Józef Unrug

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Józef Unrug (German: Joseph von Unruh; 7 October 1884 – 28 February 1973) was a German-born Polish admiral who served as a submarine commander in the Imperial German Navy in World War I and helped create Poland's navy after the independence of Poland. During the opening stages of World War II, he served as the Polish Navy's commander-in-chief. As a German POW, he refused all German offers to change sides and was incarcerated in several Oflags, including Colditz Castle. He stayed in exile after the war in the United Kingdom, Morocco and France where he died and was buried. In September 2018 he was posthumously promoted in the rank of vice admiral by the President of Poland. After 45 years his remains, along with those of his wife Zofia, were exhumed from Montrésor and taken in October 2018 to his final resting place in Gdynia, Poland.

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Career In 1919, after Poland regained independence, Unrug left Germany and volunteered for the Polish Armed Forces. Soon afterwards, he was transferred to the nascent Polish Navy, where he served as chief of the Hydrographic Division and then as commanding officer of a submarine flotilla. Out of his pocket, the wealthy Unrug purchased the hydrographic ship which became ORP Pomorzanin for the new navy. To establish the maritime frontiers of the newly reestablished Polish state required a ship to perform shipped surveys and to make maps. Unrug's purchase of the ship, which was needed urgently at the time, won him many allies in the Marynarka (Polish Navy). One of the most skilled officers in the Polish Navy, Unrug was quickly promoted to Counter Admiral. In 1924, he came into conflict with Admiral Kazimierz Porębski and was put on a paid leave for a year. In 1925, Porębski had to resign in a scandal after he was discovered taking bribes. Overcoming his limitations in the Polish language, he became Commander of the Fleet of the Polish Navy in 1925. Unrug's task as commander of the Marynarka was largely to train officers for the nascent force. Unrug was respected, but not loved…Citește mai mult

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World War II During the 1939 invasion of Poland, Unrug executed his plan of strategically withdrawing the Polish Navy's major vessels to the United Kingdom ("Operation Peking"). At the same time, he got all Polish submersibles to lay naval mines in the Bay of Gdańsk ("Plan Worek"). Following that operation, these vessels either escaped to the United Kingdom or sought refuge in neutral countries. Another plan Unrug had developed was Operation Rurka for the mine-layer Gryf to lay a minefield off the Hel peninsula, but he decided to wait until the war started. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and Unrug gave the orders for Rurka. The Gryf was not ready until 12 hours after receiving the order and by the time she put to sea, she was spotted by German aircraft and was sunk. Unrug has been widely criticized for waiting until Germany invaded to launch Operation Rurka, but Szarski has defended him, saying that laying mines in the waters that ships had to cross to enter and leave the Free City of Danzig could have been presented by Germany as a casus belli. Despite having effectively given up control of Poland's naval vessels, Unrug remained in command…Citește mai mult

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Post-war exile After Poland was taken over by the Soviet Union in 1945, Unrug went to the United Kingdom, where he served with the Polish Navy in the West and took part in its demobilisation. After the Allies withdrew support from the Polish government, Unrug remained in exile, in the United Kingdom, and then moved to France. In exile, Unrug worked in a marina in Morocco tending to the care of cutters and in France he worked as a chauffeur. He died there on 28 February 1973 in the Polish Veterans' care home in Lailly-en-Val near Beaugency, at the age of 88. On 5 March 1973, he was buried in Montrėsor cemetery. In 1976, a stone tablet commemorating Unrug was unveiled in Oksywie. Unrug had specified in his will that he should not be buried on Polish soil until such time as all the remains of his fellow naval officers and men had been recovered from enemy control.

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Naval officer Józef Michał Hubert Unrug was born in Brandenburg an der Havel into a noble family of Prussian and Polish descent. He was the son of Thaddäus Gustav von Unruh, a Generalmajor in the Prussian Army. His aristocratic family was extremely wealthy and he grew up as very much a member of the elite. After graduating from the gymnasium in Dresden, Unrug completed naval college in 1907 and began his service in the Imperial German Navy. The major intellectual influence on the Imperial German Navy from the 1890s onward was the 1890 book The Influence of Sea Power upon History by the American historian Alfred Thayer Mahan. German emperor Wilhelm II had read it and enthusiastically embraced the book's message that whichever nation had the most powerful "blue water navy" would dominate all of the world's oceans and would always be the world's greatest power. Starting in 1898, the German Navy was transformed from a "green water navy" meant to operate in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea into a "blue water navy" meant to dominate all of the world's seas. Mahan's theories about sea power and world power remained the dominant intellectual basis of all German naval…Citește mai mult

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Exhumation and state funeral On 24 September 2018 Vice admiral Joseph Unrug and his wife Zofia (died 1980) were exhumed and transferred with a guard of honour at the French port of Brest for reburial in the Polish port of Gdynia, Poland, after a delay of 45 years. A state funeral was held in Oksywie on 2 October 2018 in the presence of Andrzej Duda, the President of Poland among other members of the Polish government and leaders of the Polish Armed Forces. The chief mourner was Christophe Unrug, the admiral's grandson and, by happenstance, the current mayor of Montrésor in France. In September 2018, Polish President Andrzej Duda had posthumously promoted Counter Admiral Joseph Unrug to Vice Admiral. The promotion citation was handed to Unrug's family during the funeral at the cemetery.

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Books and articles Biskupski, Mieczysław (Fall 2002). "Review of Poland's Navy, 1918-1945 by Michael Alfred Peszke". The Polish Review. 47 (4): 424–426. Epkenhans, Michael (2003). "Wilhelm II and 'his navy' 1888-1918". In Annika Mombauer; Wilhelm Deist (eds.). The Kaiser: New Research on Wilhelm II's Role in Imperial Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 12–36. ISBN 1139440608. Gusejnova, Dina (2016). European Elites and Ideas of Empire, 1917-1957. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107120624. Haarr, Geirr H. (2013). The Gathering Storm: The Naval War in Northern Europe September 1939 - April 1940. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1848321403. Jędrzejewicz, Wacław (1982). Piłsudski, a Life for Poland. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0882546333. Hargreaves, Richard (2010). Blitzkrieg Unleashed: The German Invasion of Poland 1939. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0811707244. Lubecki, Jacek (Winter 2011). "Jozef Pilsudski's Influence on the Polish Armed Forces of the Interwar Period". The Polish Review. 52 (1/2): 23–45. doi:10.2307/41549947. JSTOR 41549947. S2CID 254434126. Moorhouse, Roger (2019). Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465095384. Peszke, Michael Alfred (1999). Poland's Navy, 1918-1945. New York: Hippocrene Books I. ISBN 0781806720. Reid, Patrick (1984). Colditz: The Full Story. London: Macmillan Press. ISBN 0760346518. Stoker, Donald (2003). Britain, France…Citește mai mult