Warsaw– help!

[Mr. Johnson--]

B and C.

Poles or Jewish Poles?

[Chupacabra]

Originally posted by Grisha:

One thing to remember(along with western Allied intervention in 1917) is that the Poles tried their hand at taking a bunch of Russian territory during the Russian Civil War. The Communists never forgot that.

And the Russians tried taking a bunch of Polish territory in 1921

[Chupacabra]

Originally posted by Grisha:

One thing to remember(along with western Allied intervention in 1917) is that the Poles tried their hand at taking a bunch of Russian territory during the Russian Civil War. The Communists never forgot that.

And the Russians tried taking a bunch of Polish territory in 1921

[Grisha]

Originally posted by Chupacabra:

And the Russians tried taking a bunch of Polish territory in 1921

Not exactly The Poles invaded in 1920, taking Kiev. The Bolsheviks responded, pushing them all the way back to Warsaw before it all ended in an armistice in October 1920.

[Grisha]

Originally posted by Chupacabra:

And the Russians tried taking a bunch of Polish territory in 1921

Not exactly The Poles invaded in 1920, taking Kiev. The Bolsheviks responded, pushing them all the way back to Warsaw before it all ended in an armistice in October 1920.

[Panzer_Meyer]

And the Russians took some more in 1939. I am also going with B, from what I've heard and read, it was most likly that Stalin did not want to help the polish uprisisng and gave the go ahead for the Germans to do instead.

I also agree though that the russian armies east of the vitsula were spent, they just traveled hundreds of miles, some from the pripet marshes, so they were in no possition to help with a major assault.

[Panzer_Meyer]

And the Russians took some more in 1939. I am also going with B, from what I've heard and read, it was most likly that Stalin did not want to help the polish uprisisng and gave the go ahead for the Germans to do instead.

I also agree though that the russian armies east of the vitsula were spent, they just traveled hundreds of miles, some from the pripet marshes, so they were in no possition to help with a major assault.

[WWB]

I think it had something to do with a combination of all the factors.

Politically, Stalin wanted to install a government of his choosing. Militarily, the Germans were exhausted but showing signs of life. And logistically, the spearheads were worn out and supply lines were overstretched. Any way you slice it, it made sense to order the halt on the Vistula.

WWB

[WWB]

I think it had something to do with a combination of all the factors.

Politically, Stalin wanted to install a government of his choosing. Militarily, the Germans were exhausted but showing signs of life. And logistically, the spearheads were worn out and supply lines were overstretched. Any way you slice it, it made sense to order the halt on the Vistula.

WWB

[Keith]

The notion that the Soviets deliberately stalled to allow the Germans to "liquidate" Jews is absolute baloney. The gheto populations were eliminated in 1943, long before the Russians showed up om the Vistula. The Russians may have been totalitarian, but they were miles above the Germans with their treatment of Jews. In fact, several high ranking general officers of the Soviet Army were Jews.

David Glantz comes down rather firmly on the assertion that the Bagration offensive simply ran out of steam.

[ February 12, 2002, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: Keith ]

[Keith]

The notion that the Soviets deliberately stalled to allow the Germans to "liquidate" Jews is absolute baloney. The gheto populations were eliminated in 1943, long before the Russians showed up om the Vistula. The Russians may have been totalitarian, but they were miles above the Germans with their treatment of Jews. In fact, several high ranking general officers of the Soviet Army were Jews.

David Glantz comes down rather firmly on the assertion that the Bagration offensive simply ran out of steam.

[ February 12, 2002, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: Keith ]

[Kingfish]

c) because Operation Bagration was spent and their supply lines were overextended;

The Russians were about to launch an end-game flag rush to take Warsaw, but the Germans had already loaded up Badco's endgame randomizer, so time ran out.

When the next game started the Russians found themselves all the way back to the Dneiper. Apparently the designer mistakenly left the no-man's land setting at 500 miles.

The Poles, now all alone, fought heroically, but soon the Germans rolled out a flak truck, causing global morale to drop below 15% and triggering an auto surrender.

[Kingfish]

c) because Operation Bagration was spent and their supply lines were overextended;

The Russians were about to launch an end-game flag rush to take Warsaw, but the Germans had already loaded up Badco's endgame randomizer, so time ran out.

When the next game started the Russians found themselves all the way back to the Dneiper. Apparently the designer mistakenly left the no-man's land setting at 500 miles.

The Poles, now all alone, fought heroically, but soon the Germans rolled out a flak truck, causing global morale to drop below 15% and triggering an auto surrender.

[Tanaka]

Grisha

I myself have read some books who portrait the history on a specific point of view of a certain side of the cold war… each sides enlarges the “facts” that convenes them most.

I go along with your view of the problem and I’m very pleased to see that at least some of us don’t go fully with the “short view” way…

Poland since early times has been in constant disputes with Russia (latter USSR), when ever this 2 go to “war”, there is a lot more into it then just what shows up on surface…

Poland has the “unlucky” factor of being in the middle of 2 powers… Russia and Germany, and after the Polish golden age, it had always to go into the influence of one of them… For instances, USSR after the 2nd WW and now Germany (economically speaking)

For those who don’t know, the Polish “colonized “ the “Kiev” area on the 1st half of the 2nd millennium, on a time that Russia was not even a country… that was just a start

All this business about Poland and Russia remembers me another one… The Finnish/Russian conflict, where people also tend to have a one-way view of it too…

Kingfish,

That is very good... I had a good about it

[ February 12, 2002, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Tanaka ]

[Tanaka]

Grisha

I myself have read some books who portrait the history on a specific point of view of a certain side of the cold war… each sides enlarges the “facts” that convenes them most.

