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The Warsaw Uprising (Powstanie Warszawskie) was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1 1944 as a part of a nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the German-led forces until October 2 (63 days in total). The losses on the Polish side amounted to 18,000 soldiers killed, 25,000 wounded and over 250,000 civilians killed, mostly in mass executions conducted by advancing German troops; those on the German side amounted to over 17,000 soldiers killed and 9,000 wounded. An estimated 85% of the city was destroyed during the urban guerilla combat and after the end of hostilities, when German forces acting on Hitler's orders burned the city block after block.
The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw. Although the Soviet army was within a few hundred metres of the city from September 16 onward, the link between the uprising and the advancing army was never made. This failure and the reasons behind it have been a matter of controversy ever since.
Eve of the battle
- Main article: Lead up to the Warsaw Uprising
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| Kotwica, a symbol of Polish resistance
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| Warsaw Uprising
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| Conflict | World War II
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| Date | 1 August to 2 October, 1944
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| Place | Warsaw, Poland
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| Result | German victory
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| Combatants
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| Poland
| Germany
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| Commanders
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Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski,
Antoni Chruściel,
Tadeusz Pełczyński
| Erich von dem Bach,
Rainer Stahel
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| Strength
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| 50,000 troops
| 25,000 troops
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| Casualties
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18,000 killed,
12,000 wounded,
15,000 taken prisoner
250,000 civilians killed
| 10,000 killed,
7,000 missing
9,000 wounded
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| Operation Tempest
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Volhynia - Kowel - Łuck - Równe - Włodzimierz Wołyński - Lubartów - Kock - Wilno Uprising - Miedniki - Puszcza Rudnicka - Lwów Uprising - Jodła - Ceber
Warsaw Uprising
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- If not for Warsaw in the General Government, we wouldn't have 4/5 of our current problems on that territory. Warsaw was and will be the centre of chaos and a place from which opposition spreads throughout the rest of the country
- Nazi Governor-General of Poland Hans Frank on 14 December 1943, Kraków
The Home Army's initial plans for a national uprising, Operation Tempest, which would link up with British forces were changed in 1943 when it was realised that the Red Army would be the army forcing the Germans from Poland. The discovery of the Katyn massacre meant Polish-Soviet relations were broken off in April and were never properly restored. Although doubts existed about the military wisdom of a major uprising, the planning continued.
 Kotwica, the symbol of the Polish Resistance The situation was brought to a head as Operation Bagration, the Soviet attack on Germany, reached the old Polish border on 13th July. This was the point at which a decision had to be made: either carry out the uprising in the current difficult political situation and risk problems with Soviet support, or fail to carry out an uprising and face Soviet propaganda describing Armia Krajowa as collaborators and ineffective cowards. The urgency of this decision increased as it became clear that after successful cooperation with the army in liberation of various towns (for example, Wilno), often the Soviet NKVD units who followed behind would either shoot or send to gulags most Polish officers and those Polish soldiers who could not or would not join the Soviet Army.
In the early summer of 1944, German planning required Warsaw to be the strong point of the area and to be held at all costs. Fortifications were constructed and forces were built up in the area. This process was slowed after the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but by late July of 1944, the forces were more or less back to full strength. On July 27, the governor of the General Government, Hans Frank, called for 100,000 Polish men between the ages of 17–65 to arrive at several concentration places in Warsaw the following day. They were to be employed at construction of fortifications for the Wehrmacht in and around the city. This move was viewed by the Home Army as an attempt to neutralise the underground forces, and the underground urged Warsaw inhabitants to ignore it.
- More than 1,000 members of German Ordnungspolizei and Sicherheitspolizei have died in the course of their normal police duties; this does not include the losses during participation in any special operations. Alongside those losses, the number of 500 casualties among the various officials of all administration sectors deserves a separate mention – from the speech of Hans Frank on 18 November 1943
The official line of Soviet propaganda suggested that the Polish underground was "waiting with their arms at ease" and was not fighting the common enemy. As the Soviet forces were nearing Warsaw in June and July 1944, the Soviet radio stations demanded a full national uprising in Warsaw to cut the communication lines of the German units still on the right bank of Vistula. On July 29, 1944 the first Soviet armoured units reached the outskirts of Warsaw.
The uprising in Warsaw was approved by the Polish cabinet in London on the 25th July. Fearing German reprisal actions following the ignored order to support fortification construction and believing that time was of the essence, general Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski ordered full mobilisation of Home Army forces in the Warsaw area on August 1, 1944.
Opposing forces
- Main article: List of military units in the Warsaw Uprising
The Home Army forces of the Warsaw District numbered about 50,000 soldiers, of whom 23,000 were equipped and combat-ready. Most of them were trained for several years in partisan warfare and urban guerilla war, but lacked experience in prolonged day fighting. The forces were ill-equipped, especially since weapons and men had been shuttled east of Warsaw before the decision to include Warsaw in Operation Tempest was made on 21 July. Besides the Home Army there were a number of other partisan groups, each of which subordinated themselves to Home Army command for the uprising. Finally, many volunteers, including some Jews freed from the concentration camp in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, joined as the fighting continued.
 Polish soldier on a baricade The commander of Polish forces in Warsaw was general Antoni Chruściel, codename 'Monter'. Initially he divided his forces into eight areas
- Area I (Śródmieście, Old Town)
- Area II (Żoliborz, Marymont, Bielany)
- Area III (Wola)
- Area IV (Ochota)
- Area V (Mokotów)
- Area VI (Praga)
- Area VII (Powiat Warszawski)
- Zgrupowanie KeDywu Komendy Głównej
On September 20 this structure was reorganised to fit the structure of Polish forces fighting among the Western Allies. The entire force was renamed Warsaw Home Army Corps (Warszawski Korpus Armii Krajowej), commanded by General Antoni Chruściel (Monter) and formed into three infantry divisions.
 Position of baricades on a pre-war map of Warsaw On August 1 their state of arms was as follows:
In the course of the fighting further arms were obtained through air drops and by capture from the enemy (including several armoured vehicles). Also, the insurgents’ workshops were busy all the while, producing during the uprising 300 automatic pistols, 150 flame-throwers, 40,000 grenades, a number of mortars and PIATs, and even an armoured car.
On August 1, 1944 the German garrison of Warsaw numbered some 10,000 troops under general Rainer Stahel. Together with various units on the left bank of the Vistula river the German forces were composed of some 15,000 to 16,000 Wehrmacht soldiers as well as SS and police forces. However, the German forces were well-equipped and had been preparing for defence of the city's key positions for many months. Several hundred concrete bunkers and barbed wire lines protected the buildings and areas occupied by the Germans. Also, at least 90,000 additional German troops were present in the surrounding area.
As of August 23, 1944 the German units directly involved with fights in Warsaw were divided into:
- Battle group Rohr (commanded by Major General Rohr)
- Battle group Reinefarth (commanded by SS-Gruppenfuhrer Reinefarth)
- Attack group Dirlewanger
- Attack group Reck (commanded by Major Reck)
- Attack group Schmidt (commanded by Colonel Schmidt)
- various support and backup units
- Warsaw Garrison (Group of Warsaw Commandant) commanded by Lieutenant General Stahel
A large section of the forces on the "German" side were, according to Norman Davies (p284), drawn from "collaborationist forces", including Russians who had left in the Tzar's era and Azeris. All of these forces, however, were clearly subject to the control of the German war machine.
The battle
- Main article: Military description of the Warsaw Uprising
 This map shows the initial positions of the Home Army on August 5 after five days of fighting. Polish-held areas marked with black. The uprising began officially in daylight at 17:00 on "W-hour" August 1, a decision which is now regarded as a costly mistake. Although the Germans failed to realise that extra activity and early fights with the insurgents were linked and had not developed a plan for dealing with the uprising, they received warning, reportedly from a Polish woman, an hour before the start. Lack of surprise, sudden changes of plan, inexperience in day fighting and incomplete mobilisation meant that many of the early objectives of the uprising were not achieved.
The first two days were crucial in establishing the battlefield for the rest of the uprising. Most successes were achieved in the city centre (Śródmieście) and old town (Stare Miasto) and nearby parts of Wola, where most objectives were captured, although major German strongholds remained. In other areas such as Mokotów the attackers almost completely failed to capture their objectives, while in areas such as Wola they captured most of their targets, but with very heavy losses that forced them to retreat. In Praga, on the East bank of the river, the German concentration was so high that the Polish forces fighting there were forced back into hiding. Most crucially, the fighters in different areas failed to link up, either with each other or with areas outside Warsaw, leaving each section of the city isolated from the others.
