Kazimierz Leski

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This article is part of the series: Polish Secret State History of Poland

Kazimierz Leski, nom de guerre Bradl (June 21, 1912 - May 27, 2000), was a Polish engineer, fighter pilot and officer of the Home Army's intelligence and counter-intelligence during the years of World War II. A co-author of the design of ORP Sęp and ORP Orzeł, he is credited with at least 25 journeys across German-held Europe, usually dressed as a Major General of the Wehrmacht. After the war he was imprisoned by the communist authorities of the People's Republic of Poland; he spent 7 years on death row, only to be rehabilitated in 1956. After that he continued his career as an engineer.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Birth and early life 1.2 Career as an engineer 1.3 Start of WWII 1.4 Disguises as German officer 1.5 Warsaw Uprising service 1.6 Imprisonment under communism 1.7 Rehabilitation 2 See also 3 Notes and references 3.1 In-line 3.2 General

[edit] Biography

[edit] Birth and early life

Kazimierz Leski was born June 21, 1912 in Warsaw. His father, Maj. Juliusz Leski, had been an engineer and one of the pioneers of the Polish arms industry^[1] in the period following the Polish-Bolshevik War. However, he fell out of grace after the May Coup d'Etat in Poland, when he remained loyal to the government. Because of that Kazimierz had to work as a railway worker in order to be able to pay for his studies at the Wawelberg and Rotwand College in Warsaw. He was also able to get a simple job in the foundry of the Pocisk munitions works. To be able to study professional books, he learned English, Russian and German, abilities that proved invaluable in his later life. Early in his life he also learned French.

[edit] Career as an engineer

Immediately upon graduating in 1936, he was offered a job at the Nederlandsche Vereenigde Scheepsbouw Bureaux design bureau (NVSB) in The Hague. 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, Leski learned the Dutch language, 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. He started additional studies at the Maritime Faculty of the Delft University of Technology 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 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 and ORP Sęp, 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.

[edit] Start of WWII

Mobilized prior to the outbreak of the Polish Defensive War, he joined the Polish Air Forces. His Lublin R-XIII F plane was shot down by the Soviets on September 17, 1939, and Leski was badly injured. He was taken prisoner of war by the Soviet soldiers soon afterwards, but managed to escape from captivity and reach Lwów. From there he crossed the new Soviet-German "border of peace" and in October moved to Warsaw, where he joined an underground organization named Muszkieterowie (The Musketeers). The organization, later joined with the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), was an en cadre military organization and was primarily focused on intelligence. Thus Leski - still suffering from the wounds received in September of 1939 and unsuitable for front-line service in the Forest Units - became one of the leading officers of intelligence of the Musketeers and later the Home Army.

Among his most important achievements in that role was preparation of a complete list of German military units, their signs, numbers and locations. He and his cell also prepared detailed reports on logistics and transport schemes of the German units bound for the Eastern Front, on state of bridges, railways and roads in German-held Europe. Leski's unit also started to develop a communications network spanning across German-occupied Europe, from Poland to Portugal, France and - finally - the Polish Government in Exile in the United Kingdom.

[edit] Disguises as German officer

In 1941 Leski made his first trip as a courier to France. In his first trip, he posed as a Lieutenant of the Wehrmacht. 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^[2]. 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 documents also allowed him to witness several events he did not plan. Among them was his 1942 visit to the Atlantic Wall 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^[3]. On another occasion he visited the field staff of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt^[3]. Apart from his service in the 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^[4].

[edit] Warsaw Uprising service

After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, Kazimierz Leski was not commissioned. However, with a group of volunteers he formed an infantry battalion Miłosz and became a commander of its first company Bradl^[5]. The unit fought with distinction in the area of Plac Trzech Krzyży in the Warsaw City Centre. For his bravery Kazimierz Leski was officially promoted to the rank of Kapitan and awarded with several medals, among them the Silver Virtuti Militari, Golden and Silver Cross of Merit with Swords and three times with the Cross of the Valorous. After the capitulation of the uprising, he managed to escape from a column of prisoners and, pretending to be a civilian, returned to the underground^[6]. He became the commander of the Western Area of the Home Army and later the Delegature of Armed Forces at Home.

[edit] Imprisonment under communism

However, after the communist takeover of Poland he gradually dismantled his underground net and moved to Gdańsk. A member of the Wolność i Niezawisłość anti-communist resistance, under a false name of Leon Juchniewicz he became the first managing director of the demolished Gdańsk Shipyard. Among his tasks was the reconstruction of the shipyard which had been devastated by Allied air raids and by withdrawing Germans. In August of 1945 he was awarded with the highest civil award of the communist regime, but later the same day was arrested by the secret police who discovered his true identity.

Charged of attempting to overthrow the regime, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The sentence was later changed to six years. However, in 1951 he was not released. Instead, he was charged with cooperating with the German occupation forces and held in prison, where he was brutally tortured and held in solitary confinement for several years.

[edit] Rehabilitation

Finally, after the deaths of Stalin in 1953 and Bierut in 1956, Kazimierz Leski was set free and rehabilitated soon afterwards. Despite that, he could not find a job, as the new communist authorities of Poland still viewed former soldiers of the Home Army as suspect. Initially a clerk in the PWT publishing house, he had to give up work in the shipbuilding industry. Finally he became a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Awarded a Doctorate, for political reasons he was prevented from earning the rank of professor for his work on computer analysis of natural language codes. Despite that, he continued his scientific career, published 7 books and more than 150 other works. He also patented a number of inventions.

Largely unknown to the wider public, in 1989 – after the victory of Solidarity and fall of the communist regime in Poland – he published his memoirs, which immediately became a best-seller. For the book he received a number of prizes, among them the Polish PEN Club Prize and the Polish Writers' Society in Exile Award. He died on May 27, 2000, and was buried with military honours at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.

[edit] See also

• Jan Karski
• Jan Nowak-Jeziorański

[edit] Notes and references

Persondata
NAME	Leski, Kazimierz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bradl
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Polish pilot, officer, spy, engineer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH	June 21, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH	Warsaw, Poland
DATE OF DEATH	May 27, 2000
PLACE OF DEATH	Warsaw, Poland