Warsaw Uprising

The Warsaw Uprising of 1944:
The Forgotten Heroes of the Poland

The end of the Second World War was a time of jubilation. It was the end of a bloody conflict ripe with crimes against humanity. It was the triumph of good over evil against all odds. A victory produced by heroism and bravery of allied soldiers. The end of the war created an enormous amount of optimism about the future. It was a time to rebuild a world that had been left in shambles after half a decade of bloodshed. However this was not the case. The end of the Second World War marked the beginning of a new era. It was the beginning of a time of fear, and ideological opposition. It marked the beginning of the Cold War; a quiet war that had begun just before the end of the Second World War. A quiet war that had caught some of the brave heroes in its crossfire even before the German guns fell silent. These heroes were part of the Armia Kraiova, a polish underground army that had been fighting ever since the Germans had occupied Poland1. These soldiers, many of which were Jews that had been subjected to Nazi’s Germany cruel war crimes, rose up during the 1944 Warsaw uprising and fought valiantly against the Nazi Germany2, But without the aid of their allies quickly failed. The Warsaw uprising failed because it was caught amidst tension amongst the allies that would later result in the Cold War. The soldiers of the Armia Kraiova were the first victims of a cold war that would last for another 40 years.3
In the summer of 1944, the tide of the war had long shifted. The soviets were had been making extensive progress on the eastern front of the war. In July 26th, the red army had liberated Lvov, and by August 1st Soviet Marshal Rokossovsky’s troops were a mere 9 miles away from Vistula river of Warsaw4. The Armia Kraiova, the underground soldiers who had been fighting since the war had broken out, who were also tied to the polish governing body in exile working out of London, joined in on the fighting5. The uprising began on august 1st and saw early success taking back large parts of the city6.the fighting was based on the assumption that allies would soon come to their rescue providing adequate aid for the insurgents7. However the aid the allies provided was rare and insufficient to sustain the war. This resulted in the official surrender of the Armia Kraiova 63 days after the uprising on October 3rd 1944, after a 200,000 poles had been killed and 800,000 forced out of the city afterwards8.
The majority of blame for the lack of adequate support can be shouldered on the Soviets. It had been them who had incited the uprising in a polish broadcast from Moscow only two days before the outbreak of violence. They broadcasted this message on July 29th in polish from Moscow:
No doubt Warsaw already hears the guns of the battle which is soon to bring her liberation. Those who have never bowed their heads to the Hitlerite power will again, as in 1939, join battle with the Germans, this time for decisive action. The Polish Army now entering Polish territory, trained in the Soviet Union, is now joined to the People 's Army to form the Corps of the Polish Armed Forces, the armed arm of our nation in its struggle for independence9
However after the shortly after the uprising began Stalin did everything he could to ensure that uprising failed. He had given direct orders to Rokossovsky not march his troops into Warsaw to aid the AK fight the Germans10. He also ensured that the Polish general would not be able to enter even if he wanted to by reducing his troops and sending Rokossovsky’s Forty-Eight Tank Army to East Prussia11.
Not only did Soviets refuse to provide direct aid to the insurgents in Warsaw, but also severely hindered other ability to provide aid as well. The Soviets were actively preventing Armia Kraiova soldiers from entering the city to help their brother in arms. After the Uprising, the Polish government-in-exiled had ordered any remaining Armia Kraiova soldiers in the areas surrounding Warsaw to join the in on the fight within the city. Yet soldiers that undertook this order we promptly stop by the Red Army that had receive emergency orders from the Kremlin to capture and disarm insurgents trying to crossing the Vistula River into Warsaw at any cost1213. Soviets also prevented other allies from providing aid to the Poles in Warsaw. The British Royal Air Force had begun flying aid mission from Italy into Warsaw 8 days after the uprising began. But these missions came with enormous losses. On each of these missions about 20-27 British planes were lost1415. The Americans Forces offered to use high flying bombers that would be able to fly higher than German aircrafts in order to drop aid into Warsaw while avoiding significant loss of these planes and airmen. In order to do this though, these bombers would need to refuel at soviets air fields. The Soviets promptly refused and it wasn’t until September 13th that they allowed caved. But by this time the Insurgents in Warsaw had been nearly defeated and the Soviets only permitted one mission was cleared. This indifference to life created the ground works for the mentality that would later evolve into the Cold War. As historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. puts it “The agony of Warsaw caused the most deep and genuine moral shock in Britain and America and provoked dark forebodings about Soviet postwar purposes”16.
So now that we can clearly see that Stalin did everything in his power to ensure that the Warsaw uprising failed, the question then becomes, why? What was the reasoning of the Kremlin to allow soldiers fighting the soviet’s enemies to be slaughtered? There is one answer that seems to be most likely. The Soviets wanted complete control over Poland. It had been the desire of the polish government-in-exile, to use the Armia Kraiova to establish control over Warsaw from Nazi Germany. They wished to attack the Germans after they had been already weakened by the Red Army’s advance, so that the Polish Government could claim control over the Warsaw, and in essence all of Poland, before the Soviets could implement their own puppet regime, namely the Communist Lublin Poles171819. The polish government-in-exile had tried this before in other cities in Eastern Europe, such as Lvov and Vilnius but had failed and the Soviets resumed full control20. The Soviets saw this and had realized what the true intentions of the Polish government-in-exile and responded. Stalin confronted the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, when he came to ask for aid on behalf of the Armia Kraiova fighting in Warsaw a couple days after the uprising began.
The Red army had discovered that detachments of the polish underground army are very weak. It has been reported that the polish underground army has no artillery, aviation, (or) tanks in its possession. They do not fight the Germans. Detachments of this army are hiding in the woods. When the representatives of this army are questioned as to why they do not fight the Germans, they reply that it is not so easy because if they kill one German, the Germans seek revenge by killing ten poles…detachments of the Polish underground army do not fight the Germans because their tactic is to save themselves and then show up when English or Russians come to Poland21

