Second Front: The Allied Invasion of France, 1942–43 (An Alternative History)

by Alexander M. Grace

  “If the Jews are dead,” Dönitz concluded.

  “Precisely, Admiral. We have weeks, perhaps months, before the Allied armies begin to overrun the areas where these activities have been taking place. I strongly suggest that we make use of this time to ensure that the only evidence they find will be of a forensic nature.”

  “That will mean diverting resources from the war,” Rommel noted.

  “As little as possible,” Kaltenbrunner said. “Even while the Führer was alive, our schedule was delayed by rail requirements for the armies. I would not bother trying to root out the Jews we know must be hiding throughout the Reich, just finishing with those who are already conveniently collected.”

  The generals sat in silence for a moment, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  “Do whatever you think is best,” Dönitz finally said.

  CHAPTER 10

  WARSAW RISING

  0600 HOURS, 24 JULY 1943

  WARSAW, POLAND

  GENERAL TADEUSZ Bor-Komorowski, commander of the Polish underground Armija Krajowa (Home Army), huddled with his brigade commanders in the basement of a small house in the working class suburbs on the south side of Warsaw. This kind of conference was extremely rare as it took the commanders away from their units for days at a time, travelling clandestinely over hundreds of miles of German-occupied country and posing the risk of the decapitation of the entire resistance movement. But this time it was necessary. A crisis was at hand.

  Even before the leading Soviet Army spearheads had crossed into what had been Polish territory prior to 1939, Soviet-led partisan units, some of which included numbers of Poles, had migrated ahead of them to continue their battle against rear area German support troops. That in itself would have been a welcome addition to Bor-Komorowski’s battle against the Germans. He commanded nearly two hundred thousand men and women throughout Poland, but barely one in eight of that number was armed, and the Poles had hoped that the Soviet partisans would bring with them a conduit for receiving airdrops of Russian arms and ammunition, but this had not been the case. Far from supporting the Home Army, the Soviet partisans had taken advantage of their superior organization and logistical support to dominate the regions they entered and then to eliminate any Home Army cadres that had been foolhardy enough to present themselves to the new arrivals. While the world may still have been withholding judgment on the Soviets over the Katyn massacre of Polish Army officers after the partition in 1939, the Poles themselves had no such doubts. If Poland were ever to be free again, it would have to be by her own hand. She could expect no help from the Russians.

  To reinforce this view, word had reached Bor-Komorowski by shortwave from the Polish government-in-exile in London that some kind of deal had apparently been struck between the Soviets and the Western Allies that would leave the Russians in possession of the territory they had seized by stabbing Poland in the back during the German invasion. Bor-Komorowski had not been the only hardened Polish officer who had cried at the thought of the perfidy of the British, who had supposedly entered the war to defend Polish independence years before. The British had done precious little to help the Poles in their struggle at the time, but a professional military man could recognize that there had been little either the British or the French could have done to reach Poland across the breadth of Germany. But now, without a shot being fired, it seemed that the Allies were ready to sell the Poles out once more, and that he could not stomach.

  There was only one thing left to do, and it appealed to the Polish sense of the dramatic. Not unlike the crew of a sinking ship that might set the vessel on fire in order to attract the attention of potential rescuers, Bor-Komorowski and his valiant freedom fighters would hurl themselves on the bonfire in the hope that the flames would bring help to their nation.

  Suddenly, he had been presented with a situation that, while forcing the pace of his rising and cutting the time available to the Allies to react, also fortuitously increased the chances that the Allies, especially the Americans, might help. For that reason he had invited Moredechai Anielewicz, commander of the Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ZOB), from the Warsaw Ghetto to this meeting. Relations between the ZOB and the Home Army had never been very close as the Home Army had more than its share of anti-Semites, and the ZOB had more than its share of Communists, and open fighting had occurred between Jews and Poles on occasion over the past two years. But now, the two groups had a chance, by joining together, to save each other.

  Poland had long been the center of European Jewry and had thus been convenient for the Nazis as the center for their campaign to exterminate them. Hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews were first concentrated in the narrow confines of the ghettos formed in major cities such as Warsaw, Krakow, and Lodz, and then periodically culled for shipment to the death camps of Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec. Later, Jews gathered from the rest of Europe—those not designated for other camps in Germany, such as Dachau and Buchenwald—were also funneled into the much more efficient death factories in Poland when the more primitive expedients of starvation, overwork, or simple shooting proved inadequate to the task.

  At one point the Warsaw Ghetto had held as many as 380,000 men, women, and children, but by the end of 1942, the total was down to less than 70,000, and there had been indications that the SS planned to clean the ghetto out once and for all to create a clear holding area for new shipments of Jews from Hungary, Romania, and elsewhere. But two events had disrupted Himmler’s plans. The first was the unexpected resistance of the ZOB, whose handful of poorly armed fighters had met the death squads with gunfire and grenades, causing them to pull back in confusion. The second was the Allied landings in France combined with the Russian offensive at Stalingrad that obligated all rail transport to the movement of reinforcements to both the East and the West.