 Polish barricades such as this one on Napoleon Square were erected throughout the city and were effective at making it very difficult for both German infantry and tanks to operate. Captured Hetzer tank destroyer in the background. After the first several hours of fighting many units adopted a more defensive strategy while the civilian population started erecting barricades throughout the city. The moment of greatest success, on August 4, was also the moment at which the German army began receiving reinforcements. SS General Erich von dem Bach was appointed commander and soon after began to counter-attack with the aim of linking up with the remaining German pockets and then cutting off the Uprising from the Vistula (Wisla) river.
August 5 is marked by the freeing of the former Warsaw Ghetto area by insurgents and by the beginning of the Wola Massacre, where in mass executions approximately 40,000 civilians were slaughtered by Germans. One aim of this policy was to crush the will to fight and put the uprising to an end without having to commit to the heavy city fighting; until late September, the Germans were shooting all captured insurgents on the spot for the same reason. In other areas, the prime aim of the German troops seems to have been to loot and rape rather than fight, which actually allowed defence to continue against the odds. This policy was later reversed when the German side decided that atrocities only stiffened the resistance. From the end of September on, some of the captured Polish soldiers were treated as POWs.
On August 7 the German forces were joined by the tanks with civilians being used as human shields. After two days of heavy fights they managed to cut Wola in two and reach the Bankowy square.
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| During the Uprising much of Długa street was reduced to ruins. The Bank Polski redoubt can be seen to be one of the few buildings in the street still standing in the 1944 photograph shown here on the left. The image on the right shows the bank still bearing the scars of the Uprising in 2004.
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The aim was to gain a significant victory to show the Home Army the futility of further fighting and make them surrender. This did not succeed. Between August 9 and August 18 pitched battles raged around the old town and nearby Bankowy square, with successful attacks by the German side and counter-attacks from the Polish side. Once again, the German 'special' tactics were demonstrated by targeted attacks against marked hospitals.
The Old Town was held until the end of August when lack of supplies made further defence impossible. On September 2 the defenders of the Old Town withdrew through the sewers, which at this time were becoming a major means of communication between different parts of the uprising. More than 5,300 men and women were evacuated in this way.
German tactics very much hinged on bombardment through the use of huge cannons and bombers to which there could be very little answer from the Polish side.
 The sewers shown in this map were used as evacuation routes to Żoliborz and Śródmieście The Soviet army captured Eastern Warsaw and arrived on the Eastern bank of the Vistula in mid-September. When they finally reached the right bank of the Vistula on September 10, the officers of the Home Army units stationed there proposed recreating the pre-war 36th 'Academic Legion' infantry regiment; however, they were all arrested by the NKVD and sent to Russia.
- Contrary to our expectations, the enemy has halted all of their offensive actions along the entire front of the 9th Army. – from the journal of German 9th Army on August 16 1944, showing the German amazement at the Russian response to the Uprising
Many of the "Soviets" who arrived in Poland were actually from the 1st Polish Army (1 Armia Wojska Polskiego), and some of them landed in the Czerniaków and Powiśle areas and made contacts with Home Army forces. With inadequate artillery and air support and coming in too small numbers, most were killed and they were soon forced to retreat. After repeated, almost unsupported attempts by the 1st Polish Army to link up with the insurgents failed, the Soviets limited their assistance to sporadic and insignificant artillery and air support. Plans for a river crossing were suspended "for at least 4 months", and the commander of the 1st Polish Army, General Zygmunt Berling, who ordered the crossing by his units, was relieved of his duties.
From this point on, the Warsaw uprising can be seen as a one-sided war of attrition or, alternatively, as a fight for acceptable terms of surrender.
Fighting ended on October 2 when the Polish forces capitulated.
Life behind the front lines
In the first weeks of the Uprising on Polish-controlled territory, people tried to recreate normal life in their free country. Cultural life was vibrant, with theatres, post offices, newspapers and similar activities. Near the end of the Uprising, lack of food, medicine, overcrowding and obviously German indiscriminate air and artillery assault on the city made the civilian situation more and more desperate.
