Kazimierz Leski
Encyclopedia
Kazimierz Leski, nom de guerre Bradl (21 June 1912 — 27 May 2000), was a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
engineer
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
, co-designer of the Polish submarines ORP Sęp
ORP Sep
For the second ORP Sęp serving in the Polish Navy since 2002, see ORP Sęp .ORP Sęp was a serving in the Polish Navy during World War II. In Polish her name means Vulture.-Construction:...
and ORP Orzeł
ORP Orzeł
Three boats of the Polish Navy have been named ORP Orzeł :* ORP Orzeł was an commissioned in 1939 and lost in 1940.* ORP Orzeł was a commissioned in 1962 and decommissioned in 1983....
, a fighter pilot
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...
, and an officer in the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Home Army
Armia Krajowa
The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
's intelligence and counter-intelligence.
He is credited, during World War II, with at least 25 journeys across German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
-held Europe, usually in the uniform of a Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
Major General
Major General
Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...
.
After the war, he was imprisoned by Poland's
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
communist authorities. He spent seven years on death row before being rehabilitated
Rehabilitation (Soviet)
Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...
in 1956. He then resumed work as an engineer.
Early life
Kazimierz Leski was born in WarsawWarsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
on June 21, 1912. His father, Major Juliusz Leski, had been an engineer and a pioneer of Poland's
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
arms industry. following the Polish-Bolshevik War. However, he fell out of grace after the May 1926 Coup d'État, when he remained loyal to the government. Because of that, Kazimierz had to work as a railway worker to pay for his studies at the Wawelberg and Rotwand College in Warsaw. He also got a simple job in the foundry of the Pocisk munitions works. To study professional books, he learned English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
—abilities that proved invaluable later. Early on, he also learned French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.
Engineer
Immediately upon graduating in 1936, he was offered a job at the Nederlandsche Vereenigde Scheepsbouw Bureaux design bureau (NVSB) in The HagueThe Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
. The company was the leading design bureau in the Netherlands, working for all the major naval shipyards in the country. Initially working as a draughtsman
Technical drawing
Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....
, Leski learned the Dutch language
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, which allowed him to rise quickly through the ranks of the design bureau. His career in the Dutch shipbuilding industry was significantly sped up by the fact that Holland won a contract for construction of two modern Orzeł class submarines for the Polish Navy
Polish Navy
The Marynarka Wojenna Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej - MW RP Polish Navy, is the branch of Republic of Poland Armed Forces responsible for naval operations...
. He started additional studies at the Maritime Faculty of the Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...
and became one of the heads of the Submarine Division of the NVSB, responsible for the comparison of the projects with the supplied machinery. After he patented a new mounting for the ballast tank
Ballast tank
A ballast tank is a compartment within a boat, ship or other floating structure that holds water.-History:The basic concept behind the ballast tank can be seen in many forms of aquatic life, such as the blowfish or argonaut octopus, and the concept has been invented and reinvented many times by...
funnels, he was promoted and became an independent specialist. Soon afterwards Leski became the head designer for the Orzeł class submarines: the future ORP Orzeł
ORP Orzeł
Three boats of the Polish Navy have been named ORP Orzeł :* ORP Orzeł was an commissioned in 1939 and lost in 1940.* ORP Orzeł was a commissioned in 1962 and decommissioned in 1983....
and ORP Sęp
ORP Sep
For the second ORP Sęp serving in the Polish Navy since 2002, see ORP Sęp .ORP Sęp was a serving in the Polish Navy during World War II. In Polish her name means Vulture.-Construction:...
, as well as the deputy to the lead constructor Niemeier.
After the works on the ship series were complete, Leski decided to return to Poland, where he joined the Polish Army and graduated from his third school: the NCO Aviation School in Dęblin
Deblin
Dęblin is a town, population 19,500 , at the confluence of Vistula and Wieprz rivers, in Lublin Voivodeship, Poland. Dęblin is the part of the agglomeration with adjacent towns of Ryki and Puławy, which altogether has over 100 000 inhabitants....
.
War begins
Mobilized prior to the 1939 German invasion of PolandInvasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
, he joined the Polish Air Force. On September 17, 1939, his Lublin R-XIII
Lublin R-XIII
The Lublin R-XIII was the Polish army-cooperation plane , designed in the early-1930s in the Plage i Laśkiewicz factory in Lublin. It was the main army cooperation plane in the Invasion of Poland...
F plane was shot down by the Soviets
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and Leski was badly injured. Soon after, he was taken prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
by Soviet soldiers but managed to escape and reach Lwów. From there he crossed the new Soviet-German "border of peace" and in October 1939 moved to Warsaw, where he joined an underground organization, Muszkieterowie (the "Musketeers").
The organization, which was later integrated into the Home Army
Armia Krajowa
The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
(Armia Krajowa), was an en cadre
En cadre
En cadre or cadre is a French expression originally denoting either the complement of commissioned officers of a regiment or the permanent skeleton establishment of a unit, around which the unit could be built if needed...
military organization primarily focused on intelligence. Thus Leski– still suffering from wounds received in September 1939 and unfit for front-line service in the Forest Units
Leśni
Leśni is one of the informal names applied to the anti-German partisan groups operating in occupied Poland during World War II. The groups were formed mostly by people who for various reasons could not operate from settlements they lived in and had to retreat to the forests...
– became a leading intelligence officer with the Musketeers and later with the Home Army.
His most important achievements included a complete list of German military units, their insignia
Insignia
Insignia or insigne pl -nia or -nias : a symbol or token of personal power, status or office, or of an official body of government or jurisdiction...
