Dear Planeteers!

Today I'm starting a new series in this section, which will report on the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 as precisely as possible - 63 days, which are among the bloodiest and most destructives in the history of Poland.

This series - it has 63 daily episodes - I wrote in diary form for a Polish friend a year ago.

Now I have translated it and put it here, because I have had to find again and again that hardly anything is known in the West about this bloody and heroic section of history.

I attached particular importance to the names and faces of those involved, because they are worth not being forgotten.


Friday August 1, 1944

For months, members of the underground Polish "Armia Kraiova" (home army) have been preparing for this day.

Precise plans were made, hidden depots were set up, weapons were collected and - as far as this was possible under the watchful eye of the German occupiers - fighters were trained.

Now the commander of "Armia Kraiowa" (AK) in Poland, General Tadeusz Komorowski ...



... the beginning of the uprising, the "Hour W" at 5pm today.

Komorowski, whom most only know by his pseudonym "Bor", lets out liaisons in the morning, who give the commanders of the groups distributed across the city an order from Colonel Antoni Chruściel, the Warsaw AK commandant ...



...to transfer. It should start at 5 p.m.



Chruściel - alias "Monter", has set up its operational headquarters in the "Viktoria Hotel" ...:





But the sudden start together in as many places as possible goes wrong!


In the district of Żoliborz, the fighting broke out three hours before the planned start of operations; in Wola, the soldiers started to fight at around 4:00 p.m., because - by chance - they were discovered by German patrols.

Around 30,000 Poles join the active resistance against the German occupation. Your equipment is devastatingly bad!



They have weapons for only a tenth of the soldiers, about 20,000. Some of the weapons are handcrafted in underground workshops - like this ones ...:



Heavy weapons are completely missing! It is hoped that as much as possible will be captured by the German occupiers in the course of the fighting.

Another difficulty is the poor state of communication between certain resistance points

Although the surprise of the Germans was not successful, the first - modest - successes were achieved; AK soldiers can conquer various food warehouses in the city area in a first swipe of the barracks on Okopowa Street ...



... occupy where you actually loot a few heavy weapons ...



... and temporarily secure it with barricades ...:



In addition, it succeeds in storming the building of the "Prudential" insurance ...:



This tallest building in the city offers a good vantage point to track the situation anywhere in the city ...:



However, the insurgents do not manage to control strategically important airports, train stations and bridges on the Vistula, which would enable communication between the different fighting sources.

This rather meager success paid 2,500 AK soldiers with their lives on this first day! About 500 soldiers are killed on the German side ...:



The German occupiers, a total of about 20,000 men, of whom a maximum of 5,000 can be described as well-trained and armed combat troops (the rest serve with staff and back-up services!) Mostly withdraw from the core city and hold only a few strategically important points still occupied there:



They gather their strength for the counter strike ...

Warsaw, Saturday August 2, 1944


On the second day of the uprising, Warsaw looks like a patchwork of colors on the maps of the German and Polish staffs:

Here the AK fighters have occupied a house, a block of houses or a street, where German units can hold out.

The Poles are now fighting to unite these isolated areas into one, which is easier to assert because you can use the "inner line".

The Germans are fighting to prevent exactly that!

So you can - initially - in the so-called PAST building and other points ...:






On the other hand, the AK fighters are also making progress, around noon almost the entire old town of Warsaw is in their hands, including the main post office ...



... the post office on Jerozolimskie-Allee and the fortified German police station "Nordwache" ...:






On the German side, a lack of uniform command and control has a negative impact because the city commander of Warsaw, Generalleutnant der Flieger Rainer Stahel ...



... is enclosed by AK troops in its headquarters. But the Germans can assert themselves here too!

Particularly tough fights are raging in the Wola district! The first German reinforcements have arrived and tank units of the "parachute tank division Hermann Göring" start two attacks ...



... which the AK fighters can fight back ...



