Antoni Macierewicz

Date of Birth: 03.08.1948

Antoni Macierewicz - Polish politician, historian, teacher, journalist. From 2015 to 2018, he was the Minister of Defense of Poland. Previously, he had worked at various times as Minister of the Interior, Head of Counterintelligence, and served as a Member of the Sejm and the European Parliament.

Place of Birth. Education. He was born on August 3, 1948, in Warsaw as the youngest of three children in a family of scientists (his father was a chemist, and his mother a biologist).

In 1971, he graduated from the historical faculty of the University of Warsaw. He then worked in the Laboratory for the History of Latin America and Africa at the Polish Academy of Sciences, focusing on Latin America. Since 1981, he has taught at Jagiellonian University.

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Political Career. Since 1968, he was an active anti-communist. He was involved in the founding of the opposition organization Committee for the Defence of Workers, which became the predecessor of 'Solidarity'. He worked closely with Jacek Kuroń and Adam Michnik. He was a member of the strike committee of the Gdańsk shipyard. During martial law, he was interned.

Member of the Sejm in the I, III, IV, VI, VII, and VIII terms.

From 1991 to 1992, he was Minister of the Interior.

In 2006, he became Deputy Minister of Defense in the government of Jarosław Kaczyński. He was involved in closing the Military Intelligence Service and reviewing its personnel, as well as establishing a new Military Counterintelligence Service, which he led from January to November 2007.

Since November 16, 2015, he has been Minister of Defense in Beata Szydło's government and the initiator of the reform of the Polish armed forces. The reform's focus is on increasing troops' strength and equipping the Polish Army, creating 17 Territorial Defense brigades, particularly in the eastern voivodeships of the country, stationing troops from allied NATO countries, especially the USA, and supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression. In addition, a subcommittee has been established in the Ministry of Defense to review the crash of the President's aircraft Tu-154 near Smolensk, aimed at reviewing the findings of the MAK report and previous official Polish investigations.

On January 9, 2018, Macierewicz was replaced as Minister of Defense by Mariusz Błaszczak from the new cabinet of Poland.

On January 11, 2018, Antoni Macierewicz was appointed head of the subcommittee for re-investigating the causes of the Smolensk disaster of 2010, which killed President Lech Kaczyński and government members.

Family. Antoni Macierewicz is married; his wife's name is Hanna (née Natora), and they have a daughter named Alexandra.

03.08.2022