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

by George Bruce

  Suddenly he saw something moving on the river and soon boats coming in their direction. He fired a signal shot from his pistol as arranged and then began to count the fleet of boats coming towards the shore, more than they needed. Looking back at the red glow of blazing Zoliborz in the night sky they crossed safely without saying a word to each other and were welcomed on the eastern bank. But Kliszko never ceased to regret that Home Army insurgents in Zoliborz were ordered to lay down their arms and not make the attempt. He believed that after the war it worsened the new Government’s attitude to the Home Army.

  Fighting in the City Centre still went on, but now with a sense of despair in the full knowledge that surrender would not be long delayed. ‘Warsaw has no chance of defence any longer,’ Komorowski declared in a message to the London Government on 1 October. ‘I have decided to enter into negotiations for surrender with full combatant rights, which the Germans fully recognize. Negotiations tomorrow. I will arrange that the question of the safety of the civilian population be linked with the question of surrender. I expect the surrender on 3 October 1944.’

  Meantime the Polish Red Cross had reached agreement with the Germans on the evacuation of civilians, who were to be allowed to leave at two barricades during an agreed cease-fire for the refugee camp at Pruszkow. But few took advantage of the offer. ‘Unexpected turn of events in Warsaw,’ remarked the 9th Army war diarist on 1 October. ‘Instead of the expected waves of civilians only a small number are leaving…’ The civilians had bitter memories of the massacres of 5 and 6 August and were taking no chances. With the capitulation at hand they preferred to stay safely at home. They were more worried about something to eat and during the cease-fire thousands of them walked out past the German positions to the Mokotowska Racecourse to take potatoes, onions, tomatoes and carrots from the wartime vegetable gardens there. The German commander warned them that the cease-fire covered only a general exodus, and that next day he would fire at anyone hunting for vegetables under his soldiers’ noses.

  Komorowski, who in the past had steadfastly refused to discuss surrender while there were still hopes of a Russian attack, now chose a delegation of four headed by Colonel Iranek-Osmecki, head of Intelligence, known as ‘Heller’, to negotiate with General von dem Bach. During the night of 1 October the details of a surrender agreement to be submitted to the Germans were worked out.

  They met the Germans during a cease-fire at 8 o’clock on 2 October at barricades facing the Warsaw Polytechnic. An SS major drove them past the devastated parts of the city occupied by the Germans since the fighting began and out into the country towards von dem Bach’s headquarters at Ozarow. None of the four Poles had eaten any thing for the past several days except barley soup and a little sugar. Heller, then aged forty-seven, and a professional soldier, had slept no more than two or three hours a night since 1 August. He was exhausted and suffering from a splitting headache; like his three military colleagues, he was wearing a rumpled civilian suit and shirt and the Home Army’s red and white armband. Owing to the shortage of water all of them were unwashed and unshaven.[299]

  In the drawing-room of the country house where von dem Bach had his headquarters, with eighteenth-century pictures of Polish aristocrats adorning the walls, Heller met the Prussian Nazi with the gold-rimmed spectacles who had been the Home Army’s main adversary. Formally, he introduced himself to the Polish delegation with his full title: ‘Obergruppenführer SS und General der Polizei von dem Bach.’ The Poles introduced themselves and at von dem Bach’s request took their seats facing him at a large polished mahogany table. Lieutenant-Colonel Goltz, von dem Bach’s Chief of Staff, and SS Major Fischer sat at a desk in the background.

  Colonel ‘Heller’ gave von dem Bach a statement in Polish and in German signed by General Komorowski authorizing him to negotiate and sign a surrender agreement covering the fighting in Warsaw. Von dem Bach read the statement carefully, then got to his feet and trying hard to subdue excitement began a short speech in a courteous tone praising the valour and courage of the Poles who had fought against the German forces, as well as the decision to surrender. It would spare the civilian population from horrors which would be bound to have followed had there been further resistance.

