Read Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw Online
Authors: Norman Davies
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History
Soviet reactions were the most inscrutable of all. The Soviet Command did not reveal their secrets to anyone; and their further intentions could only be guessed at. It was perfectly possible to argue that Rokossovsky would call a halt on the Vistula and take a breather. After all, his frontline forces were bound to be exhausted after the long slog through Byelorussia, and everyone could see that the Wehrmacht was taking steps to counterattack. At the same time, Home Army intelligence had been counting the ceaseless procession of German hospital trains that had been rolling through Warsaw in recent months, and they had a good idea of the massive superiority in men and materiel which the Soviets had accumulated. What is more, they cannot have failed to notice how the Soviets had learned to bring their numbers to bear through a seamless strategy of rolling offensives that never let the Germans rest. From purely military calculations, therefore, it was possible to deduce that Rokossovsky would not wish to tarry on the Vistula, but would prefer to draw on his seemingly endless reserves and to exploit the bridgeheads that he had already created. It was not for nothing that the Home Army analysts had concluded that the appearance of Soviet armour on Warsaw’s eastern approaches would herald an assault.
As for Stalin, his reactions or non-reactions lay far above the field of vision of local military commanders. He did not have to be swayed by the advice of his own marshals, let alone by the dispositions of an ally of allies on just one sector of one front. The Polish Resistance leaders had seen how Stalin had shown no generosity during Operation Tempest when their colleagues had approached the Soviets in a spirit of partnership. So their chances of a better outcome could hardly be further reduced if they now aimed to deal from a position of local strength. If the whole democratic world were to learn that the Polish capital had been recaptured by Polish democrats, Stalin would really be straining the Grand Alliance if he subsequently tried to dislodge them by force.
Such was the sum total of knowledge and surmise when the General Staff of the Home Army met for its final deliberations in the last days of July. The first of their key meetings, on the morning of the 29th, was with members of the Council of National Unity, the Underground parliament. In effect, the military were asking the democratic representatives to legitimize the proposed Rising. They received unanimous consent.
MELECH
A Warsaw journalist, who has been trying to learn English, starts a diary
‘It came nearly the time, when the Germans dis-continued to be here as the masters, though they were never the [real] master on Polish territory . . . I remember very well the speech of Dr. Frank in 1939 year, who took office in [General Government] . . . He said: ‘Germans will never leave these terrains. Sooner the ground will fall down than Germans will go out from here.’
Tempora mutantur!
. . . Germans fly, they fly in great disorder and panic . . .
We are ready to only fight with cruel occupant, the fight which it is not necessary to encourage, because the enemy during five years assembled such a sea of hatred which can overflow him in the moment of his defeat . . .
We shall treat the Soviet forces as the forces which fight with common enemy . . . We expect that military Soviet authorities will honour our sovereignty, from which arise the rights to the administration with freed terrains . . . From our sovereignty arise the rights of restoration of political, social, cultural and economic life, according to our own plans . . .
1
Tuesday, the first of August, 1944
From three days, I cannot sleep, because I know that from twenty and eight July it began the hard readiness for Polish Underground Army . . . I awake myself very earlier, and think about . . . the armed action, which can follow in sooner time.
My brother [Bohdan] officer, my friends Stanislas and Vladimir D. policeman and ensign, and many, many other friends belong to the Polish army. The last week passed for them laboriously. They transported to the different important points the military implements as the grenades, ammunition, revolvers.
Today, when I left my flat and went to the town, I saw completely other life. The traffic is no great. Only through Warsaw go in the western course the German military transports. The shops are mostly shut. It is strange excitement. The strange quite before the storm . . .’
2
The mangled grammar, curious spelling, and quaint vocabulary undoubtedly increase the peculiar eloquence of the diarist’s sentiments.
The second key meeting took place two days later. The time was 6 p.m. on a sunny Monday evening. The place was a safe apartment in the very heart of Warsaw. Present, in a motley array of workmen’s disguises, were the Home Army Commander, Gen. Boor, the Commander’s two deputies, Bear Cub and ‘Gregory’, and the Head of AK’s Warsaw Region, Col. Monter. The Government Delegate was waiting in an adjacent room. A notable absentee was the Head of AK Intelligence, Heller, who had been delayed by a German roadblock. Nonetheless, since the Vistula bridges were heavily guarded but still open, Monter had been able to take a bicycle that afternoon and ride out for a few miles beyond the eastern suburbs. He now reported that the Germans had abandoned several localities on the immediate periphery, and that Soviet tanks had been sighted on the road to Praga. His report was accepted. Boor concluded that the time for action had come. He advised that the state of ‘stand-by’ should be instituted without delay.
