Tadeusz Pełczyński
Tadeusz Walenty Pełczyński (born February 14, 1892 in Warsaw ; † January 3, 1985 in London ) ( aliases : "Grzegorz", "Adam", "Wolf" and "Robak") was a Polish brigadier general ( generał brygady ) on the general staff . During the period of the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939) he headed the second section of the Polish General Staff (Polish: Oddział II Sztabu Generalnego Wojska Polskiego ), whose tasks were military intelligence , counter-espionage and at that time still with the degree of colonel ( pułkownik ) which included cryptography . To that extent he was also an intelligence officer .
One of his most important achievements is his proposal to hand over the Polish deciphering procedures of the German Enigma key machine to the Allies before the outbreak of World War II . Polish Chief of Staff at that time (from June 7, 1935 to September 18, 1939) was Brigadier General Wacław Stachiewicz . In view of the impending danger, Pełczyński convinced his boss to leave the knowledge, developed in the Polish cipher office, Biuro Szyfrów (BS) , as well as all the methods and equipment developed for the successful deciphering of the German machine to the British and French. Only a few weeks before the German attack on Poland , the then highly secret and now legendary Pyry meeting took place in the Kabaty Forest , near the Polish capital Warsaw , in July 1939 .
Life
Tadeusz was born as the son of Ksawery Pełczyński and Maria Pełczyńska (née Liczbińska) in Warsaw, which was then still in Russia . At the same time he was a great-grandson of Michał Pełczyński (1775-1833), a general of Congress Poland . He first went to school in Łęczyca (near Łódź ). In 1905, at a young age, he took part in a school strike aimed at supporting the Polish independence movement from Imperial Russia. He later moved to the Gen. Paweł Chrzanowski High School in Warsaw and then, in 1911, began studying medicine at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow . He was involved in the Polish youth organization "Zet" (Związek Młodzieży Polskiej) as well as the former Slavic-patriotic Sokół gymnastics movement ( German falcon ). He also completed a military training course under Zygmunt Zieliński (1858-1925), a later general ( generał broni ) of the Polish army.
When the First World War broke out in August 1914, he was on summer vacation near Włocławek (140 km northwest of Warsaw). There he was overrun by the German army and assigned to serve as a medic in a camp for Russian prisoners of war . After his release in June 1915, he joined the Polish legions ( Legiony Polskie ) , which, from 1916 under the German army, fought against the Russian troops on the Eastern Front . He served in the infantry regiment of the 6th Legion (6 Pułk Piechoty Legionów) first as a platoon leader and later as a company commander . As a result of the oath crisis , he was interned in the Beniaminów camp (near Warsaw) in July 1917 . After his release in March 1918, he worked for the central Polish welfare organization Rada Główna Opiekuńcza and at the same time continued his commitment to the youth organization "Zet".
In November 1918, after Poland regained independence , he joined the new Polish army and was initially company commander and shortly thereafter battalion commander . From September 1921 to September 1923 he went through the General Staff Academy (Wyższa Szkoła Wojenna) in Warsaw and received the general staff license . In the same year 1923 he married Wanda Filipowska. They had a daughter Maria and a son Krzysztof (1924–1944), who later succumbed on August 17, 1944, to the wounds he suffered on the first day of the Warsaw Uprising on August 1, 1944.
Major Tadeusz Pełczyński was admitted to the "Inner War Council" (Ścisła Rada Wojenna) in July 1924 and in May 1927, now with the rank of lieutenant colonel ( podpułkownik ) , became head of the intelligence department (Wydział Ewidencyjny) within the second section of the Polish General Staff before he was entrusted with the management of the second section in January 1929. From March 1932 to September 1935 he commanded the 5th Legion infantry regiment stationed in Vilnius , at that time part of the 1st Legion's infantry division, an elite unit of the Polish land forces. In October 1935 he again took over the management of the second section of the Polish General Staff and, like his predecessor, Colonel ( pułkownik ) Tadeusz Schaetzel (1891–1971), and his deputy Lieutenant Colonel Józef Englicht (1891–1954) supported Marshal Józef in this function Piłsudski (1867–1935) led Prometheism movement, which was directed against the expansion of geopolitical influence in the Soviet Union and whose goal was the liberation of non-Russian people within the Soviet Union. In January 1939, Pełczyński, now colonel (pułkownik) , took command of the 19th Infantry Division (19 Dywizja Piechoty) , which was also stationed in Vilnius.
