Lieut. General Wladyslaw Anders

[Bonobo]

While we are on the subject of WWII, it is important to remember and pay tribute to Polands finest. I have many interests in Polish history that I wish to address as time goes on.

Wladyslaw Anders:

Born: August 11, 1892, Blonie, Russian partition of Poland (presently Poland)
Higher education: Anders was attending Riga Polytechnic before serving in the Tsar's army during WWI where he lead the 1st squadron of the 1st Krechowiecki Lancer's Regiment.
Military carreer: After the war, Anders joined the newly formed Polish Army and was named leader of the original 15th Poznan Lancers Regiment. He led the regiment in battle against the Red Army in the Polish-soviet war of 1919. By the mid-1930s, Anders rose to the rank of general. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, initiating WWII, he was the Commander of the Nowogrodek Calvary Brigade. His cavalry fought at Lidzbark but withdrew from the overwhelming German attack.


Captured by the Soviets: Anders was eventually captured by the Soviets as they invaded from the east. He was taken to the infamous Lublianka prison in Moscow where he was interrogated and tortured by the NKVD. His situation changed dramatically when the Nazis invaded Russia. A Soviet-Polish agreement was made for the formation of a new army on the territories of the USSR. Anders was freed and named Commanding General. Poles who had been deported from their homes when the Soviet Union invaded Poland were set free from Siberia, Kazachstan and othe regions of USSR to join the new army.
Anders' Army: When General Anders reviewed his troops for the first time, he found them half-starved and in rags. Out of the one and a half million people deported from their homes in Eastern Poland, only a few hundred thousand deportees made it out of Siberia alive. Women, children, and elderly men followed the army as their only chance for survival. The Soviets refused to aid the refugees but General Anders ordered the meager army rations to be split up to feed the refugees. His actions helped many orphans survive their horrible circumstances. Negotiations between Stalin, Churchill, and the Polish forces led to the transfer of the 100,000 people strong II Polish Corps to Iran under British control.

Polish Volunteers to the Anders Army, released from Soviet POW Camp:


The resulting corps became one of the most formidable military formations of the war. Its principal, and unforgettable, achievement was the capturing of Monte Cassino on May 17-18, 1944, after three attempts by others had failed. Anders subsequently led it in the battles up the Adriatic Coast and in the clearance of the Po Valley. He cautioned the Western Allies not to trust the Soviets but his forewarning fell on deaf ears. Hearing of the agreements made at Yalta, he stated, “It is impossible to imagine that humanity has suddenly become blind and has really lost the consciousness of a mortal danger.” The Western Allies thought they had won the war but soon realized they had only achieved a stalemate with totalitarianism.
After the war the Soviet-installed communist government in Poland announced it was depriving him of his Polish citizenship. Anders had, however, always been unwilling to return to a Soviet-dominated Poland where he probably would have been jailed and possibly executed, and remained in exile in Britain. He was prominent in the Polish Government in Exile in London and inspector-general of the Polish forces-in-exile. He died in London on 12 May 1970, where his body lay 'in state' at the church of Andrzej Bobola, where many of his former soldiers and families came to pay their last respects. He was buried, in accordance with his wishes, amongst his fallen soldiers from the 2nd Polish Corps at the Polish War Cemetery at Monte Cassino in Italy.

Anders Tomb at Monte Cassino:


Awards and decorations:
Poland:
Virtuti Militari Commander's Cross
Virtuti Militari Officer's Cross
Virtuti Militari Golden Cross IV Class
Virtuti Militari Silver Cross V Class
Krzyz Walecznych Cross of the Valorous 8 times, 4 times for Polish-Soviet War and 4 times for Polish Defensive War of 1939
Cross of Independence
Polonia Restituta Commander's Cross
Golden Cross of Merit with Swords
Medal Wojska Military Medal four times
Commemorative Medal for War of 1919-1921
Medal 10-lecia Odzyskania Niepodleglosci
Medal 3 Maja
Medal za Dlugoletnia Sluzbê Long Service Medal
Krzyz Armii Krajowej Cross of the Home Army
Krzyz Monte Cassino Cross of Monte Cassino

