In the last days of August 1944, the Third Reich found itself stumbling - and the resilient
Polish people keenly felt the shifting tides of fate.
With the horrors of war weighing heavily upon them, they recognized a rare and pivotal moment
to cast off the shackles of oppression imposed upon their nation and reassert the sovereignty
of their homeland.
With courageous determination, they launched a daring offensive to liberate their beloved
capital from the brutal grasp of German occupation.
The struggle would forever be known as the Warsaw Uprising.
Against all odds, the valiant Poles fought fiercely to oust the German army and seize
control of their city.
But time was running out, for they knew another enemy loomed on the horizon: the advancing
Soviet Army.
The Sons Of Warsaw
On November 20, 1943, General Tadeusz "Bór" Komorowski, the commander of the Polish Home
Army, or Armia Krajowa (AK), a non-Communist underground resistance movement, issued an
order for Operation Tempest.
The effort intended to execute a series of local military uprisings against the Germans
as the Red Army advanced westward, promising to eventually liberate the Polish people from
Nazi oppression.
Initially, however, the idea of an armed action had come from the Polish government-in-exile
in London, which was the internationally recognized government of Poland at the time.
Notably, due to the broken diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union following the revealing
of the atrocities committed at Katyn, the Polish military leaders did not include cooperation
with the Red Army.
Yet, as the Soviet forces drew closer to their capital towards the end of July 1944, the
Soviet authorities not only encouraged them to stage an uprising against the Germans but
openly offered aid.
A broadcast from Moscow Radio Station Kosciuszko on July 29 emboldened the Poles: (QUOTE)
"Fight The Germans!
No doubt Warsaw already hears the guns of the battle which is soon to bring her liberation...
The Polish Army [...] 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."
The Momentum
Initially, plans for Operation Tempest had excluded Warsaw; but in July 1944, the fate
of the city hung in the balance.
The Soviet forces were advancing, and the Polish communists saw an opportunity to proclaim
the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) as an executive governing authority.
With the support of the Soviet Union, the PKWN installed a communist administration
in the liberated areas.
As a result, the Polish underground was uneasy.
They were aware that the Soviet Union had already taken control of eastern Poland, forming
the PKWN to administer the rest of the Soviet-occupied territory.
The German forces were retreating from Poland, and the Soviet Red Army was on the east bank
of the Vistula River.
The situation was tense, and the momentum for military action was building.
Cornered, Komorowski decided to go beyond the government's instruction.
He proposed a partnership in combat against the common enemy.
Still, he hoped to gain control of Warsaw before the Red Army could "liberate" it.
The Home Army was left with little option but to follow the Soviet suggestion to revolt.
After several days of discussion between the AK leadership and the Polish government-in-exile,
on July 31, the Polish leader announced the outbreak of the uprising.
The AK anticipated that the uprising would take only a few days and that Warsaw should
be free before the arrival of the Red Army.
But what started as a short military revolt turned into a 63-day-long fight for freedom.
Street Battles
After days of preparation, the Home Army had gathered enough strength to initiate the Warsaw
Uprising on August 1, 1944.
At the strike of "W-hour," the hour of wybuch or explosion, at 5:00pm, the AK, under the
leadership of the illustrious General Antoni Chruściel "Monter," were joined by 2,500
soldiers from other resistance movements, including the National Armed Forces (Narodowe
Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) and the communist People's Army (Armia Ludowa, AL).
Despite having only a quarter of their opponents' weapons, these fearless warriors stood strong
and resolute, fueled by their unyielding determination to fight for their beloved homeland.
While they numbered roughly 50,000, they would face 25,000 German soldiers equipped with
artillery, tanks, and air support.
Making matters worse, the Germans had indeed anticipated the possibility of an uprising
- but little did they know of the sheer size and strength of the Polish resistance.
The 1944 Warsaw Uprising was the largest military operation undertaken by resistance forces
in opposition to the German occupation during World War 2 - even though they were left under-equipped
due to the Home Army's decision to shuttle weapons to the east of the country before
including Warsaw in Operation Tempest.
