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

by George Bruce

  But his situation was known; he had requested reinforcements, and none had arrived.[288] Radosław and the remnants of his group descended the sewer to Mokotow in the early hours of 20 September. Under constant German fire the units covering the evacuation of the wounded by boats — troops of the 9th Infantry Regiment commanded by Major Latyszonek as well as Home Army and People’s Army insurgents — held out for three more days in the hope that Soviet troops would make use of the bridgehead.

  Captain Jerzy, in command of a detachment of the Zoska Battalion, decided after a conference with Major Latyszonek to transfer his detachment, the wounded and the civilian population across the river to the Soviet side. Latyszonek put forward Jerzy’s request by radio to his headquarters. The Soviet 5th Division Commander promised to send one hundred pontoons at 9 AM, each able to hold twenty people, to take everyone off under cover of a smoke screen. But the help did not materialize.[289]

  Later, it was promised for 8 PM. The Germans meantime heavily shelled the buildings occupied by the Poles and by the evening all of them were on fire. At 8 o’clock still no boats came from across the river. An hour later the detachments marched out to the river and waited. Just before midnight a Soviet officer in a small boat arrived to say that headquarters had changed its plan. Instead of sending the promised pontoons all at once, fifteen smaller boats would be sent each evening.[290]

  It was a heartless offer to soldiers who had withstood the German attack for so many days. All chance of getting over to the other side came to an end. Desperation forced the insurgents to try anything. Some tried to swim over, others began to make rafts out of odd pieces of timber from the ruins. Captain Jerzy offered to try to lead about sixty of them through the German lines to the City Centre. Twenty-four hours later, he arrived wounded with a messenger girl and two soldiers, all four of them hardly able to stand. The rest had fallen through sheer exhaustion or had been shot on the way.[291]

  The fall of this bridgehead put the entire embankment in German hands. It also ended for the beleaguered Home Army in the City Centre, Zoliborz and Mokotow much hope of an immediate Soviet crossing, for now another bridgehead would first have to be seized. Meantime the Home Army had been receiving ‘fairly large supplies of ammunition and equipment dropped by the Soviets’. This continued on 22 and 23 September, together with sacks of food, but it made little difference to the impending mass starvation. ‘Only food supplies dropped wholesale can save the situation,’ Komorowski told London on 23 September.

  Ironically, at this approaching crisis point, a Soviet officer, Alexander Chernukhyn, 2nd Artillery Regiment, reported to General Chrusciel, saying that he came from Marshal Rokossovsky’s staff. He wished to know what the Home Army’s requirements were; what were their views on cooperation with Soviet forces outside Warsaw and what targets were there for Soviet artillery in the city.

  Chrusciel simply suggested what appeared to him the best operational plan for the city’s capture and promised Home Army support by attacking towards the Vistula in support of any Soviet drive. But no hopes were raised by this request.

  General von Luettwitz was now in overall command of the German operations, while von dem Bach was in charge of negotiations and mopping-up operations. The troops he had earlier used to put down the Uprising — Reinefarth’s Brigade, Dirlewanger’s criminal troops, the Kaminski[292] brigade — were removed from the Vistula front and used mainly to hem in the Town Centre to prevent the arrival of reinforcements from the forests around Warsaw, and to seal off Zoliborz from the embankment.

  Von Luettwitz urged at a Central Army Group conference on 21 September that the crack 19th Panzer Division should now be allocated specially for overcoming the insurgents. At first Major-General Reinhardt opposed, but agreed with the proviso that Mokotow was to be seized in four days and Zoliborz four days later. The Central Army Group was by no means sure of the soundness of the battle plan and General von Luettwitz had to defend it repeatedly to the German High Command during the actual battle.[293]

  For the attack on Mokotow General Kallner’s 19th Panzer Division was supported by the disgraced 73rd Infantry Division and units of the ‘Hermann Goering’, ‘Viking’ and Frankonian Sudeten Panzer divisions. Prolonged dive-bombing, heavy artillery and multiple mortar bombardment launched the attack south along Pulawska Street, which divided the district. Colonel Karol, who commanded the Home Army’s twelve hundred armed troops there was slightly wounded, his deputy seriously. The attack changed direction swiftly to the west and the east and back again to the south. Casualties among both civilians and troops were heavy.

