The painting I showed yesterday is by the Polish artist Jan Chrzan (1905 - 1993)



... its title is "Powstanie Warszawskie" ("The Warsaw Uprising")



As a young man



... the artist fought as a member of the AKduring the uprise and painted after many sujets of it...:










Cheers

Warsaw, Sunday, September 28, 1944


The German commanders have decided to continue their attack using the tactics they have tried so far in order to end the resistance.

Today Generalleutnant Hans Källner, Kommandierender General of the 19. Panzer Division ...




... ordered the last northern part of Warsaw that the Poles still control, Zoliborz ...



... to take and end the resistance there.

All gun barrels of tanks, assault mortars, artillery, launchers and armored trains available in Källner's command area will now be concentrated to this district ...













... while Källner's attack troops, the 19th Panzer Division and the "Hermann Göring Parachute Panzer Division" go into positions ...:





In between, the Germans interrupt their barrage several times so that the smoke clears a little and the "Stuka" pilots of the Air Force can better see the targets assigned to them during the fall attack ...:



As soon as they are gone, the shell and thrower fire starts again.


At the same time, General Rohr is targeting the Śródmieście district.

Artillery preparation is shorter here, because Śródmieście is already largely in ruins after the fighting of the past few weeks - the German projectiles would only plow over the rubble!

But now the ground attack on Śródmieście begins!








**continued next post**

The grenadiers of the 19th Panzer Division attack the Polish positions in the districts of Królewska and Towarowa, the soldiers of the "Hermann Göring" division concentrate on the extensive ruins of the Polytechnic ...:







The Polish stand everywhre!















While Zoliborz sinks to rubble and the blood is flowing in Śródmieście, the Germans continue to try to convince the defenders to give up.

SS-Obergruppenführer von dem Bach ...



... "asks" the headquarters of the "Armia Kraiowa" officially to start negotiations on this.

Officers of the "Armia Kraiowa" with General Antoni Chruściel at the head (photo center) ...



... then meet with the SS leader and other Germans in Ożarów.

In the 45-minute conversation, the German commanding officer offers an honorable surrender and strict compliance with the Geneva Convention - which means that the AK fighters would be treated like prisoners of war and placed in prison camps.

The SS leader says nothing about the civilians who are still in Śródmieście.

After the emissaries have returned, the AK high command takes a "double decision" at the suggestion of General Chruściel:

Negotiations with the Germans are to continue - but at the same time the resistance is to be continued at all points.

AK chief General Bor-Komorowski supports this decision and makes it clear that the continuation of the resistance depends on the morale of the troops, their will to keep fighting, the number of weapons still available, the ammunition - and, last but not least, the further action of the Germans depend.

Bor-Komorowski is without a doubt alluding to the mass shootings of the prisoners by the Germans ...



... in Mokotów the day before ...

Warsaw, Monday, September 29, 1944


Although the leadership of the "Armia Kraiowa" has agreed with the German high command to continue negotiations on possible surrender conditions, the fighting in Zoliborz and Śródmieście continues with undiminished severity.

In Zoliborz, Generalleutnant Källner is now deploying the complete 19th Panzer Division against the Polish fighters ...:















The Germans are turning more and more to simply shooting their way free with tank cannons in order to limit the bloody losses of their own infantry.

First of all, the Poles can hold out. But when they gradually ran out of ammunition for their armor-piercing weapons ...




... and they only have the option to hit the tanks and half-tracks of the attackers with homemade Molotov cocktails ...



... and to fight improvised flamethrowers ...





... the German tactic proves successful:

The Poles have to give up one important position after the other and withdraw step by step - fighting non-stop.

You lose the "Opel" factory, the wholesale market hall ...



... and the monastery of the "Sisters of Mercy" ...:



At least in the destroyed streets of Słowacki and Krasiński streets ...



... succeed the defenders under Captain Kazimierz Nowacki (with civil jacket) ...



... to stop the German attack.

In the south of Zoliborz, too, the defenders came under pressure! There the soldiers of the "Hermann Göring Parachute Panzer Division" manage to take the important Polish positions in Brodziński and Wyspiański streets ...:



Here, too, the Poles have to retreat, so that at the end of the day they are crowded into a small area around Krasinski Street.

