Warsaw had already been betrayed twice before its people rose on Aug. 1, 1944. Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west on Sept. 1, 1939. The Soviet Union came from the east 16 days later.
The two dictatorships divided the country, while Poland's internationally recognized government continued from exile, and an underground state formed beneath German occupation.
By 1944, the Polish Home Army had built a nationwide resistance loyal to the government in London. Operation Tempest called for Polish forces to attack retreating Germans, liberate cities, and greet the advancing Red Army as Poland's lawful authority.
The National World War II Museum:
In February 1943, Stefan Rowecki, the leader of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa or AK) until his arrest by the Gestapo in June 1943, drafted a plan for a national armed uprising throughout Poland called Operation Tempest. Rowecki’s plan was to unfold in three stages: an armed rising in the eastern cities of Lwow (L’viv) and Wilno (Vilnius), followed by an armed attack in the area east of the Vistula River, and, finally, a national uprising throughout the entire country.
According to General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, who was a member of the exiled Polish government in London, Operation Tempest was predicated on the notion that “the final aim of the Soviet Union [was] to transform Poland into a vassal Communist republic or simply into the 17th Soviet republic.”
Sosnkowski’s assumptions were not incorrect; Stalin had already mentally claimed Eastern Europe for himself and after the Tehran Conference in November 1943, the Allies agreed that the future eastern border of Poland would be drawn at the Curzon Line, which gave large chunks of Polish prewar territory to the Soviet Union. Consequently, the plan was to attack the Germans as they retreated westward, prevent reprisals against civilians, and, most importantly, to secure important Polish cities before the Soviets could take over.
Soviet forces had already disarmed and arrested Home Army units after fighting beside them elsewhere. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin wanted Poland governed by communists loyal to Moscow.
Warsaw was originally excluded because Home Army commander General Tadeusz Komorowski feared the cost to the capital. Operation Bagration then shattered German Army Group Center. Exhausted German troops streamed west, and Soviet forces approached the Vistula River.
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A Soviet-backed committee claimed authority over liberated Poland. Warsaw's commanders believed they had only a narrow chance to free the city before Stalin's men arrived.
The final decision rested on bad intelligence and desperate politics. Warsaw commander Colonel Antoni Chruściel reported Soviet troops had reached Praga, across the river.
Komorowski ordered the uprising to begin at 5 p.m. Roughly 45,000 Home Army members joined, supported by about 2,500 fighters from other groups. Only one in four had a weapon while facing 25,000 German troops with tanks, artillery, and aircraft.
The Warsaw uprising began on August 1, 1944, at 5 p.m. Approximately 45,000 members of the AK under commandment of general Antoni Chruściel “Monter” joined the combat. They were supported by 2,500 soldiers from other resistance movements, such as the National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, NSZ) and the communist People's Army (Armia Ludowa, AL). Only a quarter of the partisans had access to weapons, fighting against 25,000 German soldiers equipped with artillery, tanks, and air forces.
Within the first few days of the uprising, Polish forces took over several districts of Warsaw, including downtown and the Old Town. After the initial success of the AK, German troops gradually recaptured the city. They surrounded the Old Town and other areas. On September 2, after more than two weeks of combat, the last Polish soldiers left the Old Town through the sewers. Warsaw’s historical district was turned into ruins. In mid-September, the Red Army took Praga, the district of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula River, but did not cross the river to intervene.
Towards the end of September 1944, German forces took control over further parts of Warsaw, systematically destroying most of the city to the ground. On October 2, 1944, the uprising ended. The number of victims exceeded 180,000 people. More than 11,000 AK soldiers were captured as prisoners of war, including “Bór” and “Monter.” Soviet troops resumed their offensive much later, taking over devastated Warsaw on January 17, 1945.
A battle expected to last several days continued for 63.
The insurgents seized districts, built barricades, moved through sewers, and liberated hundreds of prisoners from the Gęsiówka camp. Civilians carried messages, treated the wounded, fought fires, and searched ruins for food.
Adolf Hitler and SS leader Heinrich Himmler answered with orders to kill Warsaw's inhabitants and level the city. German units massacred civilians in Wola and other districts, then burned and demolished what remained after the surrender.
The National World War II Museum:
When the Nazi governor of Warsaw, Ludwig Fischer, heard news of premature clashes on the afternoon of August 1, 1944, he put 5,000 SS (Schutzstaffel) police and SD (Sicherheitsdienst) personnel on full alert, ordering them to secure key positions throughout the city, including the Governor’s Place and the German quarter. Loudspeakers warned Warsaw’s inhabitants that “bandits” were operating against the Nazi government and cautioned that any civilian found on the street would be fired upon.
That evening, Wehrmacht officers met at the headquarters of General Nikolaus von Vormann, who had recently been made commander of the 9th Army. Those at the meeting decided not to redirect Wehrmacht forces from the Eastern Front. Instead, 9th Army Command requested additional police formations to be brought in and put the SS in charge of crushing the uprising.
