- Zygmunt Berling
Zygmunt Henryk Berling (
27 April 1896 -11 July 1980 ), Polishgeneral andpolitician , best known as the commander of the1st Polish Army during theSecond World War .Biography
Early life
Born in
Limanowa on 27 April 1896, Berling joined thePolish Legions ofJózef Piłsudski in 1914, serving in the 2nd and 4th Legions Infantry Regiment ("Pułk Piechoty Legionów"). Between the "oath crisis " ("kryzys przysięgowy") of June 1917 and October 1918 he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. At the end of theFirst World War he joined the rebornPolish Army , becoming the commander of an infantry company in the 4th Infantry Regiment. During thePolish-Bolshevik War he gained fame as an able commander during the defense of Lwów, and received theVirtuti Militari medal for his leadership.After the war he remained in the military and in 1923 he was promoted to
major , first serving on the staff post in the command of 15th Infantry Division of V District Corps Command inKraków . In 1930 he was promoted to Lt. Colonel and started his service as a commanding officer, first in the 6th Infantry Regiment and then in the 4th Infantry Regiment. Berling initially retired from active duty in June of 1939 because of his ethic problems.econd World War
Berling did not participate in the Invasion of Poland against the German Wehrmacht in 1939. After his home city of
Wilno was occupied by theSoviet Union under the terms dictated by theMolotov-Ribbentrop Pact , Berling, along with many other Polish officers, was arrested by the Soviet Union' secret police, theNKVD . Berling remained in prison until 1940, first inStarobielsk and laterMoscow , but since he agreed to cooperate with the Soviets, he avoided the fate of many Polish officers murdered by the Soviets in theKatyn Massacre .After the
Sikorski-Maisky Pact of17 August 1941 Berling was released from prison and nominated to be the Chief of Staff of the recreated 5th Infantry Division, and later the commander of the temporary camp for Polish soldiers inKrasnowodsk . The growing tensions between thePolish government in exile ofWładysław Sikorski inLondon andJoseph Stalin , eventually led to many of the Polish soldiers and over 20,000 Polish civilians in Soviet territory under GeneralWładysław Anders leaving the Soviet Union and forming the2nd Polish Corps in theMiddle East , under British command. Eventually, the relations between the Polish government in exile and the Soviet Union were broken off after Germans publicized the findings on the Katyn Massacre.At this point a puppet organisation for helping Poles in East (
Związek Patriotów Polskich ) and such puppet army was formed in the Soviet Union. Berling was nominated to be the commander of the newPolish Armed Forces in the East formation, thePolish People's Army ("Wojsko Ludowe") first unit, the1 Dywizja Piechoty im. Tadeusza Kościuszki and promoted to general by Stalin himself. He became the deputy commander of the "Wojsko Ludowe" on July 22, 1944.On
August 1 ,1944 , the (underground) Polish Home ArmyArmia Krajowa , being in contact with and loyal to the only legal Polish London government in exile, began the 63-day longWarsaw Uprising , in an attempt to free the city from the occupying German forces before the Red Army could secure the capital. With his own army stopped on the Vistula river and facing Warsaw itself, and without first consulting his Soviet superiors, Berling issued orders to engage the German enemy and to come to the aid of the Polish resistance. But it was just a small landing without any tactical support from Berling or other Soviet units that could not do any real difference in the situation of Warsaw. Yet this behaviour may have caused Berlings' soon Fact|date=March 2007 dismissal from his post. He was transferred to the War Academy in Moscow, where he remained until returning to Poland in 1947. By then, Poland had become the Soviet puppet state of thePeople's Republic of Poland ). In this new regime, Berling organized and directed the Academy of General Staff ("Akademia Sztabu Generalnego"). He retired in 1953.Later life
Between 1953 and 1956 he was the Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of National Agriculture Industries ("Ministerstwo Państwowych Gospodarstw Rolnych"), between 1956 and 1957 he was the Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Agriculture ("Ministerstwo Rolnictwa") and from 1957 to 1970 he was the General Inspector of Hunting ("Inspektor Generalny Łowiectwa") in the Ministry of Forestry ("Ministerstwo Leśnictwa"). In 1963 he joined the
Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR, "Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza").Berling is sometimes treated sympathetically by modern Polish conservatives, because of his conflicts with Polish Communists.
See also
*
Polish contribution to World War II External links
* [http://www.archiwum.uj.edu.pl/stalinizm/berling.htm Short bio and photo of pre-war Jagiellonian University ID]
* [http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal.php?serwis=pl&dzial=398&id=4905&search=81883 Biography at the Institute of National Remembrance]
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