... but suffer severe losses ...:



But they can withstand and fighters of the "Zośka" battalion manage to meet at the school. Friedlich-Straße to capture 26 German soldiers ...:



The bitter losses on both sides are far more serious for the "Armia Kraiova" because they cannot replace their failed fighters, while the Germans only have to wait for reinforcements to arrive.

After all, the insurgents can put a far-reaching radio transmitter into operation and communicate directly with their political leadership in London.


The uprising in the districts on the right - eastern - Vistula bank fails completely! In the district of Praga, the 700 AK fighters under Lieutenant Colonel Mieczysław Sokołowski - alias "Grzymała" ...



... are forced to surrender on the second day ...:



Only 300 can survive.

**continued next post**

In the meantime, reports of the Warsaw Uprising have reached Berlin, and thus Hitler.

In the Fuehrer headquarters, Hitler dismisses the proposal of the Army Chief of Staff, Heinz Guderian (here handshake with Hitler) ...



... please leave the matter to the Wehrmacht, briskly back!

He placed the suppression of the uprising in the hands of Heinrich Himmler; Since the failed assassination attempt on Hitler ten days ago, he has not only been the head of the SS and the German police, but also the commander of the replacement army.

High Wehrmacht commanders on site acknowledge this decision of their "leader" with undisguised relief!

The commander of the 9th Army, in whose area of ​​command Warsaw is located, is particularly happy!

Much has been written after the war that the “clean” Wehrmacht did everything possible to avoid being involved in fighting the Warsaw Uprising - but we see that is not true!

The Wehrmacht definitely wanted - and so did the commander of the 9th Army, Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model (in the picture with a leather jacket in the middle) ...



... was not known for its scruples.

No, the Wehrmacht COULD not, because it literally whistled on the last hole on the Eastern Front after the Red Army ("Operation Bagration") was totally destroyed by the Red Army ("Operation Group")! Their commanders had their hands full to stabilize the front from the Baltic Sea to Hungary against the Soviets and needed the last soldiers for it!

And on the western front (breakthrough of the US armored army at Avranches) and in the south (battle for Monte Cassino), there is heavy pressure!

Now the matter ends up with Himmler ...:



And the first thing to do is to order: All non-German residents of Warsaw regardless of age, gender or participation in the uprising must be killed and the city must then be razed!

General Stefan "Grot" Rowecki, who was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, was the first to ...



... who had played an important role in Armia Kaiowa before his arrest. Himmler personally orders his murder by phone.

The list of units that Himmler is now marching to Warsaw is based on the ideas of the "Reichsführer SS":

If there is still a slump of killers and desperados within the murderous SS, they are all on this list!

There is the notorious SS brigade "Dirlewanger" (the next photo shows members of this troop during the fighting in Warsaw) ...



... a unit made up of jailed professional criminals with high prison terms.

Their commander, SS chief Oskar Dirlewanger ...



... has a particular weakness for convicted poachers because of their shooting skills, which is why the unit is often called the "Wild Thief Brigade".

The 29th Waffen SS Grenadier Division “under its Russian-born commander Bronislanw Kaminski (wearing a peaked cap without a badge) is also on the march ...:



This unit is called the "Russian People's Liberation Army" (Russkaja Oswoboditelnaja Narodnaja Armija), desparados of the worst kind, which have left a wide blood trail of murder, rape and robbery across Europe!





Since the "RONA" is going to do too well in Warsaw even by SS standards, its commander Kaminski ends on August 28, 1944 in Lodz in front of an SS peloton.

A Cossack unit under SS command is also used ...



... that by "General Ataman" Timofej Domanow ...



... is commanded. These are Don Cossacks recruited during the German occupation of southern Russia in 1942, the (Wehrmacht) General Helmuth von Pannwitz had refused to take over into his 1st Cossack cavalry division due to poor training and lack of discipline.

In addition, concentration camp minions joined together as provisional units, recognizable by the fact that they do not have the usual SS runes on the collar tabs ...