Many Nazi leaders, including Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, considered the uprising a pretext for destroying the Polish capital once and for all. According to his own recollection, in describing to Hitler how events unfolded, Himmler stated:
“The moment is a difficult one. [But] from the historical point of view, the action of the Poles is a blessing. We shall finish them off…Warsaw will be liquidated; and this city, which is the intellectual capital of a sixteen to seventeen million-strong nation that has blocked our path to the east for seven hundred years, ever since the first battle of Tannenberg, will have ceased to exist. By the same token, the Poles themselves will cease to be a problem for our children and for all who will follow.”
Stalin's role remains the darkest controversy. German counterattacks east of Warsaw had temporarily checked the Red Army, so an immediate Soviet rescue was unlikely. Stalin later rejected plans for a renewed offensive, withheld meaningful air and artillery support, and blocked British and American aircraft from using Soviet airfields.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed for aid. President Franklin Roosevelt wouldn't risk a deeper break with Moscow. The Western Allies flew costly missions from Italy, but only about half the dropped supplies reached the resistance.
Critics still argue Komorowski gambled a city with too few guns and no firm promise of Soviet help. Defenders answer that Poland faced conquest either way. Refusing to fight would've allowed Stalin's committee to enter Warsaw without a visible challenge from the lawful underground state.
Courage and miscalculation lived together for those 63 days.
The National World War II Museum:
Some of the most remarkable people in the history of WWII Warsaw were the so-called 'Robinsons' named after Robinson Crusoe, who despite the enormous risks managed to hide from the Germans in the ruins of the city. They fell into two main groups—the first were around 17,000 Jews who hid from the Germans after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. The other group, primarily Jews but also Polish Home Army soldiers and others, hid in the ruins between the end of the Warsaw Uprising on 2 October 1944 until the arrival of the Soviets on 17 January 1945.
When the Poles capitulated at the end of the Warsaw Uprising Hitler ordered that the city be emptied of all its inhabitants and be 'glattraziert'—blown up block by block until there was literally nothing left. Warsawians were forced from their homes to the transit camp at Pruszkow from which many were sent as slave labor into the Reich or were transported to camps including Auschwitz and Ravensbruck.
Some decided it would be better to hide rather than risk capture by the Germans. This was an extremely dangerous decision as the Germans moved through the city burning and blasting away their hiding places, discovering many people in the process. Even so some few hundred managed to survive. Some had prepared elaborate bunkers with supplies of food and water; others were actually buried by friends in underground caves and existed without light or heat for months. Danuta Slazak of the Home Army hid in the basement of a hospital with patients she had saved; they used the bodies of the dead to cover the entrance to the hiding place. I had the great honor to know Marek Edelmann, last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, who was hiding in the district of Zoliborz. He described how Germans would come and loot the houses in the district. He hid under the floorboards of the entrance hall and could feel the boards press down on his chest as the Germans walked over him. He and his group were miraculously saved by a Home Army rescue squad who got them out dressed as medical personnel.
The uprising ended on Oct. 2. About 150,000 people died, and the Home Army suffered roughly 20,000 casualties. German forces expelled hundreds of thousands and destroyed most of Warsaw before Soviet troops entered an empty ruin in January 1945.
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The Home Army's defeat removed a major obstacle to communist rule. Many surviving independence fighters later faced prison, exile, or execution.
The National World War II Museum:
Operation Bagration was launched on June 23, 1944 and was an astonishing success. The operation had been set to begin on June 22, exactly three years after the German invasion of the Soviet Union but was delayed by one day. Nevertheless, the Soviet offensive caught the Germans by surprise and within hours entire formations including the 6th Corps’ 229th and 197th Infantry Division had ceased to exist. The German 53rd Corps was completely wiped out and 17,000 survivors were taken into captivity, while the 4th Luftwaffe Field Division was destroyed.
Rokossovsky’s attack from either side of the Berezina River converging on Minsk, the capital of Belorussia, began the following day and within a week a group of 100,000 German troops east of the city had been surrounded. Over half of the captured troops were taken to Moscow and paraded through Red Square. The Red Army continued its westward advance at an average pace of 10-15 km (6-10 miles) per day and by July 4 Army Group Center had lost 25 divisions.
Despite its initial failure, once the Soviets launched Operation Bagration, the AK decided to continue with Operation Tempest in order to assist the Red Army in retaking key Polish cities. However, unknown to AK leaders, Stalin sent a special order to all commanding officers on the Belorussian front stating:
“The Polish military detachments funded by the Polish émigré government have behaved suspiciously and have everywhere acted against the interests of the Red Army. When these formations are found, they must be immediately disarmed and sent to specially organized collection points for investigation.”
Consequently, as the NKVD followed the Red Army into new territory, they immediately disarmed and arrested any AK members they encountered, which only increased tensions between the Soviets and Poles.
Germany won a savage local victory but lost the war. Stalin gained Poland and deepened the fracture that became the Cold War.
Poland kept the memory, and with it a hard lesson: Allies may praise courage while calculating the price of honoring.