Impressively, within three days, the Poles had regained control of most of the city,
including downtown and the Old Town.
They managed to capture several critical German installations, including a significant weapons
depot, the main post office, power station, and the Prudential building.
Nevertheless, the Germans maintained a hold on crucial transportation and communication
arteries, such as Castle Square, the police district, and the airport.
The first few days of the uprising were crucial, as the Poles fought hard to establish the
positions they would hold for the rest of the conflict.
Even SS chief Heinrich Himmler acknowledged their courageous effort when he addressed
German generals, admitting: (QUOTE) "This is the fiercest of our battles since the start
of the war.
It compares to the street battles of Stalingrad."
The Underground
Despite their hopes, the Polish forces were left to fight with little outside assistance;
the Soviets never showed up.
Thus, the ten-day uprising quickly became a prolonged siege that favored the better-equipped
Germans.
As the oppressors laid out their plans to counterattack, the Poles found themselves
at a severe disadvantage.
The ensuing assault resulted in the loss of thousands of civilians.
The battles that raged around the Old Town and nearby Bankowy Square were heavily one-sided
as the Germans bombarded the area with artillery and tactical bombers, leaving Poles defenseless
against such tactics, lacking altogether in anti-aircraft artillery weapons.
Despite initial success, the AK's hold on the city gradually slipped away as German
troops recaptured the area surrounding the Old Town and other key districts.
The Poles managed to hold out in the Old Town until the end of August when the decision
to withdraw was made.
The defenders were forced to escape through the sewers, a vital means of communication
throughout the revolt.
Eventually, on September 2, the remnants of the Polish resistance made an underground
escape after more than two weeks of combat.
As a result, the failure led to the complete devastation of Warsaw's historical district.
Rubble And Ash
In September 1944, the Red Army finally arrived, but only to take over Praga, the district
of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula River.
They didn't cross the river to intervene, leaving the Polish people to face their fate
alone.
Meanwhile, the German forces ruthlessly tightened their grip on Warsaw, seizing control over
even more parts of the city.
What followed was a systematic destruction of the city, reducing it to rubble and ash.
The Home Army, left to fend for itself with no substantial support from the Allies, disintegrated
into small, disconnected units that ultimately surrendered as supplies dwindled.
The fate of Bór-Komorowski, Monter, and about 11,000 soldiers was sealed as they were taken
as prisoners of war.
The remaining population of the city faced a grim reality as the Germans began deporting
them en masse.
The city was razed, and the losses mounted every day.
The second Warsaw Uprising claimed thousands of lives among insurgents and civilians alike.
The Germans also suffered losses, with about 16,000 men falling in the fight.
By the time the uprising ended on October 2, the number of victims had exceeded 180,000.
While the Red Army had initially been detained by German assaults during the first days of
the insurrection, it deliberately remained inactive.
Control
Bluntly, the Soviet government refused to grant the Western Allies access to its air
bases to airlift supplies to the beleaguered Poles.
Attempts by the Western powers to help the Poles were severely limited by the vast distance
between them and the city, and the flights from Allied-occupied Brindisi in Italy had
to cross more than 1,300 kilometers of hostile territory.
Joseph Stalin initiated limited humanitarian and military aid airdrops in Warsaw on September
13, but it was too little, too late, to make a difference for the Poles.
It wasn't until January 17, 1945, that the Soviet troops resumed their offensive, taking
over the devastated Warsaw.
Unsurprisingly, the failure of the uprising permitted the pro-Soviet Polish administration,
rather than the Polish government-in-exile in London, to take control of Poland.
Having allowed the Germans to suppress the Warsaw Uprising, the Soviet authorities essentially
gave them the opportunity to eliminate the main body of the military organization supporting
the appointed Polish government.
Simply put, once the Soviet Army occupied all of Poland, what remained of the Polish
resistance was ineffective and disorganized, to say the least, and unable to resist the
establishment of Soviet political domination over the country.
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