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The Warsaw Uprising (Powstanie Warszawskie) was a World War II struggle by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. The Uprising began on 1 August 1944, as part of a nationwide rebellion, Operation Tempest. It was intended to last for only a few days until the Soviet Army would reach the city. The Soviet advance stopped short, however, while Polish resistance against the German forces continued for 63 days (until 2 October).

The Uprising began at a crucial juncture as the Soviet Army was approaching Warsaw. The Uprising's chief objective was to drive the German occupiers from the city, helping with the larger fight against the Axis. Secondary political objectives were to liberate Warsaw before the Red Army arrived, so as to underscore Polish sovereignty, and to undo the Allied division of Central Europe into spheres of influence. Polish authorities were to reappear in liberated Warsaw and challenge the Soviet puppet government that was to rule Poland.

By 16 September 1944, Soviet forces had reached a point a few hundred metres from the city, across the Vistula River, but they made no further headway during the Uprising, leading to allegations that Joseph Stalin had wanted the insurrection to fail.

Although the exact number of Polish losses remains unknown to this day, it can be assessed that the Uprising resulted in about 16,000 soldiers killed and about 6,000 heavily wounded,³ in addition to between 120,000 and 200,000 civilian deaths, mostly from mass murders conducted by retreating German troops. German casualties totalled over 17,000 soldiers killed and over 9,000 wounded. During the urban combat approximately 42% of Warsaw's buildings were destroyed.^{citation needed} Following the surrender of Polish forces on 2 October, German troops systematically burned the city block by block. Together with earlier damage suffered in 1939 and during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), over 85% of the city had been destroyed. By January 1945, when the Soviets finally entered the city, Warsaw had practically ceased to exist.

Eve of battle

The Warsaw Uprising, or at least some form of insurrection in Poland, had been planned long in advance.⁵ From its inception, the Home Army was planning a national uprising against the German forces. Initial plans created by the Polish government-in-exile in 1942 assumed that the Allied invasion of Europe would lead to the withdrawal of considerable German forces from the Eastern Front for the defence of the Third Reich. The Home Army would act to prevent troop transfer to the west and to allow the British and American forces to seize Germany by breaking all communication links with the majority of the German forces massed in the Soviet Union.

Polish flag with "anchor" device.

The Home Army's initial plans for a national uprising, Operation Tempest, which would link up with Western Allies forces, changed in 1943 when the situation on the Eastern Front made it apparent that the Red Army, rather than the Western Allies, would force the Germans from Poland. By 1943 it was clear that the allied invasion of Europe would not come in time, and that in all probability the Red Army would reach the pre-war borders of Poland before the invasion could make notable headway. In February 1943, General Stefan Rowecki amended the plan. The Uprising was to be started in three phases, the first being in the East (with main centres of resistance in Lwów and Wilno), before the advancing Red Army. The second part was to include armed struggle in the belt between the Curzon Line and the Vistula river, while the third phase was to be a nationwide uprising throughout Poland. Warsaw was chosen, partially, because of its status as a pre-war capital and partly because it was assumed that the Germans would wish to hold onto the city for as long as possible, as a tool for morale boosting,^{citation needed} and as a base for communications, supply, and troop movements.^{citation needed}

The Polish government-in-exile carried out frantic diplomatic efforts to gain support from their allies prior to the start of battle. However the Allies' support for the Polish resistance was not high on the priority list.^{citation needed} The Polish government in London asked the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Foreign Office several times for an allied mission to be sent to Poland;⁶ since such missions had already been dispatched to all other resistance movements in Europe, such as Albania, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Yugoslavia. However, the Polish pleas were not heeded until December 1944.

Rowecki, early 1930s

For the Soviets, this represented more of a hindrance than a help. Polish-Soviet relations were broken off on 25 April 1943, as a result of the Katyn massacre, and Soviet partisans often clashed with Polish partisans.⁶ It became obvious that the advancing Red Army might not come to Poland as a liberator but rather, as General Stefan Grot-Rowecki put it, as "our Allies' ally."^{citation needed} On 26 November 1943, the Polish government-in-exile issued an instruction to the effect that if diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union were not resumed before the Soviet entry into Poland, Home Army forces were to remain underground pending further decisions. However, the Home Army commander took a different approach, and on 30 November 1943, the final version of the plan, which became known as Operation Tempest, was devised. Although doubts existed about the military wisdom of a major uprising, planning continued nonetheless.

