by George Bruce
Their long five years’ struggle to keep the organization intact had ended. The leaders of the Secret Army left for their separate tasks with an inevitable deep sense of foreboding.
Why were these brave and able men like Komorowski, Pelczynski, and Chrusciel, when the longed-for moment arrived and the liberation for which they so much thirsted seemed at hand, unable to carry out what Colonel Adam Rorkiewicz, another Secret Army officer, rightly calls ‘their rationally and carefully prepared plans’? Why were they unable ‘to keep cool heads, and why did they lack will enough to stand by their original decisions’?
The Uprising was the culmination of ‘five years of unparalleled nerve-racking torture’, which affected the older generation, and especially the age group to which these men belonged, far more than the younger generation. By 31 July all of them were in a state of hardly bearable nervous exhaustion. Komorowski himself had for five years been the quarry of an unrelenting manhunt. He had seen many of his comrades one by one caught, tortured and killed; he had slept briefly somewhere different every night, he was shorn of his true identity and his personal possessions. He did not even know the hiding-place of his wife, who was then expecting a child, or even whether she was alive.
Now, while the Secret Army, its morale at fever pitch, was assembled in a state of readiness at its rendezvous points, he and his staff were torn by dissension. His own military realism on the one hand held him back, while on the other impetuous officers and eager troops pushed him forward. ‘It seemed unthinkable that the Home Army… should stand passively by and not attack the retreating and demoralized German armies,’ wrote the Peasant Party leader Stefan Korbonski, who attended many of these late-July meetings.
National dignity and pride required that the capital should be liberated by the Poles themselves, and that was accepted without any discussion. Moreover, we had to think of what the Western world would say if the Russians were to capture Warsaw unaided. In that event Stalin would have no difficulty in convincing the Allies that the Home Army, the underground Government, and the Polish underground movement as such were a fiction. What kind of an army would it be, what sort of a Government, that, being in the capital, failed to take part in the battle for the liberation of the city? Finally, the Germans were spreading the report that on Hitler’s order Warsaw was to be razed to the ground whatever happened.[128]
During the last days of July too, the Gestapo had considerably increased the arrests of Secret Army officers and had, as well, destroyed numbers of Polish arms dumps. It pointed to a large-scale police attack on their military formations. Three days before the Uprising, on 29 July, machine-gun posts were simultaneously set up in the streets, while at a few key points, such as the Zoliborz viaduct, tanks were positioned.[129]
Then on the evening of 31 July, after reports of the Soviet advances a few kilometres north-east of Warsaw, came Chrusciel’s report of the breakthrough — Chrusciel, an able Polish tactician, who had lectured at the Staff College before the war, and who right up till that morning had staunchly supported Komorowski in his refusal to launch the Uprising prematurely.
It turned the scale. Komorowski could not hold out any longer though perhaps one ally at the crucial moment would have helped. ‘If I had been present and had told him what I knew, I think Komorowski would not have decided to fight. I knew that the German bridgehead on the east side of the Vistula was not broken,’ Colonel Iranek-Osmecki[130] says today.
What was the precise Russo-German battle situation in the sector east of Warsaw at this time, and what chances had the Soviets of coming to the aid of the Uprising if they wished to? On 28 July Marshal Stalin ordered General Rokossovsky, Commander of the First Belorussian Front armies, to occupy Praga (opposite Warsaw) between 5 and 8 August, and to establish a number of bridgeheads south of Warsaw on the western bank of the Vistula.[131]
The Red Army’s infantry initially had a three-to-one superiority and its armour and artillery one of five to one over the enemy. Rokossovsky’s First Belorussian Front comprised nine armies: one tank army, two tank corps, three cavalry corps, one motorized corps and two airborne armies. German forces comprised the 2nd Army of four Panzer divisions and one of infantry; and the 9th Army’s two divisions and two brigades of infantry.