The United States of America:
Legion of Merit
Order of Lafayette

Great Britain:
Order of the Bath Companion
Italy Star
Defence Medal

Czechoslovakia:
Order of the White Lion

Italy:
Ordine del S.S. Maurizio a Lazarro I Class
Croce di Guerra al Valore Militare

Knights of Malta:
Croce al Merito del Sovrano Militare Ordine di Malta

Yugoslavia (Royal):
Commander of the Order of St. Sava

Persia:
Imperial Order of Homayeun I Class

France:
Legion of Honor III Class
Croix de guerre with Palm
Medaille Interallie

Russia (Imperial Russia):
Order of St. George
Order of St. Vladimir with Swords
Order of St. Anna with Swords 2nd, 3rd and 4th class
Order of Saint Stanislas with Swords 2nd and 3rd class




Truly a remarkable man.
Jim

Apr 29, 2008 1:26:46 GMT 1 @jkustelski said:

Captured by the Soviets: Anders was eventually captured by the Soviets as they invaded from the east. He was taken to the infamous Lublianka prison in Moscow where he was interrogated and tortured by the NKVD. His situation changed dramatically when the Nazis invaded Russia. A Soviet-Polish agreement was made for the formation of a new army on the territories of the USSR. Anders was freed and named Commanding General.

He was really lucky. He avoided the Massacre in the Katyn Forest where Soviets executed thousand of Polish officers. Why? The reason has remained unknown till today. Simply speaking, fate can play tricks on people.

Poles who had been deported from their homes when the Soviet Union invaded Poland were set free from Siberia, Kazachstan and the regions of USSR to join the new army.

It was like release from hell. Those people felt they were doomed to perish in the barren outback of the Soviet Union.

Anders' Army: When General Anders reviewed his troops for the first time, he found them half-starved and in rags. Out of the one and a half million people deported from their homes in Eastern Poland, only a few hundred thousand deportees made it out of Siberia alive. Women, children, and elderly men followed the army as their only chance for survival. The Soviets refused to aid the refugees but General Anders ordered the meager army rations to be split up to feed the refugees. His actions helped many orphans survive their horrible circumstances.

Yes, he cared for civilians whom Soviets didn`t want to feed. They owe him life. It reminds me of Jewish survivors saved by various individuals during WW2. Anders was such a savior. Later they called him " Our Moses."

After the war the Soviet-installed communist government in Poland announced it was depriving him of his Polish citizenship.

Communists hated him with all their heart. They ridiculed him in hundreds cartoon jokes, for example.

This hostile attitude started changing in 1980s when communism began to crumble. I remember watching the anniversary ceremony at Monte Cassino where the Polish state TV station tried to interview the widow - Mrs Anders. She refused politely and they showed it on regime TV! Unbelievable at the time.




A few remarks and photos:
Anders objected to Warsaw Uprising. When it broke out, he was very critical, predicting the massacre of Warsaw citizens.

He was an excellent horse rider. Polish horse riding team, led by Anders, won many prizes at various races before the war.



Anders was a protestant.

He spoke Russian perfectly. Allegedly even Stalin treated Anders with respect.


A new banner for his soldiers


Anders and female civilians he took with his army leaving the USSR. Later he established a high school in Italy for those girls.


His army


With his family in 1956
pmk-muenchen.de/files/30._1956_genera__andersa_z_parafianami_przed_kosciolem_sw._barbary.jpg

A site about Anders visit to a DP camp.
www.northwickparkpolishdpcamp.co.uk/General%20Anders%20Visits.htm

Opening a street named after Anders. The widow on the right.

[Bonobo]

A nice site about Anders and his soldiers:
www.robertambros.com/andersindex.htm

The site`s photo gallery.
www.robertambros.com/andersgallery.htm

[locopolaco]

my great uncle served under the General. he walked from Iran to Italy with a bit of boat riding in between.

[Bonobo]

Apr 30, 2008 23:13:42 GMT 1 locopolaco said:

my great uncle served under the General. he walked from Iran to Italy with a bit of boat riding in between.

