Distributed by the Polonia Media Network

PART 8 - "THE OLD TOWN IS CLEAR"

Beck’s, Dirlewanger’s and Schmidt’s combat groups were brought up for new attacks, the engineers with their flamethrowers accompanying the infantry. The crackle of machine guns continued without interruption for days. Each building, even each ruin, was fought over for hours. Hand grenades flew through cellar-hatches, columns of flame from the flamethrowers hissing after them. Polish sharpshooters claimed a rich harvest.

Up until August 27 the Germans lost 91 officers and 3,770 NCOs (non-commissioned officers) and men, of which 28 officers and 629 NCOs and men died in action. The units in the Old Town suffered the heaviest losses--sometimes as much as 50% of their total strength. The Supreme Commander Ninth Army signaled his superiors, "I see no prospect of holding Warsaw with my present forces." Above all Dirlewanger’s units, referred to as "hard" and "merciless" (meaning that they suffered ridiculously heavy casualties), were dreadfully depleted. They demonstrated the minimal value of these "punishment units." Although they suffered most heavily, they advanced least of all. Thus it made very little difference when Dirlewanger’s brigade was reinforced with a further 1,500 concentration camp convicts.

But, worst of all was the fate of those 100,000 civilians crammed into the Old Town. They included thousands from Wola who had fled there, terrified of German atrocities and reprisals such as those committed during the first few days of the uprising. Understanding of what they suffered is gained by looking at the diary of Major Wardejn-Zagorski, Press Officer of the "Polnoc" [Northern] Combat Group:

"August 20, 1944: Under present conditions no one can think of regular work, no one can work at all. As day begins, you’re sitting under a pall of smoke or in the cellar and at night no one can do anything--no light. Yesterday my room on the 3rd floor was directly hit twice at 11:00 a.m. and a further three times at 2:00 p.m. They demolished everything including the food, which is getting shorter and shorter. Beforehand, during the Press briefing in the Northern Headquarters a mine crashed into the house on Dluga Street No. 19 (opposite the archive building) and covered us in so much dust, glass, splinters and debris that for about five minutes I didn’t know if I’d get out of that hell-hole alive. As it turned out the archive-building had held.

"A splinter hit me in the forehead, so I already have a souvenir for the days after the uprising.

"Altogether I was ‘buried’ three times yesterday and once this morning. Today we are under somewhat less pressure, but it is only the afternoon and no one knows what will come. The Commander is ill (secret!) with sinus trouble and spends most of the day asleep.

"August 26, 1944: Overall position--of the people.

"In the morning air attacks start at 8:00 a.m. and are repeated ten times during the day at hourly intervals. In each case the attacks are carried out by 3-4 Stukas covering the area with high explosive bombshells and machine gunning the town. Among others No. 7-9 Midowa Street was hit, burying about 200 people in the air raid shelter. The excavations are still in progress and the total number of victims not known because rescue work has not yet ended. The heaviest attack and the one with the worst consequences hit the House and Church of St. Jacka (Freta 10) at 5:00 p.m. Eight people died in front of the building and twenty were badly wounded. The church was hit by six 100 lb. bombs. The main nave and the high altar collapsed completely. The wounded who had been sheltering in nearby buildings panicked completely. Many of the less severely wounded among them were buried alive or wounded again by pieces of rubble.

"(Confidential! The Staff of our Combat Group North moved into the building opposite the church. The people attribute the air attack to information from the spies. There were no major casualties among the Staff.)

"Apart from this there are many rumor-mongers and people who decide to break out to Zoliborz through the sewers. People spend the whole day wandering around looking for "Protection" of official duties so that they can defect to the other side. (Confidential! Panic broke out among some of our soldiers--Lieutenant-Colonel Florian Chief of Staff of the Northern Group told me this morning that a group of soldiers in the Old Town deserted to Zoliborz off their own bat.)

"The conditions the inhabitants are living under have been worsened considerably by the destruction of twenty houses and the reduction in number of air raid shelters. The civil authorities are helpless. The "Warsaw-North" Mayor, a very young and inexperienced man, cannot control the situation any more. Apart from this, there is no water, light or gas--and drains in most houses don’t function. The lavatories are so blocked up that people are beginning to use any old corner for their natural needs. The stink is awful and no one is building public latrines--for one thing, no one knows where to build them because there are ditches at every corner and their number increase hourly.

"There is no longer any bread at all. Neither the civilians nor the soldiers and Staffs have had bread since last Wednesday, i.e., for five days.

"Field kitchens dish out food to the soldiers, sick and wounded fairly regularly, but its nutritional value is falling fast. Every day we have the same thin soup with oats, pieces of potato, now and again a few peas or noodles. There is little coffee left. Because the military and public kitchens use it so sparingly the people have no choice but to drink plain water (sometimes from ruined wells.) This is causing stomach complaints on an epidemic scale. There is no sign of the operation to construct public wells that the civilian authorities have demanded. There are also very few places where something like that could be done, because as more and more houses (in the Old Town) are destroyed, the wells keep being buried and any work would be useless."

However far general morale in the Old Town sunk, the desperate heroism of the Polish troops remained at its unique level. Facing hopelessly superior German weapons, the Polish fighters often held on to positions to the last man. Many supercilious German military experts were in the end forced to respect the conduct of their tough and ingenious opponents. The Poles’ courage was retold so consistently in German reports to Berlin that even the most senior leaders in the Third Reich, privately of course, expressed their admiration for it. For example, shortly after the uprising even Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister, confided in a lengthy conversation with one of his closest colleagues (Wilfred von Oven): "Poland is such a glowing example! Throughout history it has forever been occupied, dismembered, split-up, its boundaries dissolved, and all national life suppressed. