Leopold Okulicki

Leopold Okulicki
Okulicki in the Second Republic
Nickname(s)	Kobra, Niedźwiadek
Born	November 1898 Bratucice
Died	24 December 1946 Butyrka prison
Awards	Order of Virtuti Militari (Gold Cross) Order of Virtuti Militari (Silver Cross) Cross of Valour (4 times) Cross of Merit with Swords (Gold)

General Leopold Okulicki (noms de guerre Kobra, Niedźwiadek; 1898 – 1946) was a General of the Polish Army and the last commander of the anti-German underground Home Army during World War II. He was murdered after the war by the Soviet NKVD.

Okulicki was born in November 1898 in Bratucice, Bochnia County in the Austrian section of partitioned Poland ("Galicia"). His exact date of birth is unknown as the birth record was not preserved in Polish archives and Okulicki himself used two dates: 11 November and 13 November. In 1910 he joined a local gymnasium, and after 1913 he was also an active member of the Związek Strzelecki. The following year, at the age of 16, after finishing basic military training, Okulicki passed his NCO exams. After the outbreak of World War I, in October 1915, he left school and volunteered for the Polish Legions, where he served with distinction in the 3rd Legions Infantry Regiment.

He remained in the Polish Army and fought in various units both during the Great War and the following Polish-Bolshevik War (1919–1921), decorated with the highest Polish military Order of Virtuti Militari. In the interwar period he remained in the army and in 1925 graduated from the prestigious Warsaw Military Academy. Afterwards Okulicki took a post in Grodno local corps headquarters. Until the late 1930s he taught at the Infantry Training Centre in Rembertów, and became commanding officer of Polish 13th Infantry Division.