Any pictures of the ride?

[locopolaco]

i doubt it. i'll ask my family when i see them in 2 weeks. i want to find out more about his 'adventure'

[jkustelski]

Apr 30, 2008 22:52:08 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

A nice site about Anders and his soldiers:
www.robertambros.com/andersindex.htm

The site`s photo gallery.
www.robertambros.com/andersgallery.htm

Bo,
Thanks for the great links!
Jim

[franciszek]

Excellent story a truly remarkable man and a great hero thanks for the history lesson

[Bonobo]

Polish communists deprived Anders and other officers in exile of Polish citizenship in retaliation for their opposition to the new system installed by Stalin in Poland after WW2. Later, during the political thaw, they got it back except Anders - communists considered him their main symbolic enemy in exile till the last days of communism.

Here is the fascinating story:
www.onet.pl/informacje/onetwiadomosci/armia-generala-andersa-jak-polscy-oficerowie-znow-zostali-polskimi-obywatelami/rweb2qx,79cfc278




ONET WIADOMOŚCI ONLY IN ONET
How Polish officers became Polish citizens again. A quarter of a century of no-fault punishment
Citizenship was taken away from them so that Poland and the world would hear. It was restored - quietly. And not all of them, because even after his death, the authorities of the People's Republic of Poland considered General Anders to be the symbolic enemy number one.

Mateusz Zimmerman
902
December 5, 2021, 08:02
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General Władysław AndersGenerał Władysław Anders - Archive PL / Alamy Stock Photo / PAP
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50 years ago, the communist authorities restored Polish officers to citizenship that had been taken from them shortly after the war
- In a symbolic sense, the resolutions of 1946 were an attempt to depreciate the entire emigration and to divide it - tells Onet prof. Rafał Habielski
A separate resolution was aimed at general Władysław Anders, who was one of the most important figures in the post-war Polish emigration
Prof. Krzysztof Tarka: - They all felt Poles at heart. They believed that an authority that had no right to deprive them of their citizenship had no right to give it back to them
You can read more about the history on the Onet homepage
They received laconic, formal notifications from Polish consulates.

- I don't think their officer ranks were even mentioned - tells me prof. Krzysztof Tarka (University of Opole), historian who deals with, inter alia, issues related to Polish political emigration after World War II. - The resolution to restore their citizenship has not been published either in the Journal of Laws or in the Polish Monitor. She was received quietly.


It was November 1971. A quarter of a century earlier, the Provisional Government of National Unity (the communist-dominated post-Yalta power in Poland) deprived Polish citizenship from five generals, 14 colonels, 26 lieutenant colonels and 30 majores. There were 75 officers in total. All of them were members of the Polish Armed Forces.


A separate act also deprived general Władysław Anders of his citizenship, probably the most important figure and symbol of emigration at that time, not only in the military.

SEEDS. "To suffer for Poland? It's an honor"
A propaganda affront to commanders
Dozens of officers were accused of "not submitting to the supreme command of the Polish army", and Anders himself of supporting "terrorist and subversive centers in the country" and "activities detrimental to the most vital interests of the Polish state, threatening its security and all borders".

These accusations were a propaganda affront - this is how the communist government struck enemies that it could not otherwise reach. Anders was a general who led the Polish army out of the Soviet Union and commanded the 2nd Polish Corps in the famous Battle of Monte Cassino - but at that time he was more than a military man.

"I knew Russia well enough not to trust the Soviets," he recalled. Including The experiences of Soviet captivity meant that he had no illusions about the Kremlin's intentions towards Poland. He strongly protested against the arrangements made at the Yalta conference. After that, the émigré president Władysław Raczkiewicz appointed him the Commander-in-Chief, which was to be a signal to the international community about how the Polish authorities interpret what happened in Crimea.

For many expats and people in the country, Anders became a symbol of the dream of a leader who would return alongside the Western Allies to liberate the country. For the new authorities in Poland, he became a servant of Western imperialism, accused of submission and cowardice towards the Germans (!).

