by George Bruce
One can see this thinning band of Home Army fighters reading the approaching tragedy in each other’s haunted eyes, then arming themselves with that blend of high courage and resolute obstinacy peculiar to their nation, and fighting even harder. The German wedge, driven in the form of a raid in force from Wola through Chlodna and Elektoralna Streets to the Saxon Gardens had driven off the Polish troops besieging the Brühl Palace, but failed to expel them from the district or from their positions in the ruins bordering the route. Though far superior in terms of numbers and weapons, the Germans were still not yet strong enough on the ground to dominate what they had won largely by rigorous aerial bombardment. Persistent as volcanic lava the Poles seeped back again into positions they had lost as need called the Nazis away to other points in the city.
On 9 August, at 10.20 AM, a furious attack by Home Army troops badly wounded Di Fischer, Nazi Governor of Warsaw after he had left the Brühl Palace with his staff for a destination of greater safety elsewhere, in accordance with an order given him the day before by von dem Bach. Dr Humel, his deputy, was killed; numerous other staff members were killed or wounded. ‘Resistance is snowballing,’ General von Vormann, 9th Army Commander, reported to Himmler on 10 August.
The uprising, originally very improvised and spontaneous, is now being fought on hard military lines. The rapid reduction of the uprising with our existing force is impossible. The danger is that the movement is widening its theatre of activity and may well spread throughout the country.
The actions we have undertaken are of a street fighting nature. Fighting house by house our losses are high. For our soldiers fighting on the east bank of the Vistula the situation may well become unbearable. The supply lines, which form a great loop through Modlin, may well be cut off, as they lack men to defend them.
There is also the threat of an attack in the rear of the forces fighting in the suburbs.
What the situation demands is a division up to full strength with great quantities of armament.
General von dem Bach, the Prussian Nazi specialist in anti-partisan movements had by now taken command of the German counter-attack. Questioned at Nuremberg in 1946 about the exact date of his arrival he stoutly maintained that he took over not earlier than 13 August. He wanted to make the date as late as possible so as to clear himself of responsibility for the massacre of the civilian population carried out by Kaminski’s Russian renegades and Dirlewanger’s criminals. But there is evidence that he in fact arrived on 5 August and that it was he who had launched the onslaught through Wola. ‘When I arrived and took stock of the position I found great confusion,’ he said later.
Every unit fired in a different direction and nobody knew exactly where to aim. From the military point of view it was a very difficult situation.
At a cemetery I saw a group of civilians being captured and executed on the spot by men from Reinefarth’s unit…
I went personally to Reinefarth and… informed him of the situation I had observed and of the fact that his detachments were executing innocent civilians… Reinefarth then drew my attention to the order issued by Himmler. He had received an express order not to take prisoners, but to kill every inhabitant of Warsaw. I asked him: ‘Including women and children?’ He replied, ‘Yes, including women and children.’[208]
Von dem Bach, it must be said, thereupon risked Himmler’s wrath and possible action against himself personally, and issued an order forbidding the mass extermination of the population.[209] Witnesses before Polish authorities investigating German atrocities in Warsaw after the war agreed that the mass executions were stopped in the evening hours of 5 August by order, they understood, of a German general newly arrived in Warsaw, but they recurred on a smaller scale on 6 and 7 August. Kaminski’s troops in particular, the Soviet renegades, had become drunk and more or less uncontrollable.
Thus it is clear that von dem Bach was the German general behind the Wehrmacht’s first effectual attempt to cope with the Uprising that split the Polish forces into separate groups. Equally that he tried, but did not succeed, in stopping the civilian massacre. On the other hand he had no scruples about destroying Warsaw through fire and bombardment with the heaviest shells, which killed civilians as effectively as the massacres.
Von dem Bach next set about his task of crushing the Uprising and securing a route for supplies to the German troops opposing the Soviet forces east of Praga by mounting an operation against the Old Town, which lay between the Citadel railway bridge and the Kierbedz Bridge. This was not practicable, however, until he secured more reinforcements. So meantime he ordered Reinefarth to seize positions from which his operations could be launched in the districts immediately to the west of it, the Ghetto and the Powazki cemetery area. German troops holding areas already cleared of insurgents were not to be used.
