The Warsaw Uprising

Hope and Defeat

Fighting against the Third Reich as a resistance group was a terrifying prospect during World War II. Yet, despite the hardship, the danger and the severity of the retaliation, countless patriots all over Europe felt they had no choice but to risk, and often sacrifice, their lives in defense of their motherland. Resistance groups sometimes achieved significant success, but just as often suffered devastating losses. No partisan group could be a more poignant example of this as the Polish Home Army, the Armia Krajowa, which organized the largest uprising against their Nazi oppressors between August and October 1944.

With somewhere between 200,000 and 600,000 members in 1944, the Home Army was one of Europe's largest and best-organized underground resistance movements. It maintained local "inspectorates" and a nationwide system of bureaus and sections dedicated to tasks like logistics, propaganda or special operations. The membership was divided into three categories. Most senior officers lived in the cities under false identities. The "forest people" were partisans, often uniformed, who lived in woods and opposed the Germans through guerilla warfare. These two groups were "full-time"; "part-time" members lived under their real names and stayed in touch with their unit commanders, but did not normally participate in operations, as they were being held in reserve for an eventual general uprising.

The Home Army even manufactured its own armament in secret workshops. The KIS submachine gun was based on the British Sten gun (The Sten Gun), while the Błyskawica ("lightning") combined the internal mechanism of the Sten with the external design of the German MP 40. The resistance also produced its own flamethrowers, mines and two types of hand grenades. One of these, the Sidolówka, was named after the metal cleaning agent Sidol, since the first grenades were made out of Sidol bottles. Allied airdrops provided the Home Army with additional supplies, such as anti-tank weapons and plastic explosives. Other weapons came from arms caches hidden during the 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union (Stories of Poland's Fall), stolen from shipments and guard houses, taken from ambushed German soldiers on the street, or acquired by raiding German military transports. Yet other weapons were simply bought on the black market, though this was a risky venture thanks to Gestapo sting operations.

In January 1944, acting on an initiative of the Polish government-in-exile in London, the Home Army embarked on akcja "Burza", or Operation Tempest, in January 1944. Tempest was a series of uprisings to throw off the German yoke. The timing was good: German forces were retreating before the Red Army in the east, and any damage done to the occupiers rendered them less capable of mounting a defense against Soviet forces once they reached Poland. The approaching Soviet military, however, meant that the opportunity was also a dire political necessity. In 1939, the Soviet Union joined Germany in invading Poland, and the 1940 Katyn massacre, the mass execution of 22,000 Poles by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, made it clear that Stalin did not want an independent Poland in the future. The Polish government hoped that by liberating important parts of the country on their own, they could assert their sovereignty, and the Western Allies would work to reinstate them after the war instead of accepting a Soviet-friendly puppet government.

The capital city of Warsaw was originally not meant to be a target of uprising during Operation Tempest, but the Soviets forced the hand of the Home Army. In July 1944, the Red Army reached Poland, and gave its support to the Polish Committee of National Liberation, a communist contender for governance over the country, which rapidly established itself in the eastern part of Poland. The Germans began to fortify Warsaw and turn it into a strongpoint in their defenses. They were temporarily demoralized after the failed Valkyrie plot against Hitler on July 20 (Valkyrie), but were quickly reinforced and started calling for Polish citizens to work on the fortifications.

General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, the overall commander of the Home Army, decided that an uprising in Warsaw was inevitable. For one, the Soviets were near, and letting them "liberate" the capital would inevitably hand the country over to the National Committee. For two, the residents of Warsaw ignored the German demand for manpower, and the Home Army was worried of a harsh reprisal. Soviet forces reached the outskirts of Warsaw located on the eastern shore of the Vistula River on July 29. Two days later, Bór-Komorowski order a full mobilization of the Home Army in Warsaw for the afternoon of the next day.

The Home Army had 20,000 to 49,000 men in Warsaw, who were joined 2,000 to 3,500 partisans from other groups, even including a communist one. The uprising was further bolstered by an unknown number, possibly several hundred, foreigners. They were mainly emigrants who settled down in Warsaw before the war; escapees from German POW, labor and concentration camps; and deserters from German auxiliary units. The countries represented by these obcokrajowcy included the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and even Nigeria.

The force had two significant weaknesses. One, while they had years of training in rural and urban guerilla warfare, they had no experience with prolonged, open fighting during the day. Two, they were low on weapons, as most of their arsenal was moved to the now Soviet-occupied eastern parts of the country to support Tempest uprisings there. As of August 1, the Home Army in Warsaw had 1,750 pistols and 25,000 hand grenades, but only 1,000 rifles, 300 submachine guns, 60 assault rifles, 7 heavy machine guns, 20 anti-tank guns (some received from the Western Allies through airdrops). Such light weapons would have been good for partisan operations, but not for taking and holding a city against a regular force – and, in fact, the majority of the fighters didn’t have anything, not even a pistol. During the uprising, the Home Army bolstered its firepower by capturing two Panther tanks, two Sd.Kfz. 251 halftracks and a Hetzer tank destroyer, and even built a unique armored car of their own, nicknamed Kubuś.

Opposing the Home Army were 11,000 German soldiers, 5,710 SS and police servicemen, some rail and factory guards, and paramilitary units. All in all, the Germans had some 17,000 fighting men at their disposal, but they were far better equipped than the Home Army.

The mobilization and assembly of tens of thousands of men was impossible to hide from the Germans, who had already been aware of the possibility of an uprising, even if they grossly underestimated its scale. The German governor put the garrison on full alert at 4:30 p.m., half an hour before "W-hour," the planned time of the attack.

Even with surprise lost, the Home Army had some significant early successes. It captured a major German arsenal, a power station and the main post office, but the police district, two airports and Castle Square remained in German hands.