... wear, but skulls!



There are also SS police units from Poznań.

The Wehrmacht only sends second-rate troops:

There is the completely anti-communist Azerbaijanis (the officers are of course German!) II. Battalion of the so-called "special miners' association". Their soldiers run around in Wehrmacht uniform, but are actually under the German military secret service, who are subordinate to "defense" and - like the better known "Brandenburgers"! - trained for sabotage actions behind enemy lines ....:



In addition, a 600-man security regiment made up of older men from the staff of the 9th Army who were not fit for the front.

Air Force chief Hermann Göring, who wants to be there at all times, sends the Panzergrenadierregiment 4 of the "Fallschirm-Panzerdivision Hermann Göring".

But even a limited desk killer like Himmler knows that you have to fight and defeat the Poles before the big kill can begin!

So an elite association is also sent to Warsaw - and was a battalion of the SS Panzergrenadierdivision "Wiking", a well-equipped and powerful force consisting of Flemish, Dutch, Estonian, Walloon, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish ... :








The purest creep cabinet!


However, it also becomes clear that the Germans largely use "foreign" associations under their command in Warsaw in order to conserve their own resources as much as possible ...!

And the man who is supposed to use these troops to wipe the city of Warsaw with everything that lives in it off the map has already been found: SS Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Heinz Reinefarth...



... is commissioned by Himmler with the supreme command!

This well-known murderer who will go down in history as the "Butcher of Warsaw" and likes to walk around with a Cossack Papakha (on the next photo he is on the left) ...



... also brings along his "private army", twelve so-called "Schutzkompanien" ("proptective companies") from Galicia, armed villagers from what was then southern Ukraine, who collaborate with the Nazis and have practically nothing to lose...:

Warsaw, Sunday August 3, 1944


The Germans are still on the defensive in the Polish capital, but the resistance is noticeably strengthened by the reinforcements that are gradually arriving and being used.

The "Armia Kaiova" fighters can still gradually gain ground - but they are still a long way from their strategic goal of uniting the "patchwork" of the buildings and streets under their control into a single area.

In addition, the losses of the Poles increase rapidly, since the Germans can now also use heavy weapons (mostly artillery and anti-tank guns) ...:



After all - there are further successes!

The Polish flag is now waving on the so-called PAST building ...



... the tall building, which is reminiscent of a medieval castle tower in terms of architecture, could be cleaned by German occupiers ...:



(The two soldiers in the foreground are not Germans, but AK fighters who carry captured German equipment and a German Stahlhelm!
Friend and enemy are difficult to distinguish from each other in the confusing battlefield!)



On the other hand, this distinctive landmark is now a good target for German grenades - and is relentlessly fired at ...:



The insurgents can still make up ground in the isolated district of Srodmiescie. They have also dominated the power plant in the Powiśle district since today ...



... and the so-called "ZUS building" in Czerniakow ...:



The large Bank of Poland building is conquered in the old town - and a command post is established there:



Part of the building, which was badly destroyed in the fighting, was left as a memorial during the reconstruction of the Polish capital after the war ...:





In the Żoliborz district, Lieutenant Colonel Mieczysław Niedzielski ("Żywiciel") ...



... a successful attempt to penetrate Marymoncka Street. Wilson Square and Krasinski Street can be occupied and secured with barricades.

In the area of ​​Aleje Jerozolimskie, the Germans launch a violent counterattack with armored vehicles, against which they drive Polish civilians as a living shield ...:



In the - isolated - district of Wola, the tanks of the "Hermann Göring Division" attack again, and they manage to break through the barricade on Młynarska Street that has not been occupied by a communication error ...:



It was only in the evening that the Poles, again with heavy losses, managed to regain their lost positions and push the Germans back ...:





At around 8 p.m., German "Stukas" dive bombers Ju 87 appeared over the city and bombed the Polish positions, which the AK fighters had previously escaped from the soldiers of the "Hermann Göring" division ...:



Together with their bombs, the German aviators drop leaflets asking the AK fighters to surrender ...:



In the district of Ochota an AK group under Lieutenant Gustaw Budzyński "Gustaw" succeeds (in the photo on the left) ...