In the early hours of 27 July the Soviet Tank Army and the 8th Tank Corps attacked westward along the Warsaw — Lublin road in the general direction of Praga.[132]
The next day spearheads of infantry corps of the Soviet 69th Army of Marshal Konev’s more southerly 1st Ukrainian Front struck through to the east bank of the Vistula near Pulawy,[133] eighty miles south-east of Warsaw. At dawn on 29 July spearheads crossed the river north of Kazimierz and after fierce fighting with enemy detachments seized a bridgehead near the Janowiec area. Other bridgeheads were seized and linked up despite strong German tank and infantry counter-attacks. After this hard fighting the 69th Army then went temporarily on the defensive.
On 31 July the 1st Polish (Communist) Army was ordered to force a crossing on a wide front at Pulawy and to seize bridgeheads on the west bank of the Vistula in order to help similar operations by the Soviet 69th Army and 8th Guards Army, which began crossing near Magnuszew, about twenty-five miles nearer Warsaw. The Polish 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions crossed the river in several places on 1 and 2 August, and, continually engaged in heavy fighting, held on until 4 August, when orders were given to withdraw to the left bank, which was done on the night of 4 August. The Polish Communist Divisions lost more than 1,000 killed and wounded. The Russian 8th Guards Army, however, successfully crossed the river and established a bridgehead between Magnuszew and Warecko.[134] The Polish Divisions were assigned the task of defending the northern part of this bridgehead.
Meanwhile units of the Soviet 2nd Tank Army renewed their advance in a north-west direction towards Warsaw. They were opposed in the Garwolin area, about forty miles south-east of Warsaw by two advance-post battalions of the German 73rd Infantry Division, deployed in a single line along the north bank of the Swidra river. The main forces of the ‘Hermann Goering’ Division were in reserve, centred in the Rembertow-Okuniew sector, twelve miles east of Praga. Warsaw’s approaches were held by the German 3rd, 5th, 19th and 4th Panzer Divisions. The 73rd Infantry Division, about 10,800 strong, was commanded by General Fritz Franck.
Soviet forces now launched an all-out offensive in the Praga sector, the 2nd Tank Army units attacking the outposts of the 73rd German Infantry Division. Spearheads of the Soviet 3rd and 8th Tank Corps clashed with the German outposts, including ‘Hermann Goering’ Division reconnaissance units near Garwolin after midday on 27 July. Despite stubborn resistance the German units were gradually forced back towards Kaluszyn.
Garwolin was partially taken during the night and the main body of the German 73rd Division fell back to the strong Siennica-Kolbiel-Latowicze Line. On the morning of 28 July the German 9th Panzer Division HQ and detachments of the ‘Hermann Goering’ Division arrived in the sector and at once engaged the Soviet 8th Tank Corps. A fierce tank battle followed. By noon on 29 July the 8th Tank Corps had driven the Germans back and occupied Kolbiel and Siennica, in the outer ring of Warsaw’s German defences.
Detachments of the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps, breaking German resistance to the north of Minsk Mazowiecki about twenty-six miles from Warsaw, pressed on to Zielonka, capturing General Franck, Commander of the 73rd Division, together with some of his staff and important documents. They revealed that a reconnaissance unit of the German 5th Panzer Division, the ‘SS Viking’, was operating near Minsk Mazowiecki. Detachments of the ‘Hermann Goering’ and of the 73rd Infantry Divisions were defending the Cechowa and Otwock sector of the outer ring of Warsaw’s defences. The approaches to Praga were defended by the 19th Panzer Division and the 3rd ‘Totenkopf’ Panzer Division in the suburban areas of Okuniew and Pustelnik.[135]
At dawn on 30 July, the retreating Germans held a line comprising Zielonka, Cechowka, Minsk, Mazowiecki and Otwock. The 2nd Tank Army’
s 16th Tank Corps attacked along the Lublin road towards Otwock; and despite a German counter-attack with a regiment of infantry and forty tanks of the 19th Panzer Division, seized Otwock by the evening and took villages near Milosna Stara, about fifteen miles east of Warsaw. An assault on the key-point of Okuniew in the outer ring of the Warsaw defences was now feasible. The 8th Tank Corps launched an attack in the afternoon but were halted by German artillery and air attacks.