In his memoirs, Boor justified his decision by explaining the expected consequences of delay:
That afternoon, a communiqué of the Wehrmacht’s High Command had announced [that] the Russians had launched ‘a general assault on Warsaw from the south-east.’ It also said that the commander of the [German] 73rd Infantry Division, stationed across the river from Warsaw, had been taken prisoner . . . In my view, if we unleashed our struggle then, we would prevent the Germans from bringing up reserves and cut off their supply lines . . . If, on the other hand, the Germans were forced back across the river under Soviet pressure, as could be expected at any moment, their troops would crowd into the city in great numbers and would paralyse any chance of action by us. The city would become a battlefield between Germans and Russians, and would be reduced to ruins. [Hence], in my opinion, the right time for starting had arrived . . .
90
Gen. Monter was then asked to put the necessary order into writing for distribution to his subordinates. Teams of runners were at hand to carry the order to every Underground unit in Warsaw:
Alarm – by hand! 31 July, 1900hrs. I am fixing L-Hour for 5 p.m. on 1 August. My address, valid from L-Hour, is at 22 [Bright Street], apt 20. Acknowledge receipt of this order. X
91
As a last step, the Chief Delegate was called in to give the order his blessing. After asking a few questions, he said: ‘Very well. Go ahead!’ [
IRKA I
, p. 234]
In the high summer of 1944, Paris, like Warsaw, was looking to liberation. At one level, the ferment brewing in the French capital possessed many features that were absent in the Polish capital. There were the institutions and politicians of a collaborationist Government, for example; there was a strong Communist contingent in the Resistance; and there was a powerful, 20,000-strong armed French police force, whose loyalties would be crucial. Yet in the general set-up, there were many similarities. Victorious Allied armies were approaching. The Germans were reeling. After a cruel occupation, many citizens were longing for retribution. And the resisters were hoping not only to strike the decisive blow, but also to reap the post-war political rewards. From the organizational viewpoint, however, the most interesting feature was the almost total lack of advance planning or prior consultation. The US Army, when it swept out of Normandy, had no plans whatsoever to capture Paris. Gen. Leclerc, who commanded a French armoured division under American command, had no orders to break away and to help the Parisian Resistance. Gen. de Gaulle, the head of the Free French, was abroad until the very last minute. He had reached no firm understanding either with his Vichy adversaries or with his Communist rivals. He was not yet formally recognized by the Americans as France’s leader-in-waiting.
92
Objectively speaking, it might be described as being
pas mal de pagaille, un beau gâchis
, ‘a bit of a shambles’. Yet there was still space for optimism. War has always been accompanied by mix-ups, messes, and confusion. Landing on Utah Beach in Normandy, Gen. Leclerc had declared:
We wish to join up with those good French people who, for the last four years, have been carrying on the same struggle at home that we were pursuing abroad. Hail to those who have already taken to arms. Together, we constitute one and the same army, the army of Liberation.
93
Here was a sentiment that all Varsovians would have understood. The date was 1 August 1944.
IRKA I
The young wife of a Home Army officer says farewell to her husband
A schoolfriend had recruited my sister and me to the Underground . . . in the winter of 1940. We were sworn in with six young girls (the youngest only twelve), as messengers for the
Information Bulletin
. After eight months, the Gestapo came to the
Bulletin
’s editorial office at night. All the workers were taken to Shuch Street and subjected to cruel interrogation. Next day we messengers were also arrested and sent to the Paviak [Jail] . . .
We ended up in a vast cell for minors, swearing that we would never admit our guilt. In a kitchen, where female prisoners peeled potatoes, we met one of our friends, Josephine K., who was frightened because, under extreme interrogation, she had incriminated us. She promised to retract her confession.