The situation came to a head on 13 July as Operation Bagration, the Soviet offensive, crossed the old Polish border. At this point the Poles had to make a decision: either initiate the uprising in the current difficult political situation and risk problems with Soviet support, or fail to rebel and face Soviet propaganda describing Armia Krajowa as Nazi collaborators. The plan was intended both as a political manifestation of the influence of Polish Government in Exile and as a direct operation against German occupiers.² The fear was that in the aftermath of the war the Allies would ignore the legal London-based government. It was clear both that Poland would be 'liberated' by the Red Army, and that the Soviet Union did not recognise the Government-in-Exile. The urgency for this decision increased as it became clear that after any successful Polish-Soviet co-operation in the liberation of various towns (for example, in the Operation Ostra Brama), the Soviet NKVD units who followed behind would either shoot or arrest most Polish officers and those Polish soldiers who could not or would not join the Soviet controlled forces.⁶ Following a flood of reports from the eastern territories about forced demilitarisation, trials and execution of Home Army soldiers by the Soviets, on 21 July 1944 the High Command of the Home Army decided to expand the scope of Operation Tempest to include Warsaw itself.^{citation needed} The date for the Warsaw Uprising was set as 1 August. On 25 July the Polish government in exile in London approved the planned uprising in Warsaw.

In the early summer of 1944, German planning required Warsaw to serve as the defensive centre of the area and to be held at all costs. The Germans had fortifications constructed and built up their forces in the area. This process slowed after the failed July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but by late July 1944, German forces had almost reached their full strength again.^{citation needed} On 27 July, the Governor of the Warsaw District, Ludwig Fischer, called for 100,000 Polish men between the ages of 17–65 to present themselves at several designated meeting places in Warsaw the following day as part of the plan which envisaged the Poles constructing fortifications for the Wehrmacht in the city. The Home Army viewed this move as an attempt to neutralise the underground forces, and the underground urged Warsaw inhabitants to ignore it. Fearing German reprisals following the ignored order, and believing that time was of the essence, Col. Antoni Chruściel "Monter" ordered full mobilisation of Home Army forces.

As the Soviet forces approached Warsaw in June and July 1944, Soviet radio stations demanded a full national uprising in Warsaw to cut the communication lines of German units still on the right bank of the Vistula; just two days prior to the uprising, Soviet-controlled radio Kosciuszko had called for the Polish people to rise in arms.² On 29 July, the first Soviet armoured units reached the outskirts of Warsaw, but were counter-attacked by German 39th Panzer Corps, comprising 4th Panzer Division, 5th SS Panzer Division, 19th Panzer Division, and the Hermann Goering Panzer Division.⁷⁸ By 10 August, in the ensuing battle of Radzymin, the Germans had enveloped and inflicted heavy casualties on the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps at Wołomin, 15 kilometres outside Warsaw.⁷⁸

Opposing forces

Batalion Zośka soldiers in Wola during the Uprising. Only Juliusz Bogdan Deczkowski (centre) survived

Polish insurgent, wearing armband in national colours, at a barricade during the Uprising. He is using the Polish submachine gun Błyskawica.

Locations of barricades marked on a prewar map of Warsaw.

Statue of Mały Powstaniec (The Little Insurgent), just outside Warsaw's medieval city walls, commemorates the child soldiers that fought in the Warsaw Uprising. The boy wears a captured German helmet with Polish national colours. Honour guard of Polish Boy Scouts.

Poles

The Home Army forces of the Warsaw District numbered about 45,000 soldiers; about 2,000 further soldiers came from the ranks of other formations like the far-right Narodowe Siły Zbrojne and the communist Armia Ludowa.¹ Most of them had trained for several years in partisan and urban guerrilla warfare, but lacked experience in prolonged daylight fighting. The forces lacked equipment,¹ especially since the Home Army had shuttled weapons to the east of the country before the decision to include Warsaw in Operation Tempest. A number of other partisan groups also subordinated themselves to Home Army command for the uprising. Many volunteers, including some Jews freed from the concentration camp Gęsiówka in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, joined during the fighting.⁹

Colonel Antoni Chruściel, codename 'Monter', commanded the Polish forces in Warsaw. Initially he divided his forces into eight areas:

On 20 September, a re-organisation of this structure took place to align with the structure of Polish forces fighting with the Western Allies. The entire force, renamed the Warsaw Home Army Corps (Warszawski Korpus Armii Krajowej) and commanded by General Antoni Chruściel—promoted from Colonel on September 14—formed into three infantry divisions.

