Tadeusz Nowakowski

Tadeusz Nowakowski, ca. 1950.
Tadeusz Nowakowski, ca. 1950.

Tadeusz Nowakowski was born in Olsztyn in North-East Poland on 8th November 1917. His parents were Stanisław Nowakowski and Emilia Górka. Stanisław was a historian, journalist and Polish activist in the battle for independence in Warmia, a region in Northern Poland. When Warmia fell to Germany after a referendum in 1920, the family was forced to leave Olsztyn and moved to Bydgoszcz in the newly reborn Poland. Here Stanisław Nowakowski found a job as an editor with the local newspaper “Dziennik Bydgoski” (The Bydgoszcz Daily).
Tadeusz spent his childhood and youth in Bydgoszcz, which he regarded as his home town for the rest of his life. Here he visited the primary school and here he passed his A-levels at the public humanist Marschal-Rydz-Śmigły grammar school (Państwowe Gimnazjum im. Marszałka Śmigłego-Rydza). There he was the editor of the school paper “Ogniwa” (Connections), in which he also published his first early work. He also wrote poems and articles on the arts for the Bydgoszcz Daily, and worked as an editor on a programme for Boy Scouts at the newly founded studio of the Polish radio in Bydgoszcz. In 1936 he began a course in Polish at Warsaw University, which was named after Józef Piłsudski at the time.

After the outbreak of war he joined the Warsaw Defence Voluntary Workers’ Brigade (Ochotnicza Robotnicza Brygada Obrony Warszawy), a Civil Defence unit set up by the Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna). He was never officially called up because he was considered unfit for military duty on the grounds of his diabetes and a visual impairment. At the end of 1939 he managed to get to Włocławek, where his mother and sisters had moved after their father had been arrested in Bydgoszcz and deported to the concentration camp there (Stanisław Nowakowski died in Dachau in 1942).

In December 1940 Tadeusz Nowakowski was arrested and accused of distributing leaflets and leading an underground newspaper. He was tried and sentenced to death on the grounds that he had led resistance activities to promote “the separation of Greater Poland from the Third Reich”. But since his German was excellent, he entered a formal appeal on the grounds that his public defenders, local “volksdeutsche” were only capable of passively understanding the German language and could only partially speak it. Hence this made it impossible for him to have an appropriate and orderly defence. The court allowed his appeal and “pardoned” Nowakowski, by commuting the death sentence to 30 years imprisonment in a concentration camp.

Media library
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski und Teresa Kiersnowska in Maczków 1946

    Tadeusz Nowakowski und Teresa Kiersnowska (am Mikrofon) in der Revue „Nachmittag mit Mikrofon“ (Podwieczorek przy mikrofonie) in Maczków 1946.
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski, ca. 1950

    Tadeusz Nowakowski, ca. 1950
  • Teresa und Tadeusz Nowakowski in Maczków 1946

    Teresa und Tadeusz Nowakowski nach der Heirat in Maczków, 1946.
  • Tadeusz Nowakowskis by work for Radio

    Tadeusz Nowakowskis by work for Radio Free Europe, 1957.
  • Nach der Hochzeit in Maczków, 1946

    Teresa und Tadeusz Nowakowski nach der Hochzeit
  • Tadeusz Nowakowskis talk with Witold Gombrowicz

    in Munich, 1963.
  • Nach der Hochzeit in Maczków, 1946

    Teresa und Tadeusz Nowakowski nach der Heirat in Maczków, 1946.
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski (right) by meeting in Radio Free Europe in Munich

    From left: Lechosław Gawlikowski, Jeremi Sadowski, Zygmunt Michałowski, Józef Ptaczek.
  • Teresa und Tadeusz Nowakowski in Maczków 1946

    Teresa und Tadeusz Nowakowski (oben von links) in Maczków 1946
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski and Johannes Paul II.

    Tadeusz Nowakowski and Johannes Paul II.
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski in Maczków 1946

    Tadeusz Nowakowski, Fotografie aus seinem in Maczków ausgestellten Personalausweis, 1946.
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski with his son Marek by Johannes Paul II in Vatikan.

    Tadeusz Nowakowski with his son Marek by Johannes Paul II in Vatikan.
  • Ryszard Kiersnowski in Maczków 1946

    Ryszard Kiersnowski (Tadeusz´ Schwager), Kriegsberichterstatter der Ersten Panzerdivision von General Maczek, Maczków, 1946.
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski with Richard von Weizsäcker

    Tadeusz Nowakowski with Richard von Weizsäcker, President of Federal Republic of Germany, 1985.
  • Honourary board for Tadeusz Nowakowski

    Honourary board for Tadeusz Nowakowski in Bydgoszcz / Poland.
  • Birthplace of Tadeusz Nowakowski in Bydgoszcz, Podgórna Street 15, 2015.

    Birthplace of Tadeusz Nowakowski in Bydgoszcz, Podgórna Street 15, 2015.
  • Nowakowski novel „Obóz wszystkich świętych“

    Nowakowski novel „Obóz wszystkich świętych“ (german: Polonaise Allerheiligen,1964), Paris 1957.
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski „Obóz wszystkich świętych“, Warszawa 2003

    Introduction, editing and notes: Wacław Lewandowski.
  • Teresa Nowakowski (101) im Gespräch mit Sohn Krzysztof, London 2019.

    Teresa Nowakowski (101) im Gespräch mit Sohn Krzysztof, London 2019 (auf Polnisch).
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski - Hörspiel von "COSMO Radio po polsku" auf Deutsch

    In Zusammenarbeit mit "COSMO Radio po polsku" präsentieren wir Hörspiele zu ausgewählten Themen unseres Portals.