page_title: Henryk Flame
section_title: After the war (in the NSZ)
hierarchical_section_title: Henryk Flame / After the war (in the NSZ)
caption_attribution_description: Henryk Flame po amnestii w 1947r.
context_page_description: Henryk Antoni Flame was a corporal and pilot in the Polish Air Force, and a captain of the anti-Nazi, and anti-Communist resistance organization NSZ.
context_section_description: On February 12, 1945, the Red Army entered Czechowice. Flame, acting on the orders of NSZ command, revealed himself to Soviet authorities and together with his men presented himself at their disposal. However, at the same time, the group retained its conspiratorial structure (the ostensible purpose was to infiltrate the Communist authorities and bureaucracy with NSZ men). Despite objections from local communist activist, Flame was made the commandant of the Czechowice milicja (MO). Realizing the orders of NSZ command he put his own men in charge of the police force and hired other anti-communists into the militia. At the same time he began stockpiling weapons knowing that sooner or later a confrontation with the real communists was inevitable.
  In April 1945 he was once again threatened with arrest, this time by the communists. As before he escaped to the forests, assumed the nom-de-guerre "Bartek" and created a partisan unit - the NSZ Group of the 7th Region of Silesia and Cieszyn. From May 1945 until February 1947 Flame "Bartek", led the largest anti-communist partisan group in the Zaolzie region. At its height his unit numbered 300 men, all of whom had military uniforms and were well armed thanks to Flame's previous efforts as commandant of the MO. All together the group carried out around 340 military actions. Among the best known occurred when Flame's men marched in formation through the town of Wisła. This military parade lasted two hours and took place in full sight of the local communist authorities who could not do anything about it. This demonstration of power by the "King of the Beskid foothills", as Flame soon became known, remained a source of embarrassment for the communist authorities even after Flame's death and underlined the lack of support for communists in the Cieszyn region.
caption: Henryk Flame, first from the right, photographed after the 1947 amnesty
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