I go along with your view of the problem and I’m very pleased to see that at least some of us don’t go fully with the “short view” way…

Poland since early times has been in constant disputes with Russia (latter USSR), when ever this 2 go to “war”, there is a lot more into it then just what shows up on surface…

Poland has the “unlucky” factor of being in the middle of 2 powers… Russia and Germany, and after the Polish golden age, it had always to go into the influence of one of them… For instances, USSR after the 2nd WW and now Germany (economically speaking)

For those who don’t know, the Polish “colonized “ the “Kiev” area on the 1st half of the 2nd millennium, on a time that Russia was not even a country… that was just a start

All this business about Poland and Russia remembers me another one… The Finnish/Russian conflict, where people also tend to have a one-way view of it too…

Kingfish,

That is very good... I had a good about it

[ February 12, 2002, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Tanaka ]

[Gen. Sosaboski]

"The Polish-Soviet War ended in a Polish victory, and Poland's eastern borders were settled by the peace treaty of Riga in 1921. Poland now extended considerably into its historical territories, the vast, sparsely populated plains."- "Polish Air Force 1939-1945" (Squadron/Signal Publications)

So, if the Russians pushed all the way to Warsaw, then how did the Poles expand their Eastern borders?

Seems like the treaty was signed in 1921, rather than 1920, as well.

Perhaps the real answer will never be known. Certainly, the ghetto populations were wiped out before the 1944 Uprising occurred, but I still believe Stalin harbored feelings against simply the Poles themselves.

[Gen. Sosaboski]

"The Polish-Soviet War ended in a Polish victory, and Poland's eastern borders were settled by the peace treaty of Riga in 1921. Poland now extended considerably into its historical territories, the vast, sparsely populated plains."- "Polish Air Force 1939-1945" (Squadron/Signal Publications)

So, if the Russians pushed all the way to Warsaw, then how did the Poles expand their Eastern borders?

Seems like the treaty was signed in 1921, rather than 1920, as well.

Perhaps the real answer will never be known. Certainly, the ghetto populations were wiped out before the 1944 Uprising occurred, but I still believe Stalin harbored feelings against simply the Poles themselves.

[Moon]

Hm, thinking long if I should post to this topic, being of Polish birth (although I don't live there anymore), but I'll risk it.

In school in Poland we were taught (this under the Iron Curtain still): "The Russians are our friends, they really really tried to help out in Warsaw, but it just didn't work out".

At the same time, it was commonly "known" (although never admitted in public): "Those %$§! Russians waited until the uprising was over so they had an easier job occupying Poland after the war."

Whichever is the truth (or if it lies in between as so often), is hard to say, especially from "sources", as the only sources you will find are books written by people with an opinion and there are very few if any first hand sources available to the public.

[Moon]

Hm, thinking long if I should post to this topic, being of Polish birth (although I don't live there anymore), but I'll risk it.

In school in Poland we were taught (this under the Iron Curtain still): "The Russians are our friends, they really really tried to help out in Warsaw, but it just didn't work out".

At the same time, it was commonly "known" (although never admitted in public): "Those %$§! Russians waited until the uprising was over so they had an easier job occupying Poland after the war."

Whichever is the truth (or if it lies in between as so often), is hard to say, especially from "sources", as the only sources you will find are books written by people with an opinion and there are very few if any first hand sources available to the public.

[Slapdragon]

Here is the reason why many Poles today think that the Russians screwedx the uprising.

Stalin condemned the uprising publicaly in an August radio address. He said, "I have familiarized myself with more closely with the Warsaw affair. I am convinced that the Warsaw action represents a reckless and terrible adventure, which is costing the population large sacrifices. ... In the situation that has arisen, the Soviet Command has come to the conclusion that it must dissociate itself from the Warsaw adventure as it cannot take any direct or indirect responsibility for the Warsaw action." This text was also transmitted to the Allies.

The Soviet Army refused the Free Polish and American flyers flying from Italy landing permission making them have to fly round trip to supply the Polish forces. This refusal would only be ended in Septemnber after it was too late to save the Warsaw insurgents.

Gen. Tadeusz "Bór" Komorowski requested that Polish Airborne forces be dropped by the Allies. Preperations for this were made in London, but Soviet forces refused to allow this operation for "logistic" reasons although the troop carrier command felt sure they could supply a division on the ground until it could make the connection with the Soviets.

These are the primary reasons why blame is placed on the Russians, because each act had nothing to do with the stopping of the Russians outside of Warsaw, which could well have been the forced halt of an expended offensive.

Borkiewicz, A. (1964). "Powstanie Warszawskie 1944". Warsaw Instytut Wydawniczy. I cannot find an English copy of this book, our library copy was read to me by a Ukrainian friend.

[Slapdragon]

Here is the reason why many Poles today think that the Russians screwedx the uprising.

Stalin condemned the uprising publicaly in an August radio address. He said, "I have familiarized myself with more closely with the Warsaw affair. I am convinced that the Warsaw action represents a reckless and terrible adventure, which is costing the population large sacrifices. ... In the situation that has arisen, the Soviet Command has come to the conclusion that it must dissociate itself from the Warsaw adventure as it cannot take any direct or indirect responsibility for the Warsaw action." This text was also transmitted to the Allies.

The Soviet Army refused the Free Polish and American flyers flying from Italy landing permission making them have to fly round trip to supply the Polish forces. This refusal would only be ended in Septemnber after it was too late to save the Warsaw insurgents.

Gen. Tadeusz "Bór" Komorowski requested that Polish Airborne forces be dropped by the Allies. Preperations for this were made in London, but Soviet forces refused to allow this operation for "logistic" reasons although the troop carrier command felt sure they could supply a division on the ground until it could make the connection with the Soviets.

