The Warsaw Uprising: 1 August - 2 October 1944 (Major Battles of World War Two)

by George Bruce

  Everyone waited in a state of extreme nervous tension next day, 11 September, in case the Soviet offensive should peter out, but the gunfire in the east grew louder and the first Soviet shells hit German strongpoints in Praga, setting ablaze the Orthodox Church and other buildings near by. Soviet fighters attacked the few enemy bombers which ventured over Warsaw.

  Komorowski saw the need to hold out as absolutely vital now, almost impossible as it was. ‘There continues to be a catastrophic shortage of ammunition, the food situation is difficult,’ he reported to London on 11 September. ‘Without the more serious help expected from outside we cannot hold out. In the northern part of the City Centre rage battles typical of the street fighting for every cellar and house.’[280]

  It was important for the London Government now to frustrate all moves towards surrendering and there is evidence that this was done. The Home Army Commander in the Cracow district sent Komorowski a message on 11 September stating that the Polish Central Council for Welfare was conferring with the German Governor-General Frank on the possibility of Warsaw’s capitulation on condition that the insurgents be treated as prisoners of war in special camps: and that the rebuilding of Warsaw and the return of the population evicted from Warsaw should be permitted. ‘For my part I am personally paralysing all agreement attempts,’ he declared.[281]

  The relief of Warsaw, it was believed, and the triumph of the London Government had to come within a few days. Komorowski now made an effort to establish military liaison with Marshal Rokossovsky so that the Polish administration could play the part of rulers welcoming the entry of another power. They blindly ignored the existence of the Moscow-sponsored National Committee of Liberation, which was already ruling in the liberated areas. Komorowski sent Rokossovsky a message via London and Moscow pleading for more arms; at the same time he ordered Chrusciel — who had been promoted to General — to have patrols ready to cross the Vistula as soon as Soviet troops reached the opposite bank.

  A surge of hope and excitement inspired soldiers and people alike. In the safer areas of the City Centre gaunt emaciated people, their colourless skin hanging on their protruding bones, staggered cheering and singing from the cellars despite the scream and thump of German guns. Liberation was at hand. Soon the Nazi fiends would be gone.

  But in the Home Army GHQ the gravest anxiety reigned. On 12 September the Germans brought the fresh 25th Panzer Division into Warsaw and threw it into an attack on Zoliborz, the only Polish bridgehead on the Vistula north of the city. Intensive artillery bombardments varied by tank and infantry attacks broke the insurgents’ barricades by 16 September and forced the defenders about half a mile back from the river into new positions.

  While in Czerniakow, the Home Army’s bridgehead to the south of Warsaw, and in a thin strip of the embankment north of Czerniakow and south of the Poniatowski Bridge, von dem Bach pressed ahead with the next phase of his plan to occupy the entire embankment before Praga fell into Soviet hands. Intensive dive-bombing and artillery fire shattered the defenders’ positions and despite frequent counter-attacks the German ring closed.

  Hope that the situation might yet be dramatically transformed grew as the Soviet troops pushed back the Germans in Praga, routing the 73rd Infantry Division. Ninth Army units withdrew across the river on 13 September and the Germans blew up the Poniatowski Bridge. ‘The IV SS Panzer Corps has had to move back and open a front on the western bank of the Vistula,’ the 9th Army War Diary reported on 13 September.[282] ‘The day’s heavy fighting has weakened the enemy. Thirty-seven enemy tanks destroyed… Bridges on the Vistula being destroyed as planned.’ And on 14 September: ‘In the latest fighting eighty-seven enemy tanks destroyed. But their greater strength of infantry is making itself felt and they are making progress. Nineteenth Panzer Division was pushed back in the northern part of Praga… The Magnuszew bridgehead is now completely in the control of the 8th Soviet Guards Army but all is quiet.'

