Błażej Stolarski (1880–1939)

At the frontier between two traditions
 

Błażej Stolarski, who in the final years of his life was the deputy Marshal of the Senate of the Second Polish Republic, was born on 2 February 1880 to a poor peasant family in Ciebłowice (now in the Tomaszów County). It is not easy to form a clear picture of what kind of person he was. He was self-taught, and his life was generally uneventful; as a campaigner for farmers’ rights and later as a politician, he displayed neither leadership qualities, nor was he a charismatic representative of the people. Aside from his convoluted political career, which is difficult to envisage clearly from today’s perspective, we can be sure that he made a major contribution to laying a positivist foundation, and that he staunchly pursued his goal of expanding his horizon to make it as broad as possible. Stolarski altruistically shared his self-gained knowledge and experience with anyone interested in benefiting from it. He was convinced that all farmers could profit from the progress being made in the country if they were given the right information and taught the necessary skills, including through education and further training. With this in mind, he worked tirelessly to help farmers help themselves (through an agricultural circle), to promote education (through community schools and self-learning courses, which were highly successful)[1], and to develop a cooperative spirit (through agriculture chambers and community councils). And although Stolarski left the Polish People’s Party (Stronnictwo Ludowe) in 1935 after disapproving of their call to boycott the forthcoming elections, he remained loyal to the political idea behind the farmers’ movement until the end of his life. Here, his conspiratorial work in support of Polish independence was grounded in Poland’s romantic tradition.

Stolarski’s political career reached its apex in 1938 after the elections in Poland, when he was made deputy Marshal of the Senate for the fifth legislative period. However, the course of his progress in politics did not only run smoothly, and unlike his business and education projects, with the exception of the threatened liquidation of his agricultural business due to the global economic crisis, he was met with failure as well as success. His political journey was marked by decisions that are baffling from today’s perspective and that are difficult to explain. Even so, here, too, Stolarski’s tenacity stands out, which was rooted in the independence movements in the Kingdom of Poland, which he supported right from the start. His membership of the Polish Military Organisation (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa) in the district of Łódź-Retkinia, which was founded in 1914, and his membership of the temporary state council (Tymczasowa Rada Stanu), which aimed to create the preconditions for an independent Polish state, brought Stolarski into the direct orbit of Piłsudski’s supporters, although this “friendship” was a strained one that was fraught with numerous disappointments.[2] At any rate, like the wing of the People’s Party, the PSL “Wyzwolenie” (Polish People’s/Peasant Party “Liberation”), to which he belonged, Stolarski supported Piłsudski and his “May Coup”.

Initially, it was of no importance to Stolarski that in 1927, the political wing of the farmers’ movement decided not to continue with this course of action after Piłsudski failed to meet the expectations of the organisations that supported him. He was not immediately critical of the reforms of the Sanacja [the conservative Sanation movement initiated and led by Józef Piłsudski following the May Coup in 1926 – translator’s note], or of the manner in which the People’s Party governed the country. That criticism would follow two years later. It is possible that Stolarski distanced himself from the People’s Party following the transition of the PSL “Wyzwolenie” to the “Centrolew” [the political bloc consisting of the centre and left-wing parties – translator’s note]. However, he remained a party member. Probably, this reaction is a reflection of the traits that characterised all of his political activities, namely an adherence to the basic principle of “not burning all one’s bridges” when he abandoned his membership of a party to which he had been close, or whose cause he had promoted. This pattern of behaviour also applied in the case of the Piłsudski bloc. It’s all the more surprising that Stolarski left the People’s Party in 1935,[3] in protest against the party’s decision to boycott the September elections to the Sejm and the Senate. After this, he again forged close ties to Piłsudski’s supporters. In 1937, he joined the Camp of National Unity (Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego) and in 1938, he stood as a candidate for the post of Senator of the Łódź voivodeship in the (preponed) parliamentary elections.

Błażej Stolarski had always been consistent in pursuing his aims. However, he was not a person who gave rousing performances. He had neither the aura of other farmers’ representatives, nor was he a “born politician”. Rather, he was a functionary in the background, the type of person whom we would describe today as a “political realist”.

 

September 1939
 

On 2 September 1939, Stolarski was returning to his home village of Sługocice after attending the final meeting of the Senate of the Second Polish Republic. Eight days later, he was arrested and taken away by the Gestapo. There, the trail goes cold. There was talk of concentration camps (not yet of “death”), and of his having been thrown out of an aeroplane in an uninhabited area. In 2018, to mark the 100th anniversary of the recovery of Polish independence, a number of well-intentioned people, both Germans and Poles, succeeded in finding out at least something more about the circumstances surrounding the death of this extraordinary man.

