Emil August Fieldorf Emil August Fieldorf " " Nil " " ( 20 March 1895 – 24 February 1953 ) was a Polish Brigadier General . He was Deputy Commander - in - Chief of the Home Army ( Armia Krajowa ) or AK , after the failure of the Warsaw Uprising ( Oct . 1944 – Jan . 1945 ) . Fieldorf was executed in 1953 by the People ' s Republic of Poland . Biography . General Fieldorf ' s ancestors were partially of German origin . He was born 20 March 1895 in Kraków . There he finished men ' s college of St . Nicholas and later a seminary . In 1910 he joined the Polish pro - independence paramilitary organization Riflemen ' s Association , becoming a full member in 1912 . He also finished the school for non - commissioned officer s . World War I . On 6 August 1914 , Fieldorf volunteered for the newly formed 1st Brigade of the Legions under Józef Piłsudski . With them he set out for the Russian Front , where he served in the position of second - in - command of an infantry platoon . In 1916 he was promoted to Sergeant , and in 1917 directed to officer school . After the oath crisis he was pressed into the Austrian Army and moved to the Italian front , which he abandoned to return to Poland . In August 1918 he volunteered at the Polish Military Organisation in his home city of Kraków . Formation of a new Polish state . From November 1918 Fieldorf served in the ranks of the Polish Army in the newly forming Second Republic , initially as a platoon commander , and from March 1919 commanded a heavy machine gun company . In 1919 and 1920 he took part in the campaign to join the Wilno region to Poland proper . After the commencement of the Polish - Bolshevik War , as a company commander he participated in liberating Dyneburg , Żytomierz and in the 1920 Polish Expedition to Kiev . Fieldorf married Janina Kobylinska in 1919 , with whom he had two daughters , Krystyna and Maria . Remaining on active duty after World War I , he was promoted to Major and posted to the 1st Polish Infantry Regiment , as a battalion commander . In 1935 he was given command of the " Troki " independent battalion of the Border Protection Corps . A year later , he became a Lieutenant Colonel . Shortly before the outbreak of World War II , he was made commander of the 51st Giuseppe Garibaldi Rifle Regiment within the 12th Infantry Division on the eastern fringes of Poland ( Kresy Wschodnie ) . World War II . Fieldorf commanded his regiment during the Polish September Campaign . After the Division ' s defeat , on the night of September 8 – 9 , he fled in civilian clothes to his native Kraków . From there he attempted to get to France , but was stopped on the Slovak border . He was interned in October 1939 , but fled several weeks later from a camp and reached France via Hungary , where he joined the newly - forming Polish Armed Forces in the West . In France he completed staff courses and was promoted to full Colonel in May 1940 . In September of that year , he was smuggled back to occupied Poland as the first emissary of the Polish government - in - exile , under the " nom de guerre " " Nil " which he had chosen for himself . His circuitous route back to Poland took him through South Africa , and by air , over Rhodesia , Sudan , and Egypt , then on to Romania , and by train to Poland . His aeroplane ' s flight - path over Sudan and Egypt followed the Nile , hence his nom de guerre , " Nil " ( Nile in Polish ) . He initially joined the Union of Armed Struggle in Warsaw and from 1941 in Wilno and in Białystok . A year later he was given command of the Kedyw ( special operations executive ) of the AK , where he served until February 1944 . It was on his order that the infamous SS and Police Leader Franz Kutschera was assassinated on February 2 , 1944 in Operation Kutschera by Szare Szeregi . Shortly before the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising on September 28 , 1944 , he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General with an order from the Supreme Commander Kazimierz Sosnkowski . He became the deputy commander - in - chief of the AK under General Leopold Okulicki in October 1944 . He was also nominated for future command of the NIE Organisation , which was formed from the cadre of the AK with the intention of resisting the new Polish Stalinist government . Arrests and execution . On 7 March 1945 , Fieldorf was arrested by the Soviet NKVD in the town of Milanówek . Initially , he was misidentified under the name Walenty Gdanicki and sent to a forced labour camp in the Ural Mountains . Released in 1947 , he returned to new Poland ruled by the stalinist Polish Workers ' Party government and the increasingly repressive Ministry of Public Security . He settled in Biała Podlaska under his assumed name and did not return to underground activities . Moving between Warsaw and Kraków , he eventually settled in Łódź . The Stalinist government , which was persecuting former resistance members loyal to the London - based government - in - exile , offered an amnesty to them , in 1948 . Not knowing that the amnesty was a sham , Fieldorf outed himself to the authorities . He was then placed under investigatory arrest in Warsaw . In prison he refused to