The hero of the Warsaw Uprising, Adjutant of Tadeusz Komorowski, ps. “Bór” was a national radical.

The national camp was opposed to initiating an uprising in Warsaw, but erstwhile nationalists were put before the fact made, thousands of nationalists faced the fight on 1 August 1944, not only in the ranks of the National Armed Forces or the National Military Organization, but besides in the troops of the National Army. Among the distinguished soldiers of the AK were many pre-war national-radical activists, of whom the modern historical publicist prefers to stay silent.

“Rights” to the Warsaw Uprising?

On 2 August 2020 at the confluence of Karowa and Browarna Street in Warsaw, a monument of Stanisław Jankowski was unveiled, ps. “Agaton” – architect, urbanist, silentist, officer of the Polish Army, Polish Armed Forces in the West and offensive intelligence of the Home Army. The construction was financed by the Polish Association of Developers. During the ceremony, president Rafał Trzaskowski expressed his admiration for the hero and recalled his youthful fascination with Jankowski: "Let this monument be another large discrimination for this extraordinary Warsawist", who "was a specialist of the highest attempt, and his professionalism saved hundreds and even thousands of lives."

Two years later, in July 2022 the same Rafał Trzaskowski, opposed the organisation of the march of parts of the national environment on the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, stated: "This truly is not a day that should be dominated by nationalists who spread specified slogans, not others where insurgents clearly say that this should not be a day for them." Speaking these words, the president of Warsaw did not say that the legendary insurgent commander, the author of the memoirs "With false ausweis in real Warsaw", who so delighted him in his youth, was a nationalist and a extremist nationalist. To justify Rafał Trzaskowski, it should be added that part of the biography "Agaton" is not known and/or carefully hidden, due to the fact that most of the erstwhile studies have so far focused on his activities during planet War II or during the reconstruction of Warsaw.

Political roots of Stanisław Jankowski

Stanisław Michał Jankowski was born on 29 September 1911 in Warsaw to a household closely related to the national movement. Both his father Czesław and older brother Andrzej Jacek were members of the National Party. Both were found murdered by Germans in Palmira in June 1940.

Even during the advanced school period Jankowski was a Boy Scout, a replacement of the “Chapla” in the then led by his father XXI Warsaw Scouting squad named after Ignacy Prądzyński at the Mazowieckie Land Secondary School. However, the beginnings of his more serious socio-political activity are connected with the clearly endetic academic corp “Sarmatia”, to which Brother Andrzej introduced him even before the examination of maturity. This was an introduction to further strictly political activity, and Jankowski himself later became the "corporate father" of Jerzy Staniszkis, 1 of 3 siblings of national-radical activists, the youngest brother of Olgiard and Witold, uncle of Jadwiga Staniszkis.

It is most likely at that time that Jankowski became a associate of the secret structure of the national movement called “Earl White”. It was the lowest degree of internally consecrated academic youth organization, which was subject to Roman Dmowski's alleged "Warrior" Main Fire. It included the most active activists of the Association of Academic Youth of All Poland and the Young Camp Movement of large Poland. In addition to the “White Eagle” Jankowski worked in the Association of Listeners of Architecture of Warsaw University of Technology (in the 1933–34 word he was even a associate of the board), which had a national and later national-radical character since the early 1930s. During this period, he published, among others, in "National Thoughts" and "Easy from the Bridge", and his short polemic with Jan Rembielinski on the chair (sic!) is 1 of the more interesting considerations concerning functionalism in the publications of the Second Polish Republic.

Polish Cultural Action Organization

In the fall of 1936, after the end of military service and after marrying Anna Garlicka (nota bene daughter of prominent socialist activists), Jankowski became active in the creation of the Polish Organization for Cultural Action (POAK). It was 1 of the many initiatives of erstwhile ONR activists focused around Bolesław Piasecki, a national-radical delegation of "beps" on the cultural section aimed at developing legal activity in the artistic and literary environment. The organisation, which is an integral part of the RNR-‘Falanga’, led by Onufry Bronisław Kopczyński, was a “war” in accordance with the spirit of national radicalism. It was expected to be "the assault battalion of nationalists fighting for Polish culture". There were 3 sections in POAK: literary, musical and plastic. Jankowski was entrusted with the functions of the manager of the latter, which demonstrated both the trust of the management (or Bolesław Piasecki) and his organizational abilities. Jankowski as 1 of the most crucial POAK activists had to keep close relations with RNR leaders. It is surely about his relationship with Andrzej Świątkowski, as well as about any intimacy with Zygmunt Przetakiewicz, the head of the National Combat Organization “Life and Death for the Nation” (NOB), who allowed to talk about him as “Staś”.

Just after graduating in June 1938, Jankowski joined the Association of Architects of the Republic of Poland (SARP), which at the time was a place of peculiar activity of nationalists. In November of that year he joined the work led by Tadeusz Dzięgielewski of the Committee of the Professional Community. Most of its members were active activists or collaborators of national-radical organizations.