Lack of outside support
- Main article: Lack of outside support in the Warsaw Uprising
The limited landings by the 1st Polish army, mentioned above, represent the only outside soldiers who arrived to support the uprising. There was some other support in terms of airdrops from the Western allies, (the Royal Air Force and the Polish Air Force made 223 sorties and lost 34 aircraft), but the effect of these was very limited—in fact, mostly psychological, since all but one American supply drop had to be carried out using bases in Italy. The Soviets briefly (September 13 - 28) provided some air drops, without parachutes, but their most important action in this case was to deny landing rights for all other allied planes and to shoot down a number of those which carried supplies from Italy.
American support was also limited. After Stalin's objections to support for the uprising, Churchill telegrammed Roosevelt on August 25 and proposed sending planes in defiance of Stalin and 'see what happens'. Roosevelt replied on August 26: 'I do not consider it advantageous to the long-range general war prospect for me to join you in the proposed message to Uncle Joe'[1] (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/shows/warsaw.rising/interactive/timeline.warsaw/frameset.exclude.html).
 The monument shown in this photograph was erected to commemorate the allied airmen who lost their lives over Warsaw. The capitulation
- Main article: The capitulation of Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising.
On October 2 General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski signed the capitulation of the remaining Polish forces (Warszawski Korpus Armii Krajowej or Home Army Warsaw Corps) in the German headquarters in the presence of General von dem Bach. According to the capitulation treaty the Home Army soldiers were to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and the civilian population was to be treated humanely.
- One of the most deadly fights since the beginning of the war, as difficult as the fight for Stalingrad – Heinrich Himmler to other German generals on 21 IX 1944
The next day the Germans begun to disarm the Home Army soldiers. Most of them were later sent to POW camps in various part of Germany. At the same time the civilian population (approximately 700,000) was resettled to concentration camps west of Warsaw. Many soldiers, fearing German atrocities in captivity, chose to blend into civilian population, escape Warsaw among them and continue the fight later.
The Warsaw uprising had failed because it did not manage to link up with the Soviet forces just a short distance away. The reason for this failure now appears to be Soviet failure to act when the possibility existed, but the reasons for this failure to act, whether political failure on the Polish side or malice on the Soviet side are a matter of ongoing debate.
Destruction of the city
After the remaining population had been expelled, the Germans started the destruction of the remnants of the city. Special groups of German engineers were dispatched to the city in order to burn and demolish the remaining buildings. According to German plans, after the war Warsaw was to be turned into a lake. The demolition squads used flame-throwers and explosives to methodically destroy house after house. They paid special attention to historical monuments and places of interest: nothing was to be left of what used to be a city.
By January 1945 85% of the buildings were destroyed: 25% as a result of the Uprising, 35% as a result of systematic German actions after the uprising, the rest as a result of the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (15%) and other combat including the September 1939 campaign (10%).
Material losses were estimated at 10,455 buildings, 923 historical buildings (94 percent), 25 churches, 14 libraries including the National Library, 81 primary schools, 64 high schools, Warsaw University and Warsaw University of Technology, and most of the historical monuments. Almost a million inhabitants lost all of their possessions. The exact amount of losses of private and public property as well as pieces of art, monuments of science and culture is unknown. However, various estimates place it at an equivalent of approximately 40 billion 1939 US dollars. In 2004 the Warsaw self-government authorities estimated that the approximate loss of the municipal property is 45 billion 2004 US dollars (this includes only the property owned by the city of Warsaw on August 31, 1939). The municipal council of Warsaw is currently disputing whether claims for German reparations should be made.
"Liberation" of the ruins
After several months of watching the city die, the Red Army finally crossed the river on January 17, 1945. The ruins of the Festung Warschau were captured in several hours with little or no opposition from the Germans. German units put up some minor resistance in the Warsaw University area, but the German defences were broken in less than an hour.
