Historical calendar: December 1, 1947 – Communists execution the celebrated “Bartka”

In mid-September 1939, Flame crossed the Hungarian border. Together with another soldiers, he was interned and imprisoned in the camp, from where he escaped. He then fell into the hands of the German authorities and was placed in the Stalag XVII A Kaisersteinbruch. He returned to his home in Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1940. He took up a occupation as a driver.

After the order of Heinrich Himmler of March 1941 on the introduction of a volkslist in the advanced Silesian Province, he was enrolled in the 3rd national group volksdeutschów. He besides associated with the independency conspiracy. He most likely already had contacts with the ZWZ-AK conspiracy. He founded the HAK (Harcer National Army), a subordinate AK that dealt with intelligence and sabotage.

Due to his appointment to the German Army, threatened by deconspiration and arrest, Flame ran into the woods. He joined the guerrilla branch of the AK “Barania Góra” pchor. Marian Barthel de Weydenthal “Urban”. After his death, the squad divided up into 2 groups. Flame, utilizing the nickname “Grot”, took command of 1 of them. In the fall of 1944, his unit surrendered to the command of the National Armed Forces.

On February 12, 1945, the Red Army entered Czechowice. Flame, following the recommendations of the NSZ Command, made himself available to the “people’s authorities” with his branch. He took up the position of commandant of the local Citizen Militia police station, placed his men at the police station and subordinate units, and gathered around him people opposed to communists and arms, preparing for an imminent confrontation with communists.

At the turn of April and May 1945 Flame fled with his men into close woods. From then on, he began performing under the nickname “Bartek”. From May 1945 to February 1947, he was at the head of the largest independency group in Cieszyn Silesia, whose population, in the highest period, was over 300 soldiers.

The group carried out a full of about 340 armed actions. The biggest speech of the group – as noted by radio guest Jedynka, writer and historian Tadeusz Płużański – was the business of the spa town of Wisła on 3 May 1946, in which Flame conducted, in the eyes of terrorized communists, a parade on the occasion of the Constitution with the participation of full uniformed and armed NSZ soldiers.

– This is an evenement on the scale of the full of Central and east Europe, conquered after 1944 by Stalin. Nothing like this has happened in any country. They paid for it later mostly with their lives, but the memories of this parade we are reading now prove that it was worth it. It was for them, for the people of the Vistula, for tourists, an crucial day. They could have shown their love for their homeland. The fact that for them there is inactive free, independent Poland. It was a demonstration of who is the host of this land – not the communists brought from Russia, but the Polish army – emphasised Płużański.

In the summertime of 1946, Agent Henry Wendrowski infiltrated the structure of the group as a consequence of an action planned by the safety Office to neutralize Flamy and his branch. It managed to get Flamey to agree to organise a fictional spread of a large condition of the group to Earth recovered in order to proceed partisan activities. In fact, the metastasis was initiated and controlled by security. In September 1946, a crucial part of the soldiers of the “Bartka” group were deported to Śląsk Opole and murdered.

– It was 1 of the best organized Ubek provocations against the Polish independency underground. The lace action – indicated the guest of Program 1. For a long time there have been lies about what happened in authoritative historians.

As of autumn 1946, Flame's group began to lose its initiative for communists, who in many manhunts decimated subordinate “Bartkow” troops. Flame, along with its immediate surroundings, came out on March 11, 1947. After laying down his gun, he lived in a household home in Chekovice. Neutralization of the “Bartka” group was a immense success for communists. But it wasn't just about disclosure. These people were expected to die.

On December 1, 1947, in Zabrzeg close Czechowice, local militiaman Rudolf Dadak murdered Flame. The body was buried in a city cemetery in Czechowice-Dziedzice.

Flamey's destiny shows that revealing himself to the communists made no sense. We had to run to the West or fight to the end.

Previous entry from our calendar is available Here.