Read Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw Online
Authors: Norman Davies
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History
On the 18th, the rat which Churchill had smelt duly emerged in the person of M. Vyshinsky, Soviet Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs, who ‘to avoid the possibility of misunderstanding’ read out a prepared statement to the US Ambassador in Moscow:
The Soviet Government cannot of course object to English or American aircraft dropping arms in the region of Warsaw, since this is an American and British affair. But they decidedly object to British or American aircraft, after dropping arms in the region of Warsaw, landing on Soviet territory, since the Soviet Government do not wish
to associate themselves either directly or indirectly with the adventure in Warsaw.
56
For the next two weeks, Churchill was preoccupied with the problem of countering Stalin’s obstructionism and of badgering Roosevelt into joint action. He was to call it ‘an episode of profound and far-reaching gravity’. (Later historians would think of it as the start of the Cold War.) In the first round, he persuaded the President to formulate a joint request. ‘We are thinking of world opinion if the anti-Nazis in Warsaw are in effect abandoned,’ they wrote on the 20th. ‘We believe that all three of us should do the utmost to save as many of the patriots there as possible.’
57
But in the second round, after Stalin had responded with a crude denunciation of ‘the group of criminals’ in Warsaw, Churchill was unable to keep Roosevelt on track. He wanted to remind Stalin that Moscow Radio had encouraged Warsaw to rise. He was even inclined ‘to send the planes and see what happens’. Nonetheless, ‘I do not see what further steps we can take at the present time . . .’ Roosevelt replied. And on the 26th, he was still more dismissive. ‘I do not consider it would prove advantageous to the long-range general war prospect for me to join you in the proposed message to Stalin.’
58
Roosevelt appeared to be switching off. [
PAST
, p. 303]
Churchill was regularly informed by his Polish allies about events in Warsaw; and he thought that ‘some of this tale of villainy and horror should reach the world.’ Yet, here again, he found that the British press was not always willing to report it. So he wrote to the Minister of Information:
Is there any stop on the publicity for the facts about the agony of Warsaw, which seem, from the papers, to have been practically suppressed? It is not for us to cast reproaches on the Soviet Government, but surely the facts should be allowed to speak for themselves. There is no need to mention the strange and sinister behaviour of the Russians, but is there any reason why the consequences of such behaviour should not be made public?
59
This letter was included in Churchill’s war memoirs. The Minister’s reply was not, but it deserves to be prominently quoted:
There is nothing to stop the British press from publishing anything on the subject of Warsaw. But you must understand that the press here does not have the means for finding out what is really happening . . . Furthermore, apart from the good news from the [Eastern] Front, the readers are not specially interested in the Warsaw events. The Polish Government is not short of good writers who could report on Warsaw’s agony. But their activities to date undermine their credibility. Fleet Street considers their Ministry of Information to be an incompetent ass.
PAST
capture of the PAST Building, a German soldier’s notebook falls into insurgent hands and is translated into a sort of English
The notebook of soldier Kurt Heller belongs to all German soldiers, because in this notebook are disclosed the thoughts of all Germans, who are tired by the long war. Germans . . . want to be in Germany, at home. In Germany they have their families, their houses, their wives, mothers, fathers, and children . . . Here is the contents:
1.VIII. After noon the beginning of fights on the streets in Warsaw. We are [already] closed [in] on the second of August.
3.VIII. Ulrich was killed. S.S. Sturm-führer and many other dies.
4.VIII. We are further closed [in]. No support from the outside. We expect today or tomorrow the help. We have not the food. Water lacking.
5.VIII. Rudolph is killed. Except him are killed my other friends. I am at the limit of vigours. Luttewitz fell. Hollweg is hard wounded.
6.VIII. In the morning I have a little dream . . . a little coffee with sugar. From all sides lurks the death. I should like to live. My three friends fulfilled the suicide by the shooting.
7.VIII. At noon we were shot by our own artillery, but without losses. The experiment of sally did not bring us the result. During this sally one was killed, four was hard wounded, one from those died. Our killed soldier in the number of fourteen persons were buried today at eight o’clock on the courtyard. The air is very bad, because the corpses of our killed soldiers stink.
8.VIII. Our sections there are in the distance of two hundred metres, but the resistance of bandits is hard and great.
9.VIII. With the food is very niggardly.
11.VIII. All the rests of food took from us the police, also the cigarettes. The situation does not suit to the resistance.
12.VIII. My hunger is great. Every day I have only the soup and six cigarettes. The police took from us all. Even not a whit of marmalade he did not leave to us. When will end this misery and pain?
13.VIII. The hard German fire from tanks at positions of Poles. The hits in our tower are more often, but without the losses. The tank brought to us the food on five days. My health began to decline. I have the ill stomach, and scarcely I can keep on the feet. When will come the freedom?
14.VIII.–15.VIII.–16.VIII. Terrible hunger. In the night involves us the fear. When the first star comes forth in the sky – I think about my house, my wife, and my boy, who lives in the earth of Stettin. I cannot contain this with my mind, and now I am in this same situation.
17.VIII. Poles want to drive away us with the fire and with the bottles of benzine. Anew several men lost the nerves and committed the suicide. Terible stink from the bodies, who are lying on the streets.
18.VIII. We are completely isolated from the exterior world.
19.VIII. I cannot think about the delivery. Around us there are Poles. Who will be first from us, who will go to the massy grave on the courtyard?
1
On the nineteenth day German soldier ended his annotations. Next day the building of PAST was attained by our soldiers, and Kurt Heller found himself in Polish slavery.
1
If HMG were willing to make Ward’s reports public, I’ve little doubt that the newspapers could be persuaded to print them. But I can’t say what effect they might have on public opinion, which tends to regard the Poles as a pretty inept race. What is more, the supporters of Uncle Joe, who are not lacking in the press, would be provoked into further attacks on the Poles.