National-radical housing issue

It was the issues of building reform, and in peculiar the solution to housing problems for the poorest and the way of the profession of architect, that became the main field of activity of Stanisław Jankowski. In this way, he combined professional and political activities, moving national-radical ideas into the architectural environment. He was 1 of the main authors of the alleged Professional Community concept. He pointed out in peculiar the problems of construction in the context of state weakness and the function of private capital, writing that “There is no large Poland without regulation of housing for working Poles ... and private capital is besides costly and besides tiny for specified a share. At the same time, this capital is mostly Jewish, i.e. asocial.” His position on this matter, which is straight due to the revolutionary, pro-social ideology of RNR, concludes the following statement: "Building is simply a process in a national economy with peculiar advantages, but besides a peculiar responsibility. The law of request and supply alone, the law of the top return on capital, cannot decide here. ... The fact that a number of sectors of the construction manufacture are in the hands of Jews present should be considered abnormal and highly harmful from the point of view of a healthy economy. 1 of the tasks of the Professional Community will besides be to co-operate with the construction movement, now understood increasingly, but implemented insufficiently."

A summary of his views on construction and architecture at the time was published in the spring of 1939 in the “Easy from the Bridge” article entitled “Architecture in Young Eyes” where he pointed out first of all the importance of housing issues: “It is crucial to realize that today's housing poverty, today's morbid thickening of urban areas, is simply a spectrum of future social disaster. If we do not solve these issues evolutionaryly, they will find a revolutionary solution. The social revolution will come, whether from the left or from the right wing. If we do not show the way out, it will pass through us.”

Jankowski saw national architecture in a wide context of planet art, without xenophobia, but without complexes, writing, among others, “We know that it is impossible to make a prescription for [national architecture], but at the same time we realize that there are a number of phenomena that prejudge it in a negative sense. First of all, it is simply a deficiency of religion in the cultural past mission which we Poles gotta fulfill. (...) Among another things, there is the inferiority complex with respect to “Europe”, which hinders the clarity of the court. All manifestations of hurrapatriotism must be absolutely wiped out, but the principle, for example, must not be tolerated, that most of our historical achievements in architecture are only "barbarisms" in relation to European primaries. (...) Part of our view of the planet is that we have a function not only for consumers.”

On 12 July 1939, after the end of the stormy month, the gathering of the General gathering of the SARP Warsaw Branch, Jankowski became 1 of the delegates of the “national list” for the general gathering of the association held in Gdynia on 13-15 August 1939. The last 1 was chosen there before the Second planet War General Board of SARP, which was removed from power by the communists in 1945.

Silent architect

In 1939, Jankowski had no chance to participate in fights with either Germany or the Soviets. After many peripeties he reached the UK, where he maintained contacts with his colleagues from RNR: Zygmunt Przetakiewicz and Andrzej Świątkowski. It was under the influence of talking to the latter, that he decided to study his desire to return to Poland. After the Warsaw Uprising capitulated, he found himself in 1 group with the command of the uprising and their assistance, which was imprisoned in various POW camps in the Reich. After being freed by American troops, Jankowski went to Britain, where he yet ended his military service in mid-1945. The following year, he decided to return to the country. According to Jan Nowak-Jezioranski: “Agaton felt that his work as an architect was to return to the country and to participate in the reconstruction of the completely destroyed capital. I warned him that in his case it had to end incarceration. It did not impress him. (...) He drove [to Poland] with the intention of staying distant from politics and any underground activity.” He yet arrived in Warsaw in September 1946, where he lived and worked until his death in 2002. Indeed, he never returned to political activity.

Nationals and Warsaw Uprising

In advance of possible questions, it should be stressed that Jankowski never publically denied his pre-war socio-political activity. There is besides no evidence that he expresses any regret about his engagement in the national movement. Reasons for discretion may have been different – it may have been due to a complicated household situation, including the matrimony of 1 of the daughters to Marcel Handelsman's grandson. But possibly his silence about the national-radical past was simply the consequence of the serious treatment of the oath which he made erstwhile entering the White Eagle and from which no 1 has always released him: "...I solemnly vow and pledge the mystery of the existence of the organization and of my belonging to it faithfully to the greatness and power of Poland to serve, if essential life joyfully for the Homeland. I ask all present and absent members of the White Eagle to execute the judgement of the organizational authorities on me if I always had a vow not to keep it.”

Although the national camp was opposed to insurgency fighting, in the face of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising it should be recalled that thousands of nationalists – soldiers of the AK, NOW and NSZ – fought in it. Among them was besides the Adjutant of the Chief Leader, the bachelor of the Virtutti Militari Order, twice awarded the conflict Cross by Captain Stanislaw Jankowski, ps. “Agaton” – 1 of the most distinguished representatives of the Polish National Camp II.

It so appears that Rafał Trzaskowski, a tireless “warrior for progress, democracy and LGBT+ law”, participated in the unveiling of the first monument in Warsaw to the “Oenerwiec” – the activist of the National-Radical Movement “Falanga”, which, after all, according to the left-wing Komintern guidelines of the nomenclature, was “co-laborating with Hitler” the “pałkarska and fascist” organization. Well, past likes to play tricks – especially self-righteous politicians and ideologists...

Michał Dominikak