Warsaw Uprising

For other uses, see Warsaw Uprising (disambiguation).
For the preceding Jewish-only uprising in 1943, see Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
"Powstanie Warszawskie" redirects here. For the Lao Che album, see Powstanie Warszawskie (album).

Warsaw Uprising
Part of Operation Tempest of the Polish Resistance and the Eastern Front of World War II

Clockwise from top left:
Civilians construct an anti-tank ditch in Wola district; German anti-tank gun in Theatre Square; Home Army soldier defending a barricade; Ruins of Bielańska Street; Insurgents leave the city ruins after surrendering to German forces; Allied transport planes airdrop supplies near Holy Cross Church.
Date1 August – 2 October 1944
(63 days)
Location
Warsaw, Poland
52°13′48″N 21°00′39″E / 52.23000°N 21.01083°E / 52.23000; 21.01083
Result

German victory

Belligerents

 Polish Underground State

Polish Army in the East
(from 14 September)[1]

Supported by:

 Germany

Commanders and leaders
Polish Underground State T. Komorowski (POW)
Polish Underground State Tadeusz Pełczyński (POW)
Polish Underground State Antoni Chruściel (POW)
Polish Underground State Karol Ziemski (POW)
Polish Underground State Edward Pfeiffer (POW)
Polish Underground State Leopold Okulicki
Polish Underground State Jan Mazurkiewicz
Zygmunt Berling		 Nazi Germany Walter Model
Nazi Germany Nikolaus von Vormann
Nazi Germany Rainer Stahel
Nazi Germany E. v.d. Bach-Zelewski
Nazi Germany Heinz Reinefarth
Nazi Germany Bronisław Kaminski  Executed
Nazi Germany Oskar Dirlewanger
Nazi Germany Robert von Greim
Nazi Germany Paul Otto Geibel
Units involved

Home Army

  • City Center – North
  • City Center – South
  • Powiśle
  • Warsaw – North
  • Żoliborz
  • Kampinos Forest
  • Warsaw – South
  • Kedyw Units

Poland Polish First Army

Warsaw Airlift:
United Kingdom Royal Air Force
(including Polish squadrons)
United States US Army Air Force
South Africa South African Air Force
Soviet Union Soviet Air Force

Nazi Germany Warsaw Garrison

  • Kampfgruppe Rohr
    • Sturmbrigade RONA
  • Kampfgruppe Reinefarth
    • Sturmbrigade Reck
    • Sturmbrigade Schmidt
    • Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger
  • Schutzpolizei
Supported by:
Luftwaffe
Strength

20,000[3]–49,000[4]
2,500 equipped with guns (initially)
2 captured Panther tanks
1 captured Hetzer tank destroyer
2 captured armoured personnel carriers
Improvised armored vehicles

Warsaw Airlift:

United States US Army Air Force

13,000[5]–25,000[6] (initially)
Throughout the course of uprising: ~50,000[citation needed]
Dozens of tanks

Luftwaffe
Casualties and losses

Polish resistance:
15,200 killed and missing[7]
5,000 wounded in action[7]
15,000 POW (incl. capitulation agreement)[7]
Polish First Army: 5,660 casualties[7]

Warsaw Airlift: 41 aircraft destroyed

German forces:
2,000–17,000[8][9][10][11] killed and missing
9,000 wounded in action

Multiple tanks and armored vehicles
150,000[12]–200,000 civilians killed[13][14]
700,000 expelled from the city[7]

The Warsaw Uprising (Polish: powstanie warszawskie; German: Warschauer Aufstand), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (Polish: powstanie sierpniowe),[15] was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa). The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance.[16] While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II.[17] The defeat of the uprising and suppression of the Home Army enabled the pro-Soviet Polish administration, instead of the Polish government-in-exile based in London, to take control of Poland afterwards. Poland would remain as part of the Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc throughout the Cold War until 1989.