Only the Polish group "Żubr", which defends the entrances to the Marymont district, can defend itself largely successfully; the district itself is already in German hands!

A Polish attempt at relief from outside ends in a total catastrophe! Major Alfons Kotowski's ...



... leaded unit „Kampinos"...



... who tried to break through to Zoliborz from the surrounding area to help the comrades there, was discovered early by the Germans, surrounded - and wiped out.



Together with Major Kotowski, more than 250 of his soldiers fell, 300 were taken prisoner, all more or less seriously wounded.

A few manage to escape from the German pocket - but their unity no longer exists.

The end in Zoliborz is in sight ...

Warsaw, Tuesday, September 30, 1944



The situation in the morning ...:



It comes to an end in Zoliborz - the Polish defenders, all in all around 2,500 men, have nothing left to do against the major morning attack!

Nevertheless, you continue to fight doggedly - and die.

The Poles must give up one position after the other, unless they prefer to defend them to literally the last man and the last cartridge.

In the late afternoon the fighters of the "Armia Kraowa" are huddled together in a tiny area - only a few blocks - on the eastern edge of Zoliborz ...:






lready at noon some courageous volunteers had swum across the Vistula, and with the troops of the “1. Byelorussian Front "on the other bank agreed that the survivors in Zoliborz should be evacuated by the Red Army by boat across the river to the safe east bank when it was dark ...:


In the late afternoon, the commander of Zoliborz gave the order to make your way out of the contested part of the city to the bank of the Vistula - the Red Army boats were actually waiting there!

Only: the outbreak must be stopped!

Some Polish fighters do not manage to break away from the enemy in time, the Germans recognize what is going on and take the strip of shore targeted by the Poles under heavy fire - and the weather situation changes:

It's raining cats and dogs so that you can hardly see your hand in front of your eyes.

While the Polish resistance collapses in Zoliborz, the high command of the "Armia Kraiowa" negotiated with the Germans all day. In the afternoon an agreement was reached with SS-General von dem Bach!

Von dem Bach instructs the local commander, Lieutenant General Källner, to accept the surrender of the defenders of Zoliborz:

There will be no shootings, civilians will be deported, but their lives will be spared - and the Polish fighters will be treated as prisoners of war according to the rules of the Geneva Convention.

(Fortunately for this agreement there are no SS troops on site - especially Dirlewanger's people, who are at Śródmieście!)

However, the commandant of Zoliborz, Lieutenant Colonel Mieczysław Niedzielski, opposes ...



... a surrender with all determination - and wants to continue the fight until the foreseeable end, please.

SS-General von dem Bach will later write about him: “I couldn't do anything with him. His every answer was offensive to me. He was a hero, a fanatic. "

Finally, Lieutenant Colonel Niedzielski receives from the High Command of the "Armia Kraiowa" ...



... the categorical order to lay down your arms! After 6 p.m. local time, no more shooting should take place!

Niedzielski has no choice but to obey - and orders his people to give up. At some isolated points in Zoliborz the fighting continues until around 10:30 p.m. because the Polish fighters standing there did not receive the order in time, but essentially the guns are silent in Zoliborz at 6 p.m. when the Germans carefully approach ... :









Generalleutnant Källner also adheres to the negotiated conditions - there are no "wild" shootings or other excesses!

1,400 Polish fighters are taken prisoner ...





... in various ruins and cellars there are about 500 seriously wounded people, many of whom will die ...:





Today's battles for Zoliborz alone have cost the "Armia Kraiowa" 1,600 dead and wounded.

As agreed, the soldiers come to a prisoner of war camp, namely the StaLag ("main camp") XVIIIA in Wolfsberg (Carinthia) ...





... the officers in officer camp XIV ("Osterort") in Bremen-Sebaldsbrück (my homtown!) ...:



Now Śródmieście stands alone against an eleven-fold and much better armed superiority ...