  Despite the doubts of his superiors he had believed during the past two weeks when the Polish situation had become hopeless and the Russians made no move to help, that sooner or later the Poles would come to terms. The German front, he added, was now consolidated; the Russians had reached the high-water mark of their success. He then excused himself while he telephoned the news to Himmler and his Army Commander.

  Von dem Bach then said that he realized that if at the last moment the Red Army were to renew its offensive the Poles might break off the talks and take up arms again. He had therefore been ordered to see that they were disarmed as soon as possible and he wanted some concession to show their goodwill. Colonel Heller, concentrating all his reserves of mental energy to overcome his feeling of utter exhaustion, answered that they were unable to agree to anything which would disarm them, but before even discussing this they should settle the basic conditions of the agreement.

  Von dem Bach agreed, and talks began on the granting of combatant rights to all Poles who had fought in Warsaw; on the immunity of anybody in Warsaw who had taken part in any activity directed against the German State from 1 September 1939 to that day; and on the humane treatment of the civilian population.

  Half-way through the morning von dem Bach called for refreshments, and a military orderly brought in a tray of sausage and tomato sandwiches and a bottle of Italian cognac.

  With this taste of food and drink after so long, Heller argued with renewed energy with the German general over the finer points of the armistice. At one point von dem Bach complained plaintively that he had been wronged and injured by the Poles, for his name topped the list of war criminals responsible for the burning of Warsaw, broadcast by the BBC. He had always been favourably disposed towards the Poles, he claimed; Slav blood flowed in his veins and he came from a Polish family on his mother’s side.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Herman, one of the Polish delegation and Lieutenant-Colonel Goltz, von dem Bach’s Chief of Staff, spent the afternoon drawing up the agreement in Polish and German. It was ready for signatures at 8 PM.

  Von dem Bach clearly regarded the event as of great importance, for he gave his Chief of Staff detailed instructions as to the ceremony of signing. A long refectory table in the dining hall was to be covered with green baize, with von dem Bach in the centre, Heller on his right and the second Polish delegate on his left, with his staff grouped behind. Reporters, photographers and newsreel men were given room to manoeuvre in front of it, while outside in the courtyard there was to be a guard of honour and a military band to play appropriate German and Polish music.

  They then sat down and signed the document, von dem Bach assuming a slow, rather theatrical manner out of keeping with his normal behaviour; for Heller those moments which set the seal on their five long years of struggle, on the fate of Warsaw and the deaths of so many brave people, felt like an eternity.

  Von dem Bach asked for a minute’s silence to honour the dead on both sides, then in front of the microphones and the newsreel cameras he turned to Heller and praised the valour of the Home Army against the battle-tried German divisions. It was, he said, an event unique in military history and ranked the Home Army among the best in the world. The hopelessness of the defenders’ position had been the decisive factor but this was because the expected help never came. And so Warsaw, one of Europe’s loveliest capitals, was in ruins and its population overwhelmed with suffering.

  In reply Heller said pointedly that what had just occurred was the outcome of the inexorable laws of warfare and often these gave the victor today the role of vanquished tomorrow. He appreciated General von dem Bach’s goodwill and hoped that if he were to find himself in similar circumstances to theirs, the same goodwill would not be denied him. The German officers stood a
t attention in their field-grey uniforms, listening carefully.

  The two men then bowed to each other and walked past the audience to the drawing-room. Von dem Bach asked Lieutenant-Colonel Goltz if all was ready for the departure of the Polish delegation. But the band had to his great regret not yet arrived nor was the guard of honour in place. He therefore urged them to stay and have supper — it was late and would be later still before they got back to the city.

  The band had still not arrived after supper. Colonel Heller decided that they would leave at once. Out in the courtyard the guard of honour came to attention with a crash of jackboots. The delegation passed before the ranks, exchanged salutes with von dem Bach, then drove off in the waiting cars. On their way back the German artillery, which had so far been silent, opened up with a persistent roar and they sped to the capital in the light of their flashing muzzles.