... in Kalisz Street, shooting down several tanks - which, however, are outdated and weakly armored earlier Italian "Fiat Ansaldo M13 / 40" types, which the Germans occupy behind the front due to a lack of materials ...:






The Poles will only get to know the modern German tanks

Warsaw, Monday August 4, 1944


The fights in the Polish capital are getting fiercer by the hour!

In the ruins of the Blanka Palace ...





... in violent hand-to-hand combat, the most talented Polish poet of his generation, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, falls as a soldier in the AK "Parasol" battalion ...:





The Poles, who took the PAST building yesterday, cannot stay there and have to vacate the house again - the RONA Cossacks, who are in the German mercenary, shoot it up close with artillery to the ruin ...:







Meanwhile, SS General Reinefarth personally monitors how his Ukrainian "protection companies" position themselves around the Wola district to start a new attack on this position.





A total of Ju 87 dive bombers from the Air Force are requested, which have proven particularly suitable in this type of war ...



The soldiers of the "Radoslaw" battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Jan Mazurkiewicz (front in the picture) ...



... try to get to the ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto (marked yellow on the map) ...



... to penetrate, however, are bloodily rejected by the Germans who have entrenched themselves there! The second time they make it - with the heaviest losses!

The RONA mercenaries of the Germans commanded by "General" Kaminski attack the Ochota district, ...



... but encounter the bitter resistance of the Armia Kraiova units there ...



... under Lieutenant Lieutenant Gustaw Budzyński, whom we met yesterday ...:



The Russian RONA desparados then committed the first documented massacre of Polish civilians during the Warsaw fights. (Excerpt from a film) ...:





They kill hundreds of bystanders, using every imaginable (and actually unthinkable!) Cruelty.

General Komorowski radioed to London and asked for any help for the fighting Warsaw! The British then announce increased supply flights by the Royal Air Force.

When the strategists of both sides bend over their maps in the late afternoon of August 4, the following picture presents itself ...:



In the core city, the Polish freedom fighters managed to round up the "patchwork" they occupied into a coherent area - but they are far from their operational goal, the Vistula Bends!

The uprising has already been liquidated by the Germans in the Praga district on the eastern side of the Vistula - in the true sense of the word, because with Himmler's order to kill all Warsaw residents, one doesn't linger long.

The remaining occupied parts of the city and streets are small Polish "islands" in a "sea" now dominated by German superiority and can hardly be defended for long.

**continued next post**

Let's look at another card for that day ...:



As we can see, in addition to the Polish fighters of Armia Kraiowa and the Germans with their mercenaries, there are two other actors whose flags can be seen on the right side of the map:

The Red Army of Stalin and the with it fighting units of the "1st Polish Army" under General Zygmunt Berling ..:



These troops stand on the eastern bank of the Vistula, their heads even on the edge of the Praga district, where the uprising broke out yesterday.

They are not only in sight, but already within range, but they do not move and watch the slaughter motionless!

Stalin personally categorically prohibited any action!

When General Bor-Komorowski desperately sends London for help, Churchill asks Stalin why his troops are not moving.

The "father of the peoples" replies that his troops are exhausted after the victory over the German Army Group in the middle and the supply does not come along on the overextended supply routes - the troops urgently need rest to prepare for another operation, the direction of the Baltic Sea, Or, Berlin will aim.

Everything lied!

Stalin is concerned with the post-war future of Poland, from which he wants to make a buffer and satellite state that is totally under his control. When the first Soviet soldier crossed the former Polish eastern border in 1944, the Soviet "Woshd" ("leader" as he likes to be called!) Set up a Soviet-friendly "government", the so-called "Lublin Committee" ... :





The freedom fighters in Warsaw are listening to the legal Polish government in exile, which is based in London!



