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

by George Bruce

In his shabby civilian clothes Komorowski shuffled down the untidy street towards the butter-coloured factory, passing within fifteen yards of the nearest German pillbox, which he noted was held by a wideawake machine-gun team. Inside the factory he met Lieutenant Kamler, the owner, who informed him that the German garrison next door had been brought up to fifty men, with rifles, grenades and two machine-guns. Kamler had thirty-three men with fifteen rifles, forty grenades and a few of the highly destructive home-made Polish grenades called filipinka.

  Already upstairs were the Secret Army general staff as well as Jan Jankowski, Deputy Premier and Government delegate, and Kazimierz Puzak, the Socialist chairman of the Council of National Unity. Technicians had set up radio transmitters and receivers for communicating with the world. Everyone was hopeful and excited.

  Komorowski cautioned Kamler not to allow his troops to start action against the near-by Germans until the arrival of Colonel Radosław’s seasoned fighters. But he had forgotten that the Polish sentry at the factory gate was armed with a rifle. A German military vehicle approached. Seeing, of all things, this armed Pole, a German guard in the truck immediately opened fire, but the Polish sentry shot him first. Kamler shot the driver and two German soldiers standing in the back of the lorry. Machine-guns in the two pillboxes opened up with a clatter, spraying the street and the buildings, loosing a burst into the room where Komorowski and his staff were assembled, filling it with plaster and broken glass, but hurting no one.

  It was a quarter past four, forty-five minutes before the Uprising was due to begin. Germans in full equipment streamed into the house opposite. Kamler ordered both factory gates to be barricaded with timber, packing-cases, handcarts, anything movable. His fifteen men with rifles and the grenade-throwers were posted at commanding places from the roof to the gates. They reported that the Germans were preparing an attack with supporting fire from their machine-guns.

  A Polish grenade-thrower up on the second floor, opposite the window fifteen yards away where the German machine-gunner was firing, threw a filipinka and silenced it, killing the gunners, but the Germans also then threw grenades and badly wounded two Polish soldiers.

  German security police converged on the scene from their barracks in near-by Leszno Street. Some of them entered the narrow street in the back of an open lorry and drove towards the factory gates beneath the open window. Their comrades in the house opposite tried vainly with signals to urge them back, but too late. Two grenades flung down exploded among them, killing all thirty-five, and the lorry careered off the road, hit the wall and burst into flames.

  From across the Ghetto ruins a police attack now began, too heavy for the small force in the factory to ward off while defending itself against the strong offensive from the house opposite. Komorowski was worried. It was nearly 5 o’clock and still there was no sign of Colonel Radosław and his men. It would be a calamity as well as the supreme irony if the Secret Army GHQ were to be overwhelmed even before the Uprising had properly begun. They were now pinned down by accurate fire from the security police and the troops opposite.

  Suddenly, at 5 o’clock, with a wave of sound rising in a crescendo of rumbling explosions orchestrated by ear-splitting automatic fire the insurrection burst forth in a frenzied onslaught against the German arch-enemy.

  Komorowski, cornered with his military staff and the nucleus of the provisional government, hardly dared to move, hoping desperately for aid, later depicted it as Napoleonic in the perfection of its timing:

  At exactly five o’clock [he wrote][156] thousands of windows flashed as they were flung open. From all sides a hail of bullets struck passing Germans, riddling their buildings and their marching formations. In the twinkling of an eye the remaining civilians disappeared from the streets. From the entrances of houses, our men streamed out and rushed to the attack. In fifteen minutes an entire city of a million inhabitants was engulfed in the fight. Every kind of traffic ceased. As a big communications centre where roads from north, south, east and west converged, in the immediate rear of the German front, Warsaw ceased to exist. The battle for the city was on.

  Not often does military action achieve such mechanical precision of timing. Human nature intervenes and with a blend of fear and courage paralyses reason, so that someone falls short or exceeds his allotted task, or the enemy reacts uncharacteristically, or the objectives turn out to be too strongly defended, stay in the enemy’s hands, and in part at least the day is lost.

