Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski

Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski (30 December 1888 in Kraków – 22 August 1974 in Kraków) was a Polish politician and economist, Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, government minister and manager of the Second Polish Republic.

He studied at the Jesuit school Zakład Naukowo-Wychowawczy Ojców Jezuitów w Chyrowie, and then graduated chemistry at the University of Lwów and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

After Józef Piłsudski's May coup d'état of 1926 in the Second Polish Republic, he was recommended by president Ignacy Mościcki for the post Minister of Industry and Trade in the government of Kazimierz Bartel. E. Kwiatkowski was a minister in eight successive governments (1926–30) and Deputy Prime Minister of Poland and Minister of Treasure in two governments (1935–39).

Among the most famous achievements of Kwiatkowski are the giant construction projects: the construction of Gdynia seaport, the development of the Polish Merchant Navy and sea trade, and the creation of Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy (The Central Industrial Region).

After the Soviet Union joined Nazi Germany in the invasion of Poland in 1939, he evacuated Poland with the rest of the Government on 17 September. He was interned in Romania until 1945. He returned to Poland and supervised the projects of reconstruction of the Polish seacoast, and in the years 1947–1952, he was a deputy to the Polish parliament (Sejm).

With the strengthening of the communist and Soviet grip on the Polish government, which he opposed, he fell out of favour of the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland and was forced to retire in 1948. From 1952 onward, he concentrated on studies of chemistry, physics, and history.

He died in Kraków on 22 August 1974.

Works

• Zagadnienie przemysłu chemicznego na tle wielkiej wojny (1923)
• Postęp gospodarczy Polski (Economic Progress of Poland) (1928)
• Polska gospodarcza w roku 1928 (Economic Poland in 1928) (1928)
• Powrót Polski nad Bałtyk (The Return of Poland to Baltic) (1930)
• Dysproporcje. Rzecz o Polsce przeszłej i obecnej (1932)
• "Rzecz najważniejsza Polska" - Wybór myśli politycznych i społecznych (1988) - selection of his papers