What happened between 10 September and 21 October, the date of the tragic death of Błażej Stolarski? We know only that on 15 September, he was taken from Berlin to Opole (Oppeln), where he was handed over to the state secret police, the Gestapo.[4]

The excerpt from the files of the Reich Security Head Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt; RSHA) shows that Stolarski believed in the possibility of a rebirth of an independent Poland, since he emphasised this several times during his interrogations.[5] As a result, he was of no use to the Germans as part of a potential collaborative government such as those created later in Norway (under Quisling) and France (the Vichy government). The Gestapo therefore decided to hand the prisoner over to their office in Opole. It is thought that at that time, the Nazis were planning to create a “collection concentration camp” for Polish intellectuals near the city.[6] In the interim, Hitler’s plans for the extermination of the “Polish leadership and intelligentsia classes” in the territories occupied by the Wehrmacht had already been made known; since 1 September, they had been put into action as part of “Operation Tannenberg” (Unternehmen Tannenberg) and the “Intelligentsia” campaign (Intelligenzaktion). From May 1939, proscription lists were produced of Poles who were regarded as being a particular danger to the Third Reich. This “Special Prosecution Book – Poland” (Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen) contained the names of over 61,000 Polish citizens, including politicians, members of the clergy, academics and artists, as well as election activists and insurgents from Greater Poland and Silesia. After 1 September 1939, a second proscription list was produced containing the names of over 21,000 individuals. Historians calculate that these two campaigns against the elite of the Second Polish Republic (from September 1939 to May 1940) probably led to the deaths of up to 100,000 people. Of these, between 40,000 and 50,000 were shot. The rest died in concentration camps. The campaign was designed to “cleanse” the Polish territories, with the exception of the General Government, which had in the meantime been incorporated into the Third Reich, and as preparation for population resettlements to the territory between the Weichsel and Bug rivers. Was Stolarski arrested as part of this campaign, or was he seized after being denounced by Germans, as is claimed by one of his sons?[7] It is likely that we will never know the answer.

The next unsolved mystery in relation to Stolarski’s death is a statement by the Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs, von Ribbentrop. It is said that at a conference in Ilnau (now Jełowa) on 9 September 1939[8], he attempted to persuade Hitler to found a Polish “rump state” which would be entirely subordinate to the German Reich. This information came from the notes made by Lieutenant Colonel Lahousen, adjutant to the Chief of the military intelligence service (the Abwehr) Wilhelm Canaris. Within such a frame of reference, it is easy to explain why Stolarski was treated in the way he was by the occupying power.

In the weeks that followed, from 15 September to 21 October, Błażej Stolarski was held in a prison cell in Opole and for a short time at the Berlin headquarters of the Gestapo. His incarceration in Berlin might at least explain why his body was found near Groß Köris, less than 50 km from the capital, on the edge of the Berlin–Wrocław (Breslau) motorway.

The death certificate issued by the registry office in Groß Köris on 26 October 1939 states the date and time of death as being 21/10/1939 at 1.30 pm.[9] The exact cause of death is also recorded: “Shot to the head” (“Kopfschuss”). The precise personal details relating to the senator (date and place of birth, last address of residence in Poland, profession) indicate that he had his identity documents with him when he was murdered.

 

It remains unclear to this day why Stolarski would have been travelling on the motorway between Berlin and Wrocław. Was he being sent back to Opole after another interrogation, or was he murdered on the journey to Berlin? Since there was no concentration camp for Polish intellectuals near Opole, was he perhaps due to be taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, to the special cells known as the “Zellenbau”?[10] If so, why was he murdered beforehand? Was Stolarski perhaps the victim of a staged attempt to escape, which usually ended with a shot in the back?[11] In this case, however, we are clearly dealing with an outright execution. Was it an “occupational accident” on the part of the Gestapo, or a pre-planned murder? And if it was murder, who gave the orders?

It could be that the district archives in Luckau hold the answers to some of these questions. Possibly, the report on the discovery of the body is stored there that contains the information about Stolarski’s death certificate. The two documents might shed more light on the mystery surrounding Senator Stolarski’s final hours.

We learn from the documents shown below this article that Błażej Stolarski’s body was taken to Berlin, where an autopsy was conducted. The urn containing his ashes was then buried in the Parkfriedhof cemetery in the Berlin district of Marzahn (gravesite U-1).[12]

 

By no means on the margins...
 

As the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its links.

The chain of well-intentioned individuals, who helped uncover more facts about the fate of Błażej Stolarski after he was arrested in Poland, consists of four people: Rima Gutte from the Berlin Senate, who provided a list of Poles buried in the cemetery in Marzahn, which includes Błażej Stolarski’s name, and Cordula Liepack from the district archives in Luckau, who allowed access to the documents containing a large amount of information relating to Stolarski’s mysterious death. Dr. Paweł Perzyna from the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, IPN) in Łódź, author of a biography of B. Stolarski, who compiled the information cited in the article and provided access to it in Poland, and, of course, Klaus Leutner, who clearly appears to be the strongest link in this chain, who has worked for many years to promote reconciliation between Germany and Poland. It is thanks to his tireless efforts that light has now been shed – although still not fully – on another mystery of the war years.

 

Wojciech Drozdek, February 2019

 

Postscript by the author: To mark the 80th anniversary of the death of Błażej Stolarski (22/9/2019), a commemorative plaque was unveiled in Będków, the village where he lived. The government officials invited included Antoni Macierewicz [a leading member of the Law and Justice (PiS) party – translator’s note], who is a member of the Sejm in its 9th legislative period. - An irony of history or “Ubu Roi ou les Polonais”?