Warsaw risings

Warsaw risings. There were two risings against the Nazis in the former Polish capital, one in the city's ghetto, the other as part of operation TEMPEST. The uprising in the Warsaw ghetto which broke out on 19 April 1943 was a symbolic fight; victory, other than moral, was never anticipated. Knowing that death and extermination were inevitable (see Final Solution) the Jews of Warsaw decided to die with dignity and honour by staging armed resistance. They saw their fight as part of the general Polish struggle for freedom and a revenge for the crimes of the concentration camps and death camps (see OPERATION REINHARD).

In July 1942 the transportations of the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka death camp began. By the end of September 300,000 had been deported; only 60,000 remained. As a result the organization of Jewish underground resistance in the ghetto was speeded up, and in December the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), commanded by Mordechaj Anielewicz, was created. Its object was to stage armed resistance when the ghetto's final liquidation started. It began to collect and produce arms, and build underground bunkers.

On 19 April 1943 German forces launched their onslaught on the ghetto using about 3,000 men, including some 2,600 SS and also the Wehrmacht and police. They attacked with a tank, armoured vehicles, heavy machine-guns, and artillery, and set fire to and blew up buildings where Jews were sheltering and hiding. SS Brigadeführer (Brigadier) Stroop commanded these German units and the attack. A force of 600 men from ZOB and 400 from the Jewish Military Union (ZZW) units, stubbornly defended themselves from their bunkers, using one machine-gun, pistols, hand grenades, and Molotov cocktail bombs. This resistance took the Germans completely by surprise and it was not until 16 May that Stroop was able to claim that the operation was concluded, although armed resistance by individual Jewish units continued into the middle of July.

Several times during the fighting Polish Home Army and People's Guard units (see Poland, 4) tried unsuccessfully to breach the ghetto's walls to provide an escape route for the Jews. On 8 May Anielewicz and the ZOB command committed joint suicide in their bunker. About 50 ZOB fighters escaped through the sewers, some later to fight in the Second Warsaw rising. The battle and fires claimed the lives of 14,000 Jews, 7,000 were transported to Treblinka to be exterminated, and most of the remainder were sent to Majdanek. German losses are not known but at the time they were estimated to be about 400 dead and 1,000 wounded.

This unprecedented fight by the Jews quickly became legendary and provided inspiration for similar revolts in the Białystok ghetto and Treblinka and Sobibor death camps.

The second Warsaw rising, part of operation TEMPEST, broke out on 1 August 1944. It was planned to last, at the longest, ten days, but fighting went on for 63 days. The city was originally excluded from TEMPEST, but in July 1944 General Komorowski, the C-in-C of the Polish Home Army, decided to stage a rising in the capital, believing control of the city was essential if the political aims of TEMPEST were to be realized. Thus it was aimed militarily against the Germans and politically against the Soviet Union.

Commanded by General Antoni Chrusciel, about 37,600 Polish insurgents fought in this second rising of whom 36,500 were Polish Home Army members. At first, less than 14% of the men were armed, having only 20 heavy machine-guns, 98 light machine-guns, 844 sub-machine-guns, 1,386 rifles, and 2,665 handguns between them, but during the rising further arms and ammunition were received from western Allied and Soviet drops, or captured from the Germans. Much of the fighting was done with hand grenades and Molotov cocktails.

The rising broke out at 1700, as it was thought this hour would most surprise the Germans. In fact the Germans knew a rising was being planned, and seem to have known the time it would commence, but had insufficient troops available to crush it immediately. In the initial battles the greater part of the city was taken by the insurgents, and was split up into several disconnected districts by the fighting, but they did not manage to capture any strategic points or control the main communication arteries or railway stations. The rising was greeted with virtually unanimous support and enthusiasm by the city's inhabitants, and Komorowski decided to continue the fight by going on the defensive, and await help from the Allies or the Soviets, or the collapse of Germany. However, Himmler quickly organized a German counter-attack and by 20 August 21,300 German troops, including Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger's Police Brigade, made up of criminals, the Kaminsky Brigade (see Soviet exiles at war), and an Azerbaijan infantry brigade, had been brought in, although they were never all engaged simultaneously. SS Obergruppenführer (Lt-General) Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski commanded the operation. Himmler ordered that all Poles, insurgents or not, should be shot and during the first five days more than 40,000 Poles were massacred. These orders were quickly modified by Bach-Zelewski and the mass executions of unarmed civilians ceased. On 25 August the Germans started their counter-attack.