That is why they had started their revolt against the Germans NOW: The advancing Red Army - so the plan - was to be received in the self-liberated Polish capital by representatives of this legal Polish government!

That would have made things more difficult for Stalin and his "Lublin Committee"! And so it is only right for Stalin that the Germans are now liquidating the armed arm of this London government in Warsaw!


Stalin's local commander, Marshal Konstantin Rokossowski, saw the "exhaustion" and the "overextended supply routes" very differently from the Soviet host and would have liked to be active, especially since he was a Pole himself.

Stalin forced him to stand still! And Rokossowski ...



... which because of its Polish origin during the "great purges" at the end of the 30s the NKVD prison in Moscow, the notorious "Lubyanka" ...



... and also got to know their torture cellars from the inside, knew what would blossom if he acted against Stalin's orders.

So he kept silent. Stalin will make him Polish Defense Minister after the war ...:



There is hardly more mockery ...!

And then there's something the strategists on both sides don't know when they bend over their cards:

This August 4, 1944 marks, so to speak, the watershed of the Warsaw Uprising: The Polish fighters will no longer advance and more space will occupy, from now on they will have to fight for their lives!

The big murder just started ...

Warsaw, Tuesday August 5, 1944


The British react quickly to the spoken cry for help from AK chief General Bor-Komorowski!

"Lancaster" bombers loaded and launched in Italy with supplies ...





... the Royal Air Force appear in the morning over Warsaw and perform a precise "airdrop"!

Almost all of their parachute-braked supply bombs land in the Jewish and Powązkowski Cemeteries, where Armia Kraiowa's fighters can salvage most goods - including the much-needed anti-tank weapons, type "PIAT" ...:



As soon as it gets light, the Ukrainian mercenaries of SS General Reinefarth renew their attacks on the AK positions in the Wola district - this time supported by the criminal brigade of Oskar Dirlewanger ...:



A suicidal counterattack by the Poles ...



... personally led by Colonel Jan Mazurkiewicz (in the picture in the middle) ...



... can bring the Germans to a standstill and then throw them back a bit - but it costs the Poles half their brigade!

The AK fighters use the breathing space to evacuate as many civilians, who are still persevering in Wola, from the cellars and pass through the lines - in safety, as they hope.

But the Germans slaughter almost all evacuees as soon as they reach their lines!



Then the Dirlewanger murderers storm the Wola hospital ...



... as well as the nearby St. Lazarus Church, which serves as a temporary hospital and kill every living person they encounter - doctors, nurses and patients!



At least 20,000 people were murdered in Wola by evening.



The soldiers of the "Zoska" battalion, who managed to free the SS labor camp on Zu-Strasse, were successful ...:



The pressure from RONA increases and "General" Kaminski's soldiers ...







... continue their murderous push, without exception killing every Pole that falls into their hands alive ...:



Bloody battles are also raging in Ochota, where the AK units "Reduta Kaliska" and "Wawel Redoubt", which are isolated from each other, bitterly defend access to the Poniatowski Bridge ...:



In the evening there is another important command change on the German side:

Hitler is annoyed that the Poles have been resisting bitterly for five days, having ordered the uprising to be put down within two days!

Now he has appointed a new commanding officer, the SS Obergruppenführer and General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski ...:



Bach is considered "Himmler's best man" and has already gained relevant experience as a murderer in Poland:

The proposals for the establishment of the Auschwitz extermination camp came from him, he coordinated the murderous operations of the so-called "SS operations groups" in Eastern Poland and Russia as the higher SS and police leader "Russia center", he personally led the massacre of the Jewish residents of Byalistok and Grodno (summer 1941) through which tens of thousands fell victim.

Then Bach suffered a severe nervous breakdown, which made a longer hospital stay necessary. The "Reichsarzt SS", Ernst-Robert Grawitz ...