The Soviet 3rd Tank Corps, by-passing strong enemy positions in the Zielonka district from the north-east in the evening, now drove the enemy from the towns of Wolomin and Radzymin, only twelve and sixteen miles north-east of Warsaw, and took up defensive positions along the Dluga river. But this unit’s situation on the night of 30 July was perilous. Far ahead of the main body of the 2nd Tank Army, it was running short of ammunition and fuel, while units of the 39th Panzer Corps still fought on in Wolomin and Radzymin. More serious, five German armoured divisions were now converging in the direction of Radzymin-Wolomin.[136]
Early on 31 July, the 1st Armoured Paratroop Regiment of the ‘Hermann Goering’ Division attacked from Praga towards Wolomin. The main forces of the 19th Panzer Division lunged at Radzymin from the southwest along the Warsaw-Wyszkow road; and from Wyszkow the 4th Panzer Division hit out to support it. The main body of the SS Panzer ‘Viking’ Division was moving from Wegrow to attack Wolomin on the following day; while strong forces of the ‘Death’s Head’ Panzer Division were on the march from Siedlce towards Stanislawow in order to cut off the Soviet units on the northeast bank of the Dluga river.
Thus, just as the Uprising in Warsaw was about to begin, the approaches of the Warsaw suburb of Praga became the scene of one of the biggest tank battles fought in Poland in the summer of 1944. Some 450 tanks and self-propelled guns were deployed by the Germans. The most that is at present known of Soviet strength is that twelve days earlier on 18 July 1944 the 2nd Tank Army put 808 tanks and self-propelled guns into the field.[137]
In order to aid the hard-pressed 3rd Tank Corps the 2nd Army Commander ordered an artillery and air bombardment on the German positions at dawn, 31 July, followed by an all-out attack by 8th Tank Corps, and under the weight of it the enemy withdrew towards Okuniew. Fifty tanks of the ‘Death’s Head’ Division then counter-attacked in a westerly direction from the Stanislawow area to try to link up with the ‘Hermann Goering’ Division and the 19th Panzer Division, then engaged in a tank battle with Soviet units at Okuniew and Ossow.
Despite powerful air support this move was narrowly defeated and on the evening of 31 July 8th Tank Corps took Okuniew, but its attack later in the day on the German strongpoint of Ossow near by was driven off with heavy losses. Later that evening the initiative began to pass, in this, the Praga sector of the front, to the Germans. The Soviet 3rd Tank Corps was still isolated north of 8th Corps and like 16th Corps had spent the day opposing numerous heavy attacks by German armour, artillery and infantry.
The Soviet 2nd Army Commander was faced with heavy casualties, a growing shortage of fuel and ammunition and an immediate threat to his rear. His all-out effort to comply with the Soviet Supreme Command’s orders, to break through on the fifty-mile ring of German defences and enter Praga between 5 and 8 August, was not feasible. At 4.10 AM on 1 August he ordered his units to break off the attack.[138]
The first Soviet offensive against Warsaw had failed when its spearheads were at some points within six or seven miles of the city’s eastern suburbs. By 1 August — the day the Warsaw Uprising began — the initiative had passed completely to the Germans and it stayed with them for several days.
General von Vormann brought up more artillery, infantry and two armoured trains from the 2nd Army’s reserves and launched a strong counter-attack. Detachments of the ‘Viking’ and ‘Totenkopf’ Panzer Divisions, advancing from the forests to the east of Michalow, battered their way into Okuniew, drove out the Soviet 8th Tank Corps at 21.00 hours on 1 August and linked up with General Sauchen’s 39th Panzer Corps from the west.
On the morning of 2 August the 19th Panzer Division thrust into Radzymin from the north-west. A simultaneous attack by 4th Panzer along the southern side of the Radzymin-Wyszkow road was delayed, but they too entered Radzymin towards the evening and joined forces with 19th Panzer. Several hours later after bitter fighting, the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps was thrust back from Radzymin towards Wolomin, eventually taking up defensive positions along the Czarna river.[139]
Thus, by the evening of 2 August General von Vormann’s Panzer units had battered and thrust back the Soviets in a well-directed counter-attack. The Soviet armies now lost mile by mile, at no less cost, the Warsaw approaches which they had gained at great sacrifice.
