| Office1: | Minister of Foreign Affairs |
| Predecessor1: | Stefan Jędrychowski |
| Successor1: | Emil Wojtaszek |
| Term Start1: | 22 December 1971 |
| Term End1: | 2 December 1976 |
| Office: | Minister of Foreign Affairs |
| Primeminister: | Mieczyslaw Rakowski |
| Successor: | Marian Orzechowski |
| Term Start: | 21 July 1982 |
| Term End: | 12 November 1985 |
| Birth Date: | 1931 8, df=y |
| Birth Place: | Toruń, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland |
| Party: | Polish United Workers' Party |
| Nationality: | Polish |
Stefan Michał Olszowski (28 August 1931 – 19 December 2023) was a Polish politician, who was a member of Polish United Workers' Party. He served as the foreign minister of the People's Republic of Poland for two terms.
Olszowski was born in Torun on 28 August 1931.[1] He was a member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party from December 1970 to his resignation on 12 November 1985.[2] [3] He served as the propaganda chief of the party in the late 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s.[4]
Olszowski was appointed foreign minister on 22 December 1971, replacing Stefan Jędrychowski in the post.[5] He was in office until 2 December 1976 when Emil Wojtaszek replaced him in the post.[5] In 1980, he was appointed ambassador to East Germany and left the politburo for this post that he held just six months.[3] Then he continued to serve at the politburo.[3] He acted as the party's central committee secretary for ideology and media from August 1980 to July 1982.[6] [7] Then he was secondly appointed foreign minister in July 1982, replacing Józef Czyrek in the post.[7] Before his appointment as foreign minister he run for the presidency of the party, but he was not elected.[8] His term as foreign minister ended on 12 November 1985.[9] He was also dismissed from the party leadership in 1985, partly due to his relationship with a Polish journalist whom he married after divorcing his first spouse.[10] Then he and his girlfriend settled in New York in 1986.[11]
Under the Edward Gierek's rule in the party, Olszowski was a reformist.[12] However, later he became a hard-liner politician and a supporter of the Soviet Union while he was in office.[13] In March 1968, he was the leading orchestrator of the anti-Semitic campaign began in Poland.[14] In November 1973, he paid an official visit to Rome that was the first official visit to the Vatican by a Polish government minister since World War II.[15] [16] However, during the visit of Pope to Poland from 16 to 23 June 1983 he and Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski directly attacked on some of the Pope's pronouncements.[17]
Olszowski together with other hard-liners strived for an armed confrontation with the Solidarity movement.[18] He was instrumental in cracking down the movement at its initial phase.[13]
Olszowski married twice. Following his divorce, he married a younger Polish journalist woman.[11] They live in New York.[11]
Stefan Olszowski died on 19 December 2023, at the age of 92.[19]