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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
IN MEMORIAM: MR. EDWARD RYBAK (4 MARCH 1933 - 21 DECEMBER 2023)
Born in Lodz, Poland in 1933, Edward Rybak and his family watched Germany invade their country in 1939. While the family continued to reside in Lodz during the war, afterwards they moved first to Poland’s western border and then, in 1946, to West Germany to escape communism. Shaped by his earlier war-time experiences, at the age of nineteen, Ed enlisted in the U.S. Army under the provisions of the Lodge Act that allowed Eastern Europeans to join the American military.
For the next ten years, Ed served in a variety of line and intelligence assignments. After three years, from 1959 to 1962, as the chief interrogator for the 532d Military Intelligence (MI) Battalion in Frankfurt, Germany, he left military service and became a Department of the Army Civilian. Starting as a GS-07 intelligence operations specialist in Berlin, within a year, Ed moved into a supervisory position in Frankfurt, where he remained until 1968. Not only did he help develop and manage technical collection operations for his organization, but he also advised the German intelligence community as it established its own technical collection capabilities. During this time, he began fostering the personal and professional relationships that would influence U.S. Army intelligence in Europe for decades.
Frequently referred to as “Mr. 66th MI Brigade,” Ed spent twenty-two years with the organization, beginning in 1969 when it was the 66th MI Group headquartered in Munich. In 1977, the unit was reassigned from U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army to the newly established U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). At that time, Ed led the organization’s Collection Division for the first five months. Then, after two years as chief of the Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Division, he became the chief of the Intelligence Division, a position he continued to hold after the 66th MI Group was redesignated the 66th MI Brigade in 1986.
As one of few civilians with multidiscipline intelligence expertise, Ed influenced nearly every major improvement in the organization’s human intelligence and technical collection capabilities through the 1980s. He was not only a technical expert; he also had a profound knowledge of the European political, economic, and military scene, was fluent in four languages, and had a keen analytical mind. His assessments of complex European political and military conditions influenced the U.S. Congress’ budgetary and legislative support for American intelligence operations in Europe. Equally important, the personal and professional relationships with officials in German intelligence he had nurtured over several decades enabled successful bilateral arrangements at the highest levels of the German intelligence structure, as well as military intelligence operations at the tactical level. Through his efforts, for example, the German Army loaned the brigade some direction-finding equipment to support Operations DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM.
After helping to guide the 66th MI Brigade through the Cold War, Ed retired in 1991. Climbing from a GS-07 to a GS-15, he had served as an invaluable advisor to a succession of thirteen 66th MI commanders and had trained many senior intelligence managers who would continue to nurture the close U.S.-German relations Ed had helped develop. As testament to Ed’s leading role, the president of the Federal Republic of Germany awarded Ed the German Federal Order of Merit.
For all his accomplishments over thirty-nine years of military and civilian service, Mr. Edward Rybak was inducted into the MI Hall of Fame in 1992. Later that year, the INSCOM commander, Maj. Gen. Charles F. Scanlon, presented him with the prestigious President’s Award for Distinguished Civilian Service.
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| Date Taken: | 02.16.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 02.16.2024 15:01 |
| Story ID: | 464139 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 135 |
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