Name Stanislaw Haller Died 1940, Katyn, Russia | Role Politician Allegiance Poland | |
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Born April 26, 1872 ( 1872-04-26 ) Similar People | ||
Stanisław Haller (April 26, 1872 – April 1940) was a Polish politician and general, also cousin of General Józef Haller von Hallenburg of Haller coat of arms. Stanisław Haller was murdered in the Katyn massacre.
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Life
Between 1894 and 1918 Haller served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Among other military functions, he was commandant of Fortress Kraków. In 1918 he joined the renascent Polish Army. During the Polish-Soviet War he contributed to the defeat of Budionny's army and its expulsion beyond the Bug River. In 1919-1920, 1923–25 and in May 1926 he was Chief of the Polish General Staff. After 1926 he was placed in retirement as a political opponent of the new regime headed by Józef Piłsudski.
Katyn
In 1939 he was arrested by the Soviets and placed in a POW camp in Starobielsk. Along with other Polish POWs, he was murdered by the NKVD in April 1940, the month of his sixty-eighth birthday, near Kharkov, in the Katyn Massacres. Among the Katyn victims were 14 Polish generals including Leon Billewicz, Bronisław Bohatyrewicz, Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Aleksander Kowalewski, Henryk Minkiewicz, Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski, Konstanty Plisowski, Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lwow), Franciszek Sikorski, Leonard Skierski, Piotr Skuratowicz, Mieczysław Smorawiński and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). Stanisław Haller is patron of the 5th command regiment of the Kraków-based Polish 2nd Mechanized Corps.