Stanisław Haller

Stanisław Haller was a Polish politician and general who was murdered in the Katyn massacre. He was the cousin of General Józef Haller.

Life

Between 1894 and 1918 Haller served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Among other military functions, he was commandant of Fortress Kraków.
In 1918 he joined the renascent Polish Army. During the Polish-Soviet War he contributed to the defeat of Budionny's army and its expulsion beyond the Bug River. In 1919–1920, 1923–25 and in May 1926 he was Chief of the Polish General Staff. After 1926 he was placed in retirement as a political opponent of the new regime headed by Józef Piłsudski.

Death

In 1939 he was arrested by the Soviets after their attack on Poland and placed in a POW camp in Starobielsk. Along with other Polish POWs, he was murdered by the NKVD in April 1940, just before his sixty-eighth birthday, in Piatykhatky near Kharkov, in what is collectively called the Katyn Massacre.
He is buried at the Polish War Cemetery in Kharkov.

Commemorations

Stanisław Haller is patron of the 5th command regiment of the Kraków-based Polish 2nd Mechanized Corps.

Honours and awards

Commander's Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari; previously awarded the Silver Cross
Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Cross of Valour – twice
Cross of Liberty, Class I
Royal Order of St. Stephen of Hungary
Order of St. Stanislaus

Other high ranking Polish officers murdered in the Katyn Massacre

Among the victims of the Katyn Massacre were 14 Polish military leaders, including Leon Billewicz, Bronisław Bohaterewicz, Xawery Czernicki, Henryk Minkiewicz, Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski, Konstanty Plisowski, Rudolf Prich, Franciszek Sikorski, Leonard Skierski, Piotr Skuratowicz, Mieczysław Smorawiński, and Alojzy Wir-Konas.