Stanisław Mieczysław Gebhardt (born 13 July 1928) is a Polish former Resistance fighter, economist, émigré political activist, international social entrepreneur, and veteran member of the Christian democratic movement.
[2] In 1946 he escaped through the old Polish-Romanian border and travelled south to Italy to join the ranks of the II Corps (Poland) with whom he reached the United Kingdom.
In 1950 he met the young broadcaster journalist, Édouard Bobrowski [fr], born in Turkey of Polish parents, who became General Secretary of the Paris-based Youth Section of the Central European Union of Christian Democrats.
In 1964 when his friend Jerzy Kulczycki, founded the émigré publishing house, Odnowa, in London he invited Gebhardt to become a director of the company with the brief to finance and distribute in Poland titles banned under state censorship.
The operation proved a success exporting to the then communist country forbidden authors, including George Orwell,[4] Józef Garliński, Karol Popiel and Jan Nowak-Jeziorański.
[5] As Polish representative of political organisations Gebhardt entered the international arena of Christian Democrat activism and in his youth worked alongside statesmen such as Robert Schuman.
[6] In 1990 in Bratislava he was appointed vice president of the Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe, a position he held for four years.