These are the primary reasons why blame is placed on the Russians, because each act had nothing to do with the stopping of the Russians outside of Warsaw, which could well have been the forced halt of an expended offensive.

Borkiewicz, A. (1964). "Powstanie Warszawskie 1944". Warsaw Instytut Wydawniczy. I cannot find an English copy of this book, our library copy was read to me by a Ukrainian friend.

[Slapdragon]

Here are some things though to consider. There is no primary source evidence like military order or the like that say specifically the Russians were planning on screwing the Poles.

[Slapdragon]

Here are some things though to consider. There is no primary source evidence like military order or the like that say specifically the Russians were planning on screwing the Poles.

[Tiger]

There now occurs ones of the most tragic episodes of the whole Eastern campaign, the rising of the Warsaw Poles and their desperate, hopeless, two-and-a-half month-long battle in the city streets. The Warsaw uprising has a place in the purely military history of the campaign. But its great importance is political-both as an illustration of the plight of the Polish nation, that strange, gifted, and romantic people, doomed forever to be crushed between the callous monoliths of Germany and Russia-and as an incident of immense significance in the shaping of postwar Europe.

In its essence "the Polish problem" can be simply stated, for time has not altered it. The state of Poland is Western Europe's traditional buffer against Russia, but its security in this role is perpetually threatened by the greed and cruelty of the German landowners in Prussia and Pomerania. It has never been possible for the Poles to make a political deal with either of their neighbors, for each covets their territory and prefers to assimilate rather than to protect it. But in 1939 a disintrested protector appeared. The British Government guaranteed Polish integrity simply because its violation seemed to be the next step in the process of German expansion, and the British were ready to make it a casus belli. The Poles thus became the stake in a power game at which both players were determined to call their opponents bluff. For Hitler was eager "to blood the German nation," and believed that as the British were strategically incapable of implementing their gurantee they would accept a fait accompli; the British, even more fatalistic, thought that their guarantee would stop Hitler by itself-and if it didn't well that meant that they would have to fight him sometime, so why not then and "with honor"?

In the result the Poles fought with great gallantry to the end-which was itself accelerated by a Russian invasion of their eastern border under terms agreed between Molotov and Ribbentrop that August. By the end of 1939 the Polish state had once again been extinquished by the predatory giants on their borders, and the men of the Polish Army who had not died in b attle lanquished in prison camps. The Russians made some attempts to "indoctrinate" those they had captured, but the officers proved intractable and were moved to a camp in the Katyn forest, where, after a period, they were all shot. The Germans never even bothered to start POW compounds-the Poles were sent straight to concentration camps and liquidated. The same differences are perceptible in the governments of the two occupied halves of the country. The Russians made some efforrt to assimilate the inhabitants into a Communist society; the Germans set out, systematically, to exterminate the entire Polish population and to substitute German immigrants.

But the seed of Polish nationhood, bred for centuries under conditions such as these, has a Darwinian tenacity, and now, scattered by default on a chilly soil of wartime London, it began to flourish. London became the seat of the "Polish Government," the goal of emigres and escapees, the focus of all the energy and patriotism of this sad and gifted people. Gradually the tenuous strands of underground communication, which can operate under the most repressive alien regimes, were woven into a chain of command and intelligence which retained its strength right up until the tragic events of the autumn of 1944. The British provided arms and training, a seperate Polish Army was created; Polish flyers flew in special squadrons; most important of all, they returned to their own country by parachuhte, with arms, radios, and instructions from the "Government".

But of course, nobody is so susceptible to the corruption of doubt, the corrosive influence of personal jealousy and intrigue, as a government in exile. And as the war progressed, its difficulties grew no lighter, for with the metamorphosis of the Soviet Union, first as ally then, by 1944 the most powerful army in the coalition, and thereby the world, an enforced change in the policy of its host's poilcy threatened. By July 1944 the Red Army occupied all of eastern Poland, the very boundaries, to the metre almost, which they had seized in 1939. But why should they stop there? Indeed, there was notthe slightest likliehood that they would. The harsh impulses of strategic necessity and the disintegration of the Wehrmacht would combine, it seemed to the London Poles, to place their whole country under the domination of one of its two traditional enemies. It was a situation in which diplomacy was valueless, for diplomacy means pressure (however gracefully concealed), and there were no longer any pressures to which the Russians were susceptible . Their armies were all-powerful; they had drawn their fill of aid from the West-and in any case its delivery was an irreversible process, subject, like many other concessions the Soviet Union enjoyed since 1942, to a powerful current of popular emotion in the democracies. For Russian policy was now benefiting from a remarkable change of image, seditiously fostered by the Communist parties of the West and unwittingly promoted by the democracies own propaganda services. On an international level it was the counterpart of the new emphasis of patriotism over party loyalties whihc was inspiring citizens of the Soviet Union; class warfare and revolution were played down, and in their place were depicted fresh images: the brave Red Army man, personification of a country steadfast in battle; and that of "Uncle joe," pipe in mouth, the epitome of trustiness and negotiation.

In the diplomatic context the position of the London Poles was still further predjudiced by the emergence of the Untied States as the pre-eminent force in the Western coalition and the gradual shift of the centre of power (for purposes, at any rate, of political intrigue and lobbying) from London to Washington. For if the British leaders, in contrast to the man in the street, had preserved a certain cynicism in their assessment of the new Russian character, the reverse was true of the United States, where politicians (and many soldiers also) had fallen for the new Russian line. At Tehran, when the first discreet British approaches attempted to warn Roosevelt of the dangers of allowing too deep a Russian penetration in the Balkans, the President had confided to his son Elliot:

I see no reason for putting the lives of

American soldiers in jeopardy in order to

protect real or fancied British intrests

on the Continent.

