Henryk Minkiewicz
- Birth Date:
- 19.01.1880
- Death date:
- 09.04.1940
- Extra names:
- Henryk Minkiewicz
- Categories:
- General, Legionary, Victim of repression (genocide) of the Soviet regime, WWI participant, WWII participant
- Nationality:
- pole
- Cemetery:
- Katyn forest. Place of Katyń massacre
Henryk Minkiewicz (19 January, 1880 – 9 April, 1940) was a Polish socialist politician and a General of the Polish Army. Former commander of the Border Defence Corps, he was among the Polish officers murdered in the Katyń massacre.
Henryk Minkiewicz was born January 19, 1880 in Suwałki, then in the Russian Empire. After graduating from Marijampolė Gymnasium, he was admitted to the Imperial University of Sankt Petersburg, where he studied biology and geography. However, in 1898 he became a member of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and in 1902 he had to flee to Kraków, then in Austro-Hungarian Galicia, in order to avoid arrest by the Okhrana. There he joined the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University and, simultaneously, Faculty of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1904 he finally left the studies and devoted himself entirely to politics. A close friend of Józef Piłsudski, Minkiewicz entered the Central Committee of the PPS. He was also an active member of various paramilitary organizations, including the Organizacja Bojowa of the PPS-Revolutionary Faction, the Związek Walki Czynnej and the Związek Strzelecki. During his duty in terrorist Armed Organization, in 1909, together with Kazimierz Pużak Minkiewicz was in the execution squad to murder the Tsarist secret police agent and provocateur Edmund Taranowicz.
Fight for independence
After the outbreak of World War I, Minkiewicz joined the 2nd Brigade of the Polish Legions. Initially in the rank of porucznik and a commanding officer of a company, with time he was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel and became the commanding officer of the 3rd Infantry Regiment. During the battle of Kostiuchówka, on July 6, 1916 he was wounded in action and taken prisoner by the Russians. Officially a Russian citizen serving in enemy formations, he risked being executed for high treason. However, Minkiewicz managed to escape captivity and, after the Oath Crisis of 1917, joined the Polnische Wehrmacht, where he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. A commander of an infantry brigade and then the garrison of Warsaw, in November 1918 he headed the action of disarmament of soldiers of the Central Powers in the city.
Joining the Polish Army as one of the first high-ranking officers, he initially served as a commander of an Operational Group during the Polish-Ukrainian War. Promoted to the rank of generał brygady on July 1, 1919, he became the commanding officer of the Polish 2nd Legions Infantry Division, with which he fought in the Polish-Bolshevik War. Soon before the victorious battle of Warsaw, on July 25, 1920, he became the deputy military governor of Warsaw and deputy commander of Franciszek Latinik's 1st Army.
After the war, in 1924 he was promoted to the rank of generał dywizji and became the first commanding officer of the newly formed Border Defence Corps. Although quite successful as its commander, he became conflicted with Józef Piłsudski and on May 7, 1929 he was dismissed. Although officially in active service, he was left without assignment and settled in a small villa in the village of Jamno near Brześć Litewski (modern Brest, Belarus). In 1934 he was officially retired.
Katyn
During the Polish Defensive War of 1939, his wife Maria née Markowska was killed by Soviet bombardment. Soon afterwards Minkiewicz was arrested by the NKVD and imprisoned in Kozielsk concentration camp.
As one of the highest-ranking officers in Soviet captivity, he served as the representative of all the inmates. On April 7, 1940, together with the fourth transport of Polish officers, he was transported to the Katyn woods and murdered, probably on April 9, 1940, aged sixty. Among the Katyn victims were 14 Polish generals including Leon Billewicz, Bronisław Bohatyrewicz, Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanisław Haller, Aleksander Kowalewski, Alojzy Wir-Konas, Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski, Konstanty Plisowski, Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lviv), Franciszek Sikorski, Leonard Skierski, Piotr Skuratowicz, and Mieczysław Smorawiński.
Source: wikipedia.org, radaopwim.gov.pl
No places
| Relation name | Relation type | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Franciszek Latinik | Commander | |
| 2 |  | Józef Piłsudski | Commander |
14.02.1919 | The Polish-Soviet war started
The Polish–Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921) was an armed conflict that pitted Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic over the control of an area equivalent to today's Ukraine and parts of modern-day Belarus. Ultimately the Soviets, following on from their Westward Offensive of 1918–19, hoped to fully occupy Poland. Although united under communist leadership, Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine were theoretically two separate independent entities since the Soviet republics did not unite into the Soviet Union until 1922.
15.08.1920 | Battle of Warsaw
The Battle of Warsaw refers to the decisive Polish victory in 1920 at the apogee of the Polish–Soviet War. Poland, on the verge of total defeat, repulsed and defeated the invading Red Army. It was, and still is, celebrated as a great victory for the Polish people over Russia and communism. As Soviet forces invaded Poland in summer 1920, the Polish army retreated westward in disorder. The Polish forces seemed on the verge of disintegration and observers predicted a decisive Soviet victory. The battle of Warsaw was fought from August 12–25, 1920 as Red Army forces commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky approached the Polish capital of Warsaw and the nearby Modlin Fortress. On August 16, Polish forces commanded by Józef Piłsudski counterattacked from the south, disrupting the enemy's offensive, forcing the Russian forces into a disorganized withdrawal eastward and behind the Neman River. Estimated Russian losses were 10,000 killed, 500 missing, 30,000 wounded, and 66,000 taken prisoner, compared with Polish losses of some 4,500 killed, 10,000 missing, and 22,000 wounded. The defeat crippled the Red Army; Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, called it "an enormous defeat" for his forces.[3] In the following months, several more Polish follow-up victories saved Poland's independence and led to a peace treaty with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine later that year, securing the Polish state's eastern frontiers until 1939.