Stanisław Maczek

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Stanisław Władysław Maczek
Lieutenant General
Commands held1st Armoured Division
10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade
10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade
Battles/warsWorld War I
  • Italian Front

Polish–Ukrainian War
Polish–Soviet War

World War II

Awards
Knight's Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari
Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Cross of Valour
Gold Cross of Merit with Swords
Full list
RelationsVladko Maček (cousin)
Other workbarman
Signature

I Polish Army Corps under Allied Command in 1942–45.[1]

Family

Stanisław Władysław Maczek was born on 31 March 1892 in the

Drohobycz.[3] His family was of distant Croatian extraction;[4][contradictory] he was a cousin of the Croatian politician Vladko Maček.[citation needed
]

Education

After graduating from the grammar school at

Strzelec paramilitary organization, in which he received basic military training. After the outbreak of World War I, Maczek interrupted his studies, hoping to join Józef Piłsudski's Polish Legions, but instead was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army.[citation needed
]

World War I

After receiving a brief officer training, Maczek was sent to the

Italian Front of World War I. Initially an NCO in the Tyrolean Regiment[2] of the Imperial and Royal Army, he was promoted to second lieutenant in 1916 and then in 1918 to lieutenant. As the only Polish battalion commander in Austria-Hungary's Alpine regiments, Maczek gained experience in mountain warfare, which proved valuable in his later career.[citation needed
]

Poland's borders

On 11 November 1918, after receiving news of the

Felsztyn, the Polish offensive got bogged down and the Polish–Ukrainian War turned into trench warfare for the rest of the winter.[citation needed
]

In April 1919 Maczek was withdrawn from his unit and became the organizer and commander of the so-called 'flying' company (

ZUNR capital, Stryj.[citation needed
]

After the end of the Polish–Ukrainian fighting, Maczek was confirmed in the rank of major with seniority from 1 June 1919. He was then attached to General

Waręż near Zamość, a tactical counter-assault on the rear of Budyonny's advancing Cossacks directly preceding the victorious battle of Komarów. After the end of hostilities, Maczek's battalion was officially named after him, although it was disbanded shortly after the signing of the treaty of Riga.[citation needed
]

Interwar years

Maczek decided not to resume his studies at Lwów University and remained in active service. Between 1921 and 1923 he commanded an infantry battalion within the Lwów-based

colonel. In 1935 he was transferred to Częstochowa
, where he became commander of infantry (practically, deputy commander of the whole division) in the 7th Infantry Division.

In October 1938 Maczek's experience as a commander of "flying" troops received recognition from his superiors, and he was given command of the

Polish 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade
, the first fully motorized formation in the Polish Army.

September 1939

On the

3rd Mountain Division under Eduard Dietl
.

For five days Maczek's brigade fought bravely and efficiently, slowing the pace of the German Blitzkrieg to a bloody crawl: despite numerical and technical superiority, the Germans were unable to make more than 10 kilometres headway per day. Maczek's men took maximum advantage of the mountainous terrain, halting many German attacks and occasionally counter-attacking. However, after the front of the Kraków Army was broken to the north of the brigade's position, Maczek's formation was pulled out of the front line.

The brigade then fought as a screening unit, defending the bridges and fords in

Lwów and joined the city's defences. It formed a mobile reserve during the battle for Lwów, allowing other Polish units to withdraw towards the Romanian Bridgehead. However, the plan was made obsolete by the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union on 17 September. After two days, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły ordered the brigade to cross the Hungarian border. Maczek's brigade was interned in Hungary. Although the unit had lost about half of its men, it had not been defeated in open combat, and therefore gained respect even from the enemy. It is considered to be the only Polish unit not to have lost a single battle in 1939. Maczek was not only esteemed by his superiors but also loved by his soldiers, who referred to him as Baca [pl], a traditional Polish highlanders' name for a shepherd
.

France, 1940

Stanisław Maczek, 1944

After the end of the September campaign Maczek made it to France, where he joined the

FT-17
tanks for training, plus a few dozen cars and motorcycles.