Indeed, American poilcy(1) was already beginning the reorientation which was to come out in the open at Yalta the following year, whereby Russian "security" was backed against the aspirations of Britain and the lesser nations of Eastern Europe. Roosevelt was determined to get Russian co-operation in the war against Japan; he was determined, too, that Russia be persuaded to join a collective security organization (the United Nations), which, he believed, could "control" her. The effect was that what the United States wanted from Stalin was of greater value to her than what she was offering him-a state of affairs which the Russian dictator saw and exploited earlier than he might have done on account of Roosevelt's pathetic diplomatic gaffes.

In this situation the London Poles had to play their hand alone. A clear indication of the climate in which they were going to operate had come in 1943, when the Germans accidentally uncovered the grave of four thousand Polish officers at Katyn. Stalin had refused an independent inquiriy by the Red Cross and, after a prolonged and abusive diplomatic bombardment, had taken the oppotunity to "sever" relations. Matters had deteriorated steadily in the ensuing twelve months, with attempted Communist subversion in the ranks of the Polish forces in the West, coupled with a steady propaganda campaign (in which certain British publications were not blameless) to the effect that the London Poles were anti-Semitic- in the language of fellow travellers, a recognised halfway stage to being "Facist"-and "unrepresentative." Then on 24th July, 1944, the Russians, well across the Curzon Line and the 1939 frontier, had captured Lublin and installed there a "National Committee of Liberation"-an obvious nucleus for a puppet Communist administraion. If the London Poles were to assert themselves, time was running out.

Stalin's classic rejoinder to some fulsome Western diplomat who was holding forth about Catholic "good will" had been, "How many divisions has the Pope?" And the same question could be posed with almost as telling effect of the London Poles. Their divisions were as few, as scattered, and as powerless to intervene as had those of the British five years before, at the time of the German invasion. But they did have a widespread and well-organised underground, responsible to them and controlled by radio from London. This force-the "Home Army," or AK-was centered on the capital, Warsaw; but its authority was already being threatened as the hour, if not of liberation then of change in occupation, approached, by various splinter groups. There was the "People's Army," (AL) of independent left-wing sympathisers; the Communist-dominated PAL; and the Nationalist Armed Forces," (NSZ) an extreme right-wing force which had broken away from the AK at the first sign of impending compromise with the Russian power.

It had become urgently necessary for the AK to show its strength, so that the London Poles could at least assert some sorrt of armed presence in their own country-they were already getting reports of AK units which had co-operated with the advancing Russians were being disarmed and their officers taken away. This opportunity seemed to present itself in the last week in July, for as Rokossovski approached Warsaw the German administration began to close down, and many of its departments ceased to function. On 27th July the military government issued a proclamation calling up a hundred thousand civilians forthwith for work on fortifications, and still greater dislocation of the Home Army was threatened by a Russian broadcast on the 29th July, which spoke of the city's impending liberation and urged the "workers of the Resistance" to rise against the retreating invader. This last development led to great confusion, because although the Home Army, which compromised 80 percent of the armed resistance, took its orders from London, premature action by the AL and the PAL could well make it impossible for the AK to control its own members. On 1st August, therefore, Bor-Komorowski, the Polish Cavalry General who commanded for the AK, issued a proclamation, copies of which were scattered throughout the city.

Soldiers of the capital!

Today I have issued the orders so long

awaited by all of you, the orders for an

open fight against the German invader.

After nearly five years of necessary

underground struggle, today we are taking

up arms openly....

At first the timing looked perfect. It seemed as if the AK would be able to step into the vacuum caused by the German withdrawal and precede Rokossovski in declaring the liberation of the capital. The R.A.F. would then have flown in the London government, which would have been able to install itself in the administrative centre of its country with the prestige of military achievement and backed by a powerful local force. But in fact the Russian offensive had reached the end of its tether. At that very moment when Bor issued his call to arms, the Rusians' right wing in the Baltic states was being roughly handled by a counterattack from East Prussia and Courland which recaptured Tukums and Mitau (Jelgava), and which diverted reinforcement from the centre. The customary difficulties of supply and the exhaustion of men and machinery combined to dictate a halt on the Vistula. From the Russian's point of view, the Warsaw uprising could not have come at a better moment (and thuus as a political threat it could be discounted). For it did not have the strength to succeed without their help, yet it promised, while burning itself out, to distract German attention and to deny to their enemies the respite which the Russians themselves so badly needed(2).

All the same, the Poles very nearly brought it off. By 6th August they were in control of almost the whole toen, and had greatly enlarged their armament with captured German material. So confident were they of victory that he rival splinter groups were already exchanging fire with one another, and it was proposed to fly in the first representatives of the London administration on that Sunday. Then, on 8th August, came the first portent of their eventual fate, with the appearance of the sinister Gruppnfuhrer SS von dem Bach-Zelewski.

Bach had been selected for this task because of his special experience in anti-partisan operations, and because by naking the supression an SS affair it was intended to leave the Regular Army free to face the Russians. It is also clear that the SS wanted to have a completely free hand-free from observation, much less interference, by possibly "squeamish" elements. And for those who may have wondered what, at this late stage in the war and after so much horrific brutality, could possibly make anyone squeamish, the answer was not long in coming.

