Józef Retinger

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Józef Retinger

Józef Hieronim Retinger (born April 17, 1888 in Kraków , † June 12, 1960 in London ; outside Poland also known as Joseph Retinger ) was a Polish literary scholar and political advisor. He became known as the founder of European political organizations, especially the European Movement , and the transatlantic Bilderberg Conference .

Life

origin

Retinger came from the educated middle class of Kraków, which at the time belonged to the Kingdom of Galicia and thus to Austria-Hungary . He had Bavarian ancestors (the name was originally Röttinger ), but the family had become completely Polonized and, according to Retinger, was “passionately patriotic and very passionately Catholic” with “a very strong anti-Russian and anti-German complex” and “not without anti-Jewish prejudice”. According to research by the biographer Bogdan Podgórski, Retinger's great-grandfather had converted from Judaism to Catholicism, but he himself denied having Jewish roots. Retinger's father, Józef Stanisław Retinger, was a lawyer and personal legal advisor to the magnate and entrepreneur Władysław Zamoyski ; his mother Maria Krystyna (Marynia) Czyrniańska was the daughter of the chemist Emil Czyrniański , a co-founder of the Polish Academy of Scholarship and Rector of the Jagiellonian University .

Education

After the early death of his parents, Count Zamoyski sponsored the young Retinger and financed his studies. He initially planned to become a priest. At the age of 18 he went to Rome, became a Jesuit novice and, on the recommendation of Cardinal Rampolla, attended the Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici . After a few months, however, he broke off this path because he did not want to enter into celibacy . Instead he went to Paris , where he studied literary history at the Sorbonne from 1906 to 1908 , with a focus on French romanticism. At the age of 20, he was one of the youngest PhD in the history of the Sorbonne doctorate . He graduated from the École libre des sciences politiques (Sciences Po) from 1908-09 .

In Paris he frequented the salon of Cyprian Godebski and Misia Sert . Through this and his supporter Zamoyski he made the acquaintance of prominent personalities, including General Hubert Lyautey , Cardinal Alfred Baudrillart and Marquis Boni de Castellane , the composers Erik Satie , Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc , the writers André Gide and Paul Valéry or des Painter Pierre Bonnard . Due to his lavish lifestyle, Retinger's legacy of 100,000 francs was soon used up. Further studies took him to Munich, where he was enrolled in " Ethnic Psychology ", and Florence. In 1909 he went to England and studied at the London School of Economics .

Polish National Movement and World War I

In 1911 he returned to Kraków, where he published a monthly literary magazine - Miesięcznik Literacki i Artystyczny - which published works by Bolesław Leśmian and Leopold Staff , but only existed for one year. In 1912 he married Otolia Zubrzycka, called Tola, daughter of the Dean of Chemistry at Kraków University. During this time he also worked for the nationalist Rada Narodowa (National Council), influenced by Roman Dmowski . Retinger went back to London with Otolia, where he opened an information office of the Rada Narodowa to spread pro-Polish propaganda in the English-speaking world. Retinger's 1911 text The Poles and Prussia is an expression of his nationalist and anti-German stance at the time. Retinger made friends with the writer Arnold Bennett and with his Polish compatriot Joseph Conrad , who also lived in London (and on whom Retinger published a monograph in 1941). He also sought the closeness of the pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski , who was a figure who identified with the Polish independence movement.

In the summer of 1914, Retinger arranged a trip to Poland for his friend Conrad, who had been in exile for over 20 years. Retinger also used this trip to meet personalities of the Polish independence movement in Galicia, including the Roman and Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Lemberg, Józef Bilczewski and Józef Teodorowicz , as well as representatives of the two most important political parties. The moderately Austria-friendly Centralny Komitet Narodowy (Central National Committee) sent him letters to the Foreign Ministers of France and Great Britain and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Francis Alphonsus Bourne . When the First World War broke out , Retinger was still in Galicia. Despite the war, he made the “remarkable” trip - with the approval of the Austrian authorities and the German ambassador Heinrich von Tschirschky - via Vienna and Bern to Paris, where he met Foreign Minister Stéphen Pichon and the influential diplomat Philippe Berthelot , and on to London.