  That evening Komorowski, in one of his last messages to the Polish Government, announced that the agreement to cease hostilities in Warsaw had been concluded:

  German-Polish war operations in the area of the capital will cease at 20.00 hours on 2 October 1944. Forces will march out of Warsaw with arms and with full combatant rights, in order to lay down their weapons outside the walls of the city — one regiment on 4 October at 08.00 hours, the remainder during 5 October. The civilian population is assured full protection within the limits of possibility, but unfortunately there has to be a mass evacuation.

  Next day the evacuation of Warsaw’s population began by rail and road to Pruszkow. All, including the insurgents, were to leave by 6 October, after which, the Germans announced, they would shoot on sight anyone found in the streets or the houses. A dreadful silence now reigned over the heaps of rubble that were the Old Town, the burnt-out avenues of the City Centre and the smashed suburbs of Zoliborz and Mokotow. From dawn on 3 October, now that they knew they must leave, the people, gaunt with hunger, their eyes often bright with fever, came out of their cellars. With their bandages caked with blood and pus and unchanged for days, too exhausted to drive off the big blue flies that settled on their wounds, they looked like refugees from some unearthly inferno, which indeed they were. Endless columns of them trudged down Jerusalem Avenue to the designated exit points.

  Komorowski’s thoughts turned to the soldiers who had supported him so bravely during the sixty-three days of fighting. In his last order to them he said that unless they had surrendered, German technical superiority would have led to the complete destruction of the population of Warsaw and the burial of thousands more soldiers and civilians in its ruins. He had therefore decided to break off the struggle. ‘You soldiers, my dearest comrades in these two months of fighting, one and all of whom have been to the very last moment constant in the will to fight on, I ask now to fulfil obediently such orders as arise from the decision to cease fighting.’

  Komorowski agreed to visit von dem Bach at noon on 4 October to finalize further details of the surrender. But the German general merely wanted to stigmatize Soviet Russia as the ‘common foe’ against whom both nations should henceforward stand shoulder to shoulder. Komorowski stiffly declined discussion on this point. Germany was Poland’s foe, he affirmed, whatever her feelings were about Soviet Russia. Von dem Bach then offered Komorowski the use of a villa from which he could supervise the evacuation of the population.

  Komorowski declined this offer also, as he did the proposal that the surrender signed for Warsaw should now be extended to all Home Army units in German-occupied Poland to prevent further useless bloodshed.

  On 4 and 5 October the Home Army and the People’s Army detachment, women as well as men, marched out of the city of ruins and fire-blackened buildings between lines of Nazi gendarmes armed to the teeth. It was a heart-rending outcome to the years of struggle and the sixty-three days of fighting. In Kerceli Square they gave up their arms to the Germans and marched on slowly through Wola, past great fields of white crosses, the burial-ground of the enemy. Of these there were no fewer than ten thousand, with another seven thousand missing and nine thousand wounded.

  Most of those marching there were sick or wounded; all of them were parched with thirst and half starving, but they kept in step, their heads held high, at least for the first few miles on their way to the railway station at Ozarow, from where they would be transported to camps throughout Germany. Little need to comment on the emotions stirred among them by this last contact with the old Warsaw, now the tomb of their hopes.

  Except that they knew it was the bitterest tragedy of the Second World War.

  In the hope of overcoming the invaders they had stepped into battle and offered their blood without stint. For this they had paid dearly, victims of a relentless clash of ideologies. Behind them under the city’s rubble lay the bodies of many members of their families, their friends and their comrades. Ahead lay a future etched with a grim question-mark. For the misguided policies of their leaders and their Government it was indeed too high a price to pay.

  In accordance with Hitler’s command, the work of destruction of Warsaw began immediately on 4 October. Two or three days later, Irena Orska, then on duty as a nurse at Pruszkow camp, returned to the doomed city to help bring out the last sick and wounded. She entered on a German lorry through Wola and went on into the City Centre. Warsaw had become a cemetery, inhabited by starving cats and dogs which the Germans shot on sight. Here and there neatly stacked human bodies awaited collection.