... who treated him personally on Himmler's orders, reported to him:

"Von dem Bach-Zelewski ... cried out at night and got entangled in hallucinations, haunted by the ghosts of his own fault ... in connection with the Jewish shootings he directed and other difficult experiences in the East."

The psychological breakdown of his "best man" prompted Himmler to search for a "more effective and less stressful" method of killing for the Jews. "Less stressful" for the murderers, of course!

A solution was finally found that made the "tedious" shooting of Jewish people superfluous: the poison gas "Zyklon B" ...






And this man, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, has now arrived to liquidate Warsaw. He immediately takes command and gets to work.

Warsaw, Wednesday August 6, 1944


Jossif Wissarionowitsch Stalin is a night worker - just like his opponent Hitler!



In order to show this "to the people" (of whom Stalin does not think much and which for him is a mere disposition), the light is always on in his study in the Kremlin, even when it is darkened - everyone should see that the landlord is around the clock works for his welfare!

The German communist Erich Weinert ...



... even felt compelled to write a poem about it ...:



THE KREML IS STILL LIGHT

Erich Weinert

When you close your eyes and every link
and every fiber of your body rests -
your heart stays awake; your heart never gets tired;
and even in the deepest sleep your blood rushes.

I look out of my window at night;
I turn my face to the nearby Kremlin.
The city closed all eyes.
And only in the Kremlin is there still light.

And again I’m looking far after midnight
towards the Kremlin. The whole world is sleeping.
And light for light is made out over there.
Only one window is still lit.

I'll put my pen down late
when the dawn breaks out of the clouds.
I'm looking at the Kremlin. The country sleeps quietly.
His heart stayed awake. There is still light in the Kremlin.


In reality, of course, the landlord is sitting in a bomb-proof bunker far below the Kremlin with its own - secret! - subway station and a more than 40 kilometers long - also secret! - subway line that leads out of the city. But he works.

In the very early morning - it is still dark - a telegram from London is presented to him. Alarmed by General Bor-Komorowski's radio communications, the British asked whether he - Stalin - could confirm the toughness and brutality of the fighting around Warsaw.

The telegram puzzled Stalin. Unlike his western allies, he always has all the facts ready - now he weighs them up.

He has not forgotten that the British entered the war in 1939 to help Poland, a Poland whose eastern half he had robbed himself as Hitler's ally at the time and incorporated into his own sphere of influence as "Western Ukraine".

And as a morning gift, 22,000 Polish officers were murdered and buried in the Katyn forest ...








Well, the 22,000 dead Polish officers don't impress the communist ruler! What are 22,000? And the matter will be blamed anyway on the Germans, who will soon be defeated.

What worries Stalin is something else: yesterday's precise "airdrop" from the Royal Air Force was reported to him, of course.

So what if the British came to the conclusion that the AK fighters in Warsaw needed massive support? So what if the British - maybe even together with the Americans? - would drop one of their most powerful airborne divisions over the embattled Polish capital?

What they can achieve is well known to the Soviet "Woshd" (= Leader) - after all, it was the Red Army that was the first army in the world to set up large-scale airborne units in the 30 years.

Stalin, who has long since made up his mind to take the rest of Poland as prey, on no account wants western soldiers in what he has long considered to be his sphere of influence. That could complicate matters unnecessarily!

So it is important to calm the British down, to trivialize the Warsaw affair!

And so the owner of the house had only one word answered to the British question: "Воображение" (Voobrazhenije = "pipe dreams!")

In post-war research, this telegram has been cited by many scientists as evidence that Stalin had completely underestimated the Warsaw Uprising!

On the other hand, I claim: Stalin did not underestimate anything - his “pipe dreams!”- telegram to London had a coolly calculated purpose - namely to keep the Western Allies out of Poland!

And this successfully!

I come to this conclusion after years of preoccupation with the person of Stalin. He was capable of far-reaching and complicated thought processes, more than all of his opponents. And he knew that!

