Aleksander Krzyżanowski nom de guerre "Wilk" (18 February 1895 – 29 September 1951) was an artillery colonel of the Polish Army, officer of the Service for Poland's Victory, Union of Armed Struggle, commander of the Vilnius District of the Home Army, political prisoner of the Stalinist period. In 1994 he was posthumously promoted to the rank of brigade general.
World War I
Aleksander Krzyżanowski was born in Bryansk and was conscripted into the Russian Army during the First World War, where he specialized in artillery.
Second Polish Republic
Polish-Soviet War
After Poland regained independence in 1918 he joined the Polish military, and took part in the Polish-Soviet War where he distinguished himself in 1919 receiving the Krzyż Walecznych medal, and in January 1920 he took part in the heavy fighting at the Battle of Daugavpils.
Interwar
During the interwar period in the Second Polish Republic he further continued his military career.
World War II
Polish Defence War of 1939
At the time of the Nazi invasion of Poland (1 September 1939) he was commanding the 26th Regiment of Light Artillery, of the 26th Infantry Division, part of the Poznań Army under general Tadeusz Kutrzeba. His unit was destroyed during the Battle of the Bzura.
Resistance
Soon after occupation he organized a partisan unit at Świętokrzyskie Mountains, however, after this unit was defeated by the Germans, he went to Warsaw by late October, joining the first Polish resistance organization, the Service for Poland's Victory. In November, he was assigned to Vilnius, which was at the time occupied by the Soviet Union according to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The SZP was transformed into Związek Walki Zbrojnej. When in April 1941 Soviet NKVD arrested the commander of the ZWP in the Vilnius region, general Nikodem Sulik, Krzyżanowski de facto replaced him, with his position being officially confirmed by general Stefan Rowecki in August. In 1942 ZWP was transformed into Armia Krajowa (AK).
Krzyżanowski attempted to build a larger anti-German coalition, hence opening negotiations with representatives of the Lithuanian and Belarusian resistance, which were fruitless, also issuing explicit orders that no ethnic group, including Jews, should be mistreated. He also opened negotiations with the representatives of the Lithuanian and Belarusian resistance but they were fruitless. The negotiations with the Soviets initially led nowhere as well. The Soviet Union ultimately aimed to regain the control of the area it had in 1939 from Germany and Joseph Stalin's aim to ensure that an independent Poland would never reemerge in the postwar period. The relationship between the Soviets and Sikorski's Polish government in exile, formally a commanding force of the AK, was strained at best, especially in the wake of the evidence of the mass execution of the Polish POW officers by the Soviets at Katyn which was discovered in 1943.As Soviet partisans were ordered to liquidate Polish Home Army units, so the local AK commanders considered the Soviets as just another enemy. As ordered by Moscow on 22 June 1943, the Soviet partisans in Poland started an open fight both against the German forces as well as the local Polish partisans.