  On 14 September a Soviet aircraft flew low over Zoliborz, dropping a small container with a letter from the Red Army Command to the insurgents naming places where signal fires were to be lit for the dropping of food and weapons. Zenon Kliszko recalls that the first night during which the drops were to be made seemed to last for ever. He and other soldiers there stared into the bonfire they had lit, feeling joy and restlessness at once, believing that now everything would change. Suddenly, almost above their heads they heard the cough of an aircraft engine, and the small Russian biplane called the kukuruznik flew over. Containers without parachutes hurtled to the ground. More such aircraft then dropped their containers. Some of them were broken and the contents damaged, but the operation had a tremendous effect upon insurgent morale. Every night after this Soviet aircraft dropped supplies.

  By 16 September the Soviet drops in the City Centre had yielded fifty automatic pistols, fifty thousand rounds of ammunition, two heavy machine-guns, eleven grenade guns and five hundred shells, three thousand rounds for Russian rifles, four hundred hand-grenades, five boxes of other arms and ammunition, as well as food in sacks. Weapons and provisions had also been dropped in Mokotow, Czerniakow and Zoliborz. Armour-piercing weapons were dropped thereafter. ‘To the dropping of these supplies we owe the stiffening of our defence and an improvement in morale,’ Komorowski signalled.[283] Soldiers and civilians alike were sure that soon the Soviets would enter the city.

  This feeling was intensified suddenly at 8 PM on 14 September. Moscow Radio broadcast an appeal of the Communist National Committee of Liberation to the people of Warsaw to stand fast. ‘The hour for liberation for heroic Warsaw is near,’ it proclaimed.

  Your suffering and martyrdom will soon be over. The Germans will pay dearly for the ruins and blood of Warsaw. The First Polish Division named Kosciusko has entered Praga. It is fighting side by side with the heroic Red Army. Whatever may have been the motives of those who started the rising prematurely, without agreement with the High Command of the Red Army, we are with you with all our hearts. A decisive fight is now taking place on the banks of the Vistula. Help is coming. Victory is near. Keep fighting.

  Would it turn out to be July all over again? Or would it be true?

  Chapter Sixteen: Defeat, surrender and destruction

  When Praga was taken by the Soviets on 15 September the entire eastern bank of the Vistula was in their hands. The Poles had lost all the western bank, except for a short stretch in the southern district of Czerniakow. This was the narrowest part of the river, little more than two hundred and fifty yards wide. Most important from the standpoint of a Soviet landing was that it should be held. To cross and land elsewhere in face of the German fortifications and weaponry would be a tremendous and costly task.

  Von dem Bach was well aware of this, for on this same day in moves to secure the district the Germans drove the Home Army from the suburb of Sielce, just north of Czerniakow. They had now cut off Colonel Radosław’s group from any hope of reinforcements from the City Centre. How long in these conditions he would be able to hold the Czerniakow bridgehead was a source of worry.

  Radosław decided that instead of trying to reopen a way through to the City Centre he would make contact with the Soviets across the river and request reinforcements. One company from Zoska Battalion was therefore at great risk withdrawn from the line to attack the Syrena Boat Club at Czerniakow, which it captured. Radosław’s force now held a useful landing stage for reinforcements. Envoys then made a night crossing in small craft from the boathouse and made contact with General Berling, Commander of the Polish Army with the Soviet Forces.

  On 16 September amid scenes of great rejoicing the first landings of Polish Army reinforcements took place at this bridgehead — especially because these were Polish troops, even though recently conscripted and unseasoned. They were composed of two well-armed battalions and the regimental HQ of the 9th Infantry Regiment. At the same time two other attempts to land were made.

  The Polish 8th Infantry Regiment crossed and tried to get a foothold
at the Poniatowski Bridge; the Polish 1st Cavalry Brigade at the Kierbedz Bridge. Both of these efforts to seize the western entry to the bridges before they could be destroyed were repelled with heavy losses.

  The Soviets now knew for certain that the western embankment — steeply rising ground — was well defended and would be costly to take.

  In Zoliborz, north of the Old Town, not yet attacked heavily by tanks and infantry but bombed and shelled daily, the communist leader, Zenon Kliszko, felt in the tense atmosphere of waiting for liberation by the Soviets that a single moment was almost as long as a whole day. Yet there were moments of hopelessness, with the growing fears of inevitable defeat.

