Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising, sometimes referred to as the August Uprising, or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army. The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II. The defeat of the uprising and suppression of the Home Army enabled the pro-Soviet Polish administration, instead of the Polish government-in-exile based in London, to take control of Poland afterwards. Poland would remain as part of the Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc throughout the Cold War until 1989.
The Uprising began on 1 August 1944 as part of a nationwide Operation Tempest, launched at the time of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans out of Warsaw while helping the Allies defeat Germany. An additional, political goal of the Polish Underground State was to liberate Poland's capital and assert Polish sovereignty before the Soviet Union and Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation, which already controlled eastern Poland, could assume control. Other immediate causes included a threat of mass German round-ups of able-bodied Poles for "evacuation"; calls by Radio Moscow's Polish Service for uprising; and an emotional Polish desire for justice and revenge against the enemy after five years of German occupation.
Despite the early gains by the Home Army, the Germans successfully counterattacked on 25 August, in an attack that killed as many as 40,000 civilians. The uprising was now in a siege phase which favored the better-equipped Germans and eventually the Home Army surrendered on 2 October when their supplies ran out. The Germans then deported the remaining civilians in the city and razed the city itself.
While the Germans lost around 16,000 men during the Warsaw Uprising, Polish casualties were catastrophic. Although the exact number of casualties is unknown, it is estimated that about 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and about 6,000 badly wounded. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. Jews being harboured by Poles were exposed by German house-to-house clearances and mass evictions of entire neighbourhoods.
Historians and the public have debated and interpreted the impact of the Uprising in a wide range of ways, including as a deeply heroic effort and as a terrible loss with little gain. Polish and Western historians agree that Joseph Stalin tactically halted his forces from advancing on Warsaw in order to exhaust the Polish Home Army and to aid his political desires of turning Poland into a Soviet-aligned state. Some scholars argue that the two month period of the Warsaw Uprising was a step in the direction of the Cold War.
Background
In 1944, Poland had been occupied by Nazi Germany for almost five years. The Polish Home Army planned some form of rebellion against German forces. Germany was fighting a coalition of Allied powers, led by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The initial plan of the Home Army was to link up with the invading forces of the Western Allies as they liberated Europe from the Nazis. However, when the Soviet Army began its offensive in 1943, it became clear that Poland would be liberated by it instead of the Western Allies.The Soviets and the Poles had a common enemyGermanybut were working towards different post-war goals: the Home Army desired a pro-Western, capitalist Poland, but the Soviet leader Stalin intended to establish a pro-Soviet, socialist Poland. It became obvious that the advancing Soviet Red Army might not come to Poland as an ally but rather only as "the ally of an ally".
The Soviets and the Poles distrusted each other and Soviet partisans in Poland often clashed with a Polish resistance increasingly united under the Home Army's front. Stalin broke off Polish–Soviet relations on 25 April 1943 after the Germans revealed the Katyn massacre of Polish army officers, and Stalin refused to admit to ordering the killings and denounced the claims as German propaganda. Afterwards, Stalin created the Rudenko Commission, whose goal was to blame the Germans for the war crime at all costs. The Western alliance accepted Stalin's words as truth in order to keep the anti-Nazi alliance intact. On 26 October, the Polish government-in-exile issued instructions to the effect that, if diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union were not resumed before the Soviet entry into Poland, Home Army forces were to remain underground pending further decisions.
However, the Home Army commander, Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, took a different approach, and on 20 November, he outlined his own plan, which became known as Operation Tempest. On the approach of the Eastern Front, local units of the Home Army were to harass the German Wehrmacht in the rear and co-operate with incoming Soviet units as much as possible. Although doubts existed about the military necessity of a major uprising, planning continued. General Bór-Komorowski and his civilian advisor were authorised by the government in exile to proclaim a general uprising whenever they saw fit.
Eve of the battle
The situation came to a head on 13 July 1944 as the Soviet offensive crossed the old Polish border. At this point, the Poles had to make a decision: either initiate the uprising in the current difficult political situation and risk a lack of Soviet support, or fail to rebel and face Soviet propaganda describing the Home Army as impotent or worse, Nazi collaborators. They feared that if Poland was liberated by the Red Army, then the Allies would ignore the London-based Polish government in the aftermath of the war. The urgency for a final decision on strategy increased as it became clear that, after successful Polish-Soviet co-operation in the liberation of Polish territory, Soviet security forces behind the frontline shot or arrested Polish officers and forcibly conscripted lower ranks into the Soviet-controlled forces. On 21 July, the High Command of the Home Army decided that the time to launch Operation Tempest in Warsaw was imminent. The plan was intended both as a political manifestation of Polish sovereignty and as a direct operation against the German occupiers. On 25 July, the Polish government-in-exile approved the plan for an uprising in Warsaw with the timing to be decided locally.In the early summer of 1944, German plans required Warsaw to serve as the defensive centre of the area and to be held at all costs. The Germans had fortifications constructed and built up their forces in the area. This process slowed after the failed 20 July plot to assassinate the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and around that time, the Germans in Warsaw were weak and visibly demoralized. However, by the end of July, German forces in the area were reinforced. On 27 July, the governor of the Warsaw District, Ludwig Fischer, called for 100,000 Polish men and women to report for work as part of a plan which envisaged the Poles constructing fortifications around the city. The inhabitants of Warsaw ignored his demand, and the Home Army command became worried about possible reprisals or mass round-ups, which would disable their ability to mobilize. The Soviet forces were approaching Warsaw, and Soviet-controlled radio stations called for the Polish people to rise in arms.