In the afternoon of 3 August the ‘Hermann Goering’ Division, attacking from the north-east, recaptured Wolomin. But from the evening of 4 August onwards, although the Germans maintained a withering artillery and mortar fire on the Soviet 2nd Army’s groupings they ceased their tank attacks and the battle on the Praga approaches finally ended at noon on 5 August.[140] The Germans were transferring two division to Warka, thirty miles south, to deal with enemy pressure there. The Soviet forces had by this time lost 425 tanks and self-propelled guns out of the 808 with which they began the battle.[141]
Exhausted by the fighting, which for them had begun about thirty-five days earlier, the Soviet 2nd Tank Army units handed over their defensive positions to units of the 47th and 70th Armies and withdrew to reequip and await reinforcements.
Not until 25 August was Rokossovsky to inform Stalin in a telegram that he was ready to stage a new attack on Warsaw.[142]
What did this ancient and glorious city mean to the Poles, Germans and Russians about to become involved in so bloody a struggle for it? The citizens, the men and women of the Secret Army, loved it of course because it held their homes, families and work, also for its cultural heritage of scholarly museums, historic libraries, resplendent churches and gilded palaces. But especially they revered it for its 150-year-old role of struggle for national independence against those predatory neighbours Tsarist Russia, Prussia and Austria. The will to play a part in this historical tradition and fight the Nazis cemented the Secret Army’s diverse social character, giving a temporary unity to men and women whose visions of post-war Poland were alarmingly out of joint.
Warsaw, the visible symbol of freedom and unity, had thus become in great part the inspiration of the five years of struggle against the invader. From pragmatists no less than idealists it called forth a readiness for total sacrifice.
To the Nazis and the Soviets, on the other hand, it figured as an important strategic and tactical cockpit. Seven communications arteries lunged through it, crossing the Vistula over three roads and two railway bridges. For the Germans, fighting defensive battles in the area, the bridges and roads across the city were all-important. They had to be kept open for the free movement of troops and supplies to the Eastern Front.
To the Red Army, on the other hand, Warsaw’s communications network was vital for the Berlin offensive, although the bridges, which it knew the Germans would destroy, were of less account.
A fairly large city, Warsaw extended over some fifteen kilometres from Bielany in the north to Czerniakow in the south; and eight from Praga on the east bank of the Vistula to Wola in the west. The City Centre stretched approximately from the Royal Castle in the north, on the southern confines of the Old Town, to Lazienki Park in the south — a wooded parkland surrounding the exquisite eighteenth-century Lazienki Palace built by King Stanislav Poniatowski. The Vistula, varying from three hundred to five hundred yards wide, hemmed in the City Centre on the east, while the western limits of this district lay along the outskirts of the working-class suburb of Wola.
The fearsome ruins of the Ghetto lay like a monument to evil between Bonifraterska, Leszno, Okopowa, Stawki and Miranowska streets. They were surrounded by a high wall and armed police. Among the ruins rose the infamous Gestapo torture prison, the Pawiak; and the
Gesiowka, where Jews were held before transportation to Nazi death centres.
North of the Citadel, a fortress built by Tsar Alexander III to reinforce Russian rule which dominated the river bank north of the Old Town, lay the new northern suburb of Zoliborz, mainly villas and apartment blocks in tree-lined streets, leading to the suburbs of Marymont and Bielany. They were separated from the Old Town by a railway track which ran west through Wola and adjacent Ochota, where it turned east and traversed the City Centre before crossing the Vistula and passing through Praga. The Old Town and the City Centre were thus virtually surrounded by railway, a decisive fact in the battle to come.
The western suburb of Wola, mainly composed of old wooden houses, was cut by two main motor roads leading to the west, while south of them lay the suburb of Ochota, astride the main road for Radom and Lodz. Here were situated the German police barracks. Mokotow, a residential district of new tallish buildings to the south, was cut off from the City Centre by Mokotow Field, a large open space once used both as a racecourse and a parade ground.
Hemmed in by the river bank to the east, two vital east-west arteries north and south of it and a third artery running from north to south, was the partly medieval Old Town, just north of the City Centre. Thus, to hold the City Centre, the Old Town and the roads that bordered them was effectively to command Warsaw, for the road leading to the Kierbedz Bridge ran between the Old Town and the City Centre, whose southern districts were bounded by the main road to the Poniatowski Bridge.