----------------------------------------------------

Warsaw, Wednesday, Oktober 1, 1944


After the Germans drowned out the last Polish resistance in the Zoliborz district yesterday, they announced a - unilateral - two-hour ceasefire this morning in order to give the civilians of the last few streets in Śródmieście held by the AK fighters the opportunity to evacuate. ..:



But only about 8,000 non-combatants follow the offer, not even 25 percent of the civilians who actually remain in Śródmieście, which amazes the Germans no less than the Polish fighters ...:



The vast majority of civilians have decided not to reveal their part of town - come what may!

Exactly at 1 p.m. after the fire break the "concert" of the German rocket launchers begins again ...









... in the evening again replaced by concentrated fire from the three 42 cm guns of the Germans ...:




The 60 centimeter mortar "Ziu"...



...of the "Karl" type has already started to be dismantled and loaded into the hinterland ...:




On the one hand, it is no longer needed - and on the other hand, it's barrel is "shot" and urgently needs to be replaced.

Today Germans completely forego fighting on the ground - why risk human lives?

Meanwhile, AK chief Bor-Komorowski radioed to London in the evening:

"Another fight in Warsaw has no chance. I have decided to end it. The negotiated terms of surrender guarantee the soldiers the full rights of prisoners of war and humane treatment for the civilian population. I myself will go into captivity with my soldiers."

In addition, the AK chief thanks all soldiers in his radio message for their bravery, loyalty and readiness for action.

In a last sentence he names General Leopold Okulicki ...



... to the new commander of the "Armia Kraiowa".

And as the last official act as head of the Home Army, General Bor-Komorowski sends an authorized delegation to the German headquarters in Ochota to see SS-General von dem Bach-Zelewski, who is supposed to clarify the last open details and then sign the corresponding capital documents.

The delegation consists of the diplomat of the Polish government-in-exile in London, Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki (with hat) ...



... and the AK commanders Lieutenant Colonel Zygmunt Dobrowolski, Lieutenant Colonel Franciszek Herman (in the back of the car during the drive to the German headquarters) ...



... and Captain Alfred Korczyński ...:



Bor-Komorowski himself does not want to put his name on the document of surrender ...

Warsaw, Thursday, Oktober 2, 1944


During the whole day the Polish delegates, Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki, Lieutenant Colonel Zygmunt Dobrowolski, Lieutenant Colonel Franciszek Herman and Captain Alfred Korczyński at the German headquarters in Ochota negotiate with German negotiators over details of the surrender of "Armia Kraiowa".

At around 12 noon, the German commander, SS-Obergruppenführer von dem Bach-Zelewski, ordered the fire to be stopped as a "sign of good will" - which the last Polish fighters did after them.

Around 6 p.m., both sides agree on the terms of the surrender - and sign the relevant papers ...:




Shortly before 8 p.m. in the evening, both sides announced the end of all fighting and the surrender of the "Armia Kraiowa" from 6 p.m. ...:



Then the former commander of the Poles, General Bor-Komorowski, who was not present at the surrender ceremony, is brought to SS-General von dem Bach - and has to pose for a propaganda photo ...:







The Pole then lets the German explain that he resigned his command yesterday and is no longer a general - and asks to be allowed to go into captivity as a simple soldier together with the last of his men ...:



Von dem Bach enjoys the feeling of victory (which you can see pretty well in the photos!) And is generous. The request of Bor-Komorowski is granted ...:



The surrender conditions stipulate in detail the following:

"At 8:00 p.m. on October 2, 44, the German-Polish war operations in the capital will be stopped. Withdrawals by the Polish associations from Warsaw with weapons for prisoner-of-war rights in order to deposit them outside the city walls:

One regiment on October 4th at 8:00 a.m., the rest of the troops on October 5th. "






It is also agreed that the civilian population of Warsaw will be completely evacuated by the Germans in the coming days ...:





Immediately before the capitulation, this last radio message from "Armia Kraiowa" from Warsaw is received in London ...:

“That is the sacred truth. We have been treated worse than Hitler's satellites, worse than Italy, Romania, Finland.

May God the Just pass judgment on the terrible injustice that has befallen the Polish people, and may He punish all those guilty.