Germans

In late July the German units stationed in and around Warsaw were divided into three categories. The first and the most numerous was the garrison of Warsaw. As of 31 July 1944, it numbered some 11,000 troops under General Rainer Stahel.¹⁰ These forces included:

These well-equipped German forces had been prepared for the defence of the city's key positions for many months. Several hundred concrete bunkers and barbed wire lines protected the buildings and areas occupied by the Germans.

Apart from the garrison itself, there were numerous army units stationed on both banks of the Vistula or moving through the city in both directions.

The second category was formed by police and SS under Col. Paul Otto Geibel, numbering initially 5,710 men.¹¹ These included three Schutzpolizei battalions (1,000 men) and two Sauferkaserne SS battalions (1,000 men), as well as reserve companies (300 men), an SA battalion (400 men), military police, Ordnungspolizei, Sicherheitspolizei, training units and many smaller units up to 400 men strong.^{citation needed}

The third category was formed by various sentry and guard units, altogether some 3,500 men strong.^{citation needed} Among them were detachments of the Bahnschutz (rail guard), Werkschutz (factory guard) and a transport protection battalion. In the course of the uprising the German side received reinforcements on a daily basis. As of 23 August 1944, the German units directly involved with fighting in Warsaw included:

The Uprising

Henryk Ożarek "Henio" (left) and Tadeusz Przybyszewski "Roma" (right) from "Anna" Company of "Gustaw" Battalion in the region of Kredytowa-Królewska Street. "Henio" holds a Vis pistol and "Roma" shoots from a Błyskawica submachine gun.

W-hour

After days of hesitation, at 17:30 on July 31st, the Polish headquarters scheduled "W-hour" (from the Polish wybuch, "outbreak"), the moment of the start of the uprising, for 17:00 on the following day.¹² The decision proved to be a costly strategic mistake as the under-equipped Polish forces were prepared for a series of coordinated surprise night attacks and the daylight exposed them to German machine gun fire. Although a large number of the partisan units were already mobilized and waiting at assembly points throughout the city, the mobilization of thousands of young men and women was hard to conceal and fighting started in advance of "W-hour",¹² notably in the boroughs of Żoliborz, Mokotów and Czerniaków, around Napoleon Square, in the vicinity of the Hale Mirowskie and Plac Kercelego marketplaces, and at Okopowa street.

Until the approaching "W-hour" these incidents were not generally perceived as part of a larger plan. However, at around 16:00, SS-Standartenfuhrer Paul Otto Geibel, chief of police and SS in the Warsaw District, alerted the units under his command in case of further fighting. This drastically reduced the element of surprise for the insurgents but while the Germans had been considering the possibility of an uprising, they had no operational plans to meet such an occurrence.

Under these circumstances the coordinated attacks on the German outposts and garrisons were largely successful.^{citation needed} The first two days were crucial in establishing the battlefield for the rest of the fight. Most successes were achieved in the city centre (Śródmieście) and the old town (Stare Miasto) and the nearby boroughs of Wola, where most objectives were captured, although several major German strongholds remained, and in some areas of Wola Poles sustained heavy losses that forced them to retreat early on. In other areas such as Mokotów the attackers almost completely failed to secure any of their objectives and controlled only the residential areas. In Praga, on the eastern bank of the Vistula river, the concentration of German forces was so high that the Poles fighting there were quickly forced back into hiding.¹³ Most crucially, the fighters in different areas failed to link up, either with each other or with areas outside Warsaw, leaving each section of the city isolated from the others.

After the first hours of fighting many units adopted a more defensive strategy while the civilian population started erecting barricades throughout the city. Despite all the problems, by 4 August most of the city lay in Polish hands.

First four days

Poles erected barricades, such as this one on Napoleon Square, throughout Warsaw, making it difficult for German infantry and tanks to operate. In background: captured Hetzer tank destroyer.

Kubuś the Polish WWII armored car, made by the Home Army during the Uprising. A single copy was built by insurgents from "Krybar" Group, on the chassis of a Chevrolet 157 van. It took part in the attack on Warsaw University.

