Chargement
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author
Gen. Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski
General Count Tadeusz Komorowski (1 June 1895 - 24 August 1966), better known by the name Bór-Komorowski (after one of his wartime code-names: Bór—”The Forest”) was a Polish military leader. He was...voir plusGeneral Count Tadeusz Komorowski (1 June 1895 - 24 August 1966), better known by the name Bór-Komorowski (after one of his wartime code-names: Bór—”The Forest”) was a Polish military leader. He was appointed commander in chief a day before the capitulation of the Warsaw Uprising and following WWII, Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile in London.
He was born in Khorobriv, in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (the Austrian partition of Poland). He served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army during WWI and became an officer in the Polish Army after the war, rising to command the Grudziądz Cavalry School.
After taking part in the fighting against the German invasion of Poland at the beginning of WWII in 1939, Komorowski, with the code-name Bór, helped organize the Polish underground in the Kraków area. In July 1941 he became deputy commander of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa or “AK”), and in March 1943 gained appointment as its commander, with the rank of Brigadier-General.
In mid-1944, as Soviet forces advanced into central Poland, he was instructed to prepare for an armed uprising in Warsaw, which began on Bór-Komorowski ‘s order on 1 August 1944, and the insurgents of the AK seized control of most of central Warsaw. In September 1944, Bór-Komorowski was promoted to General Inspector of the Armed Forces (Polish Commander-in-Chief).
He surrendered to the Germans on 2 October, on condition that Germany treat the AK fighters as PoWs. He went into internment in Germany (at Oflag IV-C) and, despite pressure from Germans, refused to issue orders of surrender to Home Army units in German-controlled Poland, who continued fighting.
Liberated at the end of the war, he spent the rest of his life in London, where he played an active role in Polish émigré circles. From 1947-1949 he served as Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile.
He died in London in 1966, aged 71.voir moins