  At dawn the next day the attacks were renewed from the south with large numbers of infantry and seven tanks and three armoured fighting vehicles from the west. ‘The enemy is using all his strength to achieve the liquidation of Mokotow,’ Colonel Karol reported.[294] ‘The situation is very serious. Lack of help from Soviet artillery. I shall defend the position on the ruins.’ Von dem Bach sent an envoy to propose that civilians should be allowed to leave, as a heavy attack was proposed. ‘This enemy move and his attack I consider an attempt to demoralise us and to influence us with propaganda and I did not allow negotiations,’ Karol reported.[295]

  He requested through his two Soviet artillery observers artillery support from the Soviets across the Vistula. No obstacles of any kind could have prevented this, yet no fire support was given. The Soviets were shelling German troop concentrations in Ochota and also Okecie airport.

  By the evening of 26 September Colonel Karol estimated his losses at seventy per cent. A truce took place during which some five thousand civilians left the district for the Pruszkow German refugee camp near by. At dawn the Germans attacked again, but Karol seemed to have lost control. Mokotow surrendered at 1 o’clock in the afternoon on 27 September. Von dem Bach wrote that day in his diary: ‘At 19.15 hours the Reichsführer SS (Himmler) telephoned me and told me that the Führer awarded me the Ritterkreuz, Reinefarth the Eichenlaub and Dirlewanger the Ritterkreuz.’ The Wehrmacht High Command obviously believed that the end of the Uprising was now a matter of days if not hours.

  The day before the surrender Colonel Karol and the Home Army GHQ disagreed over the proposal to withdraw through the sewer to the City Centre. Komorowski and his staff opposed this move because the sewer system was now heavily guarded and blocked by German Pioneer detachments. He feared senseless losses. But nevertheless the first insurgent units led by Colonel Karol began to go down the iron ladders at about 23.00 hours on 26 September, a scarecrow procession, with gaunt faces and open wounds covered with bloodstained rags.

  Soon, as they waded forward through the stinking sludge the dangers of the journey struck them. Here and there the bottom of the sewer was clogged with the dead bodies of those who had already drowned there. Then the Germans discovered the evacuation and began to fire down the manholes or to throw hand-grenades. Those near by were killed, those behind turned back and fought in the narrow tunnels to pass those pressing on from behind. Many men and women, especially the wounded or the weaker among them, were trampled down and drowned. Others tried to escape into the smaller tunnels and never surfaced again. It was a disaster.

  As nothing before had done, the fall of both Czerniakow and Mokotow shocked the Home Army Staff into a realization of the gravity of their military situation. All agreed at a meeting on 27 September that the position was untenable. They concluded moreover that having allowed the Germans to overcome the Czerniakow bridgehead the Soviets had no intention of trying to cross the river to establish another and take Warsaw by frontal attack. Nevertheless a last message to Marshal Rokossovsky was sent in the evening and the radio operator at Soviet headquarters acknowledged it.

  Referring to the desperate situation of both troops and civilians, the message stated that hunger and German attacks made it impossible to hold out for more than another seventy-two hours. Unless substantial help came within this time the Home Army would be forced to surrender.

  Komorowski and his
staff now relied upon an eleventh-hour Soviet response for their deliverance from catastrophe.

  Immediately after the fall of Mokotow General von Luettwitz moved the 19th Panzer Division and supporting troops north of the city to Zoliborz — more than eight thousand men with air support. Before the attack Komorowski received an offer of negotiated terms in exchange for surrender. Still hoping against all evidence that the Soviets would turn the tables for him, he turned the offer down and ordered Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Zywiciel’ to fight to the end. Under the command of General Kallner, 19th Panzer Division commander, the attack began with a blizzard of artillery fire from three directions followed by Stuka dive-bombing.