The uprising was intended to last a few days until Soviet forces arrived;¹⁴ however, this never happened, and the Polish forces had to fight with little outside assistance. The results of the first two days of fighting in different parts of the city were as follows:

An additional area within the Polish command structure was formed by the units of the Kedyw (Directorate of Sabotage and Diversion), an elite formation that was to guard the headquarters and was to be used as an armed ambulance, thrown into the battle in the most endangered areas. These units secured parts of Śródmieście and Wola; along with the units of Area I, they were the most successful during the first few hours.

Among the most notable primary targets that were not taken during the opening stages of the uprising were the airfields of Okęcie and Pole Mokotowskie, as well as the PAST sky-scraper overlooking the city centre and the Warszawa Gdańska guarding the passage between the centre and the northern borough of Żoliborz.

Postwar mass graves of civilians killed in the Wola massacre

Wola massacre

The Uprising reached its apogee on 4 August when the Home Army soldiers managed to establish front lines in the westernmost boroughs of Wola and Ochota. However, the moment of greatest gains was also the moment at which the German army stopped its retreat westwards and began receiving reinforcements. On the same day SS General Erich von dem Bach was appointed commander of all the forces employed against the Uprising,¹² and began to counter-attack with the aim of linking up with the remaining German pockets and then cutting off the Uprising from the Vistula river. Among the units to arrive at the city at that time were forces of Oskar Dirlewanger,¹² Willy Schmidt and Heinz Reinefarth.¹²

On 5 August the three German groups started their advance westward along Wolska and Górczewska streets toward the main East-West communication line of Aleje Jerozolimskie Avenue. Their advance was halted, but the Reinefarth and Dirlewanger regiments began carrying out Heinrich Himmler's orders: behind the lines, special SS, police and Wehrmacht groups went from house to house, shooting the inhabitants and burning their bodies.¹² By 8 August, some 40,000 civilians had been killed in Wola alone,¹⁵ though some estimates cite numbers as high as 100,000.¹⁶

The aim of this policy was to crush the will to fight and put the uprising to an end without having to commit to heavy city fighting.¹⁷ Until mid-September, the Germans shot all captured insurgents on the spot. The main perpetrators were Oskar Dirlewanger and Bronislav Kaminski, who committed the cruelest atrocities.^{citation needed} After von dem Bach arrived in Warsaw (7 August), it became clear that atrocities only stiffened the resistance and that some political solution should be found, considering the small forces at the disposal of the German commander. The aim was to gain a significant victory to show the Home Army the futility of further fighting and induce them to surrender. This did not succeed, but from the end of September, some of the captured Polish soldiers were treated as POWs.^{citation needed}

Stalemate

Batalion Kiliński soldier aiming his rifle at the German-occupied PAST building, 20 August 1944

Despite the loss of Wola, the Polish resistance stiffened. Zośka and Wacek battalions managed to capture the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto and liberate the Gęsiówka concentration camp, freeing about 350 Jews.¹² The area became one of the main communication links between the insurgents fighting in Wola and those defending the Old Town. On 7 August German forces were strengthened by the arrival of tanks with civilians being used as human shields.¹² After two days of heavy fighting they managed to bisect Wola and reach the Bankowy Square. However, by then the net of barricades, street fortifications and tank obstacles was already well-prepared and both sides reached a stalemate, with heavy house-to-house fighting.

Between 9 August and 18 August pitched battles raged around the Old Town and nearby Bankowy Square, with successful attacks by the Germans and counter-attacks from the Poles. Once again, the Germans used their infamous tactics: viciously targeted clearly marked hospitals (reminiscent of Luftwaffe attacks against hospitals in September, 1939). German tactics hinged on bombardment through the use of heavy artillery (including the Schwerer Gustav super-heavy mortar)^{citation needed} and tactical bombers, against which the Poles were unable to effectively defend, as they lacked anti-aircraft artillery weapons.

Although the Battle of Stalingrad had already shown the danger which a city can pose to armies which fight within it and the importance of local support, the Warsaw Uprising was probably the first demonstration that in an urban terrain, a vastly under-equipped force supported by the civilian population can hold its own against better-equipped professional soldiers— though at the cost of considerable sacrifices on the part of the city's residents.

Polish-controlled area after the fall of the Old Town, around September 10th

Siege

The sewer system (map) was used to move insurgent forces, unseen, between the Old Town and the Downtown (Śródmieście) and Żoliborz districts.

