MARCH 28 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

MARCH 28 

1892

Rudolf Gundlach (dob) was a Polish engineer, inventor and tank designer. He headed the design division of the Armored Weapons Development Office (Biuro Badań Technicznych Broni Pancernych) and held the military rank of major in the Corps of Engineers of the Polish Army.  Gundlach was the chief designer of the Ursus wz. 29 armored car and supervised design work for the 7TP light tank and the 10TP fast tank prototype.  He is famous for his invention of the Gundlach Rotary Periscope (Polish: Peryskop obrotowy Gundlacha), patented in 1936, which made possible 360° vision.

1928

Zbigniew Kazimierz "Zbig" Brzezinski (dob) as a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. Major foreign policy events during his time in office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan); the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II); the brokering of the Camp David Accords; the transition of Iran from an important U.S. ally to an anti-Western Islamic Republic; encouraging dissidents in Eastern Europe and emphasizing human rights in order to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union;

1945

The Trial of the Sixteen:  16 leaders of the Polish Underground were captured and arrested by the notorious Soviet NKVD. (The Russian authorities had invited the Polish leaders to participate in the planning and organization of a new Polish Government of National Unity. The Polish leaders were immediately arrested, imprisoned and convicted on trumped up charges of "drawing up plans for action against the USSR" and "illegal activity against the Red Army". The Polish leaders were brutally interrogated and tortured and put on staged show trials. The trials took place on June 18 and June 21, 1945, with observers from the UK and US present. (Note: the trial dates were carefully selected to occur at the same time as the conferences on the creation of the Soviet-backed Polish puppet government) The verdict was handed down on June 21, in which all the defendants were coerced into pleading guilty. Of the sixteen defendants, twelve were sentenced to imprisonment from four months to ten years, while charges against the four others were dropped by the prosecution.  None of Poland's allies protested. On July 6, 1945, the UK and USA withdrew their recognition of the legitimate Polish Government in Exile in London.