Thread by @marinamaral2

The Warsaw Uprising started #OnThisDay in 1944.

It was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance, led by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), to liberate Warsaw from German occupation.

The uprising was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II.

In 1944 Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany for almost 5 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 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 their offensive in 1943, it became clear that Poland would be liberated by the Red Army instead of western allies.

The Soviets and the Poles had a common enemy—Germany—but other than that, they were working towards different post-war goals; the Home Army desired a pro-Western, capitalist Poland, but the Soviet leader Stalin intended to establish 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 Polish resistance increasingly united under the Home Army's front.

Then on 20 November the Home Army commander, Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, 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 authorized by the government in exile to proclaim a general uprising whenever they saw fit.

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 problems with 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.

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 (without the knowledge and against the wishes of Polish Commander-in-Chief General Kazimierz Sosnkowski) 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. They 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 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 armored 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."

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.

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 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.

Colonel Antoni Chruściel who commanded the Polish underground forces in Warsaw, divided his units into eight areas: the Sub-district I of Śródmieście (Area I) which included Warszawa-Śródmieście and the Old Town; the Sub-district II of Żoliborz (Area II) comprising Żoliborz,

Marymont, and Bielany; the Sub-district III of Wola (Area III) in Wola; the Sub-district IV of Ochota (Area IV) in Ochota; the Sub-district V of Mokotów (Area V) in Mokotów; the Sub-district VI of Praga (Area VI) in Praga;

the Sub-district VII of Warsaw suburbs (Area VII) for the Warsaw West County; and the Autonomous Region VIII of Okęcie (Area VIII) in Okęcie; while the units of the Directorate of Sabotage and Diversion (Kedyw) remained attached to the Uprising Headquarters.

On 20 September, the sub-districts were reorganized to align with the 3 areas of the city held by the Polish units. The entire force, renamed the Warsaw Home Army Corps and commanded by General Antoni Chruściel formed 3 infantry divisions (Śródmieście, Żoliborz and Mokotów).

The exact number of the foreign fighters who fought in Warsaw 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

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 (the colors of the Polish national flag) and adopted the Polish traditional independence fighters’ slogan ‘Za naszą i waszą wolność’.

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 APC vehicles.

Photo: Kubuś, an armored car made by the Home Army during the Uprising.

Also, resistance workshops produced weapons throughout the fighting, including submachine guns, K pattern flamethrowers, grenades, and mortars.

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.

In late July 1944 the German units stationed in and around Warsaw were divided into three categories. The first and the most numerous was the garrison of Warsaw. As of 31 July, it numbered some 11,000 troops under General Rainer Stahel.

These well-equipped German forces prepared for the 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.

Apart from the garrison itself, numerous army units were stationed on both banks of the Vistula and in the city. The second category was formed by police and SS, numbering initially 5,710 men.

The third category was formed by various auxiliary units, including detachments of the Bahnschutz (rail guard), Werkschutz (factory guard), Sonderdienst and Sonderabteilungen (military Nazi party units).

After days of hesitation, at 17:00 on 31 July, the Polish headquarters scheduled "W-hour" (from the Polish wybuch, "explosion"), the moment of the start of the uprising for 17:00 on the following day.

The decision was a strategic miscalculation because the under-equipped resistance forces were prepared and trained for a series of coordinated surprise dawn attacks.

In addition, although many units were already mobilized and waiting at assembly points throughout the city, the mobilization of thousands of young men and women was hard to conceal.

Fighting started in advance of W-hour, notably in Żoliborz, and around Napoleon Square and Dąbrowski Square.

The Germans had anticipated the possibility of an uprising, though they had not realized its size or strength. At 16:30 Governor Fischer put the garrison on full alert.

That evening the resistance captured a major German arsenal, the main post office and power station and the Prudential building. However, Castle Square, the police district, and the airport remained in German hands.

The first days were crucial in establishing the battlefield for the rest of the fight. The resistance fighters were most successful in the City Centre, Old Town, and Wola districts.

However, several major German strongholds remained, and in some areas of Wola the Poles sustained heavy losses that forced an early retreat. In other areas such as Mokotów, the attackers almost completely failed to secure any objectives and controlled only the residential areas.