The Old Town was held until the end of August when diminished supplies made further defence impossible.^{citation needed} On 2 September¹² the defenders of the Old Town withdrew through the sewers, which at this time were becoming a major means of communication between different parts of the Uprising.¹² More than 5,300 men and women were evacuated in this way.^{citation needed}

The Soviet army captured Eastern Warsaw and arrived on the eastern bank of the Vistula in mid-September. Soviet attacks on 4th SS Panzer Corps east of Warsaw were renewed on 26 August, and forced the Germans to retreat into Praga, and then across the Vistula. The Soviet army included the 1st Polish Army (1 Armia Wojska Polskiego), and some of them landed in the Czerniaków and Powiśle areas and made contacts with Home Army forces. Their initiative was however not supported by the Soviet High Command. With inadequate artillery, air support, and numbers, the landing troops sustained heavy losses and were forced to retreat^{citation needed} After the failure of repeated attempts by the 1st Polish Army to link up with the insurgents, the Soviets limited their assistance to sporadic artillery and air support. Plans for a river crossing were suspended "for at least 4 months", since operations against the five panzer divisions on 9th Army's order of battle were problematic at that point, and the commander of the 1st Polish Army, General Zygmunt Berling, who ordered the crossing of the Vistula by his units, was relieved of his duties by his Soviet superiors.⁶

From this point on, the Warsaw Uprising can be seen as a one-sided war of attrition or, alternatively, as a fight for acceptable terms of surrender. Fighting ended on 2 October when the Polish forces were finally forced to capitulate.

Life behind the lines

Young soldiers from Batalion Miotła (Battalion Broom) on evening 2 IX 1944. In helmet Tadeusz Rajszczak "Maszynka" - "Machine".

1 September 1944 hour "W" (17:00). Patrol of lieutenant "Agaton" from Batalion "Fist".

In 1939 Warsaw had roughly 1,350,000 inhabitants. Over a million were still living in the city at the start of the Uprising. In Polish-controlled territory, during the first weeks of the Uprising, people tried to recreate the normal day-to-day life of their free country. Cultural life was vibrant, both among the soldiers and civilian population, with theatres, post offices, newspapers and similar activities.¹⁹ Boys and girls of the Polish Scouts acted as couriers for an underground postal service, risking their lives daily to transmit any information that might help their people.²⁰¹² Near the end of the Uprising, lack of food, medicine, overcrowding and indiscriminate German air and artillery assault on the city made the civilian situation more and more desperate.

Food shortages

As the Uprising was supposed to be relieved by the Soviets in a matter of days, the Polish underground did not predict food shortages would be a problem. However, as the fighting dragged on, the inhabitants of the city faced hunger and starvation. Soon horses, dogs and cats disappeared from the city's streets.^{citation needed} The situation was improved by the Home Army units who captured several German army depots and started distribution of food through the net of public eateries.^{citation needed} A major break-through took place on 6 August, when the Polish units recaptured the Haberbusch i Schiele brewery complex at Ceglana Street. From that time on the Varsovians lived mostly on barley from the brewery's warehouses. Every day up to several thousand people organized into cargo teams reported to the brewery for bags of barley and then distributed them in the city centre. The barley was then ground in coffee grinders and boiled with water to form a so-called spit-soup (Polish: pluj-zupa). The "Sowiński" Battalion managed to hold the brewery until the end of the fighting.

Another serious problem for civilians and soldiers alike was a shortage of water.¹² By mid-August most of the water conduits were either out of order or filled with corpses. In addition, the main water pumping station remained in German hands.¹² To prevent the spread of epidemics and provide the people with water, the authorities ordered all janitors to supervise the construction of water wells in the backyards of every house. On 21 September the Germans blew up the remaining pumping stations at Koszykowa street and after that the public wells were the only source of potable water in the besieged city.²¹ By the end of September, the City Centre district had more than 90 functioning wells.¹²

Polish media

Before the Uprising the Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Home Army had set up a group of war correspondents. Headed by Antoni Bohdziewicz, the group made three newsreels and over 30,000 meters of film tape documenting the struggles. The first newsreel was shown to the public on 13 August in the Palladium cinema at Złota Street.¹² In addition to films, dozens of newspapers appeared from the very first days of the uprising. Several previously underground newspapers started to be distributed openly.²²²³ The two main daily newspapers were the government-run Rzeczpospolita Polska and military Biuletyn Informacyjny. There were also several dozen newspapers, magazines, bulletins and weeklies published routinely by various organizations and military units.²² The besieged city had also three long-range radio transmitters: the Błyskawica and Burza (Lighting and Storm, respectively). The Błyskawica, assembled on 7 August in the city centre, was run by the military, but was also used by the recreated Polish Radio (from 9 August).¹² It was on the air three or four times a day, broadcasting news programmes and appeals for help in Polish, English, German and French, as well as reports from the government, patriotic poems and music.²⁴²⁵ It was the only such radio transmitter in German-held Europe.²⁶ Among the speakers appearing on the insurgent radio were Jan Nowak-Jeziorański,²⁷ Zbigniew Swiętochowski, Stefan Sojecki, Jeremi Przybora,²⁸ and John Ward, a war correspondent for The Times of London.²⁹

