He was one of the most self-sacrificing soldiers of the Home Army, a skilled conspirator, and a long-time prisoner of communist-ruled Poland. In his long and multifaceted life, Kazimierz Leski took many chances to serve his homeland and help others.
He was born in 1912 in Warsaw, in the Kingdom of Poland, which was then under the Russian occupation. His father was of Jewish origin and his mother descended from the Polish nobility. The engineer Juliusz Natanson-Leski took part in the struggle for independence.
Leski’s youth fell during the period of reborn Poland. After graduating from high school, he began his studies at the prestigious Hipolit Wawelberg and Stanislaw Rotwand Engineering School. In 1935, he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. A year later, he took up shipbuilding work in the Netherlands as a draughtsman, not forgetting his patriotic duties to Poland. Even while working abroad, Leski tried to help build the strength of the Polish Republic. When he was transferred to the submarine construction department, he contributed to the construction of ships: ORP “Sęp” and the renowned ORP “Orzeł”, introducing significant improvements in the construction. The young engineer was also passionate about sport. His great dream was to fly. After overcoming many obstacles, he managed to get into the Air Force Reserve Officer Cadet School in Sadków near Radom.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, Leski was assigned as a pilot of a Lublin R-XVIII F liaison aircraft. His participation in combat ended soon after the Soviets entered Poland. On 17 September, the pilot was shot down by Red Army units and taken prisoner. However, he managed to escape from it and made his way to Warsaw.
He became active in the resistance movement by joining the ranks of the intelligence organisation “Musketeers”. Acting under the pseudonym ‘Bradl’, Leski oversaw counterintelligence within it, largely creating the organisation’s complex security system. The counter-intelligence cell, with Leski as one of its heads, passed to the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ). According to the hypotheses of some historians, Leski worked out the ‘Musketeers’ for the benefit of the ZWZ, but this thesis is not sufficiently documented. After the transformation of the ZWZ, “Bradl” was transferred to the Second Branch of the Home Army Headquarters. Leski’s duties included preparing courier routes to the west and intelligence and counter-intelligence activities.
In order to realise the aforementioned goals, the conspirator travelled around Europe (he reached, among other places, occupied France and Spain), using the identities of German officers, administrative staff and companies cooperating with the Wehrmacht. It was a very risky activity, but the agent had a great command of the German language and customs, which, combined with his intelligence, ease of being and perfectly forged documents by the Polish Underground State, gave him a chance of success. According to some opinions, Leski was supposed to have stolen the plans of the German fortifications of the Atlantic Wall during his stay in Paris, but this is not sufficiently confirmed in the sources. In any case, courage and even bravado combined with thorough mission preparation were his hallmarks.
“Bradl” fought in the Warsaw Uprising, commanding the company named after him. He fought the Germans, among others, in the southern city centre. After the fall of the uprising, he did not intend to give up resistance and escaped from the prisoner-of-war column. He continued his conspiratorial activities within the Home Army, and then the Delegation of the Armed Forces at Home.
After the Soviets entered Poland, Leski, like many other soldiers of the Polish Underground State, became an object of interest of the communist security apparatus. In 1945, he was arrested, and despite his successful escape, he was put behind bars again a few months later. As a result of a trial of officers of the 1st Command of the Freedom and Independence Association, he was sentenced to 6 years in prison, but after completing his sentence he had to stay there for another 12 years for alleged collaboration with the occupying forces. He finally left prison only in 1955 as a result of an amnesty.
From 1957 onwards, he worked in the shipbuilding industry and was active in science (over 150 publications) and rationalisation (author of numerous patents). He was an editor at the State Technical Publishing House, and later director of the Scientific Information Centre of the Polish Academy of Science. Scientifically, he was also involved in the machine analysis and synthesis of natural language written texts.
Leski was awarded the highest Polish military and civilian honours during his long life. He received the title of Honorary Citizen of the City of Warsaw and was also made honorary president of the Association of Polish Inventors and Rationalisers. The Yad Vashem Institute honoured him with the title “Righteous Among the Nations”. From 1994 to 1997, he was president of the Association of Warsaw Insurgents. In addition to academic papers, he published the repeatedly reissued memoirs ” Life improperly diversified. Memoirs of an officer of intelligence and counterintelligence of the Home Army”. Kazimierz Leski died in Warsaw in 2000 and was buried at the Powązki cemetery.