, numbers and dispositions. He and his cell also prepared detailed reports on the logistics and transport of German units bound for the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, and on the state of bridges, railways and roads in German-held Europe. Leski's unit also began developing a communications network spanning German-occupied Europe from Poland to Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and finally the Polish Government in Exile
Polish government in Exile
The Polish government-in-exile, formally known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in Exile , was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Disguises
In 1941 Leski made his first trip as a courier to France. In his first trip, he posed as a Lieutenant of the WehrmachtWehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
. However, he decided to promote himself to the rank of Generalmajor for all other trips in order to be able to travel first class, as his wounds made it impossible for him to travel in crowded, third-class railway cars. As General Julius von Halmann he managed to cross Europe several times in a row without his true identity being revealed. The disguise, his fluent knowledge of several languages and his excellently forged
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
documents also allowed him to witness several events he did not plan. Among them was his 1942 visit to the Atlantic Wall
Atlantic Wall
The Atlantic Wall was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the western coast of Europe as a defense against an anticipated Allied invasion of the mainland continent from Great Britain.-History:On March 23, 1942 Führer Directive Number 40...
construction site, which was made possible because he convinced one of the passengers in his car that his superiors might want to build a similar line of fortifications in the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. On another occasion he visited the field staff of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt
Gerd von Rundstedt
Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was a Generalfeldmarschall of the German Army during World War II. He held some of the highest field commands in all phases of the war....
. Apart from his service in intelligence and counter-intelligence, he also took over a cell focused on smuggling information and people in and out of German prisons in occupied Poland, notably the infamous Pawiak
Pawiak
Pawiak was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Poland.During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia....
.
Warsaw Uprising
At the outbreak of the Warsaw UprisingWarsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...
in August 1944, Kazimierz Leski was not commissioned. However, with a group of volunteers he formed an infantry battalion, Miłosz, and became commander of its first company, Bradl. The unit fought with distinction in the area of Triple Cross Square
Triple Cross Square
Three Crosses Square is an important square in the central district of Warsaw, Poland. It lies on that city's Royal Route and links Nowy Świat Street, to the north, with Ujazdów Avenue to the south....
in the Warsaw City Center
Warszawa-Sródmiescie
Śródmieście is the central borough of the city of Warsaw. The best known neighborhoods in the borough are the Old Town and New Town ....
. For his gallantry, Leski was promoted to captain and awarded several decorations, including the Silver Virtuti Militari
Virtuti Militari
The Order Wojenny Virtuti Militari is Poland's highest military decoration for heroism and courage in the face of the enemy at war...
, the Gold and Silver Crosses of Merit with Swords, and three Crosses of Valor.
After the Uprising's capitulation, Leski managed to escape from a column of prisoners and, pretending to be a civilian, returned to the underground. He became commander of the Home Army Western Area and later the chief of the Armed Forces Delegation for Poland.
Communist prison
After the communist takeover of Poland he gradually dismantled his underground net and moved to GdańskGdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
. A member of the Wolność i Niezawisłość anti-communist resistance, under the false name Leon Juchniewicz he became the first managing director of the demolished Gdańsk Shipyard
Gdansk Shipyard
Gdańsk Shipyard is a large Polish shipyard, located in the city of Gdańsk. The yard gained international fame when Solidarity was founded there in September 1980...
. His tasks included reconstructing the shipyard, which had been devastated by Allied air raids and by the withdrawing Germans. In August 1945 he received the communist regime's highest civilian award, but later the same day was arrested by the secret police
Ministry of Public Security of Poland
The Ministry of Public Security of Poland was a Polish communist secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage service operating from 1945 to 1954 under Jakub Berman of the Politburo...
, who had discovered his true identity.
Rehabilitation
After the deaths of Soviet leader Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
(1953) and Polish leader Bolesław Bierut (1956), Leski was freed and soon rehabilitated
Rehabilitation (Soviet)
Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...
. Still, he could not find a job, as Poland's communist authorities continued to view former Home Army soldiers with suspicion. He had to give up work in the shipbuilding industry and worked as a clerk at the PWT publishing house. Eventually he became a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Polish Academy of Sciences
The Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw, is one of two Polish institutions having the nature of an academy of sciences.-History:...
. Awarded a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
, for political reasons he could not receive the rank of professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
for his work on computer analysis of natural language
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
codes. Nevertheless, he continued his scientific work, publishing seven books and over 150 other publications. He also patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed inventions.
Largely unknown to the public, in 1989—after Solidarity's victory
History of Solidarity
The history of Solidarity , a Polish non-governmental trade union, begins in August 1980, at the Lenin Shipyards at its founding by Lech Wałęsa and others. In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country...
and the fall of the communist regime—he published his memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s, which became a best-seller. He received the Polish PEN Club Prize and the Polish Writers' Society in Exile Award.
He died on 27 May 2000 and was interred with military honors at Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery
Powazki Cemetery
Powązki Cemetery , also known as the Stare Powązki is a historic cemetery located in the Wola district, western part of Warsaw, Poland. It is the most famous cemetery in the city, and one of the oldest...
.
See also
- Jan KarskiJan KarskiJan Karski was a Polish World War II resistance movement fighter and later scholar at Georgetown University. In 1942 and 1943 Karski reported to the Polish government in exile and the Western Allies on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and...
- Jan Nowak-JeziorańskiJan Nowak-JezioranskiJan Nowak-Jeziorański was a Polish journalist, writer, politician, social worker and patriot. He served during the Second World War as one of the most notable resistance fighters of the Home Army...
- Krystyna Skarbek (was in contact with the "Musketeers" organization)
- List of Poles