Władysław Wawrzyniak

Who was Władysław Wawrzyniak?

Władysław Wawrzyniak was a Polish military commander, holding the rank of major.

Władysław Wawrzyniak was born in 1890 in the Polish village Antonin in the German Province of Posen. He finished the Gymnasium in Ostrów and studied law at the Universities of Munich and Breslau. He was an active participant in the events of the Republic of Ostrów and was given command of the newly formed First Polish Infantry Regiment which was formally sworn in on 13 November 1918. A couple of weeks later the unit was disbanded under pressure from German authorities and those in Poznań. The soldiers of the First Regiment made their way to the territory of Second Polish Republic. Some of the weapons and ammunition were evacuated from Ostrów to Kalisz too. A new unit called "Oddzial Poznanski" was formed and Wawrzyniak was given command. Many soldiers of the disbanded First Regiment joined the unit which was renamed to Border Battalion in December. A month later, in January 1919, Wawrzyniak took Ostrów again. During the Greater Poland Uprising he was the commander of the 7th district controlled by the insurgents, which included Ostrów Wielkopolski, Odolanów, Ostrzeszów, and Kępno.