Stanisław Haller de Hallenburg

Stanisław Haller (born 26 April 1872, murdered in April 1940) was a Polish politician and general, and cousin of General Józef Haller de Hallenburg.

Life
Between 1894 and 1918 he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Among other 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.

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.

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