Wojciech Szczęsny Kaczmarek

Wojciech Szczęsny Kaczmarek (24 March 1942 – 26 May 2009) was a physicist and politician. From 1990 to 1998, he was the mayor of Poznań, Poland.

Biography
Wojciech Szczęsny Kaczmarek was born on 24 March 1942 in Luboń, Reich District of Wartheland, Nazi Germany (now part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland). His father, Telesfor Kaczmarek was of Polish descent, and his mother Zyta Kaczmarek (née Omaszt) of Hungarian. At the age of two he got sick from polio.

In 1966 Kaczmarek graduated from the Faculty of Physics of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He worked as a physicist until 1990, including at the ETH Zurich, the Sorbonne Paris North University, and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

In the 1980s Kaczmarek was an activist in the Solidarity trade union. In 1990, he was elected by the city council as the mayor of Poznań, with a difference of one vote. He took office on 6 June 1990, and being reelected in 1994, he remained in it until 14 December 1998. He was a co-founder and a chairperson of the Association of Polish Cities. From 1990 to 2002 he was a member of the Poznań City Council. At the time he belonged to the Freedom Union. In 2002 Kaczmarek unsuccessfully run for office of the mayor of Poznań in a direct election. From 2000 to 2003, he was the counsul-general of Poland in Paris.

In 2004, Kaczmarek unsuccessfully run of office of the member of the European Parliament, as a candidate of the Initiative for Poland, and in 2005, he unsuccessfully run of office of the member of the Sejm of Poland, as a candidate of the Democratic Party.

Kaczmarek died on 26 May 2009 in Poznań, and was buried at the Junikowo Cemetery in that city.

In 2011, at the Great Poland Citizens Memorial Cemetery in Poznań was unveiled a monument dedicated to him.

Awards and decorations

 * National Order of the Legion of Honour (France, 1997)
 * Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (Poland, 1999)
 * Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (Poland, 2009)