Murdered in the streets, in their own homes, hospital beds, churches. The inhabitants of any European city experienced such horrific cruelty as in Warsaw during the 1944 Uprising!
German leaders, headed by Hitler and Himmler, received the news of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising furiously. It was then that Himmler published to his subordinate units the famous, quoted in Agnieszka Cubała's book "Skazani na zagładę? August 15, 1944 ” , criminal order:
Every inhabitant must be killed (including women and children), no prisoners may be taken.
Meanwhile, in contrast, on August 2, the command of the Home Army forbade lynching German prisoners of war and Volksdeutches, leaving the question of possible penalties for crimes against Poles to the appropriate courts.
Initially, the Germans planned to withdraw all their units from Warsaw to the outskirts of the city and using all available planes, including even transport and communication ones, mass bombings to crush the resistance in Warsaw.
Polish civilians massacred by the Germans (source:public domain).
They quickly abandoned these intentions, as there was no possibility of withdrawing the troops, and the Luftwaffe operating in this part of the front was fighting with the Soviets. If the Germans had carried out their plan, it would have ended in a real hecatomb.
Insurgent Army Losses
On the basis of Himmler's directives, German commanders could kill whoever they liked, without any restrictions and in any way. Captured bandits, bandits - as they were called, were shot on the spot. The murders also took place after August 30, 1944, when the governments of Great Britain and the United States recognized the Home Army as an integral part of the Polish Armed Forces and granted its soldiers veteran rights.
On August 1, 1944, 32,000 insurgents fought against the Germans, of which about 18,000 fought in the front-line units. During the Uprising as a result of the influx of volunteers, the condition of the insurgent troops increased despite huge losses, it reached a maximum of around 45,000. Of these, about 10,000 insurgents died, 6,000 were reported missing, 20,000 were injured, including 6-7,000 seriously.
Massacre of the inhabitants of Wola and Ochota
Losses among the civilian inhabitants of the capital were not only the result of combat operations. They were also caused by mass murders and executions in which the age, sex or health of the victims did not matter to the Nazi executioners. The so-called slaughter of Wola is undoubtedly a symbol of the Germans' bestiality towards the inhabitants of Warsaw. The occupiers launched a general assault on this district in the morning of August 5.
There were Dante scenes in the streets then. People were dragged out of their homes and killed with bayonets. They were put in rows in front of machine gun barrels, pregnant women were cut open with bayonets, making them so-called "Caesarean sections", even small children were not spared. According to various estimates, up to 65,000 people could have died in Wola at that time.
Between August 4 and 25, 1944, in mass pogroms, carried out mainly by Kamiński's bandits, about 10,000 inhabitants of Ochota were murdered . The then resident of the district, Ryszard Lewandowski, reports on the dramatic events he witnessed on August 15:
In front of Zieleniak, from the side of ul. Wawelska, we were robbed by roners and driven to the entrance gate to Zieleniak. There, another group of roners ripped off women's fingers, gold rings and neck chains, earrings, and watches. Then they started to select 30 young men from our group, whom they led behind a fence made of concrete elements from the side of the care building. You could only see their caps flying in the air after the burst of the rifle. (quoted "Condemned to extermination? August 15, 1944")
Victims of the Wola Massacre (source:public domain).
Mordy in the Old Town
The extermination of civilians took place in virtually all Warsaw districts affected by the Uprising. A total of around 30,000 people died in the Old Town . In the churches of St. Jacek, St. Martin and the Sacraments of St. About 2,000 Warsaw residents died in Kazimierz. Another 7,000 people, many of them seriously injured, could have been eliminated with flamethrowers and bullets in insurgent hospitals in the Old Town. A similar situation occurred later in hospitals in Czerniaków.
Many people have died in the sewers as well. When the Germans discovered that the insurgents were using them to move, they blocked them by throwing grenades or coils of barbed wire into them, which caused hard-to-heal, sticky wounds in this hideous, smelly environment. Many people were trampled there, suffocated or lost their way in the maze of corridors.
City of Death
In August and September 1944, death took a heavy toll on the streets of Warsaw. People died everywhere:on barricades, in the ruins of tenement houses, in churches, hospitals, driven in front of German tanks as human shields ... They died from rifle bullets, Stukas bombs, tank shells, heavy artillery, and Nebelwerfer - multi-lead rocket launchers.
German rocket launcher in the Warsaw Uprising (author:GoShow, license:CC BY-SA 3.0).
Despite over 70 years since the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, it is still difficult to clearly define the number of victims. The losses among the civilian population, estimated at around 150,000 people, are particularly shocking. Among the insurgents, if you combine the number of killed and missing, it was around 16,000.
The losses on the Polish side also include the fallen from the ranks of the Polish People's Army, who lost up to 4,000 soldiers during the fights in Praga and Czerniaków. Together, taking into account those who still died from among those deported after the fall of the Uprising to concentration camps and for forced labor in the Reich, over 200,000 people could have died . For comparison, about 1,200 resistance fighters and civilians were killed during the uprising in Paris on August 19-25, 1944.
***
Few people realize that August 15, 1944, was the key day for the fate of the Warsaw Uprising. It was then - as in a lens - that all the threads of the Polish issue focused. This allowed the national authorities to find out, for the first time, the actual situation not only of the fighting capital, but also of Poland. After analyzing the events, the decision was made to persevere until the Red Army troops entered the city ... "Doomed to extinction? August 15, 1944. The dream of freedom and the dramatic realities ” (Bellona 2016).
Bibliography:
- Christopher Ailsby, Waffen - SS. Hell on the Eastern Front , Bellona S.A. Warsaw 2015.
- Agnieszka Cubała, Condemned to extermination? August 15, 194 4 , Bellona S.A. Warsaw 2016.
- Gregor Dallas, Poisoned room. 1945 - the war that did not end , Publisher Bukowy Las Sp. z o.o. Wrocław 2012.
- Norman Davies, Europe is fighting. 1939-1945 not that simple victory , Wydawnictwo Znak Kraków 2008.
- Norman Davies, Uprising 44 , Wydawnictwo Znak Kraków 2006.
- Marek Getter, Human and material losses in the Warsaw Uprising , Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance No. 8-9 / 2004.
- Christian Ingrao, Black Hunters. Dirlewanger Brigade , Czarne Publishing House 2011.
- Jerzy Kirchmayer, Warsaw Uprising , Book and Knowledge Warsaw 1959