Stefan Olszowski

Olszowski was born in Torun on 28 August 1931.^[1] He was a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party from December 1970 to his resignation on 12 November 1985.^[2][3] He served as the propaganda chief of the party in the late 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s.^[4][5]

Olszowski was appointed foreign minister on 22 December 1971, replacing Stefan Jędrychowski in the post.^[6] He was in office until 2 December 1976 when Emil Wojtaszek replaced him in the post.^[6] In 1980, he was appointed ambassador to East Germany and left the politburo for this post that he held just six months.^[3] Then he continued to serve at the politburo.^[3] He acted as the party's central committee secretary for ideology and media from August 1980 to July 1982.^[7][8] Then he was secondly appointed foreign minister in July 1982, replacing Józef Czyrek in the post.^[8] Before his appointment as foreign minister he run for the presidency of the party, but he was not elected.^[9] His term as foreign minister ended on 12 November 1985.^[10] He was also dismissed from the party leadership in 1985, partly due to his relationship with a Polish journalist whom he married after divorcing his first spouse.^[11] Then he and his girlfriend settled in New York in 1986.^[12][13]

Under the Edward Gierek's rule in the party, Olszowski was a reformist.^[14] However, later he became a hard-liner politician and a supporter of the Soviet Union while he was in office.^[12] In March 1968, he was the leading orchestrator of the anti-Semitic campaign began in Poland.^[4] In November 1973, he paid an official visit to Rome that was the first official visit to the Vatican by a Polish government minister since World War II.^[15][16] However, during the visit of Pope to Poland from 16 to 23 June 1983 he and Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski directly attacked on some of the Pope's pronouncements.^[17]

Olszowski together with other hard-liners strived for an armed confrontation with the Solidarity movement.^[18] He was instrumental in cracking down the movement at its initial phase.^[12]

Olszowski married twice. Following his divorce, he married a younger Polish journalist woman.^[13] They live in New York.^[13]

Stefan Olszowski died on 19 December 2023, at the age of 92.^[19]

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