Józef Broel-Plater came from a venerable and wealthy noble Lithuanian family and inherited a manor across the border in Latvia. He attended school in Krakow and studied philosophy at the Swiss University of Fribourg. In World War I, Broel-Plater served as a volunteer in the French army. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. The 1928 Winter Olympic competition was likely his only serious attempt as a bobsledder, but after an accident the team placed 17th. Towards the end of the war, he served in the Polish Blue Army as part of the French forces. Fluent in three languages, he acted as an interpreter for the diplomates in the High Command. When Poland was occupied by Germany in World War II, he was detained by the notorious Gestapo and imprisoned in the Dachau Concentration Camp, where he died less than one year later.
Poland