Czesław Madajczyk (27 May 1921 – 15 February 2008) was a Polish historian. His studies on the German occupation of Europe after 1938, and in particular on the occupation of Poland and on World War II Polish culture, are considered particularly important by the European scholarly community.Gerhard Hirschfeld International Committee for the History of the Second World War
Retrieved on 28 May 2009Czesław Madajczyk (1921-2008)
, NAUKA 2/2008 • 170-171. Retrieved on 28 May 2009.

Life

Czesław Madajczyk was born on 27 May 1921 in

Jarocin Jarocin () is a town in west-central Poland with 25,700 inhabitants (1995), the administrative capital of Jarocin County in Greater Poland Voivodeship. Jarocin is a historical town, having been founded and granted city rights in the 13th century. ...

. In 1947 he received a law degree from the

University of Wrocław The University of Wrocław (, UWr; ) is a public research university in Wrocław, Poland. It is the largest institution of higher learning in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, with over 100,000 graduates since 1945, including some 1,900 researcher ...

. He was a member of the

Polish Socialist Party The Polish Socialist Party (, PPS) is a democratic socialist political party in Poland. It was one of the most significant parties in Poland from its founding in 1892 until its forced merger with the communist Polish Workers' Party to form ...

(PPS) in 1948, and then, when PPS was absorbed by the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR), he became a member of that party. From 1954 to 1958 he taught at the Higher School for Social Sciences at Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party and from 1954 to 1956 at Dzerzhinsky Political-Military Academy in Warsaw. In 1963 he attained the rank of professor. Madajczyk was an employee of the Institute of History at the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

from 1956, its professor from 1963 and its president from 1971 to 1983. From 1979 he was a corresponding member of PAN, and from 1991 a regular member of the Academy. He served the Vice-President of the Polish Committee of Historical Sciences from 1971 to 1985, and one of the Vice-Presidents of the International Committee for the History of the Second World War from 1980 to 1995. In the years 1982 - 1995 Madajczyk was a member of the scientific council of the Institute of the History of Europe in

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

. He was also the cofounder and editor of the ''Newest History Quarterly'' (Dzieje Najnowsze) and member of editorial staffs of ''Historical Quarterly'' (Kwartalnik Historyczny), '' Biographical Dictionary of Poland'' (Polski Słownik Biograficzny), ''Literary Monthly'' (Miesięcznik Literacki), ''Dictionary of Polish Learned Societies'' (Słownik polskich towarzystw naukowych), the ''Political Science Annual'' (Rocznik Nauk Politycznych). Till 1990 he was a member of the Polish-

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

historical commission. He died on 15 February 2008.

Work

His area of specialty was the

history of Poland The history of Poland spans over a thousand years, from Lechites, medieval tribes, Christianization of Poland, Christianization and Kingdom of Poland, monarchy; through Polish Golden Age, Poland's Golden Age, Polonization, expansionism and be ...

in the 20th century, particularly in World War II. He authored over 600 publications. Under the

People's Republic of Poland The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...

, Madajczyk received two National Awards (1972, 1986), a

Ministry of National Defense A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divide ...

Award, an Award of the Scientific Secretary of the

, Officer's and Knight's Crosses of the

Order of Polonia Restituta The Order of Polonia Restituta (, ) is a Polish state decoration, state Order (decoration), order established 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilians as well as on alien (law), foreigners for outstanding achievements in ...

, and the Order of the Banner of Labour, second class. German Professor of History at Stuttgart University, Gerhard Hirschfeld, President of the International Committee for the History of the Second World War, in his obituary praised Madajczyk as an "eminent historian, whose scholarly work on 20th Century Polish and European History has been widely acknowledged and respected" and who, through his work, enhanced greatly the understanding of German occupation policies and different experiences of people under Fascist oppression. Hirschfeld referred to Madajczyk's research on

Generalplan Ost The (; ), abbreviated GPO, was Nazi Germany's plan for the settlement and "Germanization" of captured territory in Eastern Europe, involving the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews, and o ...

