Secret Military Publishing Works – publishing and printing apparatus of the Polish Underground State operating from 1940 to 1945 in Warsaw and another cities of the General Government as a department of the Information and Propaganda Office of the Home Army Headquarters. The first secret printery was launched in Warsaw in the autumn of 1940. By the beginning of 1944, having already had 12 plants, TWZW became the largest printing company of underground Europe. At the highest of the period of improvement – at the turn of 1943 and 1944 – TWZW printed on average 248 500 copies of magazines, 6,500 brochures and 120,000 copies of leaflets each month, utilizing about 5 tonnes of paper purchased on the black market. Their staff counted 50 full-time employees. In total, over a million copies of conspiracy writings have been produced by TWZW printers throughout their activities, over 1 million brochures, instructions and another compact printings, around 1 million leaflets and about 1 million N-action printings; they have spread across the country (and in the case of N-prints besides abroad). Throughout the period of operation (1940–1945), production of TWZW exceeded respective million copies of various printings.
During the Warsaw Uprising, TWZW was transformed into Military Publishing Plants managing all insurgent printing
The creator and manager of the structure of the Secret Military Publishing Works was Jerzy Rutkowski, “Michal” and “Kmita” during the German business in Poland. TWZW were, among others, the publisher of the first edition of Alexander Kamiński's book entitled: “The Stones for the Sun” and the first edition of Arkady Fiedler's national book “Division 303”.
Secretary of Secret Military Publishing Works was Jerzy Rutkowski's younger sister – Maria Mierzejewska, ps. “Janka” (my husband's grandmother). Jerzy Mierzejewski ps. “Jack” (my husband's grandfather) was at the head of Plant No. 3. The plant was managed by Jerzy's older brother Czesław Mierzejewski, ps. “Mark”.
JERZY Rutkowski, a character whose résumé would be adequate for a screenplay of respective films, was born on 23 April 1914 in Kiev, died on 18 December 1989 in Warsaw. Polish lawyer, political activist of the national camp, associate of the National-Radical Movement “Falanga”, manager, initiator and manager of the Secret Military Publishing Works of the Polish Underground State, officer of the National Army in the rank of lieutenant.
He attended gymnasiums in Lutsk and Chełma, where he obtained his GED (1932). He then began his studies at the Faculty of Law at the University of Warsaw. During his studies, he joined the Academic Section of the Camp of large Poland (POP). At that time he started working with the academic activist OWP – Bolesław Piasecki. He was 1 of the eleven signatories to the Declaration of the National-Radical Camp, announced on 14 April 1934 in the letter “Sztafeta”. In June 1934 after the assassination of Bronisław Pieracki, Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Poland, Jerzy Rutkowski, along with another activists ONR (an organization originally suspected by the police for the assassination) was arrested and imprisoned in an investigative detention on Danilowiczowska Street in Warsaw.
After his release in 1935, he moved distant from political activity and after winning a competition written by the Franciscan order from Niepokalanowa for the organization of the magazine tiny diary took over as method editor. The editor-in-chief of the tiny diary and another Franciscan publishing houses was Father Marian Wójcik, and 1 of the employees of Maximilian Kolbe, with whom Jerzy Rutkowski as method editor of the Franciscan publishing houses worked closely.
In 1937 he again collaborated with Bolesław Piasecki and the National-Radical Movement Group (ONR-Falanga). He belonged to the RNR management, and there were organizational meetings in his apartment. At that time, after the death of Marshal Piłsudski, part of the sanatorium camp headed by Edward Rydze-Śmigły in relation to the ongoing fight in the camp, the walsudczyks decided to grow the base of government by referring to the nationalist sentiments and youth environments of the national camp. The promoter of this concept was Colonel Adam Koc, head of the then established National Unity Camp (OZN). The OZN youth organization became established in June 1937, in which members of Falangi took the stand. 1 of them was seconded by Bolesław Piasecki Jerzy Rutkowski – deputy president of the Young Union of Poland (president was Adam Koc), and since 28 October 1937 manager of ZMP. In ZMP Rutkowski, he besides served as editor-in-chief of Young Poland magazine. Under his leadership, the MP had more than 40,000 members. In view of the fierce opposition in the Pilsudczyk camp to Adam Koc's political line, he was removed from both the management of the OZN and the ZMP, which consequently meant Rutkowski's speech from the ZMP in April 1938. Rutkowski returned to work in the tiny diary and after an episodeic participation in the works of ONR-Falang in 1938, he again declared to cease political activity.
During the September run he fought in the ranks of the 45th infantry regiment in Lublin. The prisoner was imprisoned in Germany. He escaped from the distribution camp in Przeworsk and got to Warsaw, where after the cure he started conspiracy activity. At the turn of February and March 1940, through Major Tadeusz Kruk-Strzelecki, the first head of the BIP ZWZ, he submitted to Colonel Stefan Grot-Rowecki, at the time the commandant of the ZWZ in the areas occupied by Germany, a task based on publishing activity on a successively expanded, completely contravened and well equipped printing apparatus. As a result, in March 1940, he became head of the Secret Military Publishing Plant (TWZW). These factories became the largest underground printing company of occupied Europe run on a company basis. The Head Office (later the AK) has since resigned from ordering the printing of conspiracy magazines to small, legally functioning printers.
On April 19, 1944, he was arrested, taken to the Gestapo, imprisoned in Pawiak and Szucha Avenue. Initially tortured, later by utilizing the Gestapo's desire to talk to the underground Jerzy Rutkowski led in early June 1944 to an apparent escape, which became a real escape.
After his release, he returned to underground work. After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, he took charge of the full printing of the Uprising as the head of Military Publishing Works. On 5 August 1944, he received a nomination from the Government Delegation for the country as Commissioner for Printing Affairs at Warsaw. He ran respective insurgent printers. Jerzy Rutkowski was besides liable for the allocation of printers to individual political organizations, and he decided to make available the PPR printers at the request of its delegates. He was besides subject to a well-armed printing unit, which won respective Warsaw printing plants at the time of the uprising, and besides contributed to gaining the Main Post, for which Rutkowski received the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari.
After the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, he stayed successively in stalags and oflags: Lamsdorf, Gross-Born and Sandbostel. After a short stay in Paris and Brussels, he returned to the country in August 1945. In September 1945, he took over as a typical of the Management Board of the Polish Red Cross for the receipt of abroad supplies and organized the exhibition ZG PCK for ports of Gdynia and Gdańsk based in Gdynia port, which he personally directed. He held this function until 1947, after which he became the head of the Financial Department of ZG PCK.
In 1953, he accepted Bolesław Piasecki's proposal and became the chief executive of the Industrial-Trade Centre "INCO". After Polish October, he was the creator of the provisions of the PAX Association in the years 1958–1961, which allowed non-state multi-branch enterprises and social organizations to operate. As a result, more than 20 non-state production plants have taken up economical activity – the economical base of the PAX association throughout the period of the PRL. It was reorganized in the early 1960s in the alleged United economical Teams INCO, and Jerzy Rutkowski served as the manager and chief executive of the Management Board of manufacture and Trade. He was a associate of the PAX chief authorities. He was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari, the conflict Cross, after the war with the Knight Cross and the Commander Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
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