Our heroes are the soldiers whose only weapon against tanks, planes and artillery was their revolvers and kerosene bottles.

Our heroes are the women who cared for the wounded and reported services under bullets, who cooked in bombed-out cellars for children and adults, who brought relief and comforted the dying.

Our heroes are the children who played innocently in the smoking ruins. These are the people of Warsaw.

A people who live in such bravery are immortal. Because those who died have won, and those who live will fight on, will win and again bear witness to the fact that Poland will live as long as Polish live. "

The radio message is not signed.

Of the highly motivated, but mostly poorly armed, almost 120,000 fighters on the side of the "Armia Kraiowa" at the beginning of the uprising, more than 15,200 soldiers die in battle (or are murdered by the Germans after their capture), at least 25,000 are seriously wounded - of those after many will perish after surrender because of poor medical care. 5,000 fighters are still missing today. 15,000 were captured alive during the fighting.

On the side of the "Armii Polskiego Wojska", who fought in the ranks of the Red Army under General Zygmunt Berling, around 1,500 men were killed.

It is not known how many Red Army soldiers from the 1st Belarusian Front perished in the fighting during the Warsaw Uprising.

On the German side, a little more than 39,000 members of formations of the Waffen-SS, the Wehrmacht, the Air Force as well as mercenaries from Russia, the Ukraine and Cossack associations fought.

More than 16,000 of them die, 9,000 injured and 6,000 missing are recorded.

Of the Germans who survived, not many saw the end of the war alive: at least two thirds of them perished when the “Army Group Vistula” sank, on the Seelower Heights, in the “Kessel von Halbe” or during the final battles around Berlin.

The most gruesome deaths were demanded of the civilians: More than 225,000 Warsaw residents who were completely uninvolved in the fighting were killed!

In the days that followed, the Germans will scrupulously adhere to the agreed terms of surrender.

All civilians still alive will be evacuated from Warsaw ...:



The Polish capital has ceased to exist as a habitable place ...:







And so end the 63 bloodiest days in Polish history ...



The real tragedy of the Warsaw Uprising lies - my opinion! - in the fact that it would have failed even IF the Poles had succeeded.

It was started because important circles in Poland and in British exile feared a Communist takeover of power should Stalin's Red Army march into Poland.

That is why the uprising not only wanted to liberate the Polish capital, but at the same time wanted to install a Polish government recognized and supported by the Western powers and receive the Soviets in Warsaw!

Today we know that this would never have worked!

Stalin would have simply swept aside any Polish government that he did not like, as he did in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia as well!

And in their cocky promises of help for the Poles, the British and Americans simply overlooked the trifles of geographical facts!

Poland was too far away to be able to help the "Armia Kraiowa" effectively.

The many thousands of Polish fighters died in 1944 for a great goal - but ultimately in vain.

Tomorrow there will be an epilogue in which I will tell you what became of the protagonists often mentioned here ...

Can’t disagree..the Poles never stood a chance..and whether western allies or Stalin..both hardly blameless and both had something to gain by the Poles rising and dying

Indeed Kev..my thank to Martin. I’ve not seen the deep dive, slow build of any event in this manner and it’s been amazing on several levels. Not least our simplistic notions of good guys, bad guys..and the images of these fighters still at it to the end.

Thanks for your efforts researching and posting this Martin. I learned a lot.

Adrian

Epilogue...



Let us now turn to the fate of a frequently mentioned protagonists of the Warsaw Uprising:

General Count Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski...



... went into German captivity on October 5, 1944 with the last AK fighters. From February to April 1945 Komorowski was a prisoner in Oflag IV-C Castle Colditz, where the German officers of high standing and important prisoners of war imprisoned. During his captivity, he was symbolically appointed Commander in Chief of the Polish Armed Forces.

He never saw his home again. After the war he went into exile in London. From 1947 to 1949 Komorowski was prime minister of the government in exile.

Bor-Komorowski died in London in 1966. In 1994 his ashes were transferred to Poland and buried in the Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw.



Lieutenant Colonel Mieczysław Niedzielski...