Bach-Zelewski deployed two formations gainst the AK, the Kaminski Brigade, consisting of turncoat Russian prisoners and general riffraff from Eastern Europe, and the Dirlewanger (3) SS brigade, made up of German convicts on probation. The impact of units such as these in street battles, always the bitterest kind of infantry fighting, and in an area where the whole civilian population was in situ, can be imagined. Prisoners were burned alive with gasoline; babies were impaled on bayonets and stuck out of windows like flags; women were hung upside down from balconies in rows. The object, Himmler had told Goebbels, was that the sheer violence and terror of the repression would extinquish the revolt "in a few days."

The SS had already mounted one "operation" in Warsaw, in the springof 1942. Then it had cleared the ghetto with grenades and flame throwers, and succeeded in killing about fifty thousand Polish Jews. The despatches of the commanding officer, together with illustrations, had been sumptumously bound and circulated privately among the higher Nazis, and the action was classified as an SS "battle honor." But in August 1944 the SS found the going very m uch harder. A considerable quantity of arms had been dropped by the R.A.F. in the spring of 1944, including piat guns, which could knock out tanks at close range and were useful for blowing holes in houses. The Poles were well disciplined and held their fire until the last moment. They were adept and industrious at making grenades, mines, and detonators. The fighting dragged on; days, weeks, passed. August became September. Four extra "police battalions" were brought in from the Reich to stiffen the wavering ranks of the Dirlewanger convicts in a strange alliance of traditional enemies untited by their taste for cruelty and violence.

With each day that still brought news from their transmitters in Warsaw, the London Poles became more frantic. For besides their anguish at watching and hearing the slow extinction of their gallant compatriots, there was the fading prospect of their carefully laid plans for asserting their own claims to the country. Yet once again, as in 1939, Britain was powerless to help. A few aircraft from Foggia could get through each night, but their cargo was limited to the barest essentials as the Russians refused tham refuelling facilities, and as the AK area gradually contracted it became increasingly difficult to drop with any accuracy. Approaches by the British in London and Moscow, urging that some effort be made by Rokossovski to relieve the pressure on the AK were acknowledged, but nothing was done. One of the Poles has described how from the tallest building, when the smoke had cleared, they could see German and Russian soldiers bathing on opposite sides of the Vistula in apparent amnity, or as if in tacit acceptance of a truce which was to last while Polish gallantry was extinguished.

But the tenacity of the Warsaw Poles did have one effect. It caught the imagination of the world, and it began to make a deep and uncomfortable impression on the Germans themselves. The first to act had been Guderian, who questioned Bach-Zelewski about the rumours he had heard when Bach approached him with a request for more heavy equipment with which to renew the assault. Bach admitted that as a result of "desperate street battles where each house had to captured, and where the defenders were fighting for their lives... [the SS brigades] had abandoned all moral standards," and tried to excuse himself by saying that he had "lost control" of them. However, Guderian's sense of chivalry shocked. He has written:

What I learned from [bach-Zelewski] was

so appalling that I felt myself bound to

inform Hitle about it that same evening

and to demand the removal of the two

brigades from the Eastern front.

As Hitler had all along been privy to Himmler's intention to terrorize the Poles into submission, this "demand" must have been most unwelcome, and it hardly surprising that "... to begin with he was not inclined to listen." However, SS Gruppenfuhrer Fegelein, who enjoyed a priveliged position at Hitler's court because (among other reasons)(4) he had married Eva Braun's sister Gretl, spoke up on Guderian's behalf. Fegelein's intention was primarily that of discrediting Himmler, for he was one of the Bormann-kaltenbrunner cabal, whose aim was to extend his own empire at the expense of the Reichsfuhrer; but he could also claim a certain ancien camaraderie with General Bor, as the two men had competed in horse trials before the war. He may also, like several other senior nazis at this time, have begun to look over his shoulder at the possibility of arraignment for "war crimes" by the victorious Allies. in the end Bach-Zelewski, never one to let the grrass grow under his feet, changed his "approach" to the Warsaw battle, removed the Kaminski brigade to the rear, and had Kaminski arrested and shot.

by now the Poles in the city were at their last gasp. Ammunition, food, water, medical supplies, all were withering away. The suffering of the civilian population was frightful, and the proximity of the soldier's families, which had at first been a source of desperate inspiration, now gave rise to a harrowing sense of grief and personal responsibility. On 16th September, Rokossovski had managed to penetrate the German positions at Praga, the suburb of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula. Judging that the AK had shot its bolt, Stalin had ordered his own force of indoctrinated Poles, under General Zymierski, to enter the battle and fight their way into Warsaw. But the germans had now enjoyed ample time to prepare their defences, and after a week the Russo-Polish effort died away, with the attackers having learned, as the Anglo-Saxons were learning that same time in Arnhem, that the last five or six miles can be critical when a beleaguered garrison has to be relived.

With the failure of the Zymierski attack, activity by the AL and the PAL stopped and its members tried to go back into hiding. Hopeless shortage of everything required either to fight or to sustain the population impelled Bor to try to negotiate terms with Bach. And it was at this point that the Poles drew first dividend on the incrediblr bravery with which they had fought.

...

The story of the Warsaw uprising illustrates many features of the later history of World War II. The alternating perfidy and impotence of the Western Allies; the alternating brutality and sail-trimming of the SS; the constancy of Soviet power and ambition. Above all, perhaps, it shows the quality of the people for whom nominally, and originally, the war had been fought and how the two dictatorships could still find common ground in the need to suppress them. Professor Trevor-Roper had said,

"It is sometimes supposed that hitler and Stalin are fundamentally opposite portents, the one a dictator of the extreme right, the other of the extreme left. This is not so. Both, in fact, though in different ways, aimed at similiar power, based on similiar classes and maintained by similiar methods. And if they fought and abused each other it was not as incompatible political antipodes but as closely matched competitors. They admired, studied, and envied each other's methods: their common hatred was directed against the liberal 19th century Western civilization which both openly wished to destroy."

