This Week in History recalls memorable and decisive events and personalities of the past.
1st August 1944 – Second World War: The Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi German occupation breaks out in Warsaw, Poland
German soldiers fighting the Polish resistance at Theater Square in Warsaw, September 1944 [Bundesarchiv, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5419781]
Few stories from the Second World War are as dramatic as that of the Warsaw Uprising. The largest operation launched by any European resistance group in occupied Europe during the war, its heroism and its stunning betrayal would go on to shape not only Poland but the coming Cold War.
In the second half of 1944, the German army was in retreat across Europe. The Americans, British and Commonwealth troops had successfully landed in northern France and were beginning to break out from their beachhead in Normandy.
American troops of the 1st Infantry Division wading ashore on ‘Omaha Beach’ in June 1944
In the south, the Germans had lost control of Rome in June 1944 and were fighting a grim defensive battle against the Allies. In the Balkans major partisan efforts were bleeding the Germans and their allies dry.
Every day and night, the skies of major German cities were filled by the enormous allied strategic bomber operations, forcing the German air force to abandon its support for the army.
An Avro Lancaster over Hamburg
In the east, the Soviet forces were driving the Germans back; on 13 July the Soviet armies crossed the old Polish border, headed for Germany.
During the five-year German occupation, the Poles had stubbornly resisted.
Hitler watching German soldiers marching into Poland in September 1939 [Bundesarchiv, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5369413]
Officially their government had not surrendered to Germany and remained in existence in exile in Britian. For their part, the Germans had treated the Poles appallingly. Around half of all the Jews killed in the Holocaust were of Polish origin, and the non-Jewish population, while slightly better treated, were also subject to cruelty, oppression and violence.
Forced resettlement of Poles [Bundesarchiv, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5441626]
Indeed, the German plans for Poland after the war would have seen the Slavic Poles eliminated after the Germans had finished with the Jews to make way for new German settlers.
The Polish resistance was organized into the ‘Polish Home Army’, an underground organisation that carried out attacks against the occupying Germans.
Home Army soldiers of the ‘Zośka’ Battalion
The Poles hoped that the arrival of the Soviet army could mean liberation, but many within Poland were suspicious of the Soviets. After all, at the start of the war, the Soviets had been allied to the Germans, and in the secret conditions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact had divided Eastern Europe, and Poland, between themselves.
German and Soviet officers shaking hands following the invasion
The Soviets had also carried out massacres of the Polish army who they captured during the fall of Poland such as the Katyn massacre in 1940.
A photograph of the 1943 exhumation of the mass grave of Polish officers killed by the Soviets in Katyń Forest in 1940
The Soviets had also fuelled the German war machine with important supplies and material right up until the day of the German betrayal of the alliance and its invasion of the Soviet Union.
German armoured forces cross the Dnieper, September 1941
These bad relations continued during the war against the Germans, with Soviet partisans and Polish Home Army forces occasionally clashing. The Soviets established a Polish puppet government in exile and described the Polish Home Army as weak and collaborationist, whilst the Home Army remained loyal to the Polish government in exile in London.
So it was that, as the Soviets entered Poland in July of 1944, the Home Army feared that they would simply replace one foreign domination with another. They hoped that with the Germans in retreat they could launch an uprising now, assert Polish sovereignty, restore the London government to power and link up with Soviet troops for the push into Germany. They were also pushed to launch an uprising sooner rather than later, as it was feared that the Germans, if they evacuated Poland, were looking to drag thousands of civilians with them to be used as slave labour in German factories or would soon begin reprisals against the Polish population for failing to assist in building defences for the Germans around Warsaw.
On 25 July 1944, the Polish government in exile gave approval for the uprising to be launched when commanders on the ground saw fit. The planning was somewhat rushed, however, and not all members of the Polish command structure were aware of or onboard with the plan.
On 29 July, the Soviets reached the edge of Warsaw but were pushed back by a German counterattack. In the late afternoon of 31 July, the Polish Home army commanders in Warsaw received incorrect reports that the Soviets were entering Warsaw and so decided to launch the uprising against the Germans at 5pm the next day, 1 August 1944.
Some 30 000 poorly equipped Polish troops were about to face off against 11 000 well-equipped German troops entrenched in fortifications in and around the city. Fighting broke out across the city before 5pm and despite some setbacks much of the city was within Polish hands by 4 August.
Home Army soldier armed with Błyskawica submachine gun defending a barricade in Powiśle District of Warsaw during the Uprising
The Polish fighters were drawn from all sectors of Warsaw society, including both Jewish Poles from the Warsaw Ghetto and Slavic Poles. Additionally, many foreigners and escaped prisoners from concentration camps joined in. Among the fighters was even the Nigerian-born jazz musician, August Agboola Browne.
August Agboola Browne [https://www.musicinafrica.net/fr/node/13355]
Browne, with an unnamed Pole. [https://www.facebook.com/IlovePoland966/posts]
The Germans soon reorganized themselves, reinforced and counterattacked, putting huge pressure on the Poles. Many of the city’s inhabitants actively supported the resistance and, despite their strength, the Germans became bogged down in heavy fighting. The Poles believed that they would be able to link up with Soviet forces within a week of fighting.
It was at this moment that Soviet forces stopped moving. Historians would later discover from archival evidence that Stalin deliberately sought to see the uprising crushed so that there would less opposition to the installation of a Soviet-backed puppet regime in Poland. For the first 45 days of the uprising, Soviet troops did not move, taking the opportunity to rest and refit, and giving the Germans time to reorganise and send troops to crush the uprising. The Soviet air force also did not provide aid to the Poles.
The only significant outside support was from the British and South African air forces as well as the remnants of the Polish Air Force under British command, who dropped trained men and supplies to assist the uprising from the air.
Plaque in memory of Herbert J. Brown, 31st squadron SA Air Force airman killed during the airlift: Łódź Doły Cemetery, Poland [Zorro2212, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17873151]
The Western Allies did not feel comfortable doing more without Soviet approval, which was continuously denied.
The Poles would hold out until early September when negotiations began with the Germans being eager to end the uprising and the Poles running low on supplies. These negotiations allowed 20 000 civilians to leave the city. The Poles broke off talks as the Soviets finally began advancing again on 11 September. However, a German counterattack pushed the Soviets back. The Poles finally capitulated on 2 October.
Warsaw Old Town in flames during Warsaw Uprising. (A rare Agfacolor photo, the technology having been invented in 1936, taken by Ewa Faryaszewska, a corporal in Polish Home Army)
Some 90% of the city was destroyed, 200 000 civilians and 15 000 Polish troops had been killed and 15 000 soldiers taken prisoner. The Germans lost around 10 000.
Surrender of the Warsaw Uprising resistance
Heinrich Himmler would say to Hitler of the uprising:
‘My Führer, the timing is unfortunate, but from a historical perspective what the Poles are doing is a blessing. After five, six weeks we shall leave. But by then Warsaw, the capital, the head, the intelligence of this former 16–17 million Polish people will be extinguished, this Volk that has blocked our way to the east for seven hundred years and has stood in our way ever since the First Battle of Tannenberg [in 1410]. After this the Polish problem will no longer be a great historical problem for the children who come after us, nor indeed will it be for us.’
The failure of the Soviets to help the Poles soured relations between the West and the Soviets, with some historians even dating the Warsaw Uprising as the start of the Cold War. After the war, the Soviets would indeed set up a puppet government in Poland.
Poland would not gain independence until the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1989.
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