Wladyslaw Anders

Polish military figure, General in the Polish Army and later in life a politician with the Polish government-in-exile in London.

Anders was born to his Baltic-German father Albert Anders and his mother Elizabeth, born Tauchert. He was baptized as a member of the Protestant Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland; but while being kept in Soviet prisons he made a promise that if he survived and regained strength in his legs (he was seriously injured) he would convert to Roman Catholicism. He did survive, and did indeed convert.

Anders was in command of a cavalry brigade at the time of the outbreak of World War II. The Polish forces were no match for the larger and better equipped German Wehrmacht with their massive Blitzkrieg tactics and were forced to retreat to the east. During the fighting and retreat Anders was wounded a number of times. He was later taken prisoner by Soviet forces and was jailed, initially in Lviv (then Lwów) and later in Lubyanka prison in Moscow. During his imprisonment Anders was tortured.

General Anders

Shortly after the attack on the Soviet Union by Germany on 22 June 1941, Anders was released by the Soviets with the aim of forming a Polish Army to fight alongside the Red Army. Continued friction with the Soviets over political issues as well as shortages of weapons, food and clothing, led to the eventual exodus of Anders' men – known as the Anders Army – together with a sizeable contingent of Polish civilians via the Persian Corridor into Iran, Iraq and Palestine. Here, Anders formed and led the 2nd Polish Corps, fighting alongside the Western Allies, while agitating for the release of Polish nationals still in the Soviet Union.

Anders was the commander of the 2nd Polish Corps in Italy 1943–1946, capturing Monte Cassino in the Battle of Monte Cassino.

After the war the Soviet-installed communist government in Poland in 1946 deprived him of Polish citizenship and of his military rank.