... the last commandant in the Zoliborz district, who had to be forced to surrender, fell into German hands with two serious wounds.

He gave the false name of a common soldier and was first taken to the prisoner-of-war camp Sandbostel near Bremen. When he was recognized, the SS shipped him to the Neuengamme concentration camp as a Gestapo “special prisoner”.

After an intervention by the Swedish diplomat Count Folke-Bernadotte with SS chief Himmler, he was transferred to a “normal” prisoner-of-war camp, the Oflag XC officers' camp near Lübeck, where British troops liberated him in April 1945.

He, too, never saw his homeland again, stayed in exile, first in Great Britain, later in the USA and died in Chicago in 1980.

In 1992 his remains were transferred to Poland and buried there in the “Powązki Military Cemetery” as part of a special ceremony.


SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski



... received the Knight's Cross on September 30, 1944 for his "services" in suppressing the Warsaw Uprising.

He then continued to serve his "Führer" faithfully, setting up the XIV. SS Army Corps in the Baden-Baden area and later the X. SS Army Corps in Pomerania. He then commanded the Oder Corps of Army Group Vistula from February 17, 1945.

After the war von dem Bach was arrested by US troops and interned in the war crimes prison in Landsberg am Lech.

In the Nuremberg war crimes trials, he presented himself to the international military tribunal as the key witness for the prosecution - against the promise not to be extradited to the Soviet Union or Poland. In Nuremberg he incriminated all major war criminals without exception, but absolved himself of all guilt.

In March 1951, von dem Bach-Zelewski was classified as the main culprit in the context of denazification by the Munich main court and sentenced to ten years in a labor camp and confiscated property. In December 1951, an appeal chamber gave him credit for the five years he had spent in custody since 1954.

Afterwards he was only under house arrest, which he spent in his apartment in the Franconian town of Laffenau (now a district of Heideck). From 1954 he lived in Eckersmühlen near Roth and worked in Nuremberg as a night watchman for 400 marks a month, which was slightly above the average salary at the time.

In December 1958 he was arrested again and charged with the murder order against Anton von Hohberg and Buchwald, which he had issued in 1934. In the trial that began in January 1961 before the Nuremberg-Fürth Regional Court, he was sentenced in February 1961 to four years and six months in prison for manslaughter. In November 1961 he received a six-month prison sentence for negligent perjury in the proceedings against the former SS-Obergruppenführer and police general Udo von Woyrsch and was therefore sentenced by the Nuremberg-Fürth regional court to a total of four years and ten months.

On August 3, 1962, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in another trial for the murders of five communists and the attempted murder in another case in the spring and summer of 1933. He was never held accountable for his involvement in the Holocaust and for the murderous “SS-Einsatzgruppen” in the Soviet Union.

Neither for his “merits” in Warsaw in 1944!

At the beginning of March 1972 he was given exemption from prison, seriously ill; on March 8, 1972 - shortly after his 73rd birthday - he died in the Munich-Harlaching prison hospital.


SS-Obergruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth...



... spent three years in American captivity until 1948. He had been transferred to Nuremberg several times to testify before the International Military Tribunal. His testimony did not take place.

Several extradition requests by the state of Poland were not granted. In 1948 Reinefarth was transferred to Hamburg, the British zone. The British also refused Reinefarth's extradition to Poland in 1950.

It later emerged that this conspicuous exemption was due to the fact that Reinefarth had quickly changed sides after the war with the US military intelligence service CIC.

It can also be traced back to discreet US interventions that he was never charged for his acts during the Warsaw Uprising and that he was acquitted of all guilt in the denazification proceedings by the Hamburg-Bergedorf court in 1949.

The agile Reinefarth made it up to the mayor of the city of Westerland / Sylt in 1951, an office to which he was re-elected several times and which he held until 1964.

He died in 1979 in Westerland.


„Ataman“ Timofej Domanow...



... made his way with his rickety Cossack corps shortly before the end of the war to Friuli in northern Italy, where the Cossack mercenaries wanted to found a state called "Kosakia" under the protection of the SS.

