This is not “a biography of Józef Retinger,” but rather the biography. M.B.B. Biskupski's study of the mysterious diplomat—“the Polish Talleyrand” of the first half of the twentieth century—is an impressive work of history. Nearly a third of the book is devoted to endnotes and bibliography, with sources from over twenty-five libraries and archives in eight different countries. It is a tour de force of historical research indeed.
M.B.B. Biskupski's extensive documentation of Retinger's political life is both a strength and a weakness of the book. Retinger is a marginal figure in Polish and European history, but with so much material on his life, Biskupski tends to exaggerate Retinger's influence. Retinger was the quintessential éminence grise, and as such he too inflated his importance, a point Biskupski himself makes.
Biskupski has left no stone unturned in his effort to unmask the enigmatic Pole, who began his career during World War I lobbying the combatants to resurrect Poland. The only path to Polish independence was, as the famous Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz once wrote, through “a universal war of all nations” (“The Pilgrim's Litany,” Poems by Adam Mickiewicz, 1944). Voila! World War I was that conflict, but Poland was hopelessly divided between the Russians on the one side, and the Germans and Austrians on the other. A native of Kraków, Retinger was a passionate enemy of the German Second Reich. He rested his false hopes on Polish autonomy in the Habsburg monarchy. It was Ignacy Paderewski, not Retinger, who had President Woodrow Wilson's ear for complete Polish independence, outlined in the thirteenth of Wilson's Fourteen Points. The miracle for Poland was that all of the partitioners lost the war, the Central Powers to the Entente, and the Russia to the Bolsheviks.
Retinger alienated himself from France and Great Britain by opposing an Entente-led Polish army. France threw him out of the country and he ended up in Mexico, where he became embroiled in leftist movements, hence accusations that Retinger was a British or Soviet spy. Biskupski concludes that it was not surprising that the opportunistic, conniving Retinger was able to elicit funds from clandestine sources, but that he was not an intelligence agent.
Retinger's most important political role was as the right-hand man of General Władysław Sikorski, who led the exiled Polish government in London during World War II. Sikorski died in a plane crash in 1943, leaving Retinger rudderless. Retinger and the London Poles would have little influence on the future of postwar Poland anyway, other than to complicate relations with Stalin by backing the ill-advised Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
The smaller states of Europe were helpless to stop German aggression in the world wars, so after World War II it was natural that their leaders hoped for European cooperation to protect their political and economic security. In the interwar period, east European countries, crucially Poland and Czechoslovakia, were unable to form a common front against German or Soviet revanchism. When Hitler annexed the Sudetenland in 1938, Poland grabbed a piece of Czechoslovakia as well.
Retinger, like leaders in the Benelux and other small countries, dreamed of a common European home. Poland, of course, was doomed to Soviet control after the war. Retinger contributed to the idea of a European community by brokering the Congress of Europe in The Hague in 1948. Belgian leader Paul-Henri Spaak praised him as a “pioneer” of the European cause (249). It is a stretch, however, for Biskupski to call Retinger the “godfather of the European Union” (291); where does that leave Frenchmen Jean Monnet and Robert Schumann, Spaak himself, and many others who played much more important roles?
Retinger also led the Bilderbergs, which was a Masons-like coterie of political and economic elites to work out European cooperation. The United States wanted west European unity against the Soviet bloc, so the CIA helped finance the group. In the Bilderbergs’ meeting in 2017, one of the attendees was none other than former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whose modus operandi was the same anachronistic, Retingeresque “back channel” connection, scheming behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms. The European Union (EU) and the European Commission today are under fire as run by unelected technocrats and bureaucrats who ignore the political will of the people. The recent crises of the EU, of which Brexit is one, are the results.
Biskupski might have added a little rouge to his pale, albeit very well written portrayal of Retinger's political career. The Pole was a fascinating personality, and given that intrigue was his forte, the reader is left wanting more about his personal life. Retinger had several affairs and a tumultuous family life. He participated in hundreds of meetings with important political figures, but the book has no photos. This is a detailed study for experts on Polish and European diplomacy.