Everything changed when

Burgundy Canal
. Maczek's soldiers achieved complete surprise and took many German prisoners.

However, by then the brigade was fighting alone, with the French units on both flanks either routed or in retreat. There were no French forces to take advantage of that victory and the decimated Polish unit found itself surrounded and without fuel. On 18 June, Maczek decided to destroy unusable equipment and withdraw on foot. Later that day he had to split the remnants of his brigade into small groups, so they could pass through the enemy lines. Many of Maczek's men, including the general himself, found their way through Vichy France, North Africa and Portugal to the United Kingdom, where a Polish armored unit was recreated, while others joined the Polish and French resistance organizations in France and Belgium. Maczek relocated to London. [citation needed]

Scotland

Initially, the British high command wanted to use the recreated Polish Army solely for defence of the Scottish coastline between

1st Polish Armoured Division. Initially serving in defence of the Scottish coast between Montrose and the Firth of Forth, the division was equipped by the British authorities with Churchill and M4 Sherman tanks in preparation for the Normandy landings
.

To Germany

British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery in conversation with Major General Stanisław Maczek during his visit to the 1st Polish Armoured Division Headquarters in Breda, 25 November 1944.

Towards the end of July 1944 the Polish 1st Armoured Division was transferred to

SS divisions were trapped in the huge Chambois pocket and destroyed. Maczek's division had the crucial role of closing the pocket to block the escape route of the German divisions.[8]

Senior commanders of the First Canadian Army, May 1945. Seated from the left: Stanisław Maczek (Polish Army), Guy Simonds, Harry Crerar, Charles Foulkes, Bert Hoffmeister. Standing from the left: Ralph Keefler, Bruce Matthews, Harry Foster, Robert Moncel (standing in for Chris Vokes, Stuart Rawlins (British Army).

After this decisive battle, Maczek's Division continued to spearhead the Allied drive across the battlefields of northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and finally Germany. During its progress it liberated Ypres, Oostnieuwkerke, Roeselare, Tielt, Ruislede and Ghent in Belgium. (Coincidentally, the Polish word maczek means "poppy" in English, the symbol of remembrance associated with the area around Ypres in the First World War.) Thanks to an outflanking manoeuvre, it proved possible to free Breda in the Netherlands after a hard fight but without incurring losses in the town's population. A petition on behalf of 40,000 inhabitants of Breda resulted in Maczek being made an honorary Dutch citizen after the war. The Division's finest hour came when its forces accepted the surrender of the German naval base of Wilhelmshaven, taking captive the entire garrison, together with some 200 vessels of Hitler's Kriegsmarine.

Maczek commanded the 1st Armoured Division until the end of European hostilities and was promoted to

major-general. After the capitulation of Germany he went on to command the Polish I Corps and became commanding officer
of all Polish forces in the United Kingdom until their demobilization in 1947.

Exile

Breda
, Netherlands

After the war, Maczek was stripped of Polish citizenship by the

Communist government of the Polish People's Republic, and thus had to remain in Britain. He left the army on 9 September 1948[9] but was denied a general's pension by the British government as he had not been a member of the British armed forces.[9] As a result, Maczek worked as a barman at an Edinburgh hotel until the 1960s.[10]

General Stanislaw Maczek, Bench outside Edinburgh Council Chambers.