After the surrender he went into British captivity - but the British handed him and all the Cossacks in their hands - as agreed with Stalin in Yalta - over to the Soviet Union.

Domanov was tried with other former Cossack leaders on German pay in Moscow in 1946, sentenced to death in a fast-track trial and ended up on the gallows a little later in Lefortovo prison in Moscow.
His body was cremated and the ashes scattered.




SS-Brigadeführer Oskar Paul Dirlewanger,...



... Head of the "SS Special Brigade Dirlewanger" which he led, originally formed from convicted poachers and which was directly subordinate to Heinrich Himmler and which raged in Warsaw with devilish brutality even by SS standards, tried to go into hiding on April 22, 1945 , but fell into French captivity. He came - initially unrecognized - in a prisoner-of-war camp in Altshausen in Upper Swabia, then in the Saulgau district in Württemberg.

It was unfortunate that the French employed armed former Polish forced laborers as security guards. Dirlewanger was recognized by German inmates and betrayed to the Poles, who of course knew about his role in Warsaw.

The Polish guards then repeatedly mistreated him so severely that he died from it - probably on June 19, 1945.


Generalleutnant Hans Källner...



Commanding general of the 19th Panzer Division, which played a key role in the bloody suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, was commissioned to lead the XXIV Panzer Corps shortly before the end of the war. In this position he fell on April 18, 1945 near Brünn (today: Brno, Checia).


General Zygmunt Berling...



... The commander of the Polish People's Army, who fought in the Red Army, was relieved of his command after the Warsaw Uprising on Stalin's orders - allegedly because, without the permission of the High Command, he used parts of his troops to help the hard-pressed Warsaw rebels across the Vistula had sent the fight.

Berling turned down the - face-saving - function offered to him as head of the Polish military mission in Moscow and was then forcibly sent to the Moscow Military Academy.

In 1947 he returned to Poland and a year later was appointed commander of the new General Staff Academy in Warsaw until he resigned from military service in 1953. Between 1953 and 1970 he held senior positions in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Only in 1963 did he join the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR).

He died in Warsaw in 1980.


Marshal Konstantin Konstantinowitsch Rokossowski,



... The Marshal, who was actually born under the name Konstanty Rokossowski in Russian Poland, was - much to his annoyance - not allowed to take part in the final battles for Berlin with his army group. Stalin assigned him the task of pushing past Berlin to the north and forcing the Elbe.

There, on the so-called "Elbe Day", the vanguard of his army group met units of the American allies for the first time near Torgau. On the Baltic coast, Rügen was conquered and shock troops came as far as Wismar, which had already been taken by the British. A few hours after the (1st) signing of the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht, he met the British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery there on May 7, 1945.

After the end of the war, Rokossovsky commanded the Victory Parade in Moscow on June 24, 1945. Until 1949 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Group of the Soviet Army.

Stalin, who wanted a more energetic sovietization of the Polish People's Army, had Rokossowski appointed to Poland that year by the President Bolesław Bierut appointed by the Soviet Union and appointed Marshal of Poland and Minister of Defense.

The small photo above shows Rokossowski in this ministerial office - he is wearing a Polish uniform!

In October 1961, the Polish party leader Władysław Gomułka got Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev through that Rokossowski and his staff were ordered back to Moscow.
Rokossowski was appointed Inspector General of the Armed Forces and Deputy Minister of Defense in 1957. His last honorary position was that of member of the group of inspectors general of the Soviet Army.

He died in Moscow in 1968 and - like Stalin and his rival Marshal Zhukov - is buried on the Kremlin wall.


Dear Planeteers!

Blood and death every day for more than two months! Besides the research, the many translations and the duration, my series on the Warsaw Uprising was also pretty difficult to digest in terms of subject matter!

More than nine months of research went into the collection of the almost innumerable details.

Thank you for reading!

Martin

Sincerely thank you..your work has been very special .have you considered writing, doing a video version..I am sure many buying PF would be interested

Beyond PF..

Incredible work Martin. I second the motion, you need to write in book form, very well done!

Thanks a lot for this presentation, lot of work in it, and pride for what your fellows in Warsaw have done .