collaborate with the Communist security services , even under torture . General Fieldorf ' s brutal interrogations were personally supervised by MBP colonel Józef Różański . Kazimierz Gorski , Polish secret police , the UB interrogator , testified in 1997 : " " [ Józef ] Różański would stop by frequently during many of my interrogations of general [ August ] Fieldorf , and he would have conversations with him on many subjects . The prosecuting attorney Benjamin Wajsblech would show up frequently as well , and would , on many occasions , give me verbal instructions . I prepared a decision to refuse the general ' s [ defense ] evidence materials . I wrote it under the dictation of Wajsblech . I didn ' t decide as to whom , and how , I should interrogate " . " Fieldorf was accused by prosecutor Helena Wolińska - Brus of being a " fascist - Hitlerite criminal " and having ordered an execution of Soviet partisans while serving in the AK . After a kangaroo court trial , he was sentenced to death on 16 April 1952 by the presiding judge Maria Gurowska . An appeal to a higher court failed , and the family ' s plea for a pardon was denied by then the communist leader Bolesław Bierut who refused to grant clemency . The sentence was carried out , by hanging , on 24 February 1953 at 3 : 00 pm in the infamous Mokotów Prison in Warsaw . The Communist Prosecuting Attorney Wiktor Gattner described General Fieldorf ' s last moments as follows : " I asked the condemned if he had any wishes . Fieldorf responded : - ' Please notify my family ' . I stated that his family would be notified [ . . . ] The condemned persistently looked straight into my eyes . He stood erect . No one was holding him . He made an appearance of a very strong man . One would almost admire his composure amidst such dramatic events . He neither screamed , nor made any gestures . I said : Carry out [ the execution ] ! The executioner and one of the guards approached the condemned [ … ] I went to see the warden afterwards , and then by my own hand I prepared the protocol of the execution . " General Fieldorf ' s body was never returned to his family , and remains buried in an unknown location to this day . In 2009 , an article in a British newspaper suggested that Fieldorf was buried in a mass grave in a Warsaw cemetery , together with the remains of 248 other murdered Polish patriots . In 1958 the prosecutor ' s office discontinued any further investigations . In 1972 a statue was erected on his symbolic grave . In 1989 , following the collapse of Communist Poland , Fieldorf was officially rehabilitated . In 2006 President Lech Kaczyński posthumously awarded him the Order of the White Eagle . In 2012 the alleged grave site is to be searched for Fieldorf ' s remains . Search for justice . gen . bryg . A . E . Fieldorf ' s daughter Maria Fieldorf Czarska called for the prosecutor responsible for the execution of her father , Helena Wolińska - Brus ( who lived in Oxford , England until her death in 2008 ) , to be brought to face justice in Poland . Wolińska , a military prosecutor in the 1950s , was accused of aiding in the investigation and trial that resulted in Fieldorf ' s execution . Wolińska signed Fieldorf ' s arrest warrant and extended his detention several times , although she was aware of his innocence . A 1956 report issued by the communist authorities concluded that Wolińska had violated the rule of law and was involved in mock investigations and show trials that frequently resulted in executions . The charges against her were initiated by the Commission for Investigating Crimes against the Polish Nation , which claimed that Wolińska was an " accessory to a court murder " , classified as a stalinist crime , and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison . The case attracted international attention . The United Kingdom refused to extradite her , and Wolińska - Brus died on 26 November 2008 without being brought to justice . Speaking about other individuals who have had complicity in the court - sanctioned murder ( that is of fabricated evidence ) of her father , Maria Fieldorf - Czarska said : " I can neither allow the investigation [ into the murder ] of my father to be closed , nor to allow the following individuals to escape justice : the Deputy Director of Justice at the General Prosecutors ' Office , Alicja Graff , the Prosecuting Attorney , Wiktor Gattner , and the Interrogator , Kazimierz Gorski . They could have refused [ to take part in my father ' s murder ] . No one forced them either physically or psychologically [ to do it ] . I demand that the people who murdered my father be brought to justice [ . . . ] I dream of Poland , whose institutions of justice are transparent and worthy of true respect and confidence . These types of institutions ought to be the foundation of a sovereign nation . I would want us , Poles , so much , to be able to choose our own examples to follow , and not those promoted by others . " Feature film . In ( 2009 ) a historical drama movie entitled " Generał Nil " based on Fieldorf ' s life premiered in Poland to generally positive reviews . It was directed by Ryszard Bugajski with Olgierd Łukaszewicz in the title role .