  A hail of fire and steel fell on the streets and squares of this attractive residential district. Buildings crumbled into ruins and nothing could be done for those trapped beneath them. But in answer to pleas for help by radio Soviet artillery in Praga quickly opened fire on the German positions. ‘After a whole day’s artillery fire and bombing raids the losses in life and the material losses were enormous,’ noted Zenon Kliszko, who was fighting with the Communist battalion.[296] ‘In the evening the firing stopped… Over the town the darkness of night fell, a damp night, full of fear. The silence was so absolute that if you strained your ears you could hear the waves of the Vistula lapping at the banks. Our people were so near. I thought: it is enough to reach out over the river and touch the breast of a friend and whisper: I am in mortal danger.’

  At dawn another storm of fire and steel struck the houses and the insurgents’ positions. Half an hour later the Germans attacked from the south and the west with tanks, mechanized infantry, Goliaths and police troops through the fine wide streets. The intensity of the offensive paralysed liaison between the insurgents’ staff and the fighting units. Each detachment fought on its own in accordance with its experience and courage. The first German infantry attacks were repulsed with heavy losses on both sides, but they came in again and again, pushing the defenders back from one barricade after another. The roar and fury of the fighting was beyond endurance.

  All the time radio calls to Praga pin-pointing German targets for artillery attack went out, interspersed with futile SOS signals. ‘We were waiting for a miracle, we were awaiting the forcing of the Vistula, a descent from the air. Calling for help all the time, we came to realize more and more that nobody could help us any more. We knew this but our hearts and our hands went on with their work untiringly, carrying out every action accurately, and in some cases with great precision. People died unnoticed, dropping to the ground as though they wanted to rest for a while,’ wrote Kliszko.

  By late afternoon the Germans had driven deeply into the southern Zoliborz areas towards Wilson Square and Krasinski Street. Then in the evening the artillery stopped firing. The People’s Army command there discussed evacuating the entire insurgent force to the Soviet side of the Vistula, in the belief that further fighting was hopeless.

  That evening, 29 September, Komorowski personally sent a message to General Sosnkowski, Polish C-in-C, in London, foreseeing total capitulation:

  We have ascertained that hunger rations of food are sufficient only for a further three days. I see no chance of the Red Army occupying Warsaw in that time, or of such defence from bombardment and food support being secured as could enable us to hold out until the city is occupied.

  I have informed Marshal Rokossovsky of the situation, and asked for help. If, however, I do not receive it in large quantities and at once I shall be compelled to capitulate on conditions of combatant treatment, which the Germans guarantee.

  As, after the fall of Mokotow, the Germans put forward a proposal to clear the city of its civilian population and in that event to cease further struggle, which they regard as pointless, I have entered into conversations. The evacuation of the civilian population from the City Centre is expected to start on 1 October and will last, I judge, three days.

  Since the 59th Zoliborz has been heavily bombarded. The Germans reckon that within three days it will have ceased to exist. In this connection the problem of evacuating the civilian population from this district is very difficult.

  In the event of a Red Army attack in the next few days the evacuation will be broken off and then I shall take up the struggle again.

  At a command meeting that evening Lieutenant-Colonel Zywiciel reminded his officers of General Komorowski’s order not to let the Germans break through; and that they should continue to obey that order ‘if only for one more day’. Every officer would have to rely on his own judgement, but the fight had to go on, even though it would only bring defeat.

  A People’s Army officer then proposed that in view of the heavy losses among the civilian population and the inevitable defeat that would follow more fighting, the insurgent forces should try to cross the Vistula with the aid of Berling’s First Polish Army in Praga. After much argument Zywiciel accepted the proposal, saying that the front should be shortened so that certain positions could be held to enable the troops to reach the Vistula embankment. It was agreed that the Home Army and People’s Army troops should carry out the first move towards the embankment together within the hour.

  In his Zoliborz apartment, now in the firing line, Kliszko said goodbye to his family. At the last moment his wife decided to go with him, taking their sixteen-month-old daughter. The Germans did not shoot during the move and except for the roar of burning buildings the night was absolutely silent. After passing through a messengers’ trench within sight of the German positions, they reached their destination, the six-floor Phoenix building, in safety.

