Emil August Fieldorf

Emil August Fieldorf (1895–1953) was a Polish brigadier general. He was Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Home Army during World War II. He commanded "KeDyw" and ordered the execution of German police General Franz Kutschera. Operation Kutschera was carried out in Warsaw on February 2, 1944, by "Szare Szeregi" "Grupy Szturmowe".

Biography

Youth

General Fieldorf's ancestors were partially of German origin. He was born 20 March 1895 in Cracow. There finished men's college of St. Nicholas and later the Men's Seminary. In 1910 he joined the Shooters' Union, becoming a full member in 1912. He finished non-commissioned officer school there.

World War I

On 6 August 1914 Fieldorf volunteered for the newly formed 1st Brigade of the Legions under Józef Piłsudski. With them he set out to the Russian Front, where he served in the rank of second-in-charge of an infantry platoon. In 1916 he was promoted to sergeant, and in 1917 directed to officer school.

After the oath crisis he was inducted into the Austrian Army and moved to the Italian front. He deserted and in August 1918 volunteered at the Polish Military Organisation in his home city of Cracow.

Formation of a new Polish state

From November 1918 he served in the ranks of the Polish Army, initially as a platoon commander, and from March 1919 commanding a heavy machine gun company. In the years 1919-1920 he took part in the campaign to join the Wilno region into Poland proper. After the commencement of the Polish-Bolshevik War as a company commander he participated in liberating Dyneburg, Zytomierz and in the 1920 Polish Kiev Expedition.

From 1919 he was married to Janina Kobylinska, with whom he had two daughters: Krystyna and Maria.

Interwar Years

Remaining in active duty after the World War One, he was promoted to Major and posted to the 1st Polish Infantry Regiment, as battalion commander. In 1935 Fieldorf was given command of the "Troki" independent battalion of the Border Protection Corps. A year later, he became Lt. Colonel.

Shortly before the outbreak of World War 2 he was made commander of the 51st Giuseppe Garibaldi Rifles Regiment on the eastern fringes of Poland (Kresy Wschodnie), within the 21st Polish Division from Tarnopol. He commanded this unit during the Polish September Campaign.

World War II

In the 1939 Defensive War he fought in the 12th Infantry Division. After the Division's defeat, in the night of 8-9th September, he broke through in civilian clothes to his native Cracow. From there he attempted to get to France, however after having been stopped on the Slovak border, he was interned in October 1939. Several weeks later, he fled the internment camp and made it to France through Hungary, where he joined with the newly forming Polish forces in-exile.

In France he completed staff courses and was made full-colonel in May 1940. In September of that year, he was smuggled back to occupied Poland as the first emissary of the Polish government in exile. Initially operating in the Warsaw Armed Combat Union, from 1941 in Wilno and Białystok. A year later he was given command of the Kedyw (Special Forces) of the Home Army, where he served until 1944 and his accession to the deputy commandant of the entire Home Army under General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski. It was on his order that the infamous SS General Franz Kutschera was liquidated in February 2, 1944 by Grupy Szturmowe of Szare Szeregi.

Shortly before the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising on 28 September 1944, he was promoted to Brigadier-General with an order from Supreme Commander Kazimierz Sosnkowski. Also he was nominated for future command of the NIE Organisation (see: Cursed soldiers), which was formed from the cadre of the Home Army, with intention of fighting future Soviet occupation.

Postwar years and death

On 7 March 1945 Fieldorf was arrested by the NKVD in the town of Milanówek. He was misidentified under the name Walenty Gdanicki and sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. After serving his penance he returned to Poland, now irretrievably under firm Communist control. He settled in Biała Podlaska under his assumed name. He did not return to conspiratorial activities. Moving between Warsaw and Cracow, he eventually settled in Łódź.

The Communist government, which was persecuting those former fighters who had been loyal to the London Government-in-exile, instead of the communist resistance, offered an amnesty to them in 1948. Not knowing that the amnesty was a sham, Fieldorf outed himself to the authorities. He was placed under investigatory arrest in Warsaw. Later housed in prison, he refused collaboration with the new security services, even under torture.

He was falsely accused by prosecutor Helena Wolinska of having ordered the shooting of Soviet partisans while serving in the Home Army. After a kangaroo court he was sentenced to death on 16 April 1952 by the presiding judge Maria Gurowska. An appeal to a higher court failed, and the family's plea for a pardon was denied.The then President Bolesław Bierut refused clemency. Furthermore, he was accused of being a "fascist-Hitlerite criminal" (i.e., a non-communist).

The verdict was carried out by hanging on 24 February 1953 at 3:00 pm in the infamous Mokotów Prison in Warsaw. The remains were buried in a to-this-day unknown location.

In 1958 the Prosecutor's Office discontinued any further investigations. In 1972 a statue was erected on his symbolic grave. In 1989, following the collapse of Communism, Fieldorf was rehabilitated.

In 2006 the President Lech Kaczyński posthomously granded to Fieldorf the Order of the White Eagle.

Search for justice

His daughter Maria Fieldorf Czarska has pushed for the procecutor being responsible for the murder of her father, Helena Wolińska-Brus (who is now living in Oxford, England), being brought to justice in Poland.

On December 3, 1999, a military district court ruled that Helena Wolinska be remanded in custody. Wolinska, now 88, was a military prosecutor in the 1950s and is accused of aiding in investigation and trial that resulted in the execution of Fieldorf. Wolinska signed Fieldorf's arrest warrant and extended his detention several times, although she was perfectly aware—prosecutors claim—of his innocence. A 1956 report issued by the communist authorities concluded that Wolinska had violated the rule of law and was involved in biased investigations and show trials that frequently resulted in executions.) Wolinska, however, is not being tried under the judicial-screening law. The charges against her were initiated by the Commission for Investigating Crimes against the Polish Nation, which claims that Wolinska is an "accessory to a court murder", classified as a Stalinist crime and a crime of genocide, and is punishable by up to ten years in prison. The case has attracted international attention (East European Constitutional Review, 1999).

ee also

* 1951 Mokotów Prison execution

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/288427.stm Old BBC news story]
* [http://www.ipn.gov.pl/eng/eng_inv_brus.html Investigation against Ms. Helena Wolińska-Brus]
* [http://www.law.nyu.edu/eecr/vol8num1-2/constitutionwatch/poland.html East European Constitutional Review] , New York University Law School 1999