16/04/2012

Jzef Retinger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jzef Retinger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jzef Hieronim Retinger (Joseph Retinger, 17 April 1888 12 June 1960) was a Polish political adviser and a founder of the European Movement that would lead to the founding of the European Union, in addition to that, he created the Bilderberg Group.

Contents
1 Life 2 Works 3 See also 4 References

Life
Retinger was born in Krakw, Poland (at that time a part of Austria-Hungary), the youngest of four children. His father, Jzef Stanisaw Retinger, was the personal legal counsel and adviser to Count Wadysaw Zamoyski. When Jzef H. Retinger's father died, Count Zamoyski took young Jzef under his wing. Retinger had planned on becoming a priest, and was enrolled in a seminary, but the prospect of celibacy made him change his mind.[citation needed] Financed by Count Zamoyski, Retinger attended the Sorbonne in 1906, and was the youngest person ever to earn a Ph.D. there, in 1908 at the age of twenty, before his move to England in 1911, where his closest friend was fellow Pole, Joseph Conrad. He would later write about Conrad in his book, Conrad and His Contemporaries (1943). In 1917 Retinger traveled to Mexico, where he became an unofficial political adviser to union organizer Luis Morones and President Plutarco Elas Calles. Later, during World War II, he advised the Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile, General Wadysaw Sikorski. In 1944, aged 56, Retinger parachuted into occupied Poland with 2nd Lt. Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, in Operation Salamander, to talk with leading political figures and deliver money to the Polish underground. During this mission Retinger was the victim of an unsuccesful assisination attempt by factions within the Polish underground who viewed his secret mission into Poland with mistrust.[1] After the war, Retinger became a leading advocate of European unification and helped found both the European Movement and the Council of Europe. He was later to become Honorary Secretary General of the European Movement. Retinger initiated the Bilderberg conferences (1954) and was their secretary until his death (lung cancer) in 1960.

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Jzef Retinger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grave of European Movement founder, Joseph Retinger, on Fulham Cemetery, London

Works
Dr. J.H. Retinger, Polacy w cywilizacjach zagranicznych (Poles in Foreign Civilizations), Warsaw, 1934. Joseph Retinger, Conrad and His Contemporaries, London: Minerva, 1941 and New York: Roy, 1942.

See also
List of Poles European Movement European Union

References
1. ^ Retinger, Joseph (1972). Memoirs of an Eminence Grise. Sussex University Press/Chatto and Windus. pp. 265. ISBN 0856210021.

Chapter 4, European Unity. (http://www.bilderberg.org/bildhist.htm#Memoirs) from Memoirs of An Eminence Grise by John Pomian, Retinger, Joseph; Pomian, John. Memoirs of an Eminence Grise. Sussex University Press, distr. by Chatto and Windus. ISBN 0856210021. Biography of Jozef Retinger (http://home.teleport.com/~flyheart/retinger.htm) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=J%C3%B3zef_Retinger&oldid=484185233" Categories: 1888 births 1960 deaths Ambassadors of Poland to Russia Council of Europe Polish politicians University of Paris alumni

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