No clearer illustration of this truth can be found than in their joint attitude to Poland from 1939 to 1944.

"Barbarossa The Russian-German Conflict 1941-1945" by Alan Clark, Chapter 20 "Eastern Europe Changes Hands".

[ February 12, 2002, 08:34 PM: Message edited by: Tiger ]

[Tiger]

There now occurs ones of the most tragic episodes of the whole Eastern campaign, the rising of the Warsaw Poles and their desperate, hopeless, two-and-a-half month-long battle in the city streets. The Warsaw uprising has a place in the purely military history of the campaign. But its great importance is political-both as an illustration of the plight of the Polish nation, that strange, gifted, and romantic people, doomed forever to be crushed between the callous monoliths of Germany and Russia-and as an incident of immense significance in the shaping of postwar Europe.

In its essence "the Polish problem" can be simply stated, for time has not altered it. The state of Poland is Western Europe's traditional buffer against Russia, but its security in this role is perpetually threatened by the greed and cruelty of the German landowners in Prussia and Pomerania. It has never been possible for the Poles to make a political deal with either of their neighbors, for each covets their territory and prefers to assimilate rather than to protect it. But in 1939 a disintrested protector appeared. The British Government guaranteed Polish integrity simply because its violation seemed to be the next step in the process of German expansion, and the British were ready to make it a casus belli. The Poles thus became the stake in a power game at which both players were determined to call their opponents bluff. For Hitler was eager "to blood the German nation," and believed that as the British were strategically incapable of implementing their gurantee they would accept a fait accompli; the British, even more fatalistic, thought that their guarantee would stop Hitler by itself-and if it didn't well that meant that they would have to fight him sometime, so why not then and "with honor"?

In the result the Poles fought with great gallantry to the end-which was itself accelerated by a Russian invasion of their eastern border under terms agreed between Molotov and Ribbentrop that August. By the end of 1939 the Polish state had once again been extinquished by the predatory giants on their borders, and the men of the Polish Army who had not died in b attle lanquished in prison camps. The Russians made some attempts to "indoctrinate" those they had captured, but the officers proved intractable and were moved to a camp in the Katyn forest, where, after a period, they were all shot. The Germans never even bothered to start POW compounds-the Poles were sent straight to concentration camps and liquidated. The same differences are perceptible in the governments of the two occupied halves of the country. The Russians made some efforrt to assimilate the inhabitants into a Communist society; the Germans set out, systematically, to exterminate the entire Polish population and to substitute German immigrants.

But the seed of Polish nationhood, bred for centuries under conditions such as these, has a Darwinian tenacity, and now, scattered by default on a chilly soil of wartime London, it began to flourish. London became the seat of the "Polish Government," the goal of emigres and escapees, the focus of all the energy and patriotism of this sad and gifted people. Gradually the tenuous strands of underground communication, which can operate under the most repressive alien regimes, were woven into a chain of command and intelligence which retained its strength right up until the tragic events of the autumn of 1944. The British provided arms and training, a seperate Polish Army was created; Polish flyers flew in special squadrons; most important of all, they returned to their own country by parachuhte, with arms, radios, and instructions from the "Government".

But of course, nobody is so susceptible to the corruption of doubt, the corrosive influence of personal jealousy and intrigue, as a government in exile. And as the war progressed, its difficulties grew no lighter, for with the metamorphosis of the Soviet Union, first as ally then, by 1944 the most powerful army in the coalition, and thereby the world, an enforced change in the policy of its host's poilcy threatened. By July 1944 the Red Army occupied all of eastern Poland, the very boundaries, to the metre almost, which they had seized in 1939. But why should they stop there? Indeed, there was notthe slightest likliehood that they would. The harsh impulses of strategic necessity and the disintegration of the Wehrmacht would combine, it seemed to the London Poles, to place their whole country under the domination of one of its two traditional enemies. It was a situation in which diplomacy was valueless, for diplomacy means pressure (however gracefully concealed), and there were no longer any pressures to which the Russians were susceptible . Their armies were all-powerful; they had drawn their fill of aid from the West-and in any case its delivery was an irreversible process, subject, like many other concessions the Soviet Union enjoyed since 1942, to a powerful current of popular emotion in the democracies. For Russian policy was now benefiting from a remarkable change of image, seditiously fostered by the Communist parties of the West and unwittingly promoted by the democracies own propaganda services. On an international level it was the counterpart of the new emphasis of patriotism over party loyalties whihc was inspiring citizens of the Soviet Union; class warfare and revolution were played down, and in their place were depicted fresh images: the brave Red Army man, personification of a country steadfast in battle; and that of "Uncle joe," pipe in mouth, the epitome of trustiness and negotiation.

In the diplomatic context the position of the London Poles was still further predjudiced by the emergence of the Untied States as the pre-eminent force in the Western coalition and the gradual shift of the centre of power (for purposes, at any rate, of political intrigue and lobbying) from London to Washington. For if the British leaders, in contrast to the man in the street, had preserved a certain cynicism in their assessment of the new Russian character, the reverse was true of the United States, where politicians (and many soldiers also) had fallen for the new Russian line. At Tehran, when the first discreet British approaches attempted to warn Roosevelt of the dangers of allowing too deep a Russian penetration in the Balkans, the President had confided to his son Elliot:

I see no reason for putting the lives of

American soldiers in jeopardy in order to

protect real or fancied British intrests

on the Continent.

