Mieczysław Niedziałkowski — after the arrest

Mieczysław Niedziałkowski, 46, is one of the historic leaders of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) — deputy since 1922, journalist, editor-in-chief of Robotnik ("The Worker"), the PPS organ. Anti-communist, a left-wing democrat, anticlerical. He fought in Piłsudski's Legions but broke with the Sanacja in 1926 — one of the most virulent voices against the colonels' regime in the 1930s.

On 8 September 1939, as the siege of Warsaw begins, Niedziałkowski refuses to leave the capital. On 17 September, on news of the Soviet invasion, he publishes in Robotnik (clandestine edition) an article in which he simultaneously condemns the Nazi occupation and the Soviet occupation — a position that marks him as a priority target of both powers.

After the capitulation of 28 September, Niedziałkowski takes part in the formation of the clandestine PPS Centrale — which will take the name WRN (Wolność-Równość-Niepodległość, "Freedom-Equality-Independence") in November 1939. The WRN becomes the socialist pillar of the Polish Underground State. Niedziałkowski is its intellectual soul: he drafts the political programmes, articulates the doctrine of democratic union for a liberated Poland.

On 22 December 1939, the Gestapo arrests Niedziałkowski at his flat on Poznańska Street. Denounced by a PPS member who has turned. Held at Pawiak (the prison on Dzielna Street), interrogated at Aleja Szucha (Gestapo headquarters). Frank, personally informed, orders that he be "treated with maximum severity." He is held without trial. The WRN must now decide its strategy.