  On this tremendous first day of the insurrection, the fighting followed just such an uncertain course. During the attack on Komorowski’s GHQ a Polish relief force counter-attacked from the rear and drove off the German police unit, but not long after 6 o’clock a shout of alarm and a burst of fire were heard above. Several Polish troops rushed up the narrow staircase, two of them were hit by shots from the attic door at the top of the stairs and fell back in a heap to the bottom.

  Invading the building through the roof the Germans had shot and wounded the sentry there and reached the attic before they were heard. They had to be eliminated quickly and new guards placed on the roof before more arrived. But the attic window and door gave them a commanding position over the narrow staircase up which only one man could pass at a time. Two more Polish troops fell in an attempt to rush the room before an accurately thrown filipinka grenade killed all four of the enemy inside.

  Two replacement guards were sent up to the roof, but by now the pace of the German attack had slowed as they were pulled out to reinforce their own positions elsewhere in the city under heavy Polish attack. They now simply loosed off the occasional burst at any window that seemed a likely target. Half an hour later the first of Colonel Radosław’s GHQ defence troops entered from the roof, the advance guard of the rest of the unit jumping sometimes from roof to roof while under fire, blasting a way through the walls of neighbouring attics when this was impossible.

  Directly they were numerous enough to carry out their mission they began a vigorous attack against the German pillboxes and barracks. For the time being the GHQ was safe.

  Shortly afterwards Komorowski again heard shouting from the roof, it sounded more joyful than alarmed. He went up the narrow blood-stained stairs with his aide to the roof, where one of the guards gave him a smart salute and a happy smile. ‘The flag, sir! The Polish flag!’ he shouted with great excitement.[157]

  Komorowski looked in the direction the man was pointing towards the tallest building in Warsaw, the sixteen-storey Prudential Building, which dominated the City Centre.

  There he saw the white and red flag of Poland floating bravely over the city. Gazing around from the rooftop he now spotted other Polish flags flying from the dome of the Town Hall, the Post Office Savings Bank tower and one or two other buildings.

  It was a great moment. No Polish flags had flown there since 1939. Above them a blanket of smoke hung over Warsaw like a giant parachute reddened beneath by the forest of flames leaping from blazing buildings. The roar of the battle grew louder from minute to minute.

  Komorowski went downstairs again to hurry the transmission of two important messages to London. The first, jointly from himself as Home Army Commander-in-Chief and Jan Jankowski, Deputy Premier, read:

  To the Prime Minister and the Commander-in-Chief: The date for the beginning of a struggle to capture Warsaw was jointly fixed by us for 1 August at 17.00 hours. The struggle has begun.[158]

  A surprising message, for even though the Polish Government had empowered Deputy Premier Jankowski to authorize the insurrection when he believed it opportune, it had clearly asked to be told beforehand ‘if possible’. It was certainly possible; and the need must have been foremost in Jankowski’s mind. Moreover, upon Komorowski lay the imperative duty of telling the Commander-in-Chief, General Sosnkowski, immediately the decision was taken.

  But both of them failed to communicate not only until more than twenty-four hours after the fateful order, but also until after the fighting had started, when sending a message had beco
me more complicated — shortly after it was set up the GHQ transmitter was damaged in the action with the Germans. Two Polish soldiers were killed bringing spare parts for it. So this absolutely vital information was not transmitted from Warsaw until noon on 2 August, nearly twenty hours after the fighting had begun, and almost two days after the order had been given.

  Whatever the reason, in the light of the Home Army’s dependence on outside aid this failure to inform the Allies is strange indeed. Even Komorowski goes some way towards admitting it. ‘The fact that no one outside Warsaw knew what was going on made people at GHQ feel uneasy,’ he wrote later[159] with careful understatement.