The Uprising began on 1 August 1944 as part of a nationwide Operation Tempest, launched at the time of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans out of Warsaw while helping the Allies defeat Germany. An additional, political goal of the Polish Underground State was to liberate Poland's capital and assert Polish sovereignty before the Soviet Union and Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation, which already controlled eastern Poland, could assume control. Other immediate causes included a threat of mass German round-ups of able-bodied Poles for "evacuation"; calls by Radio Moscow's Polish Service for uprising; and an emotional Polish desire for justice and revenge against the enemy after five years of German occupation.[18][19]

Despite the early gains by the Home Army, the Germans successfully counterattacked on August 25th, in an attack that killed as many as 40,000 civilians. The uprising was now in a siege phase which favored the better-equipped Germans and eventually the Home Army surrendered on October 2 when their supplies ran out. The Germans then deported the remaining civilians in the city and razed the city itself. In the end, as many as 15,000 insurgents and 250,000 civilians lost their lives, while the Germans lost around 16,000 men.[20]

Scholarship since the fall of the Soviet Union, combined with eyewitness accounts, has questioned Soviet motives and suggested their lack of support for the Warsaw Uprising represented their ambitions in Eastern Europe. The Red Army did not reinforce resistance fighters or provide air support. Declassified documents indicate that Joseph Stalin had tactically halted his forces from advancing on Warsaw in order to exhaust the Polish Home Army and to aid his political desires of turning Poland into a Soviet-aligned state.[21][22] Scholars note the two month period of the Warsaw Uprising marked the start of the Cold War.[23]

Casualties during the Warsaw Uprising were catastrophic. Although the exact number of casualties is unknown, it is estimated that about 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and about 6,000 badly wounded. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. Jews being harboured by Poles were exposed by German house-to-house clearances and mass evictions of entire neighbourhoods. The defeat of the Warsaw Uprising also further decimated urban areas of Poland.[24]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Davies 2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Airlift to Warsaw. The Rising of 1944 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference BW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference AB1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Borodziej, p. 75.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference WUmuseumcom was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference wufaq was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Tadeusz Sawicki: Rozkaz zdławić powstanie. Niemcy i ich sojusznicy w walce z powstaniem warszawskim. Warszawa: Bellona, 2010. ISBN 978-83-11-11892-8. p. 189.
  9. ^ Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski: Armia Podziemna. Warszawa: Bellona, 1994. ISBN 83-11-08338-X. p. 443.
  10. ^ Marek Getter. Straty ludzkie i materialne w Powstaniu Warszawskim. "Biuletyn IPN". 8–9 (43–44), sierpień – wrzesień 2004., s. 70.
  11. ^ Ilu Niemców naprawdę zginęło w Powstaniu Warszawskim? Paweł Stachnik, ciekawostkihistoryczne.pl 31.07.2017 Accessed 12 September 2019
  12. ^ Meng, Michael (2011). Shattered Spaces. Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland. Harvard University Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0674053038.
  13. ^ Bartrop, Paul R.; Grimm, Eve E. (2019). Perpetrating the Holocaust: Leaders, Enablers, and Collaborators. ABC-CLIO. p. 12. ISBN 978-1440858963.
  14. ^ Wolfson, Leah (2015). Jewish Responses to Persecution: 1944–1946. Rowman&Littlefield. p. 534. ISBN 978-1442243378.
  15. ^ Stolica uczci poległych bohaterów w pierwszą rocznicę Powstania Sierpniowego. In: Kurier Codzienny, no. 5. 12 July 1945, p. 8.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference sb was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Duraczyński, Eugeniusz; Terej, Jerzy Janusz (1974). Europa podziemna: 1939–1945 [Europe underground: 1939–1945] (in Polish). Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna. OCLC 463203458.
  18. ^ Davies 2008, pp. 268, 271.
  19. ^ Warsaw Uprising 1944 www.warsawuprising.com, accessed 12 September 2019
  20. ^ "Warsaw Uprising | Summary, Dates, & Monument | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 28 September 2024. Retrieved 17 October 2024.
  21. ^ Cienciala, Anna M.; Hanson, Joanna K. M. (January 1984). "The Civilian Population and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944". Military Affairs. 48 (1): 49. doi:10.2307/1988362. ISSN 0026-3931. JSTOR 1988362.
  22. ^ Garliński, Jarek (1 April 2015). "Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising". The Polish Review. 60 (1): 111–115. doi:10.5406/polishreview.60.1.0111. ISSN 0032-2970.
  23. ^ Rock, William R. (June 1995). "The Origins of the Cold War in Europe: International Perspectives". History: Reviews of New Books. 23 (4): 179–180. doi:10.1080/03612759.1995.9946252. ISSN 0361-2759.
  24. ^ Alfred Peszke, Michael (December 2005). "A Review of: "Norman Davies.Rising '44. The Battle For Warsaw."". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 18 (4): 767–769. doi:10.1080/13518040500357003. ISSN 1351-8046. S2CID 219625918.