[The Polish Premier] has raised the matter of [his Government’s] official reports from Warsaw and of the way in which they are ignored by the press and mistrusted by Eden. The [Foreign Office’s] News Department, whilst not questioning these reports, is reluctant to hand them to the press for fear of exciting interest in the troubled state of Polish–Soviet relations.
60
One is tempted to characterize this statement as damning. Not only did the British have no independent source of information of their own, they were unwilling to use the one authoritative source that was available.
The difficulties were obviously deeper than Churchill had imagined.
They became still more apparent in the week that Paris was liberated by a Polish-style Rising.
In the last week of August, news spread that the French Resistance had pulled off exactly the sort of coup in Paris that the Home Army had sprung in Warsaw. Not waiting for the arrival of the US Army, elements of the Underground had attacked the remnants of the German garrison on the 19th and had provoked several days of chaotic and vicious street fighting. There had been no question of synchronizing action with the advancing Allies, even when the Germans had begun to withdraw. There was no prearranged plan. A general strike had broken out on the 18th. The French police rebelled against their German masters. Shots were fired in anger. Civilians joined in. Barricades were thrown up. The fighting spread. Isolated German outposts were attacked. It was later learned that the military Governor of Paris, Gen. von Choltitz, had ignored orders to raze the city. But the decisive move was made by the American Command, which reacted promptly to divert Gen. Leclerc’s 2nd (French) Armoured Division towards Paris. Even so, the commander of the US 5th Corps was furious when he learned that Leclerc had unilaterally ordered a column to advance from Versailles. The leading echelon of three tanks, eleven APCs, and a sapper company reached the Hôtel de Ville at 21.22 on the 24th. It was commanded by a French colonial officer, Capt. Dronne of the 9th Tchad Infantry Regiment, and, from the presence of numerous Spaniards, was known as ‘La Nueve’. They were received by a tearful Georges Bidault, Chairman of the National Resistance Committee. The German
Kommandatur
at the Place de L’Opéra surrendered at 14.30 on the 26th. Apart from its improvised nature, the liberation of Paris was notable in two other important respects. One, despite the extreme political complexity of the French Resistance, was the unbroken unity of all participants. The other was the unwavering support of the Allies.
The complexity can be seen from the fact that the principal clandestine military organization in Paris, the
Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur
(FFI), was commanded by a Communist, Col. ‘Rol’ Tanguy. Gen. de Gaulle, the head of the Free French, the largest Resistance body, only took overall charge after his legendary stroll down the Champs-Elysees under fire on the 27th. Gen. Leclerc and his men were directly subordinated to the Americans. When Bidault asked de Gaulle to declare the re-founding of the Republic, de Gaulle refused.
‘Non,’
he retorted,
‘la République n’a jamais cessé d’être.’
61
The Allies, engaged in a strenuous campaign, might easily have left Paris to fend for itself. On the very first day, however, they were implored to establish contact with the insurgents via the BBC ‘in order to avoid the fate of Warsaw’.
62
They adjusted quickly. On 29 August, the Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. Eisenhower, accompanied by British Air Vice-Marshal Tedder, paid personal homage at the Arc de Triomphe, thereby giving his blessing to Gen. de Gaulle’s authority.
The cost of liberation was not insignificant. The FFI suffered 2,500 casualties, the 2nd Armoured Division 400. The civil population lost 582 dead and over 2,000 injured. The Germans lost 3,200 dead and 12,800 prisoners.
The Home Army in Warsaw saluted the success of their French comrades. The underground
Information Bulletin
described the liberation of Paris as a event of ‘exceptionally exalted significance’:
It is the symbol of the end of Germany’s military dominance on the continent of Europe. It is a witness to France’s return to the ranks of the great powers . . . Morally, it underlines the disgrace of the defeat and capitulation of 1940 . . . In the midst of our own struggle, we greet the news of the liberation of Paris with profound and sincere joy . . .
63
Inevitably, close parallels with the Rising in Warsaw were noted with approval. ‘As in Warsaw,’ the
Bulletin
remarked, ‘the French Underground did not wait for the moment when the capital would have been liberated by external forces. The people of Paris undertook the struggle on their own account, and brought it to a victorious conclusion after three days.’
64
Radio Lightning contrived to broadcast its congratulations in French:
Comrades-in-arms!
On this occasion, when Paris, the capital of Freedom and the heart of European civilization, has cast off its shackles . . . We, the soldiers of Poland’s Home Army, who have been fighting in Warsaw for three weeks, send you our most heartfelt felicitations . . .
65
For those who knew, the broadcast was all the more moving because it was read by the unlikeliest of broadcasters – a Belgian diamond smuggler, who had been accidentally trapped in Warsaw by the Rising, and who had now been pulled from his refuge in a cellar to give the message an
authentic flavour. By all accounts, the smuggler adorned his performance with a fervour and passion worthy of a professional actor.
The Warsaw Airlift of 1944 is one of the great unsung sagas of the Second World War. In theory it had three participants – the Soviets, Americans, and British. In reality, only the British and their partners made a significant contribution. Soviet warplanes, which had been flying over Warsaw in late July, disappeared from the skies after the outbreak of the Rising and failed to reappear for the best part of six weeks. American planes, which were supposed to fly out from England in August, did not manage to take off until mid-September, and then only once. As a result, it was RAF squadrons operating from Italy which assumed the overwhelming brunt of the missions. They did so at a juncture when RAF Bomber Command was regularly pounding targets on the Baltic coast not far from Warsaw. On two nights at the end of August, for example, nearly 200 Lancasters from Britain attacked Königsberg, suffering only 7.5 per cent losses. [
NAVIGATOR
, p. 308]