Gabriel Narutowicz

Shot on 16 December 1922 in Warsaw by the painter Eligiusz Niewiadomski; the first president of Poland was killed after five days in office.

Overview

Narutowicz, a professor of engineering and foreign minister, was elected president by the national assembly with the votes of the national minorities against the nationalist right, whose press and street agitation branded him a Jewish president. At an art gallery opening, Niewiadomski, a nationalist painter and official, shot him in the presence of a crowd. Niewiadomski was convicted and executed, becoming a martyr to parts of the right, and his political patrons were never fully established. The murder, a week after the presidency was created, poisoned the young republic politics, taught Marshal Pilsudski that the parliamentary right was ungovernable, and foreshadowed the 1926 coup. The five day presidency remains the shortest violent truncation of a head of state in interwar Europe.