The final meeting between Stalin and Mikolajczyk took place in the Kremlin at 9 PM on 9 August. Mikolajczyk pressed Stalin again about the urgent need for arms. Declaring that the Germans were not strong enough to subdue the Poles, he said that they were trying nevertheless to open at any price two main thoroughfares leading through the town and the Vistula bridges. ‘A mortal struggle is taking place at the moment and the Polish forces have to face great technical superiority on the part of the enemy,’ he declared.
‘All these struggles in Warsaw seem to me unreal,’ Stalin answered bluntly. What he then went on to tell Mikolajczyk was painful indeed for the Premier to hear, knowing as he did what a bloody struggle was then being fought in the capital. ‘It would be different if our armies were approaching Warsaw, but unfortunately this is not the case,’ Stalin said coolly.[210]
I reckoned on our army occupying Warsaw on August 6 but we failed to do so. On August 4[211] the Germans brought into the Praga area four armoured divisions and the ‘Hermann Goering’ Division which had come from Italy. We could therefore not capture Praga and had to make an outflanking movement after the crossing of the Vistula in the area of Pilica.
At first that operation proceeded quite smoothly along a sector 25 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide. Yesterday the Germans launched vigorous counter-attacks there with infantry and two armoured divisions. Consequently our offensive aimed at the capture of Warsaw is opposed by five new armoured divisions, three of which are still posted around Praga.
I do not doubt that we shall overcome these difficulties too, but we have to re-group our forces and bring in artillery. This demands time.
I am sorry for your men who started the battle in Warsaw prematurely and have to fight tanks, artillery and aircraft with rifles. I know Warsaw personally and I know the narrow streets of the Old Town.
What can an air-lift do? — We can supply a certain quantity of rifles and machine guns, but we cannot parachute cannons. Are you quite sure that arms parachuted from the air will reach the Poles? This might be easy in some outlying areas like Kielce or Radom, but in Warsaw, considering the concentration of German forces, it would be an extremely difficult thing to do. Perhaps it could be done. We must try. How much assistance are you asking for and where would you like us to drop the arms?
Mikolajczyk saw in Stalin’s remarks a ray of hope at last, something which would transform his journey from bitter failure to triumph. ‘I understand your hesitation,’ he answered quickly, ‘but a battle is taking place in Warsaw and nothing can stop it.’ He then told Stalin that the places for parachute drops were secured by barricades so that they could not be intercepted by the enemy — an inaccurate and highly optimistic account, of course.
Mikolajczyk added that so soon as direct liaison was established between Warsaw and the Red Army it would be possible to give signals for air lifts. Stalin promised that ‘we shall try to do everything possible to help Warsaw’, and asked him to ‘facilitate this and to issue all the necessary instructions’.[212] Mikolajczyk said that he would ask Warsaw to send a reply to him immediately. He gave Stalin more details of the dispositions of Polish forces in Warsaw, then took his leave, again ferve
ntly reminding Stalin of his promise that everything would be done by the Soviet authorities to bring help to Warsaw as quickly as possible. Stalin confirmed this.
In the early hours Mikolajczyk left Moscow aboard a Soviet aircraft for Tehran. In the British Embassy there he hurriedly sent a telegram to the Polish President briefly informing him of Stalin’s assurance that he would send arms. He also sent a second message to his Deputy in London for onward transmission to Warsaw about the military briefing Stalin had given him.
Of great importance, militarily for the insurgents and politically for the Allies, this information could have stopped the stories about Soviet inaction that were beginning to circulate. But consciously or unconsciously Mikolajczyk did not convey the gravity of Stalin’s account as a comparison makes clear. His message said:[213]
Stalin was counting originally on the entrance of the Soviet armies into Warsaw on the 6th or 8th but this was prevented by the counter-attack on Praga of four fresh German tank divisions. Further, the outflanking Soviet manoeuvre across the Vistula in the Pilica area which had begun so well was also set back by two German tank divisions.
