EU, Bilderberg co-founder born in Poland 129 years ago
April 17 marks the 129th birth anniversary of Jozef Retinger (Apr. 17 1888 – June 12 1960), a Polish political adviser who co-founded the European Movement that led to the establishment of the European Union and was involved in founding the Bilderberg Group.
Retinger was born in Krakow, south Poland as the youngest of four children. His father, Jozef Stanislaw Retinger, was the personal legal counsel and adviser to Count Wladyslaw Zamoyski, a prominent Polish aristocrat, who took the young Retinger into his care when his father died.
In 1906 Retinger enrolled in the Sorbonne and was the youngest person to earn a Ph.D. there (at age twenty). He moved to England in 1911, where he befriended the Polish-English writer Joseph Conrad. Retinger wrote about Conrad in his 1943 book Conrad and His Contemporaries.
During World War II Retinger advised the Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile, General Wladyslaw Sikorski (see: NOTE 1 - PAP). In 1944 he parachuted into occupied Poland in the so-called Operation Salamander to meet leading political figures and deliver funds to the Polish underground. He survived an unsuccessful assassination attempt by the Polish Home Army (AK) (see: NOTE 2 - PAP), whose commanders were mistrustful of his secret mission into Poland.
In July 1944 Retinger partakes in the famous "Most III" (Polish for 'Bridge III' - PAP) mission whose goal was the delivery of the Poland's Home Army-captured elements of world's first modern ballistic missile, German 'Wunderwaffe' V-2 rocket with documentation to the British intelligence for analysis. Jozef Retinger happens to be on the plane which smuggles him out of German-occupied Poland along with other agents as well as the very parts of the deadly rocket that towards the end of the war terrified London and other British cities with hundreds of hits, resulting in major infrastructure destruction and death of many citizens.
During the war Retinger was also known for his ample financial contributions to aid the Polish underground to which he is said to have transferred millions of dollars on behalf of U.S. and the Great Britain.
After the war Retinger was exiled from Poland by its communist government and became a leading advocate of European unity. He helped found both the European Movement (see: NOTE 3 - PAP) and the Council of Europe, and in later years served as the European Movement's Honorary Secretary General. Retinger also initiated the Bilderberg conferences in 1954 (see: NOTE 4) and was their secretary until his
Among others, Jozef Retinger discusses his views on united Europe with Card. Giovanni Montini who later becomes the Pope Paul VI, however, once the Great Britain shifts away from the integration idea to the end of 1940s, Retinger too loses interest in the concept and gives up his activity in this matter.
In May of 1954 world's most prominent leaders gather at the Bilderberg hotel near Arnhem in Holland. Although the noble guests on top with hundreds of presidents, government offcials, royal heads and business, industry moguls are officially hosted by the Dutch Royal family, it is Jozef Retinger believed to stand behind the organisation of the grand event which from that moment will be called the Bilderberg Club (see: NOTE 4) with Jozef Retinger serving as its secretary until his death of lung cancer in in 1960.
He is buried at North Sheen Cemetery. (PAP)
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NOTE 1: General Sikorski, whom Retinger advised during World War Two, was the first prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile formed in the aftermath of the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and their subsequent occupation of the country.
Despite Poland's occupation by the two hostile powers, the government-in-exile exerted considerable influence in Poland during the war through the structures of the Polish Underground State and its military arm, the Home Army. Under the authority of the government-in-exile Polish military units that had escaped the occupation fought under their own commanders as part of Allied forces in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
In July 1943 Sikorski was killed in an air accident when a plane carrying him and several other persons plunged into the sea immediately after takeoff from Gibraltar, killing all on board except the pilot. The exact circumstances of the crash have been disputed, giving rise to a number of conspiracy theories surrounding his death. Sikorski had been the most prestigious leader of the Polish exile government and his death was a major setback for the Polish cause during World War II.
NOTE 2: Founded in 1942, the Home Army, which nearly assassinated Retinger during his stay in Poland, was the largest underground resistance movement in German-occupied Europe, with up to half a million soldiers fighting in its ranks. In his book 'God's Playground. A History of Poland', historian Norman Davies said that "the Home Army could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance [organisations]".
Along with various combat activities, the AK was also widely involved in rescuing fellow citizens of Jewish descent, among others through the famous 1942-founded Council to Aid Jews codenamed 'Zegota' - the only organisation in Europe and the world established to defend and provide help to Jewish people in ghettos and outside.
After the war many Home Army soldiers refused to lay down their arms and continued fighting against Poland's Soviet-imposed communist regime, winning the name "Enduring Soldiers". They are also sometimes called the "Cursed Soldiers" for being treated as outlaws and forced into oblivion by the communist state. The last of the Enduring Soldiers perished in an ambush as late as 1963.
NOTE 3: The European Movement International co-founded by Jozef Retinger is a lobbying association coordinating the efforts of associations and national councils to promote European integration. Its origins date to July 1947, when European unity was being promoted in the form of the Anglo-French United European Movement. The UEM was a co-ordinating platform for European organisations created in the wake of World War II.
The European Movement was formally initiated on October 25 1948, with Duncan Sandys as its President and Leon Blum, Winston Churchill, Alcide De Gasperi and Paul-Henri Spaak as Honorary Presidents. The first major achievement of the European Movement was the May 1949 establishment of the Council of Europe, the Movement was also responsible for the creation of the College of Europe in Bruges and the European Centre of Culture in Geneva. From the 1950s to the 1990s one of its major functions was setting up think-tanks and a network of discussion groups across Europe, both in democratic and Communist countries.
NOTE 4: The Bilderberg Group which Jozef Retinger helped co-initiate, also known as the Bilderberg conference, Bilderberg meetings or Bilderberg Club, is a 1954-established annual private conference of 120 to 150 people from the European and North American political elite and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media. The first Bilderberg conference, among others, initiated by Retinger, was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands, from May 29 to 31 1954. It has operated to date. (PAP)
