Kazimierz LESKI

Kazimierz Leski was a naval engineer, co-designer of Dutch-made submarines that would one day fly the Polish banner, and, in WW2, a shot-down pilot, twice-escaped POW, Intelligence ace, Warsaw Uprising hero, and rescuer of Jews.

 

After the Soviets shot down his Lublin R-XIII liaison plane on 17 September 1939, badly injured Leski became their POW, but only for a while because he wasn't POW material. Having run, he reached Warsaw, and joined the underground "Musketeers" organization, taking over their counter-intelligence department.

 

After the "Musketeers" had merged with the Union of Armed Struggle (later the Home Army), Leski expanded the scope of his work to include intelligence. He probed into the German Army structure, personnel, unit deployment, logistics, weapons and many other things. The data he collected went straight to the Allies.

 

From 1941, he made at least fourteen trips to occupied France, working out routes for couriers, and gathering information. At first, he used a disguise of a railway worker, but then promoted himself, and travelled as general Julius von Hallmann, the "Generalbevollmächtigter für Verkehrs- und Festungswesen der Südostfront Ukraine." The title, as impressive as it was, was a product of Leski’s invention, because the Wehrmacht needed no General Inspector of Transport and Fortifications in Southeastern Ukrainian Front.

 

With the necessary ID provided by excellent Home Army forgers, the phony Inspector made several trips that brought a pot of gold. So good was the data that when von Hallmann wore out as an alias, Leski promptly got another one of Karl Leopold Jansen, also a general.

 

Apart from his spy career, he supplied Jews with false IDs, saving their lives, and in 1944, distinguished himself in the Warsaw Uprising, earning a Virtuti Militari and three Crosses of Valour. After the Uprising, Leski became a POW, but only for a while because he wasn't POW material.

 

After the war, as a Home Army veteran, he was persecuted by the communists and did time; released, he worked for the Polish Academy of Sciences.

 

Kazimierz Leski passed away on 27 May 2000.

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Source: Institute of National Remembrance Facebook post

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