This makes it necessary to regroup and bring up Soviet artillery. Stalin has no doubts as to the final outcome, despite the unforeseen delay. He realizes its importance for our fighting in Warsaw and promises air support to the limits of his possibilities…
Much of Stalin’s emphasis, as well as his vital sentence about the Soviet forces is missing — ‘It would be different if our armies were approaching Warsaw, but unfortunately this is not the case.’
Whether he wished to or not, Mikolajczyk had played down the gravity of Stalin’s report. Since the contents of this message would have been passed on to the British and United States Governments they too were left in doubts by it as to Soviet intentions about Warsaw.
Mikolajczyk’s apparent omission to communicate the full sense of Stalin’s briefing and thus stop the dangerous reports circulating about Soviet failure to aid Warsaw was to inflict far-reaching damage upon the relations between Soviet Russia on the one hand and Britain and the United States on the other.
The German picture of the fighting as seen from their 9th Army War Diary[214] confirmed Stalin’s report. ‘All the efforts of 9th Army Command are directed at blocking the Soviet forces in the Magnuszew area,’ it reported on 4 August. And on 7 August: ‘The main interest lies in today’s double attack by the 19th Division and the “Hermann Goering” Division from the south at the Magnuszew bridgehead. Nineteenth Armoured Division began its attack around midday. Despite the heavy opposition and the over-bearing enemy odds, AOK 9 has ordered this attack to continue tomorrow. An enemy attack undertaken today from the Nasilow bridgehead, at the division of the 4th and 9th armies, is threatening the German positions. There is quiet on General Saucken’s Praga front.’
Continued pressure put upon Air Marshal Slessor, added to the waning of the dangerous full moon, now caused him to relax still more his ban on flights to Warsaw. Six British joined five Polish crews and the eleven aircraft took off on the night of 12 August. All of them returned to base, but only seven had dropped their containers and only five of these reached the Home Army.
Polish pleas to both Americans and British on behalf of their beleaguered fellow-countrymen continued increasingly. To President Roosevelt the Polish President Raczkiewicz telegraphed on 12 August:
I appeal to you, Mr President, to order the American Air Force in the European Theatre of war to give immediate support to the garrison of Warsaw by dropping arms and ammunition, bombing objectives held in the Warsaw area by the enemy, transporting Polish airborne units to take part in the fight for their capital. Any delay to afford help spells disaster for Warsaw. The Polish people could never understand why it should fall now at a moment when the common cause of the United Nations is championed by military power of unexampled strength.[215]
Ambassador Ciechanowski approached Mr Stettinius, US Secretary of State, with the message. The eventual outcome was the decision in principle to carry out a major Anglo-American air lift operation, but this was not to take place for some weeks.
In a summary of the situation on 9 August the Diary[216] reported German losses very great in the Magnuszew fighting, while Russian attacks on General Saucken’s Praga front facing Warsaw made the withdrawal of some units very difficult.
The next day it revealed that German attempts at containing the Soviet crossings of the Vistula were ineffectual. Significantly, it went on to remark that the German Command believed that the Russians ‘will use this area of concentration for a circular offensive against Warsaw. 9th Army Command regards these developments with great anxiety.
‘It assumes that enemy concentration in the Praga area is now complete, and that soon offensive action will be launched.
‘The Kaminski group is still tied down in Ochota; it would appear that for the moment it is more interested in looting than anything else.’
The Germans now stepped up their offensive in a desperate effort to overcome Polish resistance.
Chapter Twelve: The battle in the cemeteries
Reinefarth attacked in the cemetery sector on 8 August with his own, Dirlewanger’s and Schmidt’s forces. In this eerie district west of the Ghetto among the battered tombstones and the shattered marble slabs, about a mile long and half a mile wide, Radosław had placed one battalion, Zoska, in the Jewish and Evangelist cemeteries; Broda battalion with the platoon of three captured tanks in Okopowa Street, dividing the area from the Ghetto; and other units along the Calvinist cemetery and Karolkowa Street. His force was smaller, down to about 1,500 men, but captured German weapons had armed his men better.[217]
Reinefarth moved from the south — Leszno Street towards Karolkowa and Okopowa Streets — with several tanks, units of the Azerbaijan regiment and police units. Other infantry units attacked from the streets immediately to the west of the cemeteries, covered by the guns of No 75 armoured train. Just before dawn Radosław had sent twenty-three picked men under Second Lieutenant Zegota in a dawn attack on this train, the sort of do-or-die action in which his men excelled. They ran into a strong German guard by the railway line, two of their machine-guns jammed, six men were killed and several wounded before they retired.