Although living in the United Kingdom, General Stanisław Maczek had a strong connection to the Netherlands. Besides being a regional hero to the areas he liberated in World War II, he was awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Breda. Recently acquired archive documents show that the Polish general secretly received a yearly allowance from the Dutch government, for the rest of his life. He got his allowance, because Mayor Claudius Prinsen of Breda was worried in 1950,[11] after receiving information that Maczek was in a 'difficult financial situation'. The Polish general was doing unskilled labor to make ends meet. He also had to take care of a chronically ill daughter who needed costly treatment.[12]

The mayor of Breda informed the Dutch national government that a war hero was in financial need. He made an appeal to the government to help the man that liberated the Netherlands.[13] The government decided quickly and awarded Maczek an indexed general's pension, which was paid for by the Ministry of Foreign affairs from a secret budget. The Dutch government did not want this to be made public, due to its sensitive nature.[14] In the Cold War period, announcing that the Dutch were paying a non-communist Polish ex-general, would certainly strain diplomatic relations with the communist Polish government and the Soviet Union. Not to mention, it would confront the British government with a not so proud moment in their history. Uninformed about his improved financial situation, the Dutch public responded at once in 1965 when news came that his chronically ill daughter needed costly medical treatment in Spain. The Dutch population raised a substantial amount of money following a national radio broadcast for the Maczek family, helping out the general that liberated them.[12]

In 1972 an appeal was made by the Poolse Katholieke Vereniging in Nederland to the Dutch Parliament. This organization became the voice for the remaining Polish veterans in the Netherlands and asked for compensation of pension lost due to the aftermath of the war.[15] The Dutch Ministry of Defence did not meet this request, based upon the Algemene Militaire Pensioenwet (1966), which stipulates that non-Dutch persons needed to have been associated with the Dutch Armed Forces during the war period, in order to be entitled to a wartime pension.[12][16]

In 1989, the last Polish

Communist Government of Prime Minister Mieczysław Rakowski issued a public apology to the General, and in 1994 he was presented with Poland's highest state decoration, the Order of the White Eagle.[17]

Lieutenant General Stanisław Maczek died on 11 December 1994, at the

Liberation Day
festivities, Breda is visited by a large Polish contingent and the city devotes part of the festivities to the fallen Polish soldiers.

Many artefacts and memorabilia belonging to Maczek and the

1st Polish Armoured Division are on display in the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum
in London.

In 2018 a bronze statue was unveiled in honour of General Maczek in the quadrangle of the Edinburgh City Chambers. A footpath crossing Bruntsfield Links which leads to the general's former home in Arden Street in Marchmont, has been named General Maczek Walk.[19][20]

Honours and awards

Gallery

  • General Maczek's home, 1948–94, Marchmont district of Edinburgh, Scotland
    General Maczek's home, 1948–94, Marchmont district of Edinburgh, Scotland
  • General Maczek Walk, Bruntsfield Links, Edinburgh, Scotland
    General Maczek Walk, Bruntsfield Links, Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Emblem of Polish 1st Armoured Division, Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, London
    Emblem of
    Polish 1st Armoured Division, Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum
    , London
  • Polish 1st Armoured Division Memorial, Normandy, France
    Polish 1st Armoured Division Memorial, Normandy, France
  • Polish 1st Armoured Division Memorial, Tielt, Belgium
    Polish 1st Armoured Division Memorial, Tielt, Belgium
  • Street named after General Maczek, Aalter-Brug, Belgium
    Street named after General Maczek, Aalter-Brug, Belgium
  • General Maczek Museum, Breda, Netherlands
    General Maczek Museum, Breda, Netherlands
  • General Maczek Memorial by Karin Hardonk, General Maczek Square, Stadskanaal, Netherlands
    General Maczek Memorial by Karin Hardonk, General Maczek Square, Stadskanaal, Netherlands
  • Bust of General Maczek, Kraków, Poland
    Bust of General Maczek, Kraków, Poland
  • General Maczek Memorial, Gdańsk, Poland
    General Maczek Memorial, Gdańsk, Poland
  • General Maczek Memorial, Warsaw, Poland
    General Maczek Memorial, Warsaw, Poland
  • General Maczek memorial plaque, Warsaw, Poland
    General Maczek memorial plaque, Warsaw, Poland
  • Polish 1st Armoured Division Memorial, Warsaw, Poland
    Polish 1st Armoured Division Memorial, Warsaw, Poland
  • Maczek quotation on reverse of Memorial: "The Polish soldier fights for the freedom of all nations but dies only for Poland."
    Maczek quotation on reverse of Memorial: "The Polish soldier fights for the freedom of all nations but dies only for Poland."

