Former communist interior minister General Czeslaw Kiszczak recruited Wojciech Jaruzelski for counter-intelligence purposes in the 1950s, reveals the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN).

IPN has found documents in the infamous German Stasi archives which allegedly prove that in 1952 the then colonel Wojciech Jaruzelski began cooperation with the then captain Czeslaw Kiszczak, who worked for the Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army – the military police and counter-espionage organ in communist Poland.

Both Jaruzelski and Kiszczak deny the accusations. “I have no idea where this sensational news came from. In 1952 I didn’t even know that in the Polish Army there was an officer named Wojciech Jaruzelski. I saw Jaruzelski for the first time in my life while I was a student at the Military Academy between 1954 and 1957,” said Kiszczak.

The former communist interior minister added that he personally met General Jaruzelski only in 1960s.

“There is only one word to describe this information – a lie,” General Wojciech Jaruzelski commented on his alleged cooperation with the counter-intelligence service.

The Institute of National Remembrance claims that a document in the East Germany Ministry of State Security’s (Stasi) archives, from 1986, reads: “the development of close ties between General Kiszczak and General Jaruzelski started at the beginning of 1950s, when Jaruzelski was a lecturer at the Military Academy and Kiszczak was responsible for counter-intelligence security of the academy. In 1952 Jaruzelski was recruited by Kiszczak as an “unofficial collaborator” and used for counter-intelligence tasks. The cooperation was highly praised as active and valuable. (mg)