The Wildstein List is a list which contains the names of some 162,617 (originally thought to contain 240,000) individuals who are believed to either have worked for the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

Służba Bezpieczeństwa The Ministry of Public Security ( pl, Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego), commonly known as UB or later SB, was the secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage agency operating in the Polish People's Republic. From 1945 to 1954 it w ...

(secret intelligence service of the socialist era), or who SB considered recruiting (with or without their knowledge), or who were under investigation by SB. It is named after the reporter who supposedly secretly copied the list from the national archives,

Bronisław Wildstein Bronisław Wildstein (born 11 June 1952, Olsztyn, Poland) is a former Polish dissident, a journalist, freelance author and, from 11 May 2006 to 28 February 2007, was the chief executive officer of ''Telewizja Polska'' (Polish state-owned televis ...

. The list eventually found its way to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. At least one Polish official has confirmed (Marek Dukaczewski in Monika Olejnik's program) which is believed to contain the names of at some current agents working abroad. The list contains names from archives of former (communist) Polish political police, military intelligence and other secret agencies. This list could contain former workers of those agencies and their secret agents (confidants), but also there are names of people that secret police wanted to make confidants but never succeeded. It is not clear how this list leaked from the IPN (

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...

), but it is commonly assumed that it was Bronisław Wildstein who copied that list to his pendrive and then made it available for journalists.

References

Poland in uproar over leak of spy files
''The Guardian'', February 5, 2005 *Michael Szporer

''Polish News'', February 2005

''Deutsche Welle'', February 8, 2005 *Wojciech Kosc
Poland: Wildstein's List
''Transitions Online'', 7 February 2005 Political scandals in Poland History of Poland (1989–present) Decommunization Anti-communism in Poland 2005 in Poland Institute of National Remembrance de:Wildstein-Liste {{Poland-stub