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Capital Punishment In Poland
Capital punishment remained in Polish law until September 1, 1998, but from 1989 executions were suspended, the last one taking place one year earlier. There is no death penalty envisaged for in current Polish penal law. History According to its first Penal Code, of 1818, executions would be carried out by beheading by the sword or, in exceptional cases, by hanging. The latter was allowed only for male prisoners convicted of heinous crimes. This Penal Code was in force until integration into Russia in 1867. Since regaining independence in 1918, Polish law allowed the death penalty for murder and treason in time of peace, and a number of other offences during wartime. For example, during the Polish-Soviet War (later to become famous) writer Sergiusz Piasecki was sentenced to death for armed robbery in the war zone, although his sentence was later commuted. From 1918 to 1928 firing squad was the only method of execution. Through a presidential decree in 1927, hanging became the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender is to be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against the person, such as murder, mass murder, aggravated cases of rape (often including child sexual abuse), terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Władysław Gomułka
Władysław Gomułka (; 6 February 1905 – 1 September 1982) was a Polish communist politician. He was the ''de facto'' leader of post-war Poland from 1947 until 1948. Following the Polish October he became leader again from 1956 to 1970. Gomułka was initially very popular for his reforms; his seeking a "Polish way to socialism"; and giving rise to the period known as "Polish thaw". During the 1960s, however, he became more rigid and authoritarian—afraid of destabilizing the system, he was not inclined to introduce or permit changes. In the 1960s he supported the persecution of the Catholic Church, intellectuals and the anti-communist opposition. In 1967 to 1968, Gomułka allowed outbursts of anti-Zionist and antisemitic political campaign, pursued primarily by others in the Party, but utilized by Gomułka to retain power by shifting the attention from the stagnating economy. Many of the remaining Polish Jews left the country. At that time he was also responsible for pers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanisław Wawrzecki
Stanisław Wawrzecki (1922 – March 19, 1965) was a Director of State-Directed Meat Trade in Praga (part of Warsaw), and the last person sentenced to death and executed in Poland for economy-related crimes after 1956. He was convicted for corruption. He admitted to receiving over three and half of million Złoty. This crime risked a maximum of 5 years in prison, but the court - under conditional clause - sentenced him to death without the right to appeal. Council of State refused his request for commutation and, finally, he was hanged. He remains the last person executed in Poland for a non-military crime other than murder, and will remain so given Poland's abolition of the death penalty. His trial was influenced by strong pressure from the communist authorities, especially from then PUWP First Secretary, Władysław Gomułka. In 2002 the Polish Supreme Court turned down the death sentence ''post factum'', arguing that this was a clear miscarriage of justice. Nevertheless, the Cour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polish October
Polish October (), also known as October 1956, Polish thaw, or Gomułka's thaw, marked a change in the politics of Poland in the second half of 1956. Some social scientists term it the Polish October Revolution, which was less dramatic than the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but may have had an even deeper impact on the Eastern Bloc and on the Soviet Union's relationship to its satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe.Iván T. Berend, ''Central and Eastern Europe, 1944–1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery'', Cambridge University Press, 1999, Google Print, p.115-116/ref> For the Polish People's Republic, 1956 was a year of transition. The international situation significantly weakened the hardline Stalinist faction in Poland, especially after the Polish communist leader Bolesław Bierut died in March. Three years had passed since Joseph Stalin's death and his successor at the Soviet Union's helm, First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, denounced him in February. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki (13 May 190125 May 1948; ; codenames ''Roman Jezierski, Tomasz Serafiński, Druh, Witold'') was a Polish World War II cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader. As a youth, Pilecki joined Polish underground scouting, and in the aftermath of World War I, Polish militia and later, the Polish Army. He participated in the Polish-Soviet War which ended in 1921. In 1939 he participated in the unsuccessful defense of Poland against the German invasion and shortly afterward, joined the Polish resistance, co-founding the Secret Polish Army resistance movement. In 1940 Pilecki volunteered to allow himself to be captured by the occupying Germans in order to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp. At Auschwitz he organized a resistance movement that eventually included hundreds of inmates, and he secretly drew up reports detailing German atrocities at the camp, which were smuggled out to Home Army headquarters and shared with the Western Allies. Af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Repression
Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby reducing their standing among their fellow citizens. It is often manifested through policies such as human rights violations, surveillance abuse, police brutality, imprisonment, involuntary settlement, stripping of citizen's rights, lustration, and violent action or terror such as the murder, summary executions, torture, forced disappearance, and other extrajudicial punishment of political activists, dissidents, or general population. Political repression can also be reinforced by means outside of written policy, such as by public and private media ownership and by self-censorship within the public. Where political repression is sanctioned and organised by the state, it may constitute state terrorism, genocide, politicide or cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stalinism
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, collectivization of agriculture, intensification of class conflict, a cult of personality, and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, deemed by Stalinism to be the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time. After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev thaw, de-Stalinization began in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin’s ideology begin to wane in the USSR. The second wave of de-Stalinization started during Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Glasnost. Stalin's regime forcibly purged society of what it saw as threats to itself and its brand of communism (so-called "enemies of the people"), which included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's Fair (''Jarmark Świętojański''), traditional Saint Martin's croissants and a local dialect. Among its most important heritage sites are the Renaissance Old Town, Town Hall and Gothic Cathedral. Poznań is the fifth-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. As of 2021, the city's population is 529,410, while the Poznań metropolitan area (''Metropolia Poznań'') comprising Poznań County and several other communities is inhabited by over 1.1 million people. It is one of four historical capitals of medieval Poland and the ancient capital of the Greater Poland region, currently the administrative capital of the province called Greater Poland Voivodeship. Poznań is a center of trade, sports, education, technology and touri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Greiser
Arthur Karl Greiser (22 January 1897 – 21 July 1946) was a Nazi German politician, SS-''Obergruppenführer'', ''Gauleiter'' and ''Reichsstatthalter'' (Reich Governor) of the German-occupied territory of ''Wartheland''. He was one of the persons primarily responsible for organizing the Holocaust in occupied Poland and numerous other crimes against humanity. He was arrested by the Americans in 1945, and was tried, convicted and executed by hanging in Poland in 1946. Early life and career Greiser was born in Schroda (Środa Wielkopolska), Province of Posen, Imperial Germany, Greiser was the son of a minor local bailiff (''Gerichtsvollzieher''). He learned to speak Polish fluently during his childhood. In 1903, he enrolled in elementary school, which was followed by two years of intermediate school and finally the Königlich-Humanistisches Gymnasium (Royal Humanities Secondary School) in Hohensalza, which he left in 1914 without receiving a diploma as in August that year he vol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reichsgau Wartheland
The ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (initially ''Reichsgau Posen'', also: ''Warthegau'') was a Nazi German ''Reichsgau'' formed from parts of Polish territory annexed in 1939 during World War II. It comprised the region of Greater Poland and adjacent areas. Parts of ''Warthegau'' matched the similarly named pre-Versailles Prussian province of Posen. The name was initially derived from the capital city, Posen (Poznań), and later from the main river, Warthe (Warta). During the Partitions of Poland from 1793, the bulk of the area had been annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia until 1807 as South Prussia. From 1815 to 1849, the territory was within the autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen, which was the Province of Posen until Poland was re-established in 1918–1919 following World War I. The area is currently the Greater Poland Voivodeship. Invasion and occupation of Poland After the invasion of Poland, the conquered territory of Greater Poland was split between four ''Reichsgaue'' and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gauleiter
A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a ''Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party, rank in the Nazi political leadership, subordinate only to ''Reichsleiter'' and to the ''Führer'' himself. The position was effectively abolished with the fall of the Nazi regime on 8 May 1945. History and development Origin and early years The first use of the term ''Gauleiter'' by the Nazi Party was in 1925 around the time Adolf Hitler re-founded the Party on 27 February, after the lifting of the ban that had been imposed on it in the aftermath of the Beer Hall Putsch of 9 November 1923. The word can be singular or plural in German usage, depending on its context, and derives from the German language, German words ''Gau (territory), Gau'' and ''leiter'' (''leader''). The word ''Gau'' is an old term for a region of the German ''Reich'' (Emp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