  He sent out a message of faith and encouragement to the troops then embattled with the Germans:

  Soldiers of the capital! I have today issued the order which you desire, for open warfare against Poland’s age-old enemy, the German invader. After nearly five years of ceaseless and determined struggle, carried on in secret, you stand today openly with arms in hand, to restore freedom to our country and to mete out fitting punishment to the German criminals for the terror and crimes committed by them on Polish soil.[160]

  Commander-in-Chief, Home Army

  Komorowski makes no mention of aid from either the Western Allies or Soviet Russia. It was a significant omission. Was he letting the Secret Army know that they were fighting alone?

  Still in Italy, Sosnkowski had reacted furiously to the telegrams he had had from London telling him that fighting in Warsaw was imminent. ‘… Any thought of an armed rising is an unjustified move devoid of political sense and capable of causing tragic and unnecessary sacrifice in the situation created by… the Soviet policy of violation and fait accompli,’ he warned, in a message to President Raczkiewicz on 28 July, opposing the Government decision.

  In this spirit I am telegraphing the Home Army Commander. In my opinion the higher authorities of the Republic ought to have realized from the latest events that the experiment of public declaration and cooperation with the Red Army had failed, and should face the consequence of this by reverting to the original principles of the instruction of 27 November 1943…[161][162]

  In his message that same day to Komorowski, repeating the first part of his message to the President, Sosnkowski added a warning that if the aim of the insurrection was to take possession of part of the Polish territories the Home Army ‘will be forced to defend the sovereign status of the Republic… against anyone who attempts to violate this status. You can understand what this would mean in the perspective of the failure of the experiment at cooperation, on account of the ill-will of the Soviets.’

  It was a blunt warning from the C-in-C not to launch an uprising at this time, but having received it on 31 July the Government decided to withhold it from Komorowski. Backing for Mikolajczyk in his confrontation with Stalin now outweighed even the C-in-C’s condemnation. The telegram would of course not have reached Warsaw in time to stop the Uprising, but the Government were not to know this.

  Alarmed by the course of events Sosnkowski again warned Komorowski in another telegram on 29 July, received in London on 2 August, Warsaw on 6 August, that ‘the fighting against the Germans must be kept in the frame of the Tempest plan. In the present state of affairs I am unconditionally opposed to a universal uprising, the historical outcome of which would be the exchange of one occupation for another. Your assessment of the German situation must be clear and realistic. Any mistake in this area could cost a great deal. At the same time you must conserve all political, moral and physical strength and concentrate it against the annexationist plans of Moscow…’[163]

  Sosnkowski, even though the bells of destiny had struck twelve, was continually stressing the doctrine of the ‘two enemies’.

  A bleak prospect indeed this telegram must have spelt out to Komorowski, then embattled with the Germans in the capital. It meant that there was to be no compromise with Moscow in exchange for military aid. And by now he must have known how great was his error in launching the insurrection at that time of military uncertainty.

  From a tactical point of view as we have seen, the Germans were not taken by surprise when fighting flared throughout the capital. They held all their main positions against the Polish attacks — the Vistula bridges, the airport, the radio station, the police and the army headquarters. But General Stahel’s predecessors had not drawn up any plan to contain and defeat such an uprising in the city, he had not enough troops to deal with it, he had ordered his units on to the defensive and by shortly after 5 PM he was pinned down by the Polish attack on his HQ.

  Lacking leadership, the best the Germans could do was to hang on for dear life under the impetus of the initial Polish attacks. For the first few days they had no plan of action of any kind. Their reactions were slow, uncoordinated and lacking direction. All they could do was to fire back with everything they had against anyone, insurgent or civilian; and they were not short of ammunition.

  The Home Army troops in their threadbare suits or working clothes kept the initiative at first, though their losses were considerable. If they had been mobilized properly, with a little time to spare and with all the available weapons, they might well in face of the German inactivity have succeeded in seizing some of their major objectives. Komorowski would then have had a different story to tell to London; and Mikolajczyk in Moscow a story that would have had greater impact upon Stalin.