  About fifteen hundred Home Army troops and four hundred of the People’s Army in Zoliborz were encircled by some eight thousand Germans with massive armour, artillery and air support. ‘We looked gloomily in the direction of the Vistula whence help and liberation was to come… From the direction of the Vistula we could hear desultory fire and… it was even assumed that some small Soviet force was trying to force the Vistula to find out what the strength of the enemy’s resistance was.’[284] The harassing fire of the German artillery went on almost ceaselessly in daylight hours, pulverizing and setting ablaze house after house with heavy losses.

  Meantime, having received no answer to the message to Marshal Rokossovsky he had sent through London on 11 September, General Komorowski instructed that three separate patrols should cross the Vistula on different days to report to the Soviet headquarters to arrange military liaison. They took with them details of the Home Army and enemy positions, including their gun batteries. German artillery in Wola and Powazki was now bombarding the river’s eastern bank, presumably to disperse Soviet troop concentrations assembling in readiness for a possible assault on the Vistula’s western bank, now thick with machine-gun nests and gun batteries. Heavy fighting continued in Mokotow. Buildings changed hands time after time in attacks and counter-attacks marked by savage hand-to-hand combat.

  Home Army GHQ meanwhile were hourly looking up at the skies for the fleet of over one hundred Flying Fortresses of the USAF which for days past they had expected to arrive with enough arms, food and medical supplies to enable them to hold out a few days longer. At last on 17 September the BBC played the key melody, One More Mazurka Tonight. It was confirmed by a message from London saying that the aircraft would fly over Warsaw between 11AM and 12 noon, 18 September. On the night of 17 September a rain of Soviet fire hit German positions in the city.

  The next day was fine and sunny and the Germans were not especially active. Only one or two officers at GHQ knew that the Americans were coming. Then quite suddenly everyone was looking up at the sky where very high in the north a fleet of aircraft filled the cloudless sky like silver birds flying in perfect formation. German anti-aircraft opened up all around the city, but the little clouds of smoke burst well below their thirty-thousand-feet altitude. People in safe places scrambled on to the rubble heaps to try to get a better view, cheering wildly. Those under fire hoped for the best as the German guns spoke in unison.

  All at once hundreds of coloured parachutes burst from the fleet. ‘Parachutists!’ The shout ran through the crowd, but soon disappointment replaced elation, for the containers could be seen swinging wildly. Altogether eighteen hundred of them, tight with carefully packed much-needed items, even phials of blood for transfusions and the best anti-tank weapons were dropped.

  But most of them fell into German hands or floated on east over the Vistula. ‘Yesterday’s American expedition roused enthusiasm among the population,’ Romorowski radioed to London. ‘The shelters and cellars were deserted, everybody rejoiced that help had come and that we had not been forgotten. Spirits rose remarkably in the northern part of the City Centre, where the supplies were dropped. The Soviet artillery and air force continue to rake the areas of enemy resistance with fire…’

  Nevertheless the expedition was a failure, owing to the numbers of containers lost to the enemy now that the Home Army held only small areas of the city. It was not repeated. ‘We could merely witness this massive exhibition of power and think of what might have been, had this help reached us sooner,’ Komorowski reflected later.[285]

  The next day, as if to demonstrate the uselessness of aid from outside, the Germans raked the City Centre with gunfire of the heaviest type and pulverized scores of houses. General Stahel and his staff withdrew from the Brühl Palace and the Gestapo from their administrative and torture centre in Szuch Avenue. Paradoxically, it was a bad omen.

  Soviet aid increased. A strong screen of fighters patrolled the city air space on 19 September, while their bombers hit German targets in Okecie airport, the Citadel and the Gdansk station repeatedly. Soviet artillery, directed now by Home Army officers in Warsaw, smashed German targets, often causing losses to insurgents in positions near by. The Germans, so long able to smash the Poles with heavy weapons, now writhed under the same punishment as Soviet artillery shelled the Praga waterfront.