Several outstanding or at least significant commanders were also struck by a resolution - such as Gen. Stanisław Maczek, commander of the "black devils" from the 1st Armored Division, Gen. Stanisław Kopański (he commanded the 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division, after the death of Prime Minister Sikorski, he was the chief of staff of the Commander-in-Chief) or Gen. Antoni Chruściel, military commander of the Warsaw Uprising.

"Criminals, lunatics and women cannot be given a voice". Independence of Polish women in 1918
The body, that is, the discharge of voltage
The pretext for hitting 75 officers was their joining the Polish Resettlement and Deployment Corps.

This formation was founded in 1946 in Great Britain. After the war, the British recognized the Provisional Government of National Unity as legitimate Polish authorities. About a quarter of a million soldiers of the Polish Armed Forces - who had been under the previously legal government in London - found themselves in an ungrateful and complicated situation.

Warsaw demanded the dissolution of the PES and the return of their soldiers to the country. The Polish émigré authorities, no longer recognized, defended themselves against it with their hands and feet, because it meant acceptance of successive facts. The British finally decided that they would persuade as many Poles as possible to repatriate, and that those who choose not to return to their homeland, they would help in adapting to life in the UK.

- There were tens of thousands of Polish soldiers and officers who were dissatisfied with the outcome of the war and with the way the allies treated Poland. During the war, the army provided Poles with food, food and food - but after demobilization, they constituted a huge group of people unsure of their future, unfamiliar with English, often frustrated, but unfamiliar with weapons. It just created tension. The British authorities knew that they had to somehow unload them - explains prof. Grater.

The trouble was that the PKPR was formally a British unit. So: under a foreign flag. - The Corps was not a political formation, it was not aimed at People's Poland. The purpose of his appointment was to adapt the demobilized soldiers and officers to civilian life in the UK, to learn the profession and language - says prof. Rafał Habielski (UW), researcher, among others social life, cultural life and media of Polish emigration.


List received from the British
But the government in Warsaw found an excuse. In a resolution, he accused the officers of "accepting a public office in a foreign country without the consent of the competent Polish authorities." An additional perfidy was that the Act on Polish Citizenship, passed in 1920, was formally used.

Prof. Habielski: - In a symbolic sense, the resolutions were an attempt to depreciate the entire emigration and to divide it.

Both my interlocutors note a certain randomness of the list, the lack of a logical key.

- She's inconsistent. It included officers, often anonymous, who were in no way politically involved. At the same time, it did not include several important figures of military emigration who openly protested against the Yalta accords, such as General Nikodem Sulik, commander of the 5th Kresowa Infantry Division - notes prof. Habielski.

Prof. Tarka draws my attention to the fact that it was not arranged in Warsaw. - Gen. Rola-Żymierski, who was the Minister of Defense in TRJN, received it from the British authorities and presented it at a government meeting. As a matter of fact, we don't even know why the British put the names of some officers on it and not others, he says.

President of the People's Republic of Poland, Bolesław Bierut, and Marshal Michał Rola-ŻymierskiPresident of the People's Republic of Poland Bolesław Bierut and marshal Michał Rola-Żymierski - Jerzy Baranowski / PAP
It was Rola-Żymierski who proposed a resolution depriving officers of citizenship. Only Ludwik Grosfeld from the Polish Socialist Party protested, arguing that this would be contrary to earlier TRJN declarations (the government has stated that it will not interfere in the elections of Poles who decide not to return to the country). With no effect.

The strangest conflict of the Piast era. The churches were deserted, the people plundered the abbeys and the bishop's court
"The culprit and the good soldiers"
Anders was "treated" by a separate resolution also because he did not join the Corps. He was also accused of preventing his subordinate soldiers from returning to the country, which was not true.

Stanisław Mikołajczyk, until recently the prime minister of the government-in-exile, and in 1946, after returning to the country, deputy prime minister in TRJN, was to play an infamous role here. During the war Mikołajczyk had a very critical, rather hostile attitude towards Anders. He saw him almost as a "warlord" who tries to pursue his own policy against the government he serves; he also attributed to him moral responsibility for the death of Prime Minister Sikorski in the Gibraltar catastrophe.