  Zenon Kliszko, a leading member of the Communist Polish Workers’ Party had left a political meeting during the afternoon of 1 August, and was on his way home to his flat in the Zoliborz district with his ration of sugar for his wife and sixteen-months-old child. Quite suddenly, in the late afternoon, prolonged bursts of shooting echoed near by and he realized that the rumoured Uprising must have begun.

  Kliszko felt angry with himself and his Communist political associates for not knowing what thousands of other men and women must have known for hours. In the streets young men, few of them armed, but wearing Home Army red-and-white armbands, were trying to keep order and persuading passers-by to take shelter in gateways. Bullets zipped through the air as heavy firing sounded from all sides.[164]

  Kliszko — after the war he became a top member of the Polish Politbureau, but fell from grace in 1971 with Gomulka — took shelter for the time being in the gateway to the courtyard of the last house on Bonifraterska Street among a small crowd of people desperately anxious to get home to their families. Everyone there was talking excitedly and Kliszko heard joy, anxiety and worry about what the next day would bring. He spoke to one or two people, but no one seemed to know what was going on. Nobody guessed that the battle would last for two months and that some of them would never see their nearest and dearest again.

  Time passed, it grew dark, the firing went on and the men and women sheltering there with him huddled in the courtyard and doorways of the apartment block and tried to sleep. Kliszko, propped up against a wall, saw the stars of the August night gradually fade as the dawn broke and the Uprising’s first night came to an end. One at a time or in threes and fours people left the safety of the building for the empty street and with shoulders hunched walked or ran off in the direction of their homes.

  Firing began again from the Citadel direction and now and again one of the running people fell down and stayed down. Kliszko began walking, trying to keep an even pace as the sound of shooting in Wola about a mile south grew suddenly louder, but in Zoliborz it was ominously quiet. He found his wife, mother and daughter free from harm at home. But this first night bore no relation to what was to come.

  Irena Orska locked up her apartment early on 1 August and hurried off to Mass at the Church of the Holy Cross. She found it packed with solemn-faced men and women, resigned, but not frightened and so deep in prayer that their words and feelings were almost tangible. She herself was quite unable to pray, although like everyone there she knew what would occur that day. Looking at the statue of the Virgin, she tried in prayer to tell Her of the fate approaching them. She thought of
her two brothers and two sisters, all in the Home Army, and then of her teenage daughter, and hoped that she would come to no harm.

  After Mass she met Barbarka, her daughter, at Pomianowski’s café for a cup of barley coffee. Barbarka told her that at 5 o’clock she was going to report for duty with the Home Army. Mrs Orska was stunned but would not refuse her daughter or try to send her away. Though she feared to lose her she had not the heart. She herself reported for special nursing duty with the Home Army at the Ujazdow Hospital and hurried to see Dr Christopher, a surgeon, and a Home Army medical officer. There were about twenty people in the room, mostly nurses and doctors. Christopher came in just after her, white-haired and nearly seven feet tall, bringing with him his own remarkable air of self-assurance.

  He stood before his desk. ‘I shall not be the one, my dear ones, to remind you of the long time we have lived under the German occupation or of what it has brought us,’ he said. ‘These years will not be easily forgotten, for their memory is engraved on our very hearts.

  ‘Today is the great day. Today the people of Warsaw are rising to free the capital from oppression. This is our order, and we shall carry it out. We’ll have to conquer the city and hold on for a few days. The Soviet Army is expected to enter Warsaw on the fourth or fifth day of our Home Army’s struggle within the city. Is everyone ready? Is everything clear? In the future please report to Colonel Malin, or to myself. Or… wherever God will permit you to report.’[165]

  Outside in the bright sunshine Warsaw looked tired but festive. Mrs Orska went back home and had lunch with her daughter. It was a quiet, hot summer afternoon. Suddenly, at a quarter past three, a burst of gunfire shattered the stillness. It must have begun. She ran downstairs, hoping to get to her Red Cross post in time, but the Germans were, covering near-by streets with machine-gun fire, so she went back home and set up the post in her tobacco shop instead.