The Warsaw Uprising

Chapter 36

“Whoever does not have a firearm, will get grenades, and whoever runs out of grenades, should take a stone, crowbar or axe in his hand and thus get a weapon for himself”

1 August - 2 October, 1944

By August of 1944 the fifth anniversary of the occupation of Poland by the Wehrmacht was fast approaching, as was the Red Army. As the Germans retreated and attempted to consolidate their lines the underground Polish Home Army was makine preparations to attempt to throw out the occupiers before the arrival of Stalin’s troops.

Home Army soldiers escort captured Germans

Unlike many of the resistance movements throughout Europe during the war, the Polish Home Army was organized as a military organization, operating under the control of the exiled government in London. It had been operating an insurgency since the fall of Poland in 1939, but at the same time had been stockpiling weapons and munitions for a planned general uprising across the country. The advance of the Red Army was seen by the Polish government not as liberators, but rather as a new set of occupiers, and accordingly it was hoped that they could take control of the country before it was subjugated by the communists.

Home Army soldiers fly the Polish flag from a captured German halftrack

The pre-war Polish frontier had been crossed by the Red Army in July of 1944, with Soviet forces driving the Germans as far as the Vistula before the advance halted. Early attempts to join the Red Army in liberating their country had resulted in Home Army forces being forcibly integrated into the Red Army, with officers executed, greatly increasing the concerns of Polish leadership that they must assert control of their country before Stalin arrived. With Soviet spearheads in the eastern suburbs of the capitol, it the Home Army ordered mobilization at the end of July, intending to commence their large scale uprising, designated Operation Tempest, for 1 August.

German soldiers man a barricade in Warsaw
German Federal Archives

The Germans, for their part, had been attempting to reinforce the Warsaw area, which had been designated as a “Fortress City” by Hitler, intended to be the hub of defense for western Poland. Attempts had been in progress to build fortifications and allocate additional supplies, although the obstinance of the local Poles had slowed matters, as had the internal chaos following the 20 July putsch attempt in Germany. Despite this, by the time the Home Army mobilized the German garrison of Warsaw numbered over 10,000 men, with additional Wehrmacht and SS units stationed around the city, and most critical points within the city were fortified.

Polish Home Army soldiers rest with a captured Panther tank on a Warsaw street

The Home Army, on the other hand, had a significant numerical advantage over the garrison, but a serious lack of arms and ammunition. In addition, although many were skilled in guerilla warfare, few were familiar with prolonged open combat in an urban environment. Despite all of this, the Poles knew that their window was closing quickly, and launched the uprising at 1700hrs on 1 August, seizing several important positions, but stymied by German resistance at others, such as the Police Headquarters, the airport and the bridges over the Vistula. The uprising on the eastern side of the river was promptly crushed by the German forces already massed there to meet the Soviets.

A Home Army assault team equipped with homemade flamethrowers and submachine guns

In spite of the somewhat lackluster start, within three days most of Warsaw was back in Polish hands, with large stocks of German supplies, including food, munitions and medical supplies seized. Major roads were barricaded, and the Poles set to attempting to hold what they had gained, expecting Soviet troops to enter the capitol within a week. This did not occur, however, as a combination of the exhaustion of the Soviet forces and Stalin’s desire to see the anti-communist Home Army destroyed led to an order for them to halt. Instead, it was German forces that began to flood the city, including a large number of SS troops under specific orders not just to subdue the uprising, but also to exterminate the population that had caused so much trouble to the occupiers.

Home Army soldiers dash across a Warsaw street

A captured German Hetzer tank destroyer is stationed at a Home Army barricade

The commander of the German garrison, Luftwaffe Generalleutnant Reiner Stahel, had been surrounded in the occupation headquarters at the Saxon Palace since the first day of the uprising, with only limited radio communications and unable to effectively coordinate the German response. As a result of this as well as the ever-present rivalry between SS and Wehrmacht leadership, all German forces in Warsaw were placed under the command of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Erich von dem Bach, a senior police official with a reputation for brutal anti-partisan actions. Redeploying his forces into two wings, his orders also included an edict from the highest levels of the Nazi government for the total destruction of the city of Warsaw and its population. Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler himself considered the uprising to be a personal slight, and took the opportunity to launch a campaign to extinguish Polish culture permanently.

Bodies at Wola, victims of the massacre there as the German “relief” forces entered the city

As the SS moved through the district of Wola a brutal massacre began, as German police units slaughtered the residents as well as captured Home Army soldiers. Rape and torture also occurred in some cases, and in the two hospitals in the district patients were shot in their beds as the medical staff were executed alongside them. Notably, Wola was also the entrance point into the city of the Dirlewanger Brigade, a special SS unit formed of convicted criminals, including rapists, murderers and even inmates from asylums. Commanded by the vicious alcoholic Oskar Dirlewanger, himself a convicted child molester, this was a unit considered brutal and sadistic by even some of the worst of the Nazi regime. Even as they laid waste to the city, observers reported seeing Dirlewanger’s men shooting each other in squabbles over loot or women, with regular SS men and Wehrmacht personnel appalled by their lack of discipline, even as they themselves took part in the slaughter.

