn succeeded Vice Admiral Zdzisław Studziński as Commander of the Navy (Dowódca Marynarki Wojennej) and held this position for seventeen years until he was replaced by Vice Admiral Piotr Kołodziejczyk on February 13, 1986. During this period he became Vice Admiral in 1970 and Vice Admiral In 1978 he was promoted to admiral as the first officer in the history of the Polish Navy.

At the same time, he also increasingly took on political functions and between 1971 and 1986 was both a candidate for the Central Committee (ZK) of the PZPR and a member of the Presidium of the Ideological Commission and the Sea Commission of the ZK of the PZPR. In addition, he was elected a member of the Sejm for the first time in 1972 and was a member of the PZPR until 1989. At the same time, he served from 1974 to 1990 as a member of the National Council of the Association of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy ZBoWiD (Związek Bojowników o Wolność i Demokrację) , the official state-controlled war veterans' association in the People's Republic of Poland.

During the August strikes in Poland in 1980 at the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk , he refused to allow the navy to intervene against the striking shipyard workers. In the following maneuver, Brotherhood of Arms '80 of the Warsaw Pact , on September 6, 1980, he warned two Soviet admirals of what had hitherto only been discussed domestically: a military intervention in Poland would not end in a "normalization" as in Prague 1968 , but in a disaster, and said: “Should troops be sent to Poland, rivers of blood would flow. You have to understand that you are dealing with Poles - not Czechs ”. After the declaration of martial law on December 13, 1981 by Wojciech Jaruzelski , Janczyszyn became a member of the Military Council of the National Rescue WRON (Wojskowa Rada Ocalenia Narodowego) and was a member of it until July 21, 1983.

After retiring from active military service, he became ambassador to Syria in 1986 and was also accredited as ambassador to Jordan. He remained in this post until 1988 and was then replaced by Józef Baryła , who, as Lieutenant General and Head of the Political Headquarters of the Polish Army, was also a member of the Military Council of National Salvation between 1981 and 1983.

After that, he largely withdrew from public life and was buried after his death in the Cmentarz Witomiński cemetery in Gdynia.

Orders and awards

During his long career Janczyszyn has been honored several times with domestic and foreign medals and awards. One of the most important honors is the order Odrodzenia Polski , which he received as a knight , officer and most recently in 1989 as a grand officer . In addition, he received, among other things, the Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland in gold and the medal for Oder, Neisse, Baltic Sea .

At foreign orders he received the Order of the Crown of Belgium as a Grand Officer as well as the Order of Red Banner from the Soviet Union , the Order of Friendship of Nations , the medal “For the capture of Berlin” , the medal “For the liberation of Warsaw” , the medal “Consolidation of the Brotherhood in Arms” , the medal “20. Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 ” , the medal“ 30. Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 ” , the medal“ 40. Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 ” and the medal“ 60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR ” .

Web links

• Entry in Baza osób polskich - Polish personal database
• The National Salvation Military Council . In: Der Spiegel from December 21, 1981.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Patrizia Hey: The Soviet Poland Policy at the beginning of the 1980s and the imposition of martial law in the People's Republic of Poland. Real Soviet threat or successful bluff? , 2010, ISBN 3-64310-771-4 , p. 169.
2. ↑ Patrizia Hey: The Soviet Poland Policy at the beginning of the 1980s and the imposition of martial law in the People's Republic of Poland. Real Soviet threat or successful bluff? , 2010, ISBN 3-64310-771-4 , p. 179.
3. ↑ Polscy ambasadorzy ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.