  Every few minutes heavy explosions rocked the smoky air. Demolition squads proceeded with the systematic destruction of all the city’s buildings still standing. SS men first looted pictures, carpets, furniture, anything valuable from the great houses, then demolition workers, Polish civilians impressed at gunpoint, moved in with explosives. The first groups drilled holes in the walls, the second packed in the long sausages of gelignite and fused them. The third groups lit the fuses. Street after street was insanely blow to heaps of dust and rubble. Thus was Warsaw destroyed as no city had been destroyed before.

  Irena Orska met a group of workmen on a corner. They shouted to her to hurry and cross the street. Not bothering to ask why, she ran to the heap of ruins on the opposite side. Before she reached it came the roar of an explosion, ‘frightful in the surrounding scene of death. The air shook, and the corpse of a building fell heavily where we had stood before. Warsaw had one more grave to hide the charred bodies of nameless people underneath.’[300]

  She persuaded the demolition workers to let her enter one of the doomed houses, so that she could take away a memory of the last hours of the city. While they planted their explosives in the basement, she went upstairs. The first and second floors were completely burnt out. She ascended the marble staircase. The door to the third-floor apartment had been torn off its hinges and thrown aside. An old-fashioned photograph of a man with a big moustache hung lop-sided on the wall inside, a fancy pram for a baby doll lay upside down on the floor among pieces of smashed furniture. What tragedy had been enacted here? A heap of debris lay in the hall and the workman with her clumsily tripped over it. He jumped to his feet, backing away. He had fallen on the charred body of a woman, covered with brick dust and rubble. They went down the stairs and out into the street. A minute later the walls of the building exploded into a heap of dust and bricks.

  Starting back to Pruszkow camp on the lorry, Irena Orska turned to look once again at the ruins of the city. The heavy boom of explosions shook the air. The stumps of the dead houses of dying Warsaw pointed heavenwards. Barbarians with twentieth-century equipment, the Nazis were destroying it with frightful efficiency.

  In fact they demolished eighty-five per cent, of the city’s buildings — houses, churches, schools, museums, university buildings, theatres, hospitals — the venerated and historic, no less than the ordinary. Trees were felled, underground water mains and sewerage pipes blown up, tanks tore out telegraph poles and tramway tracks. Up to the very last day the Nazi Destruction Commandoes worked hard to carry out the Führer’s decree
.

  When the Polish and Soviet forces finally captured what remained of the city on 17 January 1945 they found a vast ruin and a charnel house. Between two hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand men, women and children had died there, plus fifteen thousand insurgents.

  What else but twentieth-century ideology could bring tragedy on so vast a scale?

  But the human spirit as it flourishes in Poland rebelled against the Nazi attempt to dwarf the Polish people and destroy their capital for good.

  On 13 January 1945, even before the liberation of the capital, the Polish Government, then in Lublin, decided that Warsaw should be reconstructed. All land within the city boundaries was taken into municipal ownership, so that there were no legal obstacles to changing land use, laying out new streets or putting up housing estates. The surviving buildings remained in the hands of their present owners, while the belt of land surrounding the city is still privately owned today.

  Architect Roman Piotrowski was appointed director and Jozef Sigalin deputy director of the Warsaw Reconstruction Department. They were assisted by a team of other architects, professors and students. But when on a spring evening in 1945 they first saw the grey desert of ruins that had been their ancient capital they had serious doubts. They stood on the river bank and looked for landmarks. Here and there were the skeletons of once glorious buildings but the avenues, squares and streets were obliterated by acres and acres of rubble. And no plans were at hand to guide them because the Nazis had taken pains to burn the city’s archives.

  They had seriously to ask themselves whether indeed they could turn these ruins into a city of life and light once again. The problem was worsened by Poland’s lack of heavy bulldozers and such mechanical aids. However, in one way the question was already answered, for people were flocking back determined to make their homes in what had been the city astride the Vistula.