Men of the SS Dirlewanger Brigade in Warsaw
German Federal Archives

The brutality with which the Germans reasserted control over the areas they captured was intended in part to cow the Home Army, but would in practice have the opposite effect, galvanizing resistance to such barbarism. Captured German armor was put into action, with Home Army troops aided by a Panther tank managing to liberate the concentration camp at Gęsiowka on 5 August after a brief fight with the SS guards there, allowing the able bodied prisoners to join the insurrection. Heavy urban fighting swept the city, with the Germans bringing in ever more powerful units and weapons to crush the uprising as the fighting over the city rapidly escalated.

Home Army soldiers at the Gęsiowka concentration camp with liberated prisoners

Despite the hopes of the Home Army and indeed the fears of the OKW, the Red Army did not launch an offensive to link up with the Polish forces in the city. Indeed, no meaningful Soviet support materializes, with the Home Army left to fight on their own on the ground, pummeled by both the SS and a Luftwaffe that found the skies over the city uncontested by VVS aircraft. Indeed, the Stavka even went so far as to deny the USAAF planes based in the USSR from authorization to support the uprising. As the Soviet response to the Home Army elsewhere in Poland had shown, Stalin considered the Polish resistance not as allies but as obstacles to his intention of installing a communist puppet state in Poland. Allowing the Germans to expend their resources crushing a movement sure to oppose Soviet occupation was a sound strategic choice for Moscow, and the response of the Western Allies also was muted, with their forces occupied on the other side of the continent.

A German Stuka pulls away after a strike on Polish positions in Warsaw

The Germans’ massive Karl Gerat 600mm siege mortar in position to fire at Warsaw
German Federal Archives

As the outer districts were brutally cleared, the Home Army consolidated its hold on the city center, with the Germans launching their main attack into the stronghold on 7 August. Heavy resistance prevented significant inroads, with the ruined Royal Castle being their only significant gain over the following four days. As the remnants of Home Army forces in the outer districts were destroyed, Gruppenfuhrer von dem Bach sent a request for surrender on 18 August, which was ignored, thus being followed by a renewed German offensive into the city center. The Poles were able to maintain some level of freedom of movement by traveling via the sewer systems, out of sight of German troops and safe from the shells and bombs that rained upon the city, while the Germans were forced to make conventional advances through the rubble-choked streets with their armor and infantry.

Polish soldiers fight amongst the rubble of Warsaw, one armed with a homemade Blyskawica submachine gun

The resulting struggle was vicious urban combat on a level with that seen in Stalingrad two years prior, with ever street and structure becoming a bitterly contested strongpoint. Despite the slow progress of the attackers, the Home Army was growing increasingly short of men, and by the end of the month were steadily losing strongpoints to the occupiers. Facing a collapse in the Old Town district, the Polish leadership launched a breakout attempt to link up with forces holding the downtown district, but this failed with heavy losses. Following this the Germans launched another assault on the Old Town, with the Poles stopping them by 2 September, allowing evacuation via the sewers. As the Germans finally overran the Old Town they slaughtered captured Home Army soldiers, including those wounded in the various field hospitals, and engaged in an orgy of rape and violence against the civilians still alive within the district.

Cossacks of the Russian Liberation Army confer with SS officers, including Gruppenfuhrer Heinz Reinefarth, who would become known a s the “Butcher of Wola”
German Federal Archives

Now the Germans moved their attention downtown, with heavy bombardment by air and artillery of the area preceding the ground assault. This commenced on 5 September, with slow progress due to stiff resistance. The Western Allies attempted in early September to airdrop supplies to the Home Army, but these most commonly fell on German positions, and most that landed were destroyed by impact regardless. By mid September supplies were running critically low, and although the Red Army was finally beginning to move towards Warsaw it was becoming apparent that the fate of the Home Army was sealed. Polish Communist troops, operating under Red Army control, commenced operations to cross the Vistula in mid September, with the eastern neighborhood of Praga being taken on 14 September, although not further advance was made, leaving the Home Army to its fate.

A 600mm shell from a Karl Gerat strikes the Home Army position in the Prudential Building, Warsaw’s tallest structure

As the resistance downtown was slowly crushed, the Germans also moved to eliminate other pockets in the outlying districts. These were slowly overrun and the remnants forced to retreat via the sewers toward Downtown. Attempts as well by Home Army forces outside the city to break in or to cut German supply lines were disorganized, and generally met no success. The last of these, Zoliborz, collapsed on 30 September, leaving the Germans to turn their full force against the beleaguered defenders of the downtown area.

A tattered Polish flag flies atop a train station in the final days of the uprising

By this point it was clear to the Home Army leadership that continued resistance was pointless. General Tadeusz “Bór” Komorowski, the commander of the Home Army, met with Gruppenfuhrer von dem Bach at the end of September to negotiate, with terms agreed to that included the treating of Home Army prisoners as POWs, the protection of civilians, and the cessation of the destruction of Warsaw. The Germans subsequently disarmed the bulk of the Home Army in Warsaw and evacuated the entire remaining civilian population, with most ending up in work camps in Germany or concentration camps.

Polish Home Army soldiers lay down their arms after the end of the Uprising

The destruction of Warsaw continued apace, however, in accordance with pre-war Nazi plans to do so. The Soviets would make no attempts on the city until January of 1945, by the time Stalin’s tanks rolled into the city, almost 85% of it had been destroyed. For the Home Army, its strength had been effectively broken, and they found themselves unable to assert an independent Poland in the face of the Soviet invasion.

A German soldier deploys a flamethrower during operations to destroy the city of Warsaw