How he saw himself shows one of his very few honest statements during one of the legendary night binge drinking with his cronies in the Kremlin:

"Without me the capitalists would drown you like young kittens ...!"

The price will be paid by the Poles, who will have to live in a Soviet-dominated Helot state in the next 40 years! And the “West-Ukrainians”, because the Soviets never released this robbery, which the “Hitler-Stalin Pact” made possible in the first place!

Meanwhile, the carnage in the Warsaw district of Wola continues unabated!

The Poles are concentrating on claiming the two cemeteries to allow for further British supply flights ...:












The Germans use this in turn to advance at other places!

Around noon, killers arrive at Brühl Castle ...



... a makeshift hospital - kill every living soul you find there and then blow up the historic building ...:



... The same happens with the children's hospital "St. Karol and Maria ”- a massacre of children, doctors and nurses!








(I spare you the pictures of the murdered children!)


The surviving refugees from Wola move to the Śródmieście district to seek shelter, for which members of the "Armia Kraiowa" fight their way ...:

On the other hand, there is good news for the Poles from the Mokotow district, where an isolated AK brigade is fighting desperately against the Germans.

The fighter Elżbieta Ostrowska (camouflage "Ela") manages on her own to move a telefone line from Mokotov to the inner city district so that the fighters there can coordinate their actions again with the AK leadership ...:



Constant German shelling and the "RONA" killers of "General" Kaminski, who are coming closer and closer, force Armia Karaiowa's chief, General Bor-Komorowski, into his headquarters (previously near the Jewish cemetery in the Śródmieście district) in the school building to move to Barokowa Street No. 6 ...:



This is where the members of the GC, the Council of National Unity and the representatives of the London government-in-exile for Warsaw come.



In the evening of the day, the German intentions to split the Polish resistance in Warsaw into three parts are clearly recognizable - as Władysław Bartoszewski writes (the later foreign minister of a democratic Polish government after the end of the Soviets):

“The resulting situation of partitioning off the cemetery and the old town of Śródmieście leads us to expect the division of the insurgent Warsaw into three parts, which will not be connected, in the next few days:


A northern group with the area of ​​the cemeteries, the former ghetto, the old town, Żoliborz and Kampinos, a second group around Śródmieście with Powiśle Północ and Powiśle Melanock and a south group, the Mokotów together with Sadyba and probably also with the units fighting in Ka will include. "

Warsaw, Thursday August 7, 1944


In the district of Wola, the murder continues unabated!

The Ukrainian mercenaries of SS-General Reinefarth - he can be seen on the next photo on the far right...

... work their way up street by street together with the “Dirlewanger” criminal brigade - killing any Polish resident who falls into their hands without distinction.










An almost suicidal counterattack by Major Stanisław Steczkowski's Armia Kraiowa unit (center photo, light jacket) ...



... can bring the Germans to a standstill (which enables a few more civilians to flee the district) - but their success is only temporary!

In the equally hard-fought old town, Colonel Karol Ziemski (left on the next photo) ...



... command of the northern part of the defense area, which also includes the two cemeteries that can still be kept for the time being.

In the isolated districts of Kaliska and Wawelska, however, the end of the Polish defenders has come:





Before the final attack by the Germans, you no longer have enough people to fill all defense positions - and you will be killed almost down to the last man ...:



In order to blow up their positions, the Germans had also used remote-controlled mini-explosive tanks of the type "Goliath" ...:



The only success of the AK fighters on this day is the creation of a strategically important passage between houses No. 22 and No. 17 on Jerusalem-Allee, protected from view of the enemy (and thus artillery fire) ...:






On the evening of that day, the German Wehrmacht report speaks for the first time on the radio about “Successes in the suppression of the rebellion in Warsaw” - a sure sign that the Germans are now seeing themselves on the road to victory ...

