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“He’s a pretty nice person.” Józef Retinger and the Civilian Intelligence Service of the People’s Republic of Poland
Remembrance and Justice, Vol. 35 No. 1 (2020), pages: 477-492
Publication date: 2020-06-30
https://doi.org/10.48261/pis203521
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Abstract
Józef Retinger is one of the most colourful, and at the same time puzzling, figures in the recent history of Poland. During the Second World War, he was a political advisor and grey eminence to the head of the Polish government, General Władysław Sikorski, and after the war he remained in exile. He was very active in promoting European unity. He founded the politically influential Bilderberg Group. He was suspected of being a British intelligence agent. He was also accused of working for the secret services of several other states, and of being a freemason. In the second half of the 1950s, the ntelligence service of the PRL took an interest in Retinger. This is a little-known episode in Retinger’s fascinating biography, though in fact the event is well documented in the sources. Captain Andrzej Kłos ‘Oskar’, an officer resident in London who went by the name of Jerzy Klinger as the director of the London branch of the Polish Press Agency, established contact with Retinger. Their meetings were of a social nature, and the information provided by Retinger was of minor operational value, often concerning historical issues. Practically, contact with Retinger was broken off in 1958 when Cpt. Kłos returned to Poland.
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