  In the intervening months an uneasy truce had reigned in Warsaw, with German run factories in the ghetto continuing to produce uniforms and other items for the Wehrmacht while the Jews slowly starved on a diet of barely 300 calories per day. Only the frantic cultivation of small gardens and an ingenious network of smugglers managed to obtain enough food to keep the inhabitants alive, trading their last few treasures for miserable quantities of potatoes and bread.

  By late June, however, it appeared that Himmler had reasserted his authority, and plans were afoot to renew the aktions, the lightning raids by heavily armed SS squads that would round up the remaining Jews and “select” them for deportation to the death camps. This plan had once more been derailed by the deaths of Hitler and Himmler in July, and there had been a brief moment of hope in the ghetto that the new regime would demonstrate a complete break with the Nazi past. But this was not to be. The walls had remained in place, the guards just as surly and vigilant, and now informers inside the Polish police reported that the “final solution” was at last to be put into practice.

  If that had been the only consideration, Bor-Komorowsky and the Home Army would probably not have taken much of an interest. They might have provided some weapons to the ZOB, whose leaders had made it clear that they would rather die fighting than in the gas chambers, but only to the extent that the Jews would be fighting the Poles’ battle. With the crushing of the Polish state by the Soviets a distinct possibility, however, it had occurred to Bor-Komorowsky that the best way to ensure a favorable response to the Polish plea for help from the West would be to tie their fate to that of the Jews. At the very least, the ZOB in Warsaw alone would add another 1,500 fighters to the struggle, although with even a smaller percentage of armed men than the Home Army possessed. Since Anielewicz and his men were determined to fight, with or without outside help, it only remained to attempt to coordinate their efforts with the Home Army and, hopefully, with the Allies.

  It was quickly agreed by the men crowded around a small card table with a map of Poland scrounged from an elementary school that the Home Army could never hope to seize and hold all of Poland. One colonel argued that w
hat they needed to do was take the capital, Warsaw, and possibly the city of Lodz as well, a pocket of resistance in the middle of Poland, and hope for relief from the West. Bor-Komorowski, however, pointed to the map and asked how the British or Americans, save for through air power, could get to Warsaw in time. Their armies were still fighting on the far side of Germany and would have to march right through Berlin to get there, by which time the war would be over. He agreed that a rising must take place in Warsaw as a symbol of Polish independence and to save the principle target of the German aktion, the Warsaw ghetto, but he added that any serious help must come by sea. Hopefully, the Allies would quickly begin flying in more supplies, and perhaps even troops by air, but the Americans and British had just captured the length of the Kiel Canal, and it was possible—highly risky but possible—that they could send forces by sea through the Baltic. The Luftwaffe no longer posed a serious threat, and the German Navy had almost been eliminated as well. Therefore, the main Polish effort had to be made to the north, nearer the coast, possibly in the hilly country south of Danzig, where the Allies at least had a chance of reaching them.

  2100 HOURS, 25 JULY 1943

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile frankly did not enjoy his meetings with the urbane and ever-so-discreet British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, but the fate of his country was at stake, and men were already dying for the cause. The least he could do would be to make his arguments as cogently as possible and try to get the British to support them.

  Eden had already made it clear that both Churchill and Roosevelt had agreed to the Curzon Line as the new Polish-Russian border, moving the line westward approximately to include the area seized by the Russians in 1939, allowing them to profit from their disgraceful deal with the Nazis. Poland was to be compensated with a “gift” of nearly all of East Prussia and another slice of German territory up to the Oder-Neisse River line in the west. Mikolajczyk had pointed out that, while the land the Allies were giving up to the Soviets was populated almost exclusively by ethnic Poles, that which they were giving to Poland was populated almost entirely by Germans. Eden had only concurred with this assessment, adding casually that certain “demographic adjustments” would certainly have to be made, but that there was no point in belaboring the matter as the Soviets were in occupation of much of this territory and were not likely to relinquish it short of war.

  Mikolajczyk had known that this would be the British position before the meeting had occurred. The Polish Ambassador in Washington had received the same response from Secretary of State Stimson earlier that day, and the Poles’ best chance of support always came from the Americans, with their millions of Polish-American voters to consider. But Mikolajczyk’s purpose at this meeting was not really to argue about Poland’s future borders. That was an issue beyond his control. What he was to spend the next few hours fighting for was Poland’s very existence. General Marshall sat uneasily in a corner of the tastefully furnished office in Whitehall, along with General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces, probably wondering why two military men had been called to attend an essentially diplomatic meeting. He would not have long to wonder.

  “Without endorsing this agreement, to which the government of Poland was not a party,” Mikolajczyk continued, “I can see that we have been presented with a fait accompli.” Eden nodded. “Another matter that I would like to raise, and which General Sosnkowski will be able to address in more detail, is the issue of a Polish national rising against the Germans.”