Warsaw, Friday, August 8, 1944


In order to finally be able to take the Jewish cemetery - a center of Polish resistance on the edge of the old town ...







... during the night the Germans brought an armored train, which now takes the Polish defense positions under fire from a short distance ...:





Parts of the train have even been preserved ...:



A Polish attack on the train fails with heavy losses!

Protected by the artillery of the train, the Germans advance further - and can break the Polish resistance on Graben Strasse!

Almost all defenders in this position will fall.

The Germans who broke through push on towards Tłomackie, where their goal is obviously the town hall (where they suspect a Polish command post) ...





... and also force the building of the Bank of Poland (where there is actually a command post) ...:



In Śródmieście the AK unit "Chrobry II" succeeds ...



... to occupy the building of the directorate for water supply and sewerage - which has so far been unsuccessful ...:



The situation in the Ochota district is deteriorating. The Polish fighters, entrenched in individual resistance nests, are constantly being decimated - the Polish side begins to think about giving up the position and planning a route to retreat.

The also isolated AK unit "Wawel Redoute" still fiercely defends the access to the Poniatowski Bridge - and can even be reinforced with a few fighters who have worked their way through the city's sewer system to this point (the first of the three following pictures is not authentic, but comes from a Polksh movie!) ...:







So far, the Germans have not noticed that the extensive canal network under the Polish capital is being used by the AK fighters - but that will change ...

Under the command of Lieutenant Adolf Pilch ...



... the "Palmiry-Młociny" regiment is established. Pilch can also be seen in the next photo behind the captured 3 cm anti-aircraft gun ...:




The regiment consists of the ruins of decimated units in the city - and of volunteers from the surrounding area (Oblast Obroza) who somehow managed to get through the German siege ring around Warsaw.

On the evening of that day, a radio station was put into operation in the “PKO building”. "Radio Błyskawica" now provides the insurgents (and the civilian population) with uncensored news in their language for 16 hours a day for the first time since the start of the uprising ...



... which has a great positive influence on the morale of the AK fighters!

Warsaw, Saturday, August 9, 1944


The day begins with a Polish success:

In the morning there remains an attack by the SS "Wikling" with armored vehicles from the Kierbedź Bridge ...





... on the positions of the Polish fighters of the "Parasol" battalion in the ruins of the former Jewish ghetto ...



... lie in the exact fire of the insurgents with great losses! The AK fighters are equipped with the new anti-tank weapons that the RAF dropped three days earlier ...:







At the same time, the AK group "Radosław" can successfully maintain its position on the edge of the old town, albeit with heavy losses ...:



In the Ochota district, on the other hand, the Polish resistance, which only continued with the last of its strength yesterday, collapsed almost completely around noon!

[](https://abload.de/image.php?img=1498_2wwkkm.jpg)

Lieutenant Andrzej Chyczewski...



... whom we have already met twice, manages to escape with the remains of his unit into the Chojnowskie forests in the outskirts of the city ...:



Those of the wounded who cannot be dragged away by their comrades and fall into the hands of the Germans will die!

In Ochota only a few doomed fighters from the "Wawel Redoubt" unit are now fighting ...



... and it is only a matter of time before they fail.

In the Mokotów district, on the other hand, the SS units get bogged down and don't get a step further on that day!

The positions of the two sides remain unchanged.

In the evening, "Radio Błyskawica" brought a report from Moscow: The Prime Minister of the Polish (London) government in exile, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, flew there and personally asked the Soviets for help for the rebels in Warsaw ...:





The Soviets promise to Poland - literally! - "extensive air assistance"! Here we see AK fighters listening to the radio message ...:



Of course, the help doesn't come ...

Very harrowing, but also a reminder that if you want freedom, you have to be prepared to fight for it.
I think that the performance of the Polish home army in Warsaw was remarkable, given that most were amateurs,
but highly motivated and drawing courage from each other, they were no pushover.
As we know, freedom came...eventually, but it did and that’s all what matters in the end.