Who was Władysław Anders?

A Polish general (1892 to 1970) who formed a Polish army in the USSR in 1941 and commanded the Polish II Corps at Monte Cassino in 1944.

What was Anders's Army?

The Polish army formed in the Soviet Union in 1941 from released prisoners and deportees, evacuated to Iran in 1942 and later known as the Polish II Corps.

What did Anders do at Monte Cassino?

His II Corps attacked the German positions in May 1944 and raised the Polish flag over the ruined monastery on 18 May.

Why did Anders not return to Poland?

Poland was under communist rule after 1945, and in 1946 its government stripped him of his citizenship.

Where is General Anders buried?

In the Polish war cemetery at Monte Cassino, among the soldiers of his corps.

Władysław Anders: from the Lubyanka to Monte Cassino

In 1941 Władysław Anders was a prisoner in the Lubyanka. Three years later the soldiers he had gathered from Soviet camps and prisons raised the Polish flag over the ruins of Monte Cassino. His army's journey across three continents is one of the great epics of the Second World War.

A cavalryman

Born in 1892, Anders served as a cavalry officer in the Russian army¹ in the First World War and commanded a Polish uhlan regiment in the Polish-Soviet War of 1920². In September 1939 he led the Nowogródek Cavalry Brigade against the Germans³ and then the Soviets, until he was wounded and captured.

Out of the Lubyanka

The Soviets held him in Moscow's Lubyanka prison.¹ When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, a Polish-Soviet agreement freed Polish prisoners, and Anders was released to form a Polish army from men emerging from the camps and places of exile across the USSR.

Officers in winter coats and fur caps standing among tents in a Polish army camp in the USSR — General Władysław Anders (right) with Colonel Leopold Okulicki inspecting units of the Polish Army in the USSR, 1941 to 1942. Public domain

The exodus

Starved of supplies and distrustful of Stalin, Anders secured the evacuation of his army to Iran in 1942⁴. With the soldiers came tens of thousands of civilians, including many women and children¹, saved from the Soviet Union. In the Middle East the army became the Polish II Corps.

A woman bending over a design laid out on the ground in front of large tents in a refugee camp — A Polish woman decorates the ground outside her tent with a Polish eagle at a Red Cross evacuation camp in Tehran, 1943. Photograph by Nick Parrino for the US Office of War Information. Public domain

Monte Cassino and Italy

In May 1944 Anders's II Corps attacked the heights of Monte Cassino, which had resisted earlier Allied assaults, and on 18 May raised the Polish flag over the ruined monastery³. The corps went on to take Ancona in July 1944⁵ and Bologna in April 1945.

Soldiers gathered among shattered walls of the abbey with a British flag raised above them — Polish and British soldiers in the ruins of the abbey on Monte Cassino at the end of the battle, May 1944. National Digital Archive, Poland. Public domain

A general in exile

After the war Poland was under communist rule, and in 1946 the new government stripped Anders of his citizenship². He remained in London as a leading figure of the Polish emigration until his death in 1970, and at his wish he was buried in the Polish war cemetery at Monte Cassino², among his soldiers.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Szlaki Nadziei. Odyseja Wolności, “Władysław Albert Anders (1892-1970)” ↩ a b c
Muzeum Historii Polski (polishhistory.pl), “Władysław Anders: A defiant officer and powerful commander” ↩ a b c
Zbigniew Wawer, Władysław Anders 1892–1970 (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2019). ↩ a b
Evan McGilvray, Anders' Army: General Władysław Anders and the Polish Second Corps 1941-46 (Pen & Sword Military, 2018). ↩
Władysław Anders, An Army in Exile: The Story of the Second Polish Corps (Macmillan, 1949). ↩
Wikipedia, “Władysław Anders”
Wikipedia, “Władysław Anders”