In Praga, on the east bank of the Vistula, the Poles were sent back into hiding by a high concentration of German forces. Most crucially the fighters in different areas failed to link up with each other and with areas outside Warsaw, leaving each sector isolated from the others.

After the first hours of fighting, many units adopted a more defensive strategy, while civilians began erecting barricades.

Despite all the problems, by 4 August the majority of the city was in Polish hands, although some key strategic points remained untaken.

The uprising was intended to last a few days until Soviet forces arrived; however, this never happened, and the Polish forces had to fight with little outside assistance.

The Uprising reached its apogee on 4 August when the Home Army soldiers managed to establish front lines in the westernmost boroughs of Wola and Ochota. However, it was also the moment at which the German army stopped its retreat westwards and began receiving reinforcements.

German counter-attacks aimed to link up with the remaining German pockets and then cut off the Uprising from the Vistula river. Among the reinforcing units were forces under the command of Heinz Reinefarth.

On 5 August Reinefarth's three attack groups started their advance westward along Wolska and Górczewska streets toward the main East-West communication line of Jerusalem Avenue.

Their advance was halted, but the regiments began carrying out Heinrich Himmler's orders: behind the lines, special SS, police and Wehrmacht groups went from house to house, shooting the inhabitants regardless of age or gender and burning their bodies.

Estimates of civilians killed in Wola and Ochota range from 20,000 to 50,000, 40,000 by 8 August in Wola alone, or as high as 100,000. The main perpetrators were Oskar Dirlewanger and Bronislav Kaminski, whose forces committed the cruelest atrocities.

(Read more: warsawuprising.com/witness/atroci…)

The policy was designed to crush the Poles' will to fight and put the uprising to an end without having to commit to heavy city fighting.

With time, the Germans realized that atrocities only stiffened resistance and that some political solution should be found, as the thousands of men at the disposal of the German commander were unable to effectively counter the resistance in an urban guerrilla setting.

They aimed to gain a significant victory to show the Home Army the futility of further fighting and induce them to surrender. This did not succeed.

Until mid-September, the Germans shot all captured resistance fighters on the spot, but from the end of September, some of the captured Polish soldiers were treated as POWs.

"This is the fiercest of our battles since the start of the war. It compares to the street battles of Stalingrad."

— SS chief Heinrich Himmler to German generals on 21 September 1944.

Despite the loss of Wola, the Polish resistance strengthened. Zośka and Wacek battalions managed to capture the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto and liberate the Gęsiówka concentration camp, freeing about 350 Jews.

On 7 August German forces were strengthened by the arrival of tanks using civilians as human shields.

After two days of heavy fighting, they managed to bisect Wola and reach Bankowy Square.

However, by then the net of barricades, street fortifications, and tank obstacles were already well-prepared; both sides reached a stalemate, with heavy house-to-house fighting.

Jewish prisoners of Gęsiówka concentration camp liberated by Polish Home Army soldiers from "Zośka" Battalion, 5 August 1944.

Between 9 and 18 August, pitched battles raged around the Old Town and nearby Bankowy Square. German tactics hinged on bombardment through the use of heavy artillery and tactical bombers, against which the Poles were unable to effectively defend...

... as they lacked anti-aircraft artillery weapons. Even clearly marked hospitals were dive-bombed by Stukas.

Although the Battle of Stalingrad had already shown the danger a city can pose to armies which fight within it and the importance of local support, the Warsaw Uprising was probably the first demonstration that in an urban terrain, a vastly under-equipped force supported

by the civilian population can hold its own against better-equipped professional soldiers—though at the cost of considerable sacrifice on the part of the city's residents.

The Poles held the Old Town until a decision to withdraw was made at the end of August. On successive nights until 2 September, the defenders of the Old Town withdrew through the sewers, which were a major means of communication between different parts of the Uprising.

Thousands of people were evacuated in this way. Those that remained were either shot or transported to concentration camps like Mauthausen and Sachsenhausen once the Germans regained control.

In 1939 Warsaw had roughly 1,350,000 inhabitants. Over a million were still living in the city at the start of the Uprising.