and German war plans and the Soviet massacre at Katyn as "milestones of the historiography of the Second World War". Polish historian Andrzej Friszke described him as a ''great scholar'' whose work on German occupation of Poland is ''fundamental''.Zygmunt Mańkowski; Tadeusz Pieronek; Andrzej Friszke; Thomas Urban (panel discussion), "Polacy wypędzeni", Biuletyn IPN, nr5 (40) May 2004 / Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance (Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej), issue: 05 / 2004, pages: 628

German historian Professor

Karl Schlögel Karl Schlögel (born 7 March 1948 in Hawangen, Bavaria, Germany) is a noted German historian of Eastern Europe who specialises in modern Russia, the history of Stalinism, the Russian diaspora and dissident movements, Eastern European cultural hi ...

from

Viadrina European University European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) () is a university located at Frankfurt (Oder) in Brandenburg, Germany. It is also known as the University of Frankfurt (Oder). The city is on the Oder River, which marks the border between Germany ...

called Madajczyk a great historian that described the horror of German rule in occupied Poland. Polish historian Roman Wapiński, praising Madajczyk works on the occupation of Poland, and noting their positive international reception, at the same time criticized his works that dealt with the

economic history Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the Applied economics ...

of the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...

, and stated that they had the inevitable communist bias. Marek J. Chodakiewicz, Piotr Gontarczyk and Leszek Zebrowski in their book ''Tajne oblicze GL-AL, PPR: Dokumenty'' criticized Madajczyk, writing that he had been "at the ommunistparty's disposal" in reference to his description of relations of Polish Workers Party (PPR) and

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

during World War II. Polish-American historian Anna Cienciala, in a review of this work, commented: "''Of course, these adajczyk'sstatements camouflage the realities of the PPR-Comintern relationship, but they may have been the price agreed with the censor for publishing the documents in the first place.''" Cienciala further says that with the liberalization of Poland and the

fall of communism The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. Th ...

, in 1989 Madajczyk wrote an extensive work on Soviet

massacre A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...

of Polish POWs in Katyn.
mirror
Hirschfeld noted that during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, Madajczyk was a vocal supporter of scholarly cooperation, breaching the

Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...

Books

* Czesław Madajczyk, ''Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce'' (Politics of

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

Occupied Poland ' (Norwegian language, Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV 2 (Norway), TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. ...

Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN (''Polish Scientific Publishers PWN''; until 1991 ''Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe'' - ''National Scientific Publishers PWN'', PWN) is a Polish book publisher, founded in 1951, when it split from the Wydawnictwa Szkolne i ...

, Warszawa 1970 * Czesław Madajczyk, ''Kultura europejska a faszyzm'' (

Fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

and

European Culture The culture of Europe is diverse, and rooted in its art, architecture, traditions, cuisines, music, folklore, embroidery, film, literature, economics, philosophy and religious customs. Definition Whilst there are a great number of pers ...

), Warszawa 1979. German translation by Berthold Puchert of revised edition, "Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939–1945", Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1987. * Czeslaw Madajeczyk, ''System okupacyjne mocy osi. Próba analizy porównawczej'', w: Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, Poznan 1980'' * Czesław Madajczyk, ''Faszyzm i okupacje 1938-1945. Wykonywanie okupacji przez państwa Osi w Europie'' (Fascism and 1938-1945 occupations. Maintaining Nazi Power in Europe), t. I-II. Warszawa 1983 * Czesław Madajczyk, ''Dramat katyński'' Książka i Wiedza 1989

References

* Magdalena Bajer
Madajczykowie
Forum akademickie. Ogólnopolski miesięcznik informacyjno-publicystyczny, LUBLIN

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madajczyk, Czeslaw 1921 births 2008 deaths People from Jarocin Polish Socialist Party politicians Polish United Workers' Party members 20th-century Polish historians Polish male non-fiction writers Knights of the Order of Polonia Restituta Recipients of the Order of the Banner of Work University of Wrocław alumni Historians of Poland