In popular culture

Maczek, as the leader of the 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade, is a historical figure in the novel A Witness to Gallantry: An American Spy in Poland 1939.

In The Death of the Fronsac by Neal Ascherson, a Polish officer, Maurycy Szczucki, serves with General Maczek in World War II. After the war, Szczucki returns to Edinburgh where he discovers the impoverished Maczek working as a barman in the Learmonth Hotel. The General is frequently visited by old comrades, who "salute him before they order a whisky."[21]

Maczek is referred to into Alexander McCall Smith's short story, "In Sandy Bell's". The protagonist's landlady tells of the general working in a bar in Edinburgh. "He wasn't too proud. His men saluted him when they ordered a drink."[22]

See also

Part of a series on the
Black Brigade
10th Motorized Brigade
10th Armoured Brigade
1st Armoured Division
Stanisław Maczek

References

  1. ^ "Astonishing story of unsung WWII hero premieres in captivating new documentary". Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  2. ^
    ISBN 83-914145-8-2
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 83-914145-8-2
    Page 16
  4. ISBN 83-914145-8-2
    .
  5. ^
    ISBN 0-85045-467-0
    Page 8
  6. ^ Stanislaw Mikolajczyk The Pattern of Soviet Domination Sampson Low, Marston & Co 1948 Page 8
  7. ISBN 0-333-39258-2
  8. ISBN 0-14-005293-3
    , Chapter 7, "A Polish Battlefield"
  9. ^
    ISBN 0-7146-8444-9
  10. ^ The Poles in Britain 1940–2000, ibid., p. 54.
  11. ^ National Archives (Netherlands) NL-HaNA, Buitenlandse Zaken / Code-Archief 65–74, 2.05.313, inv.nr. 25330,brief van Prinsen aan de Nederlandse ambassadeur in Groot-Brittannië, 6 maart 1950
  12. ^ a b c "The Polish veterans after World War II". 6 January 2016. Archived from the original on 7 August 2016. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  13. ^ National Archives (Netherlands) NL-HaNA, Buitenlandse Zaken / Code-Archief 65–74, 2.05.313, inv.nr. 25330, Intern memorandum A.P. Hoevelaak t.b.v. dossier Maczek 726.2, onderwerp: ‘Radio-aktie ten behoeve van dochter Generaal Maczek’
  14. ^ National Archives (Netherlands) NL-HaNA, Buitenlandse Zaken / Code-Archief 65–74, 2.05.313, inv.nr. 25330, Verzoek van ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Mr. Simons) aan Binnenlandse Zaken omtrent de goedkeuring en geheimhouding van het verlenen van jaargeld aan generaal Maczek, 21 November 1951
  15. ^ National Archives (Netherlands) NL-HaNA, Defensie / Militair Personeel, 2.13.5372, inv.nr. 165. Verzoekschrift van de Poolse Katholieke Vereniging in Nederland aan de voorzitter van de Tweede Kamer der Staten Generaal, 23 juni 1972
  16. ^ National Archives (Netherlands) NL-HaNA, Defensie / Militair Personeel, 2.13.5372, inv.nr. 165. Antwoord van het Ministerie van Defensie op het verzoekschrift van de Poolse Katholieke Vereniging in Nederland, 15 September 197
  17. ^ Binder, David (14 December 1994). "Stanislaw Maczek, 102, General Who Led Poles in World War II". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
  18. ^ a b The Poles in Britain 1940–2000, ibid., p. 67.
  19. ^ "Statue plan for Polish WW2 general who worked in Capital". Edinburgh Evening news. 12 March 2017.
  20. ^ Brown, Graham. "VIDEO: Statue of war hero General Maczek installed thanks to late Angus peer's memorial campaign". The Courier. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  21. ISBN 9781786694393
    .
  22. ISBN 9781846976018
    .

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