On August 1, 1944, the uprising broke out in Warsaw against the German occupiers. Initially the uprising, organized by the largest Polish resistance organization AK, prevailed in most of the west of the Vistula part of the city.
On 3 August Himmler assigned SS General von dem Bach Chelewski to suppress the uprising with orders to exterminate the Poles. For this purpose he also allocated to him two of the SS criminal units, the "Police Battalions" with Azeri and Turkomans, the Dirlewanger Brigade and the Kaminski Brigade.
Himmler ordered the razing of Warsaw and the systematic extermination of the population of the historic city. On the 5th of August the German forces and men followed orders and were also given permission to steal, pillage, seize.
The Germans attacked with two battle groups, Rohr's and Reinefarth's. But they were repulsed by the heroically fighting Poles. Unable to subdue the armed Poles the Germans turned against the civilians and entering from home to home they grabbed, raped and killed anyone they found in front of them, mainly old people and children.
Reinefarth admitted that on August 5 alone, over 10,000 Polish civilians were massacred in the suburb of Wola. "Over 15,000 Polish civilians were murdered by the Germans (on August 5). Chelevsky ordered the execution of women and children to stop but the murders continued...and neither the Cossacks nor the criminals of Kaminsky and Dirlewanger paid attention to the order.
"With rape, murder, torture and fire, they advanced to the suburbs of Vola and Okota, slaughtering another 30,000 civilians in three days," reports a British historian. Actually, Chelevski's order to stop the massacres was issued on August 5 and began to be implemented, gradually, from August 7.
With a fierce battle, the Polish fighters, with the support of two captured German Panther tanks, managed to open a corridor connecting Wola with the Old Town of Warsaw so that the citizens could retreat as safely as possible. However, the Germans were humiliated even more every idea of law of war using Polish civilians as human shields to approach the positions of armed Poles.
Thanks to this "tactic" the Germans advanced and "cut" Vola in two. The Germans set fire to two hospitals with many patients inside. Doctors and nursing staff were also massacred. The nurses were horribly rushed in every way a sick brain could devise. Then naked, dismembered, but still alive, they were hanged.
The biggest massacres were committed in the suburban tram depot and in two factories where thousands of civilians had taken refuge (Ursus factory, Franaszka factory). Having exterminated at least 50,000 civilians the Germans now began the operation to cover up the crime.
Between August 8-23, the "Burning Squads" made up of prisoners and slave laborers got to work and undertook the cremation of the corpses , but also of the familiar ones. The vast majority of the men of these detachments were murdered after the completion of their macabre task. It wasn't until August 12 that Chelevski issued a new order to stop the massacres.
But the killers did not pay. Not a single German of the Warsaw massacres paid for their crimes. Dirlewanger and Kaminski had the end they deserved. Chelewski and Reinefart were not even prosecuted. The latter was even elected mayor in West Germany.