- Mikołajczyk literally reminded at the TRJN meeting that, as he put it, the list did not include the main culprit and that the consequences would be borne by other good soldiers. However, he did not ask the question: why should any Polish soldier suffer such consequences? - says prof. Grater.

Stanisław Mikołajczyk, deputy prime minister and minister of agriculture in the Provisional Government of National UnityStanisław Mikołajczyk, deputy prime minister and minister of agriculture in the Provisional Government of National Unity - archiwum / PAP
Mikołajczyk had the opportunity to comment in public many years later - in court. In 1960, he acted as a witness in a defamation trial against Anders against the editors of an émigré journal.

The former prime minister claimed, inter alia, that at that meeting, the TRJN actually "claimed" Anders. At the same time, however, he voted against the deprivation of citizenship of the officers - only that the censorship forbade it to be announced. As we read in the report of the reporter Ewa Berberyusz: the room "burst into laughter".

One day, two tragedies. More than 40 people died, and the authorities tried to hide the truth
Humiliate the officers, intimidate the privates
The infamous TRJN resolutions not only hit the officers directly affected. The communists were aware that these people were "lost" anyway, that is, they would almost certainly not return to post-war Poland.

Prof. Tarka: - Even if it happened, it would be embarrassing for the new authorities. Such a group of officers would immediately gain popularity and maintain contacts in the West - and if the communists wanted to simulate a gentle course before the elections, these people could not be arrested just like that.

My interlocutors indicate that these decisions were supposed to be a form of pressure on the rank and file of the Polish Armed Forces and to intimidate them. - To persuade them to return to Poland. "Unloading" the emigration was in the interest of the communists, mass returns of Poles to the country would legitimize the new government - says prof. Habielski.

Certainly, they wanted to discourage soldiers from joining the PKPR. - For fear of losing Polish citizenship. After all, no one knew if there would be no more similar resolutions - adds prof. Grater. On the other hand, the historian Krystyna Kersten pointed out that the communists did not care too much about the mass repatriation of PES soldiers at that time, especially before the elections.

It was, however, first about forcing the British to demobilize the Polish army. Then: to weaken and neutralize the Corps. "In the opinion of the society of Narvik, the Battle of Britain, Tobruk and Monte Cassino, and not Lenino or Wał Pomorski, determined the stages of the glory of the Polish soldier," wrote Kersten. The communists tried to diminish the Polish war effort in the west and at the same time to break up the potential center of resistance in exile.

"If he felt hurt, he would not make himself known"
The resolutions of 1946 had little impact on the everyday life of Polish officers in exile. As my interlocutors say, they did not recognize the government installed in Poland as legal anyway.

Anders learned from the radio that he had lost Polish citizenship. His wife Irena said that she experienced it more than he did. He was secretive. If he felt hurt, he would not show him.

- Another thing is that it just had to hurt and hurt these people - emphasizes prof. Grater. - Their situation abroad was difficult, regardless of this resolution, because - unlike the rank and file - they felt professional and social declassification. It was often severe and humiliating. Let us take the example of General Maczek, who worked as a bartender in a hotel restaurant, and his boss was his former subordinate, who, moreover, presented Maczek as "the attraction of the establishment".

Singly and silently
A decade later, in Poland of the "thaw" era, the authorities had softened a bit, but it was too early to return to the issue of émigré officers.

A few months after Gomułka came to power, General Antoni Chruściel, who was in exile, wrote a letter to Stanisław Jankowski. Jankowski, an architect already known at that time and favored by the authorities, was one of the most famous Home Army workers, and after the war he allowed himself to be persuaded to return to Poland, and he did his best to rebuild Warsaw.

Jankowski urged the veterans to return to the country - also Chruściel. But in his letter he read: "Wiesław" [talking about Gomułka - note by MZ] unambiguously said in public what he thought about those who had been deprived of their citizenship, that is, about me. The general died in exile a few years later. He managed to confess in his memoirs: "We do not fit in with emigration, and we can say it after many years of exile".


