Wladyslaw Korczyc

Wladyslaw Korczyc

Władysław Korczyc (Alternative name: Vladislav Wikentjewitsch Kortschiz , Russian Владислав Викентиевич Корчиц * 1. September 1893 in Bogdanowicze , Slonim , today Belarus ; † 17th October 1966 in Moscow ) was a Soviet colonel general of the Red Army and Lieutenant General of the People's Army of the People's Republic of Poland who was chief of the general staff between 1945 and 1954 . He was also a member of the Sejm from 1952 to 1956 as a representative of the Polish United Workers' Party PZPR ( Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza ) .

Life

Officer Training, World War I and Great Purges

After attending school in 1911, Korczyc began training as an officer and served in the First World War as an officer in the 16th Infantry Division of the Imperial Russian Army on the southern front. After the October Revolution he joined the Red Army and participated on the Soviet side in the Polish-Soviet War and the Russian Civil War. He was then from 1920 to 1921 course instructor at the school of the Red Communes and between 1921 and 1922 commander of this school and the 15th Kiev commanding course.

After graduating from a course himself, he served from 1923 to 1925 as deputy commander of the 49th Infantry Regiment and as commander of officer training in the 17th Infantry Division. Subsequently, between 1925 and 1926 he was senior assistant to the head of the operations department of the 3rd Infantry Corps and from 1926 to 1931 himself commander of the 49th rifle regiment, before he was chief of staff of the 19th rifle division between 1931 and 1936 and finally chief of staff from 1936 to 1938 14th Infantry Corps was. During this he was also a graduate of the Frunze - Military Academy .

In the course of the Great Purges under Josef Stalin , he was imprisoned from May 9, 1938 to January 12, 1940, and was also tortured. After his imprisonment, which he survived because of feigned mental illness, he returned to the Red Army in early 1940.

Second World War and service in the Polish People's Army

Korczyc was first an instructor at the Frunze Military Academy between January 1940 and June 1941 and then between June 26 and August 28, 1941 commander of the 245th Rifle Division. He later acted from January 26 to August 29, 1942 as the commander of the 182nd Rifle Division and took part in the Demyansk Kessel Battle in early 1942 . During this time he was promoted to major general on August 4, 1942 and was deputy commander of the 34th Soviet Army from August 29 to December 13, 1942. Subsequently, between December 13, 1942 and April 30, 1944, he was Chief of Staff of the 1st Shock Army , with which he participated in the Leningrad-Novgorod Operation from January 14 to March 1, 1944 .

In May 1944, Major General Korczyc was to serve in the result of the merger in 1943 established the Polish Armed Forces in the Soviet Union (Polskie Siły Zbrojne w ZSRR) with the Communist underground army Armia Ludowa incurred People's Army (Ludowe Wojsko Polskie) drafted. First he was Chief of Staff of the 1st Polish Army between May 15 and September 4, 1944 and then Deputy Commander of the 1st Polish Army from September 4 to October 1, 1944, before he succeeded General Zygmunt Berling between October 1, 1944 and January 1, 1945 he was the commander of the 1st Polish Army. During this time he was also promoted to Lieutenant General of the Red Army on October 27, 1944 .

Chief of the General Staff and Deputy Minister for Defense

On January 1, 1945, General Lieutenant Korczyc was the first chief of the General Staff of the Polish People's Army, officially on July 18, 1945 in the armed forces of the Republic of Poland (Siły Zbrojne Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej) and from 1952 in the armed forces of the People's Republic of Poland (Siły Zbrojne Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej) referred has been. On May 3, 1945 he was promoted to Lieutenant General of the Polish People's Army and in 1946 to Colonel General of the Red Army. In 1945 he also became a member of the Polish Workers' Party PPR ( Polska Partia Robotnicza ) and a member of the Central Committee of the PPR. After the forced unification of the PPR with the Polish Socialist Party PPS (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna), which had been purged of democratic forces, on December 21, 1948, he became a member of the resulting Polish United Workers' Party PZPR ( Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza ) and also belonged to the Central Committee between 1948 and 1954 the PZPR.

Korczyc was also Vice Minister for Defense between December 14, 1949 and February 8, 1954. On November 20, 1952, he was also a representative of the Polish United Workers' Party PZPR ( Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza ) member of the Sejm , in which he represented constituency No. 40 Szczecin . While he was absent between 1952 and 1954 due to a study at the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union Kliment Yefremowitsch Voroshilov , Division General Borys Pigarewicz acted as executive chief of the General Staff. On February 8, 1954, he was officially dismissed from his post as Chief of the General Staff and Deputy Minister of Defense, whereupon Division General Pigarewicz continued to take over the business before Lieutenant General Jerzy Bordziłowski became the new Chief of the General Staff on March 23, 1954. He had previously returned to the Soviet Union.

honors and awards

In the course of his military career, Korczyc received several awards and received from the People's Republic of Poland the highest Polish Order of Military Merit Virtuti Militari ( Knight's Cross ), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (Order Krzyża Grunwaldu) second class and the medal for "Warsaw 1939 to 1945" (Medal za Warszawę 1939-1945) .

On the part of the Soviet Union, he was awarded the Order of Lenin , the Order of Suvorov First Class, the medal “For the capture of Berlin” and the medal “Victory over Germany” .

Web links

• Entry on the Sejm's homepage
• Entry in The Generals of WWII