The positions solidified after the first few days. The city center, Old Town and the Wola district became the major strongpoints of the uprising. The Germans, however, held on to many other areas, and the Polish-controlled territories could not link up with each other (even though communication between them was still possible through the sewer system). Many Polish units gave up on attacking and dug in, building barricades with civilian help. Nevertheless, the Home Army controlled the majority of the city by August 4.

The uprising was never meant to last more than a few days: with the Red Army right across the Vistula, it was assumed that the Soviets would take advantage of the Germans' moment of weakness and help liberate the city. That was not what happened. On the day of the uprising, the local Soviet forces, under the command of Konstantin Rokossovsky (The Man with Iron Will and Metal Teeth), were halted. The Soviets took up position on the east shore of the Vistula and waited.

It had since been argued that there were rational reasons for the Soviet stop, as other units were engaged in heavy fighting to the north and south of the city, and crossing the river would have risked the force being surrounded and cut off from retreat. It's also been stated that the Soviets were busy advancing into other areas in Eastern Europe, and a push straight west and toward Germany just didn't fit in the greater plan. Declassified Soviet documents, however, have since revealed that Stalin gave orders to cut the Home Army off from any outside help. It doesn't take much to connect the dots and conclude that the Soviets were waiting for the two sides in Warsaw to exhaust each other: every dead German meant an easier conquest, while every dead Pole meant there were going to be fewer patriots who might resist Soviet rule.

With no Soviet help, the battle for Warsaw became a desperate, bloody slog as the Germans started to inexorably push back. SS and police units began burning down neighborhood and massacring civilians in German-held areas to break the resistance's will to fight. Units such as Oskar Dirlewanger's brigade (The Dirlewanger Brigade) went from house to house, dragging children, adults and the elderly out to the street and shooting them. Some men were butchered with sabers and bayonets, children were chopped to pieces, and pregnant women were murdered via the inhumane medieval method of drawing and quartering. Tens of thousands, possibly 100,000 civilians were murdered in the Wola and Ochota districts alone, but the atrocities only strengthened the resolve of the Home Army. On the frontlines, the Germans deployed tactical bombers and heavy artillery (Sturmtiger) which the freedom fighters could not defend against, and deployed tanks with civilians as human shields.

Small but welcome unlikely aid came from the least-expected quarters. Some of the forested areas outside of Warsaw were held by Hungarian units allied with the Germans. Hungary, however, had a centuries-old historical friendship with Poland, and many of the Hungarian soldiers helped the resistance. Refugees fleeing the city and supplies smuggled in were allowed to pass, and the Hungarian even gave some of their own ammunition to the Poles. The Hungarian general in charge even met with the Home Army leadership and, with tacit approval from Hungarian High Command, considered openly changing sides and attacking the Germans; but the negotiations fell through as the Poles could not guarantee that the Hungarians would be treated as allies and not enemies by the Soviets after the war.

Over a million people lived in Warsaw at the time, and the ones in the Polish-controlled parts tried to recreate their normal lives as much as it was possible. Newspapers, theaters and the postal system went on operating, but starvation and thirst were a gradually growing problem; the latter because water conduits were either destroyed or clogged by corpses, but also because the main water pumping station was under German control. Wells, over 90 by the end of September, were dug in backyards to supply water.

The freedom fighters even invented their own military decoration. The Cross of the Warsaw Uprising was a captured German Iron Cross with a Polish 1 złoty coin pinned over the swastika, showing the Polish eagle, the kotwica (the symbol of the Polish underground state), and the inscription "1944." The medal was awarded for killing an SS officer in combat.

The Royal Air Force and other Commonwealth forces ran nighttime supply drops during the battle. The result was mainly psychological, as the planes had to take off from Italy, were limited in the amount of supplies they could carry, and most of that landed outside Polish-controlled territory. The U.S. Army Air Forces also organized one mission, but only 288 of the 1,284 containers dropped reached Polish forces due to strong winds and a high drop altitude. Stalin refused the Western Allies to use airfields in Soviet-controlled territories, which forced the planes to make long flights from Italy and Britain, limiting the number of sorties they could perform. In total, the Western Allies lost 41 planes and 360 crewmen during the supply drops. In a confusing contrast with Stalin's regular behavior in this matter, the Soviet air force began flying its own supply drops from mid-September, making over 2,000 sorties and dropping a significant amount of weapons as well as over 130 tons of food and half a ton of medicine.

However, all the aid was in vain, since the Poles had no way of winning without a Soviet attack on the ground. The uprising that was only meant to last a few days went on for two months. On October 2, all remaining Polish forces were ordered to capitulate. 15,000 Home Army soldiers were sent to POW camps, a number similar to that of the dead and missing. The entire civilian population of Warsaw was expelled from the city and sent to a transit camp. Some 90,000 of them were sent on to labor camps, and 60,000 to death and concentration camps, while the rest were released.

The Germans set about methodically destroying the entire city after the failed uprising. Arson and demolition squads moved from house to house, with special attention paid to historical monuments, archives and places of interest. 85% of all buildings in Warsaw were destroyed, either by the fighting or the demolitions, by January 1945, when the Soviets finally resumed their offensive and liberated what was left of the city.

When the Red Army finally entered Warsaw on January 17, they were surprised to find hideaways. Somewhere between a few hundred and 2,000 Poles and Jews hid in the city, living in cellars and bunkers under the rubble for over three months even as the Germans demolished the city around them. These survivors were quickly labeled the "Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw," the most famous of them being composer Władysław Szpilman, who was the main character of the 2002 film The Pianist.

Join us on our War in Poland Tour to learn more about the heroic struggle of the Polish freedom fighters and to visit museums such as the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

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