Edmund Charaszkiewicz
Also, for a dozen years before World War II, he coordinated Marshal Józef Piłsudski's Promethean movement, aimed at liberating the non-Russian peoples of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union—an objective that Piłsudski deemed crucial if Poland, sandwiched between Germany and the Soviet Union, were to preserve her just-regained independence.
The Silesian-Polish population gave its enthusiastic support, and all its social groups were recruited except for the communists, who for their part evinced a benign neutrality, having been instructed to back the Polish proletariat.
In evaluations, he was commended for his strength of character, initiative, energy, enthusiasm, and devotion to duty, especially in covert operations in Lithuania, with which Poland had a running dispute over Vilnius.
[11] Charaszkiewicz's service record noted that his qualifications for intelligence work included a knowledge of German, French and English.
Thanks to this, the intelligence services of Poland's neighbours learned nothing about them until mid-1939, when the rising German threat prompted mass Polish training of irregular forces.
[16] As Piłsudski and his adherents (the "Piłsudskiites") exerted a preponderant influence on Poland's government through nearly the entire interwar period, the Promethean agenda became integral to the operations of many Polish public institutions concerned with eastern European affairs.
The movement's leaders included prominent Sanation figures such as Colonel Walery Sławek and the publicist and Sejm deputy, Tadeusz Hołówko.
From March 1934 Charaszkiewicz was a member of the Commission for Scientific Study of [Poland's] Eastern Lands (Komisja Naukowych Badań Ziem Wschodnich) and the Committee on [Poland's] Eastern Lands and Nationalities (Komitet do Spraw Ziem Wschodnich i Narodowościowych) at the Council of Ministers.
He had already become a spokesman for the oppressed peoples east of Poland who wished to deepen their national self-awareness and groom leaders for their liberation.
Office "B" (responsible for the East), headed in 1937–39 by Major Dąbrowski, prepared clandestine actions against the Soviet Union, conducting "Promethean operations" among non-Russian peoples (e.g. Caucasus, Tatar, Ukrainian and Cossack émigrés) and creating covert organizations at Poland's borders with Soviet Belarus and Ukraine.
"Group Zygmunt's" networks were to cover Poland's western border, Pomerania and the Free City of Danzig, and were to concentrate on sabotage and clandestine operations in the event of these areas' temporary occupation by the enemy.
Later, Lieutenant Colonel Ludwik Zych, chief of staff of Poland's Border Guard (Straż Graniczna), would be coopted.
In mid-March 1939, the operation's objective was fully accomplished:[26] the restoration of Carpathian Rus to its pre-World War I master, Hungary, and thereby also the recreation of the historic common Polish-Hungarian border.
[27] Office 2's next task was organizing "behind-the-lines covert-operation networks" (siatki dywersji pozafrontowej) that were to undertake intelligence, sabotage and covert operations upon the outbreak of war, especially in areas occupied by the Germans.
These structures were given diverse names such as "Secret Military Organization" (Tajna Organizacja Wojskowa, or TOW) and "Mobile Combat Units" (Lotne Oddziały Bojowe).
The order to form OOB was issued by Charaszkiewicz's deputy, Major Ankerstein, who had returned from Hungary to Kraków expressly for that purpose.
[30] The preparatory work was coordinated by a Department for Planning Wartime Intelligence and Covert Operations (Wydział Planowania Wywiadu I Dywersji Wojennej), created in late 1937.
Its tasks included organizing mobilization procedures for the foreign intelligence network and assuring its functioning under wartime conditions, as well as securing covert support for the army at the front.
Courses organized by Office 2, disguised as civil-defense training, might cover cryptology, intelligence microphotography, toxicology, railway sabotage, hand-to-hand combat, new weapons, explosives, and suppression of fires.
In view of the enemy's growing preponderance in armour, artillery and especially air forces, it had been decided to increase the tasks set for covert-operations networks.
[32] In September 1939, during the Polish retreat before advancing German forces, Drymmer and other clandestine-operations leaders, as early as their stop at Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula River, left behind K-7 members and freshly sworn-in individuals.
Major Charaszkiewicz himself, at the outbreak of war, became head of Department (Wydział) F at the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief and carried on this function from 1 to 20 September 1939.
Charaszkiewicz also played a substantial role in creating an Office (Ekspozytura) "R" of Polish intelligence headquartered in Bucharest, with satellite outposts scattered about Romania.
[35] In Bucharest, in October 1939, Charaszkiewicz received from his British colleague, Lt. Col. Colin Gubbins – soon to become the prime mover of the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.)
– a very warm letter informing him that Gubbins had been personally searching for him, and offering every possible assistance, including financial (Charaszkiewicz declined the money).
[35] During the "phony war," the new Polish premier and commander-in-chief in exile, General Władysław Sikorski, investigated the causes of Poland's defeat in September 1939.
Probably it was in response to this that Charaszkiewicz drew up the series of intriguing reports in late 1939 and early 1940 that comprise the bulk of his Collection of Documents that was published 60 years later, in 2000.
From February to April 1946 he directed the General Department (Wydział) in the Inspectorate for Civilian Affairs, and in September 1946 he joined the Polish Resettlement Corps.
Just before World War II, during a week's visit to London, he shared information on these with Britain's Colonel Holland, Lt.