  Good news now came to Zoliborz. On the night of 18 September Captain ‘Karol’, one of the liaison officers who had crossed the Vistula to the Soviet headquarters, returned with definite news that the Red Army and the First Polish Army were to start an offensive on Warsaw.[286] He said that the Home Army was to be in readiness and wait for the order for combined action. But Kliszko was disturbed to hear that a battalion of General Berling’s Second Polish Infantry Division had either crossed or was soon to cross the Vistula at Piekielko, near Marymont, make a reconnaissance and divert the enemy’s attention from the main storming place. It was nearly two miles from the nearest insurgent positions and he knew that forces landing there were doomed to a lone fight against strong enemy forces.

  Kliszko found it even more difficult to understand that the First Polish Army HQ had made no attempt to contact the Zoliborz insurgents about help for this intended crossing. That some fighting was then going on there they knew from the boom of artillery and the crackle of small arms. This effort of the Second Polish Division to cross the Vistula was to end in complete failure and big losses. It was later reported that for this attack, carried out on his own initiative, General Berling was relieved of his command. The simultaneous main attack did not take place.

  Events in the German army also influenced their operations. Owing to the defeat in Praga and the failure to break the Uprising completely a search for scapegoats was afoot in the Central Army Group. The 73rd Infantry Division commander was court-martialled. Its officers and men were forbidden leave or promotion and assigned to the hardest tasks against the Uprising. The Division’s disbandment had even been mooted, but Hitler himself forbade this, blaming instead General Niklaus von Vormann, the 9th Army Commander. Von Vormann had already complained on 25 August that he had insufficient strength to defend the Praga bridgehead against the Soviets. He was removed from his command and on 21 September 1944 General of Tank Troops Smilo Frieherr von Luettwitz took over leadership of the 9th Army.[287]

  From mid-September onwards, before von Vormann’s fall, von dem Bach-Zelewski also felt himself under threat. He did everything possible therefore, from pressure for negotiations to a ruthless use of the heaviest weapons, to achieve success for his battle plan of cutting the Poles off from the Vistula embankment road and crushing the Uprising in the south and north before the final onslaught on the City Centre.

  Czerniakow came first. Radosław’s troops, defending an area of flat riverside land and ruined buildings about five hundred yards long by five hundred wide, were hit by a hurricane of shellfire. By 19 September, after counter-attacking repeatedly in this inferno for seven days and nights those left — seventy per cent had been killed or wounded — had reached the limits of their physical capacity. They had hardly any ammunition, no fresh water, no food, and no medical supplies.

  Headquarters of the group were located in a large modern block at the junction of Czerniakowska and Wilanowska Streets, the central strongpoint of the defended area. Radosław�
�s HQ and a hospital were in the basement together with the exhausted remnants of two battalions. The rest of the other two were on the ground floor, with some of the men from Berling’s army and a few hundred civilians.

  The Germans were attacking from all sides. Eventually they blew a hole in one of the walls with a Goliath exploding tank, hurled a shower of grenades then stormed inside and occupied part of the building. Captain Wacek counter-attacked, aided by Lieutenant Maly and reserve units of Zoska Battalion, but without success. Radosław’s HQ was now endangered by fire from the Germans, who fought back furiously, refusing to give an inch.

  The Poles then discovered that the Germans were under fire from a Polish barricade near by and therefore could not retreat. A strange solution to the problem of getting them out was now found. It was to order the machine-guns on the barricade not to fire and let them pass. If this was not done and they held their position, they would receive reinforcements when daylight came and the defenders would be decimated.

  Another counter-attack against the Germans was therefore ordered and this time the barricade machine-guns did not fire. Captain Wacek found it a hard order to give, but the stratagem succeeded. The Germans retreated from their foothold once they found that the way out was clear. For the time being the HQ was secure again.

  But Radosław knew that the German attack would now be repeated in much greater strength in daylight and that if he waited much longer both his group and the Berling troops would be annihilated. He therefore decided to withdraw part of his forces through the sewer to Mokotow that night. The other part was to cover the withdrawal of the badly wounded troops over the river to the Praga side. It caused that irrepressible fighter, Lieutenant-Colonel Radosław (Jan Mazurkiewicz) no little heartburning to reach this decision, for he held an admirable landing stage for reinforcements in the bridgehead.