  Eden raised his eyebrows and Marshall leaned forward. “What rising?” the latter asked.

  “It hasn’t begun yet, but it will within one week,” Sosnkowski joined in. “Two hundred thousand men and women will fight with whatever arms they have or can take from the enemy. The Russians are about to enter Poland, and we have no illusions that the Red Army will recognize the Curzon Line either. There is already reporting from our intelligence service that Polish Communists have been gathered up within the Soviet Union in an effort to form a puppet government, just as the Soviets did with the Finnish Communists during the Winter War in 1939. Soviet partisan brigades have also begun killing Home Army men in the areas they control.”

  “It is interesting that the Soviets have made similar charges that the Home Army has been exterminating Communists among the partisans,” Eden sniffed. “One expects that both stories contain at least a grain of truth.”

  “One would have hoped that we would have learned about the tactic of the ‘big lie’ from dealing with Goebbels all these years,” Mikolajczyk countered. “The dictators commit the most heinous acts and then accuse their opponents of doing the same, causing reasonable men, used to more civilized behavior, to assume that the truth is ‘somewhere in the middle.’ That is not the case, and you know very well that the only mass graves we know of are those at Katyn.”

  “Which is still under investigation,” Eden pointed out.

  Sosnkowski snorted in disgust and ignored the comment. “Be that as it may, the Polish government intends to commit all of its armed forces to support our countrymen.” “Including the forces under Allied command?” Marshall asked.

  “Obviously. We currently have an armored division and three infantry divisions, plus another armored brigade and several artillery regiments and support units. There are also two Polish bomber, three fighter, and one transport squadrons, two destroyers and several merchantmen, all crewed by Poles.”

  “All of them armed and supplied by the Allies,” Marshall pointed out.

  “And who have fought long and well against the common enemy from the Battle of Britain to North Africa to France. Now we want them to fight in Poland.”

  “And how do you propose to get them to Poland?” Marshall asked drily.

  “Through the Kiel Canal and into the Baltic for a landing on the Polish coast. Our aircraft will fly over, and our ships will carry every man and gun that they can.” “That’s suicide,” Marshall said.

  “It seems that every road open to Poland is suicidal,” Sosnokowski shrugged. “The only question is the form we choose and whether we can do what needs to be done with honor.” He paused and raised his hands. “Of course, if the Allies choose to help us, perhaps the effort might not be quite so hopeless.”

  “There is another reason for the timing of the rising, besides the advance of the Russians,” Mikolajczyk added in a low voice. “The Germans are planning to complete their massacre of Europe’s Jews, starting with those held in the ghettos and concentration camps in Poland.”

  “The Germans have been killing Jews very enthusiastically for some time,” Eden commented. “This is the first time I can recall the Polish government taking a particular interest in the matter.”

  “We have stood by too long, as has everyone else,” Mikolajczyk sighed. “I will not pretend that our concern is totally disinterested now, but we Poles and the Jews are like two drowning men, holding onto each other for dear life. If either of us goes under, the other certainly will. So we have decided to join our fate to theirs. When the Germans attack the ghettos, the Jews will fight, and we will be with them.”

  Eden began to object, but Marshall leaned closer to the general. “What, exactly, do you have in mind?”

  The muscles around Mikolajczyk’s mouth tightened to hide a smile. Sosnokowski had told him before the meeting that if Marshall, the great strategic planner of the war, could be lured into a discussion of planning for the operation, he was already halfway convinced of its viability.

  “We have over one hundred thousand men under arms in General Anders’ Polish Army, and shipping exists to lift all of them to the Baltic in one movement. The RAF and the American 8th Air Force routinely run thousand-plane raids into Germany. If a thousand bombers carried canisters of weapons and ammunition instead of bombs, we could arm virtually all of the Home Army overnight. The only real threat on the seas would be mines, and our intelligence s
ervice has good information on their location in the areas we would be concerned with. With an airdrop of our paratroop brigade near Danzig timed to coincide with our rising, the amphibious troops should be able to walk ashore, as the coastal defenses in the Baltic have never been strong. At the very least, this would draw considerable German resources away from both the Western and Eastern fronts and possibly provide the one last decisive blow needed to bring the Germans down.”

  Marshall shook his head and Mikolajczyk held his breath. “The airdrop should be much larger, and not at Danzig, farther west, in the old Polish Corridor. Every mile we can save by both sea and air to the landing site will be important. We have the British 6th Airborne and the American 101st ready to go and the lift to carry them and the Poles in two waves. We do have the shipping, even landing craft, in the area since the British landing in Friesland met with very light losses. It would give Patton a choice between driving east along the coast to link up with your men or turning south toward Berlin, and the Germans would either have to cover both avenues or leave one too weak. What about the Russians?”