Indeed, American poilcy(1) was already beginning the reorientation which was to come out in the open at Yalta the following year, whereby Russian "security" was backed against the aspirations of Britain and the lesser nations of Eastern Europe. Roosevelt was determined to get Russian co-operation in the war against Japan; he was determined, too, that Russia be persuaded to join a collective security organization (the United Nations), which, he believed, could "control" her. The effect was that what the United States wanted from Stalin was of greater value to her than what she was offering him-a state of affairs which the Russian dictator saw and exploited earlier than he might have done on account of Roosevelt's pathetic diplomatic gaffes.

In this situation the London Poles had to play their hand alone. A clear indication of the climate in which they were going to operate had come in 1943, when the Germans accidentally uncovered the grave of four thousand Polish officers at Katyn. Stalin had refused an independent inquiriy by the Red Cross and, after a prolonged and abusive diplomatic bombardment, had taken the oppotunity to "sever" relations. Matters had deteriorated steadily in the ensuing twelve months, with attempted Communist subversion in the ranks of the Polish forces in the West, coupled with a steady propaganda campaign (in which certain British publications were not blameless) to the effect that the London Poles were anti-Semitic- in the language of fellow travellers, a recognised halfway stage to being "Facist"-and "unrepresentative." Then on 24th July, 1944, the Russians, well across the Curzon Line and the 1939 frontier, had captured Lublin and installed there a "National Committee of Liberation"-an obvious nucleus for a puppet Communist administraion. If the London Poles were to assert themselves, time was running out.

Stalin's classic rejoinder to some fulsome Western diplomat who was holding forth about Catholic "good will" had been, "How many divisions has the Pope?" And the same question could be posed with almost as telling effect of the London Poles. Their divisions were as few, as scattered, and as powerless to intervene as had those of the British five years before, at the time of the German invasion. But they did have a widespread and well-organised underground, responsible to them and controlled by radio from London. This force-the "Home Army," or AK-was centered on the capital, Warsaw; but its authority was already being threatened as the hour, if not of liberation then of change in occupation, approached, by various splinter groups. There was the "People's Army," (AL) of independent left-wing sympathisers; the Communist-dominated PAL; and the Nationalist Armed Forces," (NSZ) an extreme right-wing force which had broken away from the AK at the first sign of impending compromise with the Russian power.

It had become urgently necessary for the AK to show its strength, so that the London Poles could at least assert some sorrt of armed presence in their own country-they were already getting reports of AK units which had co-operated with the advancing Russians were being disarmed and their officers taken away. This opportunity seemed to present itself in the last week in July, for as Rokossovski approached Warsaw the German administration began to close down, and many of its departments ceased to function. On 27th July the military government issued a proclamation calling up a hundred thousand civilians forthwith for work on fortifications, and still greater dislocation of the Home Army was threatened by a Russian broadcast on the 29th July, which spoke of the city's impending liberation and urged the "workers of the Resistance" to rise against the retreating invader. This last development led to great confusion, because although the Home Army, which compromised 80 percent of the armed resistance, took its orders from London, premature action by the AL and the PAL could well make it impossible for the AK to control its own members. On 1st August, therefore, Bor-Komorowski, the Polish Cavalry General who commanded for the AK, issued a proclamation, copies of which were scattered throughout the city.

Soldiers of the capital!

Today I have issued the orders so long

awaited by all of you, the orders for an

open fight against the German invader.

After nearly five years of necessary

underground struggle, today we are taking

up arms openly....

At first the timing looked perfect. It seemed as if the AK would be able to step into the vacuum caused by the German withdrawal and precede Rokossovski in declaring the liberation of the capital. The R.A.F. would then have flown in the London government, which would have been able to install itself in the administrative centre of its country with the prestige of military achievement and backed by a powerful local force. But in fact the Russian offensive had reached the end of its tether. At that very moment when Bor issued his call to arms, the Rusians' right wing in the Baltic states was being roughly handled by a counterattack from East Prussia and Courland which recaptured Tukums and Mitau (Jelgava), and which diverted reinforcement from the centre. The customary difficulties of supply and the exhaustion of men and machinery combined to dictate a halt on the Vistula. From the Russian's point of view, the Warsaw uprising could not have come at a better moment (and thuus as a political threat it could be discounted). For it did not have the strength to succeed without their help, yet it promised, while burning itself out, to distract German attention and to deny to their enemies the respite which the Russians themselves so badly needed(2).

All the same, the Poles very nearly brought it off. By 6th August they were in control of almost the whole toen, and had greatly enlarged their armament with captured German material. So confident were they of victory that he rival splinter groups were already exchanging fire with one another, and it was proposed to fly in the first representatives of the London administration on that Sunday. Then, on 8th August, came the first portent of their eventual fate, with the appearance of the sinister Gruppnfuhrer SS von dem Bach-Zelewski.

Bach had been selected for this task because of his special experience in anti-partisan operations, and because by naking the supression an SS affair it was intended to leave the Regular Army free to face the Russians. It is also clear that the SS wanted to have a completely free hand-free from observation, much less interference, by possibly "squeamish" elements. And for those who may have wondered what, at this late stage in the war and after so much horrific brutality, could possibly make anyone squeamish, the answer was not long in coming.

Bach-Zelewski deployed two formations gainst the AK, the Kaminski Brigade, consisting of turncoat Russian prisoners and general riffraff from Eastern Europe, and the Dirlewanger (3) SS brigade, made up of German convicts on probation. The impact of units such as these in street battles, always the bitterest kind of infantry fighting, and in an area where the whole civilian population was in situ, can be imagined. Prisoners were burned alive with gasoline; babies were impaled on bayonets and stuck out of windows like flags; women were hung upside down from balconies in rows. The object, Himmler had told Goebbels, was that the sheer violence and terror of the repression would extinquish the revolt "in a few days."