The unequal battle, between the well-equipped German forces backed by aircraft and the home-made arms of the Polish insurgents, was bitter and unrelenting. Every street and house was fought over. But Warsaw fought alone as the Soviet advance was stopped on the outskirts of eastern Warsaw by a German counter-attack and Stalin did not renew the offensive. Between 16 and 21 September Polish troops of Berling's Army did land on the western bank of the Vistula and tried to establish a bridgehead, but heavy casualties forced them back. Stalin's attitude to the rising is still not clear; at the time he dismissed it as an ‘adventurist affair’ and refused landing facilities on Soviet airfields to Allied planes bringing help. In spite of their closeness to Warsaw the Soviets did not start their drops of humanitarian and military aid until 13 September, and night sorties from British bases in Italy (see Balkan Air Force) with arms and other aid were soon stopped because of the excessively high level of losses. On 9 September Stalin agreed, just once, to let US aircraft land on Soviet airfields, but when these dropped supplies on 18 September the part of Warsaw still in Polish hands had shrunk so much that most of the containers fell into German-occupied areas.

During the rising fire-fighting and anti-air attack squads were organized by the insurgents, soup kitchens were set up, wells sunk, accommodation for refugees and bomb victims arranged. Communication was often only by underground passages, through cellars, tunnels, and the sewers, but newspapers were published, radio broadcasts transmitted, and an insurgent postal service was organized. Hospitals and medical units worked efficiently in appalling conditions, and in spite of the desperate living conditions, terrible food shortages, and continual threat of death, the civilian population stayed loyal and uncomplaining. At the beginning of September, when it seemed the rising would collapse, an evacuation was arranged by the Red Cross, but less than 10% of the population opted to leave. This unity was an important factor in enabling the rising to continue. But district by district the Germans regained control of the city and by 30 September only part of the central district was still being defended insurgents. On 1 October, Komorowski, seeing no hope of external help, decided to surrender. The capitulation agreement recognized the insurgents as combatants and stipulated the capital was to be totally evacuated, an event unprecedented in modern history.

During the rising more than 15,000 insurgents were killed and between 200,000 and 250,000 civilians (of a population of 1,000,000). Bach-Zalewski claimed German losses were exceedingly high: 17,000 dead and missing. Before Warsaw fell to the Soviets, the Germans systematically destroyed 83% of the city.

The rising was the subject of intense debate, political manipulation, and falsification during the years of post-war communist rule in Poland. Certain myths were created around it, and it has come to play an indelible and important role in the political and historical awareness of all Poles. Without access to Soviet archives no complete assessment of the Soviet reaction can be attempted, but it would seem that Stalin saw it as advantageous to his future plans to stand back and let the city and the Polish underground élite be destroyed. The Soviet reaction, however, was not without impact on western Allied attitudes to their eastern ally. The Polish Home Army was broken up; the confidence of the Poles in their government in London (see Poland, 2(e)) which had been unable to organize help for the beleaguered city, was severely shaken; and many Poles came to accept that accommodation with their eastern neighbour was unavoidable. See also ghettos.

Joanna Hanson

Bibliography

Ciechanowski, J. , The Warsaw Rising of 1944 (Cambridge, 1974).
Gutman, Y. , The Jews of Warsaw 1930–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt (London, 1982).
Hanson, J. K. M. , The Civilian Population and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (Cambridge, 1982).
Zawodny, J. K. , Nothing but Honour. The Story of the Warsaw Uprising, 1944 (London, 1978).