The lawyer who confronted state violence
In court, he rejected the authorities’ division of the workers into ‘hooligans’ and argued that state violence had helped create the conditions for the explosion.
Stanisław Hejmowski was a Polish lawyer who defended political defendants and vulnerable people in the postwar years. After the 1956 Poznań workers’ uprising, he represented participants and argued that the cases had to be understood not as ordinary crime but as a social conflict produced by state policy and security-force violence. His advocacy challenged coerced investigations and the authorities’ portrayal of workers as hooligans, defending their dignity and legal rights. He was later punished through surveillance, a press campaign, a heavy fine, and suspension from legal practice.
Career Timeline
- 1900Born in Libau, Courland
- 1924Graduated in law from the University of Warsaw
- 1928–1930Worked as a prosecutor in Poznań, then entered the bar
- 1946Defended Arthur Greiser before the Supreme National Tribunal
- 1956Defended Poznań June participants Jerzy Sroka and Roman Bulczyński
- 1959Became a major target of Polish security-service surveillance
- 1961Was suspended from practice and subjected to financial repression
- 1969Died in Poznań