Reinefarth shelled the Okopowa Street area, about three-quarters of a mile long, with heavy artillery and mortars, and then attacked the barricades on Zytnia Street with tanks and flame-throwers. Infantry advanced on the Jewish cemetery and poured heavy fire on the insurgents holding the barricade at the junction of Ostrorog and Mlynarska Streets. At 10.25 the platoon of captured tanks forced back a formation of German tanks and infantry who had advanced dangerously close to the Polish barricades at the junction of Zytnia and Karolkowa Streets.
Three hours later the Germans attacked again and managed to occupy the Calvinist cemetery. Radosław counter-attacked with a battalion and his tank platoon, partially drove the Germans out and captured three heavy machine-guns, but one of his tanks was put out of action.
A battle for the cemetery was now fought with hand-grenades, infantry of both sides manoeuvring among the graves and sheltering from blast and steel splinters behind ivy-clad antique marble tombstones. Polish units in Okopowa Street were at the same time pinned down by machine-gun fire from the Calvinist cemetery to the west, from Leszno Street to the south and from parts of the Ghetto to the east, especially from the tower of the church of St Charles Borromeo, until this was shattered by a shot from one of the Polish tanks.[218]
At about 1 o’clock Captain Nowak, holding part of the northern perimeter of the cemetery area, came under strong fire from Gdansk railway station, five or six hundred yards to the north-west. He withdrew his 130-strong company, but Radosław immediately ordered the armed platoon, about sixty men, back to its position. (A Home Unit consisted of both armed and unarmed men in these ‘equipment battles’, the unarmed men at hand to take over their own or the killed or wounded enemy’s weapons, or those of enemy prisoners.)
Reinforced, the Germans redoubled the vigour of their offensive against the Calvinist cemetery and neighbouring streets. Polish losses were heavy, the Zytnia Street defences collapsed and the Poles fell back into Mirecki Street. After an artillery bombardment the Germans launched an onslaught against the Evangelist cemetery. Radosław ordered a counter-attack from the Jewish cemetery with infantry and his two remaining tanks. By about 8 o’clock the Poles had succeeded in throwing the enemy back, inflicting heavy losses and capturing six machine-guns, a mortar, about twenty rifles and a big supply of ammunition.
But Radosław’s losses had been heavy; his group was now no more than about one thousand five hundred strong. The night passed quietly, both sides exhausted by the nervous tension and bodily fatigue caused by the battle in the cemeteries of this city roaring with flame and shuddering with explosions. The next day the Germans made no more than a few minor attacks, and on 10 August, when it rained heavily, the enemy merely probed the defences with an attack on the Jewish cemetery while bombarding Okopowa Street with mortars and artillery, causing the Poles heavy losses.
But word came on this day to raise high the Home Army’s hopes of victory. Komorowski received a message from General Sosnkowski with news of the agreement reached between Mikolajczyk and Stalin on the air-drops of Soviet arms and ammunition for Warsaw. He ordered accordingly that special detachments should be assigned as outposts for receiving these supplies,[219] which was done. Eagerly the Home Army leaders now awaited the arrival of the Soviet liaison officer and of the much-needed weapons.
A final German onslaught on Radosław’s positions started at dawn on 11 August, when an infantry attack preceded by a heavy bombardment drove the Polish forces out of their barricade at the corner of Ostrorog and Mlynarska Streets. It was followed by an attack in force, ‘Goliath’ tanks being used for the first time in Okopowa Street. Miniature tanks loaded with explosives and controlled electrically by cable from another tank, they blew up with tremendous force when they struck an obstacle of any kind. Lieutenant Maly pioneered the technique of action by breaking the control wire with a carefully aimed hand-grenade.