The SS had already mounted one "operation" in Warsaw, in the springof 1942. Then it had cleared the ghetto with grenades and flame throwers, and succeeded in killing about fifty thousand Polish Jews. The despatches of the commanding officer, together with illustrations, had been sumptumously bound and circulated privately among the higher Nazis, and the action was classified as an SS "battle honor." But in August 1944 the SS found the going very m uch harder. A considerable quantity of arms had been dropped by the R.A.F. in the spring of 1944, including piat guns, which could knock out tanks at close range and were useful for blowing holes in houses. The Poles were well disciplined and held their fire until the last moment. They were adept and industrious at making grenades, mines, and detonators. The fighting dragged on; days, weeks, passed. August became September. Four extra "police battalions" were brought in from the Reich to stiffen the wavering ranks of the Dirlewanger convicts in a strange alliance of traditional enemies untited by their taste for cruelty and violence.

With each day that still brought news from their transmitters in Warsaw, the London Poles became more frantic. For besides their anguish at watching and hearing the slow extinction of their gallant compatriots, there was the fading prospect of their carefully laid plans for asserting their own claims to the country. Yet once again, as in 1939, Britain was powerless to help. A few aircraft from Foggia could get through each night, but their cargo was limited to the barest essentials as the Russians refused tham refuelling facilities, and as the AK area gradually contracted it became increasingly difficult to drop with any accuracy. Approaches by the British in London and Moscow, urging that some effort be made by Rokossovski to relieve the pressure on the AK were acknowledged, but nothing was done. One of the Poles has described how from the tallest building, when the smoke had cleared, they could see German and Russian soldiers bathing on opposite sides of the Vistula in apparent amnity, or as if in tacit acceptance of a truce which was to last while Polish gallantry was extinguished.

But the tenacity of the Warsaw Poles did have one effect. It caught the imagination of the world, and it began to make a deep and uncomfortable impression on the Germans themselves. The first to act had been Guderian, who questioned Bach-Zelewski about the rumours he had heard when Bach approached him with a request for more heavy equipment with which to renew the assault. Bach admitted that as a result of "desperate street battles where each house had to captured, and where the defenders were fighting for their lives... [the SS brigades] had abandoned all moral standards," and tried to excuse himself by saying that he had "lost control" of them. However, Guderian's sense of chivalry shocked. He has written:

What I learned from [bach-Zelewski] was

so appalling that I felt myself bound to

inform Hitle about it that same evening

and to demand the removal of the two

brigades from the Eastern front.

As Hitler had all along been privy to Himmler's intention to terrorize the Poles into submission, this "demand" must have been most unwelcome, and it hardly surprising that "... to begin with he was not inclined to listen." However, SS Gruppenfuhrer Fegelein, who enjoyed a priveliged position at Hitler's court because (among other reasons)(4) he had married Eva Braun's sister Gretl, spoke up on Guderian's behalf. Fegelein's intention was primarily that of discrediting Himmler, for he was one of the Bormann-kaltenbrunner cabal, whose aim was to extend his own empire at the expense of the Reichsfuhrer; but he could also claim a certain ancien camaraderie with General Bor, as the two men had competed in horse trials before the war. He may also, like several other senior nazis at this time, have begun to look over his shoulder at the possibility of arraignment for "war crimes" by the victorious Allies. in the end Bach-Zelewski, never one to let the grrass grow under his feet, changed his "approach" to the Warsaw battle, removed the Kaminski brigade to the rear, and had Kaminski arrested and shot.

by now the Poles in the city were at their last gasp. Ammunition, food, water, medical supplies, all were withering away. The suffering of the civilian population was frightful, and the proximity of the soldier's families, which had at first been a source of desperate inspiration, now gave rise to a harrowing sense of grief and personal responsibility. On 16th September, Rokossovski had managed to penetrate the German positions at Praga, the suburb of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula. Judging that the AK had shot its bolt, Stalin had ordered his own force of indoctrinated Poles, under General Zymierski, to enter the battle and fight their way into Warsaw. But the germans had now enjoyed ample time to prepare their defences, and after a week the Russo-Polish effort died away, with the attackers having learned, as the Anglo-Saxons were learning that same time in Arnhem, that the last five or six miles can be critical when a beleaguered garrison has to be relived.

With the failure of the Zymierski attack, activity by the AL and the PAL stopped and its members tried to go back into hiding. Hopeless shortage of everything required either to fight or to sustain the population impelled Bor to try to negotiate terms with Bach. And it was at this point that the Poles drew first dividend on the incrediblr bravery with which they had fought.

...

The story of the Warsaw uprising illustrates many features of the later history of World War II. The alternating perfidy and impotence of the Western Allies; the alternating brutality and sail-trimming of the SS; the constancy of Soviet power and ambition. Above all, perhaps, it shows the quality of the people for whom nominally, and originally, the war had been fought and how the two dictatorships could still find common ground in the need to suppress them. Professor Trevor-Roper had said,

"It is sometimes supposed that hitler and Stalin are fundamentally opposite portents, the one a dictator of the extreme right, the other of the extreme left. This is not so. Both, in fact, though in different ways, aimed at similiar power, based on similiar classes and maintained by similiar methods. And if they fought and abused each other it was not as incompatible political antipodes but as closely matched competitors. They admired, studied, and envied each other's methods: their common hatred was directed against the liberal 19th century Western civilization which both openly wished to destroy."

No clearer illustration of this truth can be found than in their joint attitude to Poland from 1939 to 1944.

"Barbarossa The Russian-German Conflict 1941-1945" by Alan Clark, Chapter 20 "Eastern Europe Changes Hands".

[ February 12, 2002, 08:34 PM: Message edited by: Tiger ]