Jankowski was born in the village of
Krasowo Wielkie in
Łomża Governorate (now in
Wysokie Mazowieckie County), some 60 kilometres from
Warsaw. Born to a family of local
szlachta, he received an education in
Austro-Hungarian Galicia. Early in his youth he became involved in politics. As a
Socialist, in 1906 he was among the co-founders of the
National Workers' Union. In 1912 he entered the
KTSSN, a Galicia-based confederation of all the political factions supporting Austria-Hungary as the only state to be able to reunite and liberate Poland after roughly a century of
partitions. In 1915, at the outbreak of the
Great War, he joined the
Polish Legions. After Poland regained her independence in 1918, he remained an active politician. In 1920 he co-founded the
National Workers' Party (NPR), which he headed until 1923 and of which he remained a deputy chairman until 1933. As the most prominent politician of the NPR, between 1921 and the
May coup d'état of 1926 he was the minister of labour and social policies in the
government of Poland. In 1928 he was elected a member of the
Sejm, a seat he held until 1935. In 1937 he moved to the
Labor Party and became one of its leaders. After the
Polish Defensive War of 1939 he remained in Poland and helped in the reconstruction of his party in new, underground conditions. After the foundations for the
Polish Secret State had been laid, in 1941 Jankowski became the
Director of Labour and Social Care (a
de facto minister) of the
Government Delegate's Office at Home. After
Jan Piekałkiewicz was arrested by the
Gestapo in February 1943, Jankowski replaced him as the Government Delegate at Home, under the formal rank of the deputy
Prime Minister of Poland. On 31 July 1944 he approved the decision to start the
Warsaw Uprising. During the fighting in Warsaw, he remained close to the headquarters of the
Armia Krajowa, but lost any contact with most of the cells of the Government Delegate's Office in other parts of Poland. After the capitulation of Warsaw to the Germans, he left the city along with civilians and managed to hide in the countryside, from where he continued his duties. In March 1945 he was arrested by the NKVD and taken to
Moscow, where he was put on trial together with
15 other representatives of the Polish authorities. After three months of brutal interrogation and torture he was presented with the forged accusations of collaboration with
Nazi Germany, sabotage, terrorism, planning a military alliance with Nazi Germany, owning a radio transmitter and several other trumped-up charges. He was sentenced to eight years in a Soviet prison and died there, likely murdered, on March 13, 1953, two weeks before the end of his sentence. His body was probably buried in the prison in
Vladimir on
Klyazma, though the whereabouts of his death, as well as the place of his burial remain classified. In addition to the
Virtuti Militari (5th class) he received for his service in the Warsaw Uprising, in 1995 Jankowski was posthumously awarded the
Order of the White Eagle. == Note ==