Stanisław Tatar

Stanisław Tatar nom de guerre "Stanisław Tabor" (3 October 1896 – 16 December 1980) was a Polish Army colonel in the interwar period and, during World War II, one of the commanders of Armia Krajowa, Polish resistance movement. He was appointed brigade general in 1943 and half-a-year later flew from occupied Poland to London.

After the war ended, Tatar betrayed the London-based Polish government-in-exile by organising an illegal handover of its vast reserves of money and gold (donated by the nation and called the Fund of National Defense), to the communist regime. Most of it however, was subsequently stolen and split among the Stalinist dignitaries and security forces under Jakub Berman, without leaving a paper trail. Unlike some of his fellow generals of the Polish Army, Stanisław Tatar was not deprived of Polish citizenship by the Soviet-backed communist authorities of Poland and in 1949 was allowed to legally return to his homeland.

Upon his arrival to Warsaw, however, he was arrested by the Soviet NKVD, imprisoned and charged with espionage. As a victim of the Trial of the Generals (show trial) of 1951 he was sentenced to life imprisonment and imprisoned in Wronki Prison. After Joseph Stalin's death and the start of a period of liberalisation in Poland in 1956 he was released from prison and rehabilitated. Tatar died in 1980.

Awards and decorations

60px Gold Cross of Virtuti Militari
60px Silver Cross of Virtuti Militari (1921)
60px Cross of Independence (4 November 1933)
60px Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1948)
60px Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1938)
60px Cross of Valour (five times)
60px Gold Cross of Merit (19 March 1936)
60px Allied Victory Medal
60px Order of the Bath (United Kingdom, 1944)
60px Officer of the Legion of Honor (France, 1937)
60px Order of Saint Anna, 2nd and 3rd Class (Russian Empire)
60px Order of Saint Stanislaus, 2nd and 3rd Class (Russian Empire)

Stanisław Tatar

Awards and decorations

See also

Notes and references