On 25 July, the Union of Polish Patriots, in a broadcast from Moscow, stated:
The Polish Army of Polish Patriots ... calls on the thousands of brothers thirsting to fight, to smash the foe before he can recover from his defeat ... Every Polish homestead must become a stronghold in the struggle against the invaders ... Not a moment is to be lost.On 29 July, the first Soviet armoured units reached the outskirts of Warsaw, where they were counter-attacked by two German Panzer Corps: the 39th and 4th SS. On 29 July 1944 Radio Station Kosciuszko located in Moscow emitted a few times its "Appeal to Warsaw" and called to "Fight The Germans!":
No doubt Warsaw already hears the guns of the battle which is soon to bring her liberation. ... The Polish Army now entering Polish territory, trained in the Soviet Union, is now joined to the People's Army to form the Corps of the Polish Armed Forces, the armed arm of our nation in its struggle for independence. Its ranks will be joined tomorrow by the sons of Warsaw. They will all together, with the Allied Army pursue the enemy westwards, wipe out the Hitlerite vermin from Polish land and strike a mortal blow at the beast of Prussian Imperialism.Bór-Komorowski and several officers held a meeting on that day. Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, who had arrived from London, expressed the view that help from the Allies would be limited, but his views received no attention.
Believing that the time for action had arrived, on 31 July, the Polish commanders General Bór-Komorowski and Colonel Antoni Chruściel ordered full mobilization of the forces for 17:00 the following day.
Opposing forces
Polish forces
The Home Army forces of the Warsaw District numbered between 20,000, and 49,000 soldiers. Other underground formations also contributed; estimates range from 2,000 in total, to about 3,500 men including those from the National Armed Forces and the communist People's Army. Most of them had trained for several years in partisan and urban guerrilla warfare, but lacked experience in prolonged daylight fighting. The forces lacked equipment, because the Home Army had shuttled weapons to the east of the country before the decision to include Warsaw in Operation Tempest. Other partisan groups subordinated themselves to Home Army command, and many volunteers joined during the fighting, including Jews freed from the Gęsiówka concentration camp in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. Morale among Jewish fighters was hurt by displays of antisemitism, with several former Jewish prisoners in combat units even killed by antisemitic Poles.Colonel Antoni Chruściel who commanded the Polish underground forces in Warsaw, divided his units into eight areas: the Sub-district I of Śródmieście which included Warszawa-Śródmieście and the Old Town; the Sub-district II of Żoliborz comprising Żoliborz, Marymont, and Bielany; the Sub-district III of Wola in Wola; the Sub-district IV of Ochota in Ochota; the Sub-district V of Mokotów in Mokotów; the Sub-district VI of Praga in Praga; the Sub-district VII of Warsaw suburbs for the Warsaw West County; and the Autonomous Region VIII of Okęcie in Okęcie; while the units of the Directorate of Sabotage and Diversion remained attached to the Uprising Headquarters. On 20 September, the sub-districts were reorganized to align with the three areas of the city held by the Polish units. The entire force, renamed the Warsaw Home Army Corps and commanded by General Antoni Chruściel – who was promoted from Colonel on 14 September – formed three infantry divisions.
File:535 pluton Slowakow powstanie.jpg|thumb|The 535th platoon of Slovaks under the command of Mirosław Iringh, part of the 1st company of the "Tur" battalion from the "Kryśka" Group fought in Czerniaków and Praga district during the uprising.
The exact number of the foreign fighters, who fought in Warsaw for Poland's independence, is difficult to determine, taking into consideration the chaotic character of the Uprising causing their irregular registration. It is estimated that they numbered several hundred and represented at least 15 countries – Slovakia, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, the United States, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Romania, Germany, and even Nigeria. These people – emigrants who had settled in Warsaw before the war, escapees from numerous POW, concentration and labor camps, and deserters from the German auxiliary forces – were absorbed in different fighting and supportive formations of the Polish underground. They wore the underground's red-white armband and adopted the Polish traditional independence fighters' slogan 'Za naszą i waszą wolność'. Some of the 'obcokrajowcy' showed outstanding bravery in fighting the enemy and were awarded the highest decorations of the AK and the Polish government in exile.
During the fighting, the Poles obtained additional supplies through airdrops and by capture from the enemy, including several armored vehicles, notably two Panther tanks and two Sd.Kfz. 251 armored personnel carriers. Also, resistance workshops produced weapons throughout the fighting, including submachine guns, K pattern flamethrowers, grenades, mortars, and even an armored car. As of 1 August, Polish military supplies consisted of 1,000 guns, 1,750 pistols, 300 submachine guns, 60 assault rifles, 7 heavy machine guns, 20 anti-tank guns, and 25,000 hand grenades. "Such collection of light weapons might have been sufficient to launch an urban terror campaign, but not to seize control of the city".