Lieutenant-General Władysław Anders CB (11 August 1892 – 12 May 1970) was a General in the Polish Army and later in life a politician with the Polish government-in-exile in London.
Anders was born on 11 August 1892 to his Baltic-German father Albert Anders and his mother Elizabeth, born Tauchert, in the Polish village of Krosniewice–Blonie, near Kutno which at that time was part of the Russian Empire (Partitions of Poland). He was baptized as a member of the Protestant Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland; but while being kept in Soviet prisons he made a promise that if he survived and regained strength in his legs (he was seriously injured) he would convert to Roman Catholicism. He did survive, and did indeed convert.
While an undergraduate at Riga Technical University Anders became a member of the Polish student fraternity Arkonia. As a young officer, he served Tsar Nicholas II in the 1st Krechowiecki Lancer´s Regiment during World War I, later joining the Polish Army and again serving in cavalry as a commanding officer in 15th Poznan Uhlans Regiment.
Anders was in command of a cavalry brigade at the time of the outbreak of World War II. The Polish army at that time had not yet had a chance to fully modernise, having been resurrected only 20 years earlier, in 1918–19, following Polish independence from German, Austrian and Russian rule. Polish forces were not matched with the larger German forces and their Blitzkrieg tactics, and the Polish forces were forced to retreat to the east. During the fighting and retreat he was wounded a number of times. Anders was later taken prisoner by Soviet forces and was jailed, initially in Lvov (then Lwow) and later in Lubyanka prison in Moscow. During his imprisonment Anders was tortured.
General Sikorski with Polish junaks (cadets) in the Middle East 1943, visiting Polish Army in the Middle East under command of General Anders. Shortly after the attack on the Soviet Union by Germany on 22 June 1941, Anders was released by the Soviets with the aim of forming a Polish Army to fight alongside the Red Army. Continued friction with the Soviets over political issues as well as shortages of weapons, food and clothing, led to the eventual exodus of Anders´ men – known as the Anders Army – together with a sizeable contingent of Polish civilians via the Persian Corridor into Iran, Iraq and Palestine. Here, Anders formed and led the 2nd Polish Corps, fighting alongside the Western Allies, while agitating for the release of Polish nationals still in the Soviet Union.
Anders was the commander of the 2nd Polish Corps in Italy 1943–1946, capturing Monte Cassino in the Battle of Monte Cassino.
After the war the Soviet-installed communist government in Poland in 1946 deprived him of Polish citizenship and of his military rank. Anders had, however, always been unwilling to return to a Soviet-dominated Poland where he probably would have been jailed and possibly executed, and remained in exile in Britain. He was prominent in the Polish Government in Exile in London and inspector-general of the Polish forces-in-exile. He died in London on 12 May 1970, where his body lay in state at the church of Andrzej Bobola, where many of his former soldiers and families came to pay their last respects. He was buried, in accordance with his wishes, amongst his fallen soldiers from the 2nd Polish Corps at the Polish War Cemetery at Monte Cassino in Italy.
After the war Anders wrote a book covering his thoughts and experiences. An Army in Exile was published originally by MacMillan & Co., London, in 1949. The book has been recently re-issued under the same title.
In 1948 he married the actress Irena Anders.
After the collapse of Communist Poland in 1989, his citizenship and military rank were posthumously reinstated.
In early 1944 a German stronghold, dug in at the ancient Benedictine monastery on top of Monte Cassino, had blocked the Allies´ advance toward Rome. The forces of several Allied countries had attempted since mid-January to capture the German fortress. For a fourth major assault, which would begin on 11 May 1944, Polish troops were rotated in. A Famous Polish Song arose: Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino (The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino). The song´s melody was composed during the night of 17–18 May 1944 by Alfred Schütz, a composer, actor and member of the Polish Soldiers´ Theater garrisoned at Campobasso in the shadow of Monte Cassino. Two opening stanzas were written at that time by Feliks Konarski, a poet and song-writer and soldier of the Polish II Corps commanded by Major General Władysław Anders. The third stanza would be written a few days later. The fourth and final stanza would be written a quarter-century later, in 1969, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the battle. That final stanza is the least known and is sometimes omitted. On 18 May 1944, the day following the song´s composition, the Poles stormed and captured the precincts of the Monte Cassino monastery. Later that day, the song was first performed at General Anders´ headquarters to celebrate the Polish victory. The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino won popularity with the troops and was soon published by a Polish-American newspaper in New York. It would later be published in Poland. It was banned, however, during the Stalinist period in the People´s Republic of Poland, when the government sought to minimize memory of the wartime Polish Armed Forces in the West.
THIS PROPAGANDA STAMP SET WAS ISSUED BY THE POLISH UNDERGROUND SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT AS A DIVERSIFICATION STATEMENT AGAINST MARTIAL LAW WHICH HAD BEEN DECLARED BY THE COMMUNIST AUTHORITIES IN POLAND. IT IS A VERY RARE AND COLLECTABLE ITEM . THE UNDERGROUND MEMBERS WHO ISSUED THIS STAMP RISKED A LOT, BECAUSE IF CAUGHT THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED WITHOUT TRIAL. THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO OWN A UNIQUE PIECE OF HISTORY. IT IS A MUST FOR EVERY SERIOUS HISTORIAN AND COLLECTOR OF THIS PERIOD AND WILL MAKE AN INTERESTING ADDITION TO YOUR COLLECTION. General Wojciech Jaruzelski announced the introduction of martial law in a speech first broadcast on radio and television at 6:00 am on December 13, 1981. In order to isolate members of the opposition (from the Solidarity movement), 52 internment centers were created. A total of 10,132 internment orders were issued against 9,736 people during the period of martial law.
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