The legacy
- Main article: After effects of the Warsaw Uprising
 One grave was left in the streets of Warsaw after the Uprising. Due to lack of cooperation and often the active aggressive moves on the part of the Soviets and several other factors, the Warsaw Uprising and Operation Tempest failed in their primary goal: to free part of the Polish territories so that a government loyal to the Polish government-in-exile could be established there instead of a Soviet puppet state. There is no consensus among historians as to whether that was ever possible, or whether those operations had any other lasting effect. Some argue that without Operation Tempest and the Warsaw Uprising, Poland would have ended as a Soviet republic, a fate definitely worse than that of an "independent" puppet state, and thus the Operation succeeded at least partially in being a political demonstration to the Soviets and Western Allies. It is also worth mentioning that due to the Warsaw Uprising, the Soviets stopped their offensive in Poland to let the Germans suppress the uprising. Some historians speculate that if they hadn't done so, they would have occupied all Germany rather than the eastern part only.
Estimates for casualties range between 180,000 and 250,000, with an average of 220,000 often cited; more importantly, many of those lost were the people who would have been important for recovery (although many of the Polish intelligentsia had already been killed at the time of the Soviet and German invasions in 1939). The city of Warsaw was rebuilt, with the old town being restored to its former state. However complete recovery as a major European capital only began in the early 1990s after the fall of communism.
After the war
Most soldiers of the Home Army (including those who took part in the Warsaw Uprising) were persecuted after the war: captured by the NKVD or SB, interrogated and imprisoned, awaiting trials on various charges. Many of them were sent to gulags or executed. Most of those sent to POW camps in Germany were later liberated by British, American and Polish forces and stayed in the West, including uprising leaders Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski and Antoni Chruściel, who stayed in London and the United States, respectively.
Knowledge of the Warsaw Uprising, inconvenient to Stalin, was twisted by propaganda of the People's Republic of Poland, which stressed the failings of Home Army and the Polish government-in-exile, and forbade all criticism of the Red Army or the political goals of Soviet strategy. Until the late sixties the very name of the Home Army was censored, and most films and novels covering the 1944 Uprising were either banned or modified so that the name of the Home Army did not appear there. Also, the official propaganda of both Poland and the USSR suggested that the Home Army was some sort of a group of right-wing collaborators with Nazi Germany. From 1956 on, the image of the Warsaw Uprising in Polish propaganda was changed a little bit to underline that the soldiers were indeed brave, while the officers were treacherous and the commanders were characterised by disregard of the losses. The first serious publications on the topic were not issued until the late eighties. In Warsaw no monument to the Home Army could be built until 1989. Instead, efforts of the Soviet-backed Armia Ludowa were glorified and exaggerated.
In the West, the story of the Polish fight for Warsaw with little support was an embarrassment, as was the shock of Home Army soldiers as Western Allies recognised the Soviet controlled pro-Communist regime installed by Stalin; as a result, the story was not publicised for many years.
The courage of the Warsaw Uprising, and its utter betrayal by the Soviet Union, kept anti-Soviet sentiment high in Poland throughout the Cold War. Memories of the uprising helped to inspire the Polish labour movement Solidarity, which led a peaceful movement against the Communist government during the 1980s, leading to the downfall of that government in 1989 and the emergence of democracy.
Since 1989 the truth about the Uprising has no longer been censored, and 1 August is now a celebrated anniversary. On July 31, 2004 a Warsaw Uprising Museum was opened in Warsaw (see Related links for recent news reports on this event).
References
The following sources have been used in preparing this article.
Book sources
- Norman Davies. Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw<cite>. Viking Books, 2004. ISBN 0670032840. Hardcover, 784 pages.
- Jerzy Kirchmayer. <cite>Powstanie Warszawskie<cite>. Książka i Wiedza, Warsaw, 1959. ISBN 830511080X. Hardcover, 576 pages.
- Władysław Bartoszewski. <cite>Dni walczącej stolicy<cite>. Świat Książki, Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego, Warsaw, 2004. ISBN 8373916792. Hardcover, 522 pages.
- Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski. <cite>Secret Army<cite>. Macmillan Company, New York 1951. ISBN 0898390826. Hardcover, 407 pages.
- Jan Karski. <cite>Story of a Secret State<cite>. Simon Publications, 2001. ISBN 1931541396. Paperback, 391 pages.
- See also this external link (http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/FurtherR.htm) for more English language books on the topic.
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