In Polish-controlled territory, during the first weeks of the Uprising, people tried to recreate the normal day-to-day life of their free country.

Cultural life was vibrant, both among the soldiers and civilian population, with theatres, newspapers and similar activities. Boys and girls of the Polish Scouts acted as couriers for an underground postal service, risking their lives daily to transmit any information

that might help their people.

Near the end of the Uprising, lack of food, medicine, overcrowding and indiscriminate German air and artillery assault on the city made the civilian situation more and more desperate.

As the Uprising was supposed to be relieved by the Soviets in a matter of days, the Polish underground did not predict food shortages would be a problem. However, as the fighting dragged on, the inhabitants of the city faced hunger and starvation.

A major breakthrough took place on 6 August, when Polish units recaptured the Haberbusch i Schiele brewery complex at Ceglana Street. From that time on the citizens of Warsaw lived mostly on barley from the brewery's warehouses.

Every day up to several thousand people organized into cargo teams reported to the brewery for bags of barley and then distributed them in the city center. The barley was then ground in coffee grinders and boiled with water to form a so-called spit-soup (Polish: pluj-zupa).

The "Sowiński" Battalion managed to hold the brewery until the end of the fighting.

Another serious problem for civilians and soldiers alike was a shortage of water.

By mid-August most of the water conduits were either out of order or filled with corpses.

In addition, the main water pumping station remained in German hands.

To prevent the spread of epidemics and provide the people with water, the authorities ordered all janitors to supervise the construction of water wells in the backyards of every house.

On 21 September the Germans blew up the remaining pumping stations at Koszykowa Street and after that the public wells were the only source of potable water in the besieged city.

By the end of September, the city center had more than 90 functioning wells.

Before the Uprising the Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Home Army had set up a group of war correspondents. Headed by Antoni Bohdziewicz, the group made three newsreels and over 30,000 meters of film tape documenting the struggles.

On the night of 19 September, after no further attempts from the other side of the Vistula river were made and the promised evacuation of wounded did not take place, Home Army soldiers and landed elements of the 1st Polish Army were forced to begin a retreat from

their positions on the bank of the river. Out of approximately 900 men who made it ashore only a handful made it back to the eastern shore of the Vistula.

Berling's Polish Army losses in the attempt to aid the Uprising were 5,660 killed, missing or wounded.

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.

The Poles were besieged in three areas of the city: Śródmieście, Żoliborz and Mokotów.

According to many historians, a major cause of the eventual failure of the uprising was the almost complete lack of outside support and the late arrival of that which did arrive.

The Polish government-in-exile carried out frantic diplomatic efforts to gain support from the Western Allies prior to the start of battle but the allies would not act without Soviet approval.

The Polish government in London asked the British several times to send an allied mission to Poland. However, the British mission did not arrive until December 1944. Shortly after their arrival, they met up with Soviet authorities, who arrested and imprisoned them.

Nevertheless, from August 1943 to July 1944, over 200 British Royal Air Force (RAF) flights dropped an estimated 146 Polish personnel trained in Great Britain, over 4000 containers of supplies, and $16 million in banknotes and gold to the Home Army.

The only support operation which ran continuously were night supply drops by long-range planes of the RAF, other British Commonwealth air forces, and units of the Polish Air Force, which had to use distant airfields in Italy, reducing the amount of supplies they could carry.

The RAF made 223 sorties and lost 34 aircraft. The effect of these airdrops was mostly psychological—they delivered too few supplies for the needs of the resistance, and many airdrops landed outside Polish-controlled territory.

"There was no difficulty in finding Warsaw. It was visible from 100 kilometers away. The city was in flames but with so many huge fires burning, it was almost impossible to pick up the target marker flares."

— William Fairly, a South African pilot, from an interview in 1982

The role of the Red Army during the Warsaw Uprising remains controversial. The Uprising started when the Red Army appeared on the city's doorstep, and the Poles in Warsaw were counting on Soviet front capturing or forwarding beyond the city in a matter of days.

This basic scenario of an uprising against the Germans, launched a few days before the arrival of Allied forces, played out successfully in a number of European capitals, such as Paris and Prague.

However, despite easy capture of area south-east of Warsaw barely 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the city center and holding these positions for about 40 days, the Soviets did not extend any effective aid to the resistance within Warsaw.