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Pełczyński wrote world history by convincing the Chief of the Polish General Staff, Brigadier General Wacław Stachiewicz (1894–1973), to reveal all Polish achievements in breaking the German key machine to the British and French (see also: Meeting from Pyry ). In doing so, he enabled the Polish allies to decipher the German Enigma radio messages , which was undoubtedly of enormous strategic importance for the course of the Second World War and, moreover, of considerable historical consequence .
From September 5, 1939, he commanded a Polish armed force in the rear of the German armed forces invading Poland . He then went to Warsaw and began his work in various resistance organizations of the Polish Underground State , such as the Polish Victory Service (Służba Zwycięstwu Polski) , the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, for short: ZWZ) and the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, for short: AK) . From July 1940 to April 1941 he commanded the local ZWZ district in Lublin . When the Gestapo was on his heels, he evaded to Warsaw and became Chief of Staff of the ZWZ there in July 1941 . He commanded acts of sabotage against the German occupiers, such as the blowing up of railway tracks, carried out by Polish Kedyw units (Kierownictwo Dywersji) . After all, he was one of the decision-makers in the Warsaw Uprising, which began on August 1, 1944 and was bloodily suppressed. After the death of his son on the 17th day, he himself was seriously wounded on the 35th day of the uprising, September 4th, when the PKO bank building on Świętokrzyska Street in Warsaw was bombed. After the suppression of the uprising, he was arrested by the Germans and initially taken to the Nuremberg- Langwasser prison camp and then interned in Oflag IVc (officers' camp IVc) at Colditz Castle.
After the war and his liberation by the Allies, he, like many of his compatriots, went into political exile in the United Kingdom . He died at the age of 92 in London, where he was also buried.
Posthumous honor
Posthumously he received a number of honors. These include the award of the Order of the White Eagle in 1996, the Silver and Gold Cross of the Military Order Virtuti Militari , the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polish Rebirth Polonia Restituta , the Golden Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland and other awards.
In 1995 his remains were exhumed, transferred to his hometown and buried with those of his wife in the Warsaw Powązki Cemetery in the immediate vicinity of the grave of their son Krzysztof, who was killed in the 1944 uprising.
Promotions
- Ensign (chorąży) on November 11, 1915
- Second lieutenant ( podporucznik ) July 1, 1916
- Lieutenant ( porucznik ) on December 1, 1918
- Captain ( kapitan ) in May 1920
- Major in 1920
- Lieutenant Colonel ( podpułkownik ) on January 1, 1927
- Colonel ( pułkownik ) on January 1, 1934
- Brigadier General ( generał brygady ) on October 1, 1943
literature
- Władysław Kozaczuk : Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two . Praeger, 1984, ISBN 0-3132-7007-4 .
- Gordon Welchman : The Hut Six Story - Breaking the Enigma Codes . Allen Lane, London 1982; Cleobury Mortimer M&M, Baldwin Shropshire 2000, ISBN 0-947712-34-8 .
Web links
- CV (English). Retrieved March 15, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ^ Tadeusz Walenty "Grzegorz" Pełczyński. Retrieved March 22, 2019 .
- ↑ CV (English). Retrieved March 15, 2016
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pełczyński, Tadeusz |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Grzegorz (alias); Adam (alias); Wolf (alias); Robak (alias); Pełczyński, Tadeusz Walenty (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 14, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Warsaw |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd January 1985 |
| Place of death | London |