Stanisław Haller

Stanisław Haller (April 26, 1872 – April 1940) was a Polish politician and general, also cousin of General Józef Haller von Hallenburg of Haller coat of arms. Stanisław Haller was murdered in the Katyn massacre.

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.

Katyn
In 1939 he was arrested by the Soviets and placed in a POW camp in Starobielsk. Along with other Polish POWs, he was murdered by the NKVD in April 1940, the month of his sixty-eighth birthday, near Kharkov, in the Katyn Massacres. Among the Katyn victims were 14 Polish generals including Leon Billewicz, Bronisław Bohatyrewicz, Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Aleksander Kowalewski, Henryk Minkiewicz, Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski, Konstanty Plisowski, Rudolf Prich (murdered in Lwow), Franciszek Sikorski, Leonard Skierski, Piotr Skuratowicz, Mieczysław Smorawiński and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). ; ; ; ; ; ; 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 (1921)
 * Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta
 * Cross of Valour - twice
 * Cross of Liberty, Class I (Estonia)
 * Royal Order of St. Stephen of Hungary
 * Order of St. Stanislaus