At that time city outskirts were defended by the under-manned and under-equipped German 73rd Infantry Division which was destroyed many times on the Eastern Front and was yet-again being reconstituted.

The weak German defense forces did not experience any significant Soviet pressure during that period, which effectively allowed them to strengthen German forces fighting against uprising in the city itself.

"The 9th Army has crushed the final resistance in the southern Vistula circle. The resistance fought to the very last bullet."

— German report, 23 September 1944.

The capitulation order of the remaining Polish forces was finally signed on 2 October. All fighting ceased that evening. According to the agreement, the Wehrmacht promised to treat Home Army soldiers in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and to treat the civilians humanely.

The next day the Germans began to disarm the Home Army soldiers. They later sent 15,000 of them to POW camps in various parts of Germany.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 resistance fighters decided to blend into the civilian population hoping to continue the fight later.

The entire civilian population of Warsaw was expelled from the city and sent to a transit camp Durchgangslager 121 in Pruszków. Out of 350,000–550,000 civilians who passed through the camp, 90,000 were sent to labor camps in the Third Reich

60,000 were shipped to death and concentration camps (including Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, and Mauthausen, among others), while the rest were transported to various locations in the General Government and released.

The Eastern Front remained static in the Vistula sector, with the Soviets making no attempt to push forward, until the Vistula–Oder Offensive began on 12 January 1945.

Almost entirely destroyed (85%), Warsaw was liberated from the Germans on 17 January 1945 by the Red Army and the First Polish Army.

"The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation."

— SS chief Heinrich Himmler, 17 October, SS officers conference

The destruction of the Polish capital was planned before the start of World War II.

On 20 June 1939 while Adolf Hitler was visiting an architectural bureau in Würzburg am Main, his attention was captured by a project of a future German town – "Neue deutsche Stadt Warschau".

According to the Pabst Plan Warsaw was to be turned into a provincial German city.

It was soon included as a part of the great Germanization plan of the East; the genocidal Generalplan Ost.

The failure of the Warsaw Uprising provided an opportunity for Hitler to begin the transformation.

After the remaining population had been expelled, the Germans continued the destruction of the city.

Special groups of German engineers were dispatched to burn and demolish the remaining buildings.

According to German plans, after the war Warsaw was to be turned into nothing more than a military transit station, or even an artificial lake.

The demolition squads used flamethrowers and explosives to methodically destroy house after house. They paid special attention to historical monuments, Polish national archives and places of interest.

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, and the rest as a result of the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the September 1939 campaign.

Material losses are estimated at 10,455 buildings, 923 historical buildings (94%), 25 churches, 14 libraries including the National Library, 81 primary schools, 64 high schools, University of Warsaw 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, pieces of art, monuments of science and culture is unknown but considered enormous. Studies done in the late 1940s estimated total damage at about US$30 billion.

Those estimates were later raised to US$45 billion 2004 US dollars and in 2005, to $54.6 billion.

Although the exact number of casualties remains 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.

German casualties totalled over 8,000 soldiers killed and missing, and 9,000 wounded.

"I want to protest against the mean and cowardly attitude adopted by the British press towards the recent rising in Warsaw."

— George Orwell, 1 September 1944.

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 UB political police.

They were interrogated and imprisoned on various charges, such as that of fascism,

Many of them were sent to Gulags, executed or disappeared.

Between 1944 and 1956, all of the former members of Battalion Zośka were incarcerated in Soviet prisons.

The facts of the Warsaw Uprising were inconvenient to Stalin, and were twisted by propaganda of the People's Republic of Poland, which stressed the failings of the Home Army and the Polish government-in-exile, and forbade all criticism of the Red Army.

In the immediate post-war period, 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.

Until the 1990s, historical analysis of the events remained superficial because of official censorship and lack of academic interest. Research into the Uprising was boosted by the fall of communism in 1989 due to the abolition of censorship and increased access to state archives.

In Poland, 1 August is now a celebrated anniversary.

President Roman Herzog, on behalf of Germany, was the first German statesman to apologize for German atrocities committed against the Polish nation during the Uprising.

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