The solution to the case did not mature until the 1960s. At first, it was about practical challenges. Prof. Tarka: - One of the emigrant lieutenant colonels wanted to return to Poland and there was a problem: how to formally treat it? He finally arrived on the basis of a visa, and only three years later the Council of State granted him Polish citizenship again. After that, there were requests for repatriation among officers, and they were also treated as requests for restoration of citizenship - one at a time and silently.


How to get along with combatants
The background for the government's attitude towards veterans-emigrants, which was more favorable in the 1960s, was the pro-combatant turn that took place at the summits of the Polish United Workers' Party at that time. To some extent, it was the result of the activities of Minister Moczar and his "partisans" faction, who, in order to gather a broader social base, referred precisely to the military ethos, the wartime community of fate.

- This applied to both the Polish People's Army and the People's Army, as well as members of the Home Army or the Polish Armed Forces in the West. This community, of course, was often an illusion, but at the same time for many former Home Army and PES soldiers it was the first moment in People's Poland when they felt noticed and appreciated - explains Prof. Grater.

At the same time, Polish consulates in countries that were large centers of post-war emigration - especially in Great Britain and France - signaled to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that they encountered difficulties in contacts with veterans. One of the reasons were the resolutions of 1946.

Prof. Tarka: - The authorities of the Polish People's Republic also considered inviting General Maczek to the country - but he was also deprived of his citizenship, so it made any efforts difficult. So there were suggestions that this problem somehow needed to be finally solved. Gierek's team also made gestures towards the military in exile, as evidenced by the decision in 1971.

"The Consulate kindly advises"
The irony was that the people's government boasted about its decisions to strip citizens of citizenship - and, 25 years later, secretly repealed them.

- It was one of discreet decisions, such as the degradation of officers of Jewish origin dismissed from the army in 1968 by General Jaruzelski - says prof. Habielski.

As late as 1981, some of the veterans recalled in an appeal to the State Council that the resolutions restoring citizenship to officers "had not been made public, so that the resolution of 1946 was still in force in the public consciousness."

Nobody apologized for anything, did not explain anything, did not invite anyone to any ceremony, did not offer any compensation. There were only modest, formal notifications: "Dear Sir, the Consulate General kindly informs you that the Council of Ministers of the Polish People's Republic on November 23, 1971 canceled the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Poland of September 26, 1946 on the deprivation of your Polish citizenship. respect, Consul General. "


Prof. Tarka: - We do not know anything about the fact that it made a special impression on any of the recipients of this two-sentence magazine. They all felt Poles at heart - if they believed that the illegal government had no right to deprive them of their citizenship, they also believed that they had no right to give it back to them.

"A stranger national man", or how a general was omitted
What is significant: the resolution of 1971 did not apply to General Anders. Not only because he died several months earlier (coincidence: on the anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Monte Cassino). Simply for the authorities of the Polish People's Republic, which in the post-war months and years made Anders a warmonger, a tombstone of fascism and a servant of the imperialists, the general did not cease to be enemy number one for a quarter of a century.

"A stranger national has gone into nothingness, just as the goals he tried to achieve were alien to the nation. And this truth will not be changed by even the most glorious epitaphs proclaimed by Free Europe." "It is disgusting to try to make the deceased a patriotic symbol and give him an almost heroic rank" - this kind of "obituary" was published by the Polish press after his death.

- Even after his death, the authorities considered him a symbolic enemy. Citizenship was restored to him only in March 1989, which is actually in the last months of communist rule in Poland. Ironically, at the same time Mikołajczyk was restored citizenship, who made a contribution to the fact that Anders had been deprived of it - reminds prof. Grater.

Ewa Berberyusz reminded that in 1987 General Jaruzelski officially visited Monte Cassino and laid a wreath at the local cemetery. But he ignored Anders' grave (because the general was buried there). The reporter feigned surprise: "It's a real art, if someone knows the topography of this cemetery!"

Mateusz Zimmerman
journalist and publicist
Source:
Onet
Creation Date: December 5, 2021 08:02
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