Lack of outside support

According to many historians, a major cause of the eventual failure of the uprising was the almost complete lack of outside support and the late arrival of the support which did arrive.²⁷ The only support operation which ran continuously for the duration of the Uprising were night supply drops by long-range planes of the Royal Air Force, other British Commonwealth air forces, and units of the Polish Air Force, which had to use distant airfields in Italy and so had very limited effect.

Western Allies

Monument to Allied airmen lost over Warsaw

Limited support in terms of airdrops came from the Western allies; particularly the Royal Air Force, in which a number of Polish, Australian, Canadian and South African pilots flew, made 223 sorties and lost 34 aircraft. However, the effect of these airdrops was mostly psychological, as they delivered much smaller number of supplies than was needed by the insurgents, and many air drops landed outside insurgent-controlled territory.

American support was also limited. After Stalin's objections to supporting the uprising, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill telegrammed U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 25 August and proposed sending planes in defiance of Stalin, to "see what happens". Unwilling to upset Stalin before the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt replied on 26 August with: I do not consider it advantageous to the long-range general war prospect for me to join you in the proposed message to Uncle Joe.³⁰

Also of significant note was the existence of an American airbase at Poltava in Ukraine, from which an airdrop was made during the "Frantic Mission" in mid-September. This action infuriated Stalin, and all subsequent Allied airdrops had to be carried out from faraway Brindisi in Italy.

Airdrops

Armia Krajowa 26th Infantry Regiment en route to Warsaw from the Kielce-Radom area, marching in an attempt to join the Warsaw Uprising during Operation Tempest

Cichociemni after being delivered to the Radom-Kielce Armia Krajowa inspectorate on 22 September 1944

From 4 August the Western Allies begun supporting the Warsaw Uprising with airdrops of munitions and other supplies.³² Initially the air raids were carried out mostly by the 1568th Polish Flight of the Polish Air Force stationed in Bari and Brindisi in Italy, flying B-24 Liberator, Handley Page Halifax and Douglas C-47 Dakota planes. Later on, at the insistence of the Polish government-in-exile, they were joined by the Liberators of 2 Wing - 31 and 34 Squadrons of the South African Air Force based at Foggia in Southern Italy, and Halifaxes, flown by 148 and 178 Squadrons of the Royal Air Force. The drops by British, Polish and South African forces continued to 21 September. The total weight of allied drops vary according to source (104 tons³³ to 230 tons³² or 239 tons⁶), over 200 flights were made.³⁴

The Soviet Union did not give permission to the Allies for use of its airports for those supply operations² and thus the planes were forced to use bases in the United Kingdom and Italy which reduced their carrying weight and number of sorties. The Allies' specific request for the use of landing strips made on 20 August was denied by Stalin on 22 August³¹ (he referred to the insurgents as 'a handful of criminals'³⁵ and stated that the uprising was inspired by 'enemies of the Soviet Union'³⁶). Thus by denying landing rights to Allied aircraft on Soviet-controlled territory the Soviets vastly limited effectiveness of Allied assistance to the Uprising, and even fired at Allied airplanes which carried supplies from Italy and strayed into Soviet-controlled airspace.³¹

After Stalin's objections to support for the uprising, Churchill telegrammed Roosevelt on 25 August and proposed sending planes in defiance of Stalin and to 'see what happens'. Roosevelt replied on 26 August: 'I do not consider it advantageous to the long-range general war prospect for me to join you in the proposed message to Uncle Joe'.³⁷³¹

Finally on 18 September the Soviets allowed one USAAF flight of 107 B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 3 division Eighth Air Force to re-fuel and reload at Soviet airfields used in Operation Frantic, but it was too little too late. USAAF 107 bombers (and 1000 airman) dropped 100 tons of supplies (only 20 was recovered by the insurgents due to the wide area over which they were spread).³⁶ The USAAF lost one B-17 with a further seven damaged. The planes landed at the Operation Frantic airbases in the Soviet Union. There they were rearmed and refuelled and the next day 100 B-17s and 61 P-51s left the USSR and bomb the marshalling yard at Szolnok in Hungary as they flew to bases in Italy.³⁸