We see here that Stalin plainly understood the motives of the Polish forces and later on during that meeting we Stalin also tells the prime minister that he would not help them22. Stalin was clearly well aware of the goals of the London poles, and thus allowed the killing German forces to kill the uprising to ensure that Poland would fall to communism23. This narrative of communist rule outweighing human life is one that would become fairly common and would repeat itself throughout the cold war. Stalin also saw another reason why not to help them, and that was due to American and British intervention of the uprising. The Americans and British had been actively involved in the uprising. It was Britain who had dropped leaders of the anti-Soviet troops into Warsaw to assist in the uprising effort2425. The Kremlin quickly learned through certain member of the uprising that the British were not only dropping anti-Soviet leaders into Warsaw, but also, in cooperation with the Americans, training these soldiers. They Soviets had learned that many leaders of the Warsaw uprising had been trained in secret in the United States and Canada26. They had also learned that many of these soldiers were involved with anti-Soviet operations all across eastern Europe27. We can see that this may have been a prevailing factor in the Soviet’s reasoning to refuse assistance to the Warsaw Uprising. We can see this if we look at the events of the Radom Uprising. In contrast to the Warsaw uprising, Stalin did in fact assist greatly in a similar Uprising in Radom that had shown complete cooperation with the soviets28. We can then deduce from Stalin’s actions that he was only willing to help endeavours if they worked with the soviets and not the western world. This seems to be a hallmark of what would happen in during the cold war Therefore, we can attribute the failure of the Warsaw uprising on the lack of actions taken by the allies, mainly the Soviets. Therefore, since the soviets lack of actions was primarily due to reasons that would continue to re-emerge throughout the cold war, we can then make the claim that the failure of the Warsaw Uprising was due to tensions that would later evolve into the Cold War. Tensions that would cause Churchill to bitterly resent Stalin for his lack of action during this the uprising29. These heroes of the Second World War died unnecessarily. They died, at a point in time where the war was nearing its end. They died while their “allies” stood a mere 9 miles away; allies that would stand and watch as hundreds of thousands of them died. These are heroes, many of whom had been a survived the horrors of the death camps of Nazi Germany, fought back bravely only to see death in the inaction of the Soviets. These are heroes that were swept under the tide of communism and labeled “criminals” and “traitors”30. However, with the passage of time, we have to come to realized that like all great historical figures, they fought for freedom. But these men would never live to see it.

Bibliography

Chen, Peter C. “Konstantin Rokossovsky.” World War II Database. [http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=34]. 2004
Davies, Norman. Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2004.
Mukhina, Irina. "New Revelations from the Former Soviet Archives: The Kremlin, the Warsaw Uprising, and the Coming of the Cold War." Cold War History 6.3 (2006): 397-411. Print.
Pomian, Andrzej. “The Warsaw Rising: A Selection of Documents” [http://www.warsawuprising.com/doc/kosciuszko.htm]. 1945.
Radzilowski, John. “Warsaw Uprsing.” World War II Database,[http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=150]. 2004
Schlesinger Jr., Arthur. “Origins of The Cold War.” Foreign Affairs 46.1 (1967): 22-52
Schwonek, Matthew R. "Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski 's Order of the Day no. 19." The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 21.2 (2008): 364-76. Print.
Schwonek, Matthew R. "Kazimierz Sosnkowski as Commander in Chief: The Government-in-Exile and Polish Strategy, 1943-1944." The Journal of Military History 70.3 (2006): 743-80. Print.
Smyser, W. R. From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle Over Germany. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

Bibliography: Chen, Peter C. “Konstantin Rokossovsky.” World War II Database. [http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=34]. 2004 Davies, Norman. Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2004. Mukhina, Irina. "New Revelations from the Former Soviet Archives: The Kremlin, the Warsaw Uprising, and the Coming of the Cold War." Cold War History 6.3 (2006): 397-411. Print. Pomian, Andrzej. “The Warsaw Rising: A Selection of Documents” [http://www.warsawuprising.com/doc/kosciuszko.htm]. 1945. Radzilowski, John. “Warsaw Uprsing.” World War II Database,[http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=150]. 2004 Schlesinger Jr., Arthur. “Origins of The Cold War.” Foreign Affairs 46.1 (1967): 22-52 Schwonek, Matthew R. "Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski 's Order of the Day no. 19." The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 21.2 (2008): 364-76. Print. Schwonek, Matthew R. "Kazimierz Sosnkowski as Commander in Chief: The Government-in-Exile and Polish Strategy, 1943-1944." The Journal of Military History 70.3 (2006): 743-80. Print. Smyser, W. R. From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle Over Germany. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.