It was July 1941 before they interrogated us again. The Germans had declared war on the Soviet Union and were ‘cleansing’ the prison of less important prisoners. We were taken by truck to Shuch Street and were placed in the so-called ‘trams’, whence prisoners were summoned in turn for questioning, often returning beaten and bloodied. A wonderful guard, Sophie K., a member of the Underground, made contact with the first love of my life, André F., smuggling our love letters back and forth and informing him when I was to be interrogated. I sat in the back of the truck, André waited on a given street corner [of New World Street and Jerusalem Avenue], and in that way we were able to see each other . . . The same guard carried the holy Eucharist in a little compact to those sentenced to death or to Auschwitz . . .
My own life was saved by Josephine K., who resolutely maintained to the Gestapo that she had only given the names of her schoolfriends in order to stop being tortured. In my presence a German officer asked her if she realized that by admitting to lying she would earn more severe punishment. ‘I know,’ she replied, ‘but I could not live knowing that I had harmed so many innocent people.’ I had fallen ill in the Paviak, with inflamed lungs and tuberculosis. But all the messengers were then freed. Josephine perished in Auschwitz . . .
We then returned to my parents, who were sharing an apartment very close to the Ghetto where famine was raging. Everyday, two tiny starving urchins would visit our house to receive a bowl of hot soup and a bit of food. One day I saw something that has been burned into my memory. Walking across the square, I saw two Gestapo agents standing over a couple of emaciated boys who could hardly stand on their little legs. One of the agents grabbed the first boy by the ankles and smashed his head
against the wall. Then he grabbed the other and did the same. That event affected my later life very deeply and means more than anything that I would later read about the Holocaust. From then on, our two urchins did not visit us.
On 30 July 1944, André F., whom I had married in the meantime, received an order to break off his secret military exercises with Home Army conscripts in the Kieltse region, and he returned to me in Warsaw. I was in the ninth month of pregnancy. ‘Tomorrow at five in the afternoon we will start the Rising,’ he said. He looked at me and our one-year-old daughter, Magdalena. I remember his every word exactly. ‘I must believe that we will be victorious, but I will rest easier if I can leave you at your uncle’s place’ – fifty kilometres away from Warsaw. ‘We do not know how the Soviet Army will behave – our parting may last a long time . . .’
1
A writer whose diary would become a famous literary work recalled those same heady days
Tuesday 1 August 1944 was not sunny, but wet, and not too warm. In the afternoon, perhaps, I went to Cool Street – I lived at number 40 – and saw that there were lots of trams, cars, and people. Suddenly, on the corner of Iron Street, I remembered what the date was – ‘1 August – Sunflower Day’ . . . What made me think of sunflowers? That’s when they mature . . . And I was still young and sentimental. After all, those times were naive, primitive, carefree, romantic, conspiratorial. Even so, that yellow colour had to come from somewhere, perhaps from the light of the inclement weather or from its reflection on Warsaw’s red trams . . .
2
Twenty-two hours separated the departure of the Home Army runners from their Sunday afternoon meeting and the arrival of ‘L-Hour’. Eight of the twenty-two would be taken up by the night curfew, when free movement in the streets was forbidden and the use of radios impossibly dangerous. Telephones were tapped and off limits. Most of the runners barely had time to go home before the curfew fell. Many were not able to inform their units of the ‘stand-by’ until the Monday morning. The Commander of the Bashta Battalion, for example, heard of Boor’s order at 9.15 a.m. The scramble to make preparations before the 5 p.m. deadline was hectic.
Soon after the runners left, the Chief of AK Intelligence finally arrived. He was convinced that Monter’s report about Soviet tanks on the road to
Praga was false. One can only imagine the sinking feeling in Gen. Boor’s stomach. For the second time in as many days he had received crucial information which, if presented earlier, might have changed his decision. But, once again, it was too late. There was nothing he could do. The runners could not be recalled. The order could not be rescinded. In any case, there was no way of checking quickly whether Monter was right or wrong. From what was later learned about the Second Guards Tank Army, if its vanguard units had not been operating near Praga in the afternoon of the 31st, they were almost certainly operating there later in the day. The log of the German Ninth Army on the 30th and 31st noted that Praga had been ‘exposed and defenceless’ and that little progress had been made in retaking Radzymin.
94
So Monter’s report, even if he had invented it, was not very wide of the mark.