During the First World War, Retinger also campaigned for Polish-Jewish relations. He befriended Nachum Sokolow and met Zionist leaders Chaim Weizmann and Wladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, as well as prominent American Jews such as Stephen Wise and Felix Frankfurter . For Retinger, the “Jewish question” was closely linked to the fate of Poland and its views on a united Europe. He criticized the leader of the Polish nationalists, Roman Dmowski, for his anti-Semitic views and pleaded for the Catholic Church in Poland to act as the “protective power of the Jews”.

In the course of the war Retinger used his numerous contacts (including Berthelot, Boni de Castellane, Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma , Lord Northcliffe , Joseph Caillaux , Georges Clemenceau , HH Asquith ) for plans and negotiations with the aim of eliminating the war Austria and a separate peace with France to end. However, this failed with the Sixtus affair . After all, Retinger was expelled not only from Austria, but also from Great Britain and France. Retinger's marriage to Otolia broke up shortly after the birth of their daughter Wanda in June 1917. An affair with journalist Jane Anderson that began in 1916 also ended unhappily. Failed both politically and in his private life and in poor health, he traveled to Mexico in 1917 , where he worked as an unofficial advisor to the union leader Luis N. Morones and for President Plutarco Elías Calles .

Polish government in exile during World War II

During the Second World War he advised General Władysław Sikorski , the Prime Minister of the Polish government- in- exile in England. After the Sikorski-Maisky agreement he was Retinger in August and September 1941 Polish charge d'affaires in the Soviet Union . Stanisław Kot replaced him on this post. One of his most spectacular missions was a parachute jump transport of several million US dollars for the Polish Home Army .

European Movement and Bilderberg Conference

Grave in North Sheen Cemetery, London

After the war he was a committed advocate of European unification movement and founded the European Movement ( European Movement ) and the Euro Council ( Council of Europe ). He devoted particular intensity to the organization of the Bilderberg conferences . This platform is intended to bring together the leading politicians, officials, bankers and industrialists on both sides of the Atlantic for an informal and discreet exchange of views.

Fonts (selection)

  • Le conte fantastique dans le romantisme français. Paris, Grasset, 1909. Slatkine Reprints, Genève 1973.
  • Histoire de la littérature française, du romantisme à nos jours. Paris, Grasset, 1911.
  • The rise of the Mexican labor movement. With an introduction and brief biography of the Mexican labor leader Luis N. Morones. Documentary Publications, Washington, DC 1976 (1926)
  • Polacy w cywilizacjach zagranicznych . Warszawa 1934
  • Conrad and his contemporaries. Souvenirs. Minerva, London 1941
  • All about Poland. Facts. Figures. Documents. Ed. by JH Retinger. With map of Poland (2nd impr., Rev.), Minerva Publ. Co., London 1941
  • Memoirs of an eminence grise. Ed. by John Pomian. With a foreword by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands . Univ. Press, Sussex 1972 (with portrait of Joseph H. Retinger)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, p. 6.
  2. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, p. 6.
  3. ^ A b Marek Celt: Parachuting into Poland, 1944. Memoir of a Secret Mission with Jozef Retinger. McFarland, Jefferson (NC) 2013, p. 5.
  4. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, pp. 6-7.
  5. ^ Marek Celt: Parachuting into Poland, 1944. Memoir of a Secret Mission with Jozef Retinger. McFarland, Jefferson (NC) 2013, pp. 5-6.
  6. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, pp. 7–8.
  7. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, p. 8.
  8. ^ Marek Celt: Parachuting into Poland, 1944. Memoir of a Secret Mission with Jozef Retinger. McFarland, Jefferson (NC) 2013, p. 6.
  9. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, pp. 8–10.
  10. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, p. 10.
  11. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, p. 11.
  12. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, p. 12.
  13. ^ Marek Celt: Parachuting into Poland, 1944. Memoir of a Secret Mission with Jozef Retinger. McFarland, Jefferson (NC) 2013, pp. 7-8.
  14. ^ Marek Celt: Parachuting into Poland, 1944. Memoir of a Secret Mission with Jozef Retinger. McFarland, Jefferson (NC) 2013, p. 8.
  15. ^ MBB Biskupski: War and Diplomacy in East and West. A Biography of Józef Retinger. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2017, p. 60.
  16. ↑ a b Retinger's political biography ( Memento from May 9, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) In: Demopedia
personal data
SURNAME Retinger, Józef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Retinger, Józef Hieronim (full name); Joseph Retinger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish politician and organizer of the Bilderberg Conference
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Krakow
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1960
Place of death London