Although German air defence over the Warsaw area itself was almost non-existent about 12% of the 296 planes taking part in the operations were lost because they had to fly 1,600 km out over heavily defended enemy territory and then back over the same route (112 out of 637 Polish and 133 out of 735 British and South African airman were shot down).³⁶ Most of the drops were made during night, at no more than 100–300 feet altitude, and poor accuracy left many parachuted packages stranded behind German-controlled territory (only about 50 tones of supplies, less than 50% delivered, was recovered by the insurgents).³²

From 14 September³² to 28 on the Soviets began their own airdrop raids with supplies, and dropped about 55 tons in total. The drops continued until 28 September. Since the Soviet airmen did not equip the containers with parachutes³² the majority of recovered packages were damaged.

Soviet stance

The role of the Red Army during the Warsaw Uprising remains controversial and is still disputed by some historians.⁷ One of the reasons given as to why the Warsaw uprising failed, was the failure of the Soviet Red Army to aid the Resistance. The Uprising started when the Red Army appeared on the city's doorstep, and the Poles in Warsaw were counting on Soviet aid coming in a matter of days. This basic scenario of an uprising against the Germans launched a few days before the arrival of Allied forces played out successfully in a number of European capitals, notably Paris and Prague. However, the Red Army did not extend effective aid to the desperate city despite standing less than 10 km from Warsaw's city center for about 40 days, and then moving even closer to the right bank of the Vistula river a few hundred meters away from the main battle of the uprising during its last two weeks. Some Western historians, as well as the official line of the Communist regime in Poland before 1989, claimed that the Red Army, exhausted by its long advance on its way to Warsaw, lacked sufficient fighting power to overcome the German forces around Warsaw and extend effective aid to the Uprising. However, it is also speculated that Stalin did not want to aid the Home Army, made up of likely opponents of the Soviet regime in Poland after the war.⁷

Soviet advances from 1 August 1943 to 31 December 1944: to 1 December 1943 to 30 April 1944 to 19 August 1944 to 31 December 1944

The Red Army, which was ordered to halt and therefore positioned just a short distance away on the right bank of the Vistula, was ordered not to link up with or in any way assist the Resistance forces. Post-war political considerations and malice by Stalin are seen as the reason for the Red Army's failure to act.⁶ It is possible that Stalin ordered his forces to halt right before entering the city so that the Home Army would not succeed. Had the Home Army triumphed, the Polish government-in-exile in London would have increased their political and moral legitimacy to reinstate a government of its own, rather than accept a Soviet regime. By halting the Red Army's advance, Stalin guaranteed the destruction of Polish resistance (which would undoubtedly also have resisted Soviet occupation), that it would be the Soviets who "liberated" Warsaw, and that Soviet influence would prevail over Poland.⁶ This explanation appears to be strengthened by the fact that, at times during the uprising the NKVD was actively arresting Home Army forces in the East of Warsaw and that a large proportion of RAF losses were caused by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. This reinforces the claim the Soviet forces deliberately blocked the Western Allies from providing support to the Polish forces to support their desire to have Warsaw and any independent-minded Polish forces destroyed before their arrival.

An alternative explanation is that, regardless of Stalin's political intentions, the Red Army was simply exhausted and hence unable to extend effective support to the Uprising which began too early and so the nearby Soviet forces were not ready to support. The Soviet military indeed gave a shortage of fuel as the reason why they could not advance. In support of this thesis, it is often claimed that since the opening of Operation Bagration many of Red Army units had covered several hundred miles in a far-ranging offensive, and their advance elements were at the very end of their logistical tether. This, coupled with the presence of several fresh SS and Panzer divisions around Warsaw which administered a sharp reverse to the Soviet 2nd Tank Army in the final days of July, was, according to this view, sufficient to stop the Red Army in its tracks on the Warsaw front. However, it must be kept in mind that the units which reached Warsaw in late July 1944 were not part of Bagration, but instead advanced from Western Ukraine as part of the Lublin-Brest Operation, covering a much smaller distance. Those units were in fact able to operate quite effectively against German forces to the south and north of Warsaw during August and September, successfully securing bridgeheads ov

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