Stanislaw Mackiewicz

Stanislaw Mackiewicz

Stanisław Mackiewicz (born December 18, 1896 in Saint Petersburg , † February 18, 1966 in Warsaw ) was a Polish politician and Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile .

Life

Studies and World War I

Mackiewicz, who came from the Polish land nobility , graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow after attending high schools in Vilnius , Wynohradiw and Cracow in 1914 . During this time he became editor in 1911 of the secret newspaper “Pobudka” ( alarm signal ) in Vilnius . Later he was initially a supporter of the monarchy and as a political journalist author of conservative writings.

During the First World War he joined the Association of Polish Youth ( Związek Młodzieży Polskiej "Zet" ) in 1916 . In 1917 he became a member of the Polish Military Organization ( POW , Polish Polska Organizacja Wojskowa ).

Poland's independence, second republic and exile

After Poland regained independence on November 11, 1918, he was a volunteer in the Polish Army during the Polish-Soviet War in 1920 and as such a soldier in the 13th  Uhlan Regiment Nowa Wilejka under the command of Major Władysław Dąbrowski.

Between 1922 and 1939 he was editor of the daily newspaper "Słowo" (The Word). He was also an editor for radio newspapers from 1929 to 1933. As the later editor-in-chief of “Słowo” , he acquired the reputation of a conservative publicist who attested the Adolf Hitler regime consistently manifest polonophile tendencies, and as a proponent of National Socialist domestic policy . He wrote enthusiastic reports about the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg , which also shaped the foreign policy relationship between Poland and the Third Reich . After the death of Marshal Józef Piłsudski on May 12, 1935, he was arrested as a member of the opposition on March 23, 1939 and held for 17 days in the Bereza Kartuska prison camp.

After the attack on Poland and the beginning of the Second World War on September 1, 1939, he left Poland on September 16, 1939 to go into exile in London . From 1940 to 1954 he was the editor of brochures on current political issues and from 1946 to 1950 the editor of the émigré newspaper "Lwów i Wilno" . In July 1940 Mackiewicz supported a Polish-German alliance directed against the Soviet Union within a group of Polish politicians in exile.

On June 8, 1954, he succeeded Jerzy Hryniewski as Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile . He held this office until he was replaced by Hugon Hanke on September 11, 1955. The following year he returned to the now communist- oriented People's Republic of Poland , where he died ten years later.

His younger brother Józef Mackiewicz was also a prominent political journalist who later died in exile in Munich .

Publications

In addition to his journalistic work under the pseudonyms "Cat", "Gallieni Gallus", "Quand meme", "Gaston de Cerizay", Mackiewicz was also the author of several works such as:

• Henryk Sienkiewicz , 1916
• Historia Polski od 11 listopada 1918 r. do 17 września 1939 r. (Polish history from November 11, 1918 to September 17, 1939), London 1941
• Historia Polski od 17 września 1939 r. do lipca 1945 r. (Polish history from September 17, 1939 to July 1945)
• Dostoevsky , 1947
• Stanisław August , 1953
• Londyniszcze , London 1957
• Europe in flagranti , 1965 (pseudonym "Cat")
• Klucz do Piłsudskiego (Key to Piłsudski )

Web links

• Literature by and about Stanisław Mackiewicz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography on the homepage of the government chancellery (Polish)
• Biography (polish)
• Biographical information in rulers.org

Footnotes

1. ^ Polish Radio History 1924-1939, Czasopisma lata 1924-1939 ( Memento of April 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Carsten Roschke: The courted primeval enemy. Poland in National Socialist propaganda 1934–1939 . 2000
3. ↑ Klaus-Peter Friedrich in Cooperation and Crime, Forms of Collaboration in Eastern Europe 1939-1945 p. 116
4. ↑ antykwariat.ms-soft.pl ( Memento of the original dated December 13, 2007 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.