  Just before dawn the 1st Polish People’s Army in Praga radioed that they should cross in a fleet of boats they would provide under cover of a smokescreen at 10 o’clock that morning, 30 September. The Germans now began a heavy attack on the various blocks of flats held by the insurgents. Through trenches and across streets exposed to machine-gun fire the first units taking part in the evacuation moved towards lower Zoliborz and the river bank. Then owing to a contrary wind which would have dispersed the smoke-screen the preparations for the crossing were put off to 21.00 hours that day.

  Meanwhile, according to some reports strong insurgent detachments attacked the Vistula embankment that morning to try to seize a bridgehead to cover the evacuation, and many were killed. (Kliszko doubts the accuracy of this report, pointing out that there was no mention of it in Home Army or in German communiqués.)

  At 17.00 hours about three hundred insurgents stood by ready to give covering fire for the crossing. The People’s Army troops especially were excited over the prospect of crossing to the Soviet side and continuing the fighting from there. Then came a totally unexpected development. The sound of firing began to die down in various parts of Zoliborz. Soon there was total silence. Rumours of capitulation began to circulate. Kliszko and two other officers were called to headquarters. There Lieutenant-Colonel Zywiciel said that he had indeed received an order to capitulate from General Komorowski and that he had decided to carry out the order.

  Angry protests were voiced by the Communist officers present. Zywiciel answered that the proposed evacuation would be impossible; the Germans knew the contents of their coded talks with General Berling and the First Polish Army, while there were mines and machine-gun nests in the area between the embankment and lower Zoliborz. He requested the People’s Army Command to join him in agreeing to capitulate. Kliszko replied: ‘We shall fight our way through to the Vistula at the fixed time.’[297]

  The meeting ended, the People’s Army Command met to discuss how they would implement their plan and at the same time German officers arrived at Zywiciel’s headquarters to receive the document of capitulation. It meant that all the insurgents would now become prisoners of war. Doubts now began to haunt Kliszko and his fellow Communist officers. Certainly, they agreed, to fight on in Zoliborz encircled and isolated, was senseless. But if the attempt to cross to the other side was to end in a massacre it would be better to be taken prisoner. ‘So the
will to resist and fight melted away like snow on the mountains when the warm winds blow. Fighting fury turned into resignation.’[298]

  But promptly at the appointed time the barrage of Polish and Soviet artillery began. Kliszko and fifty others made up their minds that nothing would stop them from breaking free from the shadow of German captivity that hung over them. ‘An avalanche of shells tore at the earth to enable us to get through to the Vistula under its cover.’ Kliszko said goodbye to his wife and his daughter, who was sucking her finger and looking at him with terrified eyes. At that moment a Home Army officer ran up with a request from Lieutenant-Colonel Zywiciel to ask the Soviet side to stop their artillery fire.

  By then the fire had almost stopped and Kliszko and his friends, including one or two women, began their run to the embankment for freedom in the moonlit night, at first in a tight group and then in scattered battle order.

  Suddenly German voices were calling out ‘Halt! halt! halt!’ Machine-guns opened fire, to be answered with hand-grenades. A boy named Edward Patera fell to the ground with a groan. Kliszko picked him up, noticed his frightened eyes and was startled to find he weighed so little. Now came the final two hundred metres’ approach to the embankment, the hardest part.

  By now the machine-gun fire had ceased though from the other side he heard occasional bursts of artillery and shells whistle above. The boy was bleeding and groaning faintly. His blood clotted on Kliszko’s hands. Someone else took turns in carrying him. As silence returned the runners’ heavy breathing seemed to grow louder.

  Then they reached the edge of the Vistula, for all of them a wonderful moment, feeling they had got through alive. But where were the promised boats? And there was no sign of activity on the distant bank. Consternation grew; they dispersed as they ran to try to find a way of getting across before the Germans came. Firing recommenced and bullets zipped above them. Kliszko felt the chill of the autumn night rise from the river and the wet sand. His teeth chattered uncontrollably and he felt that he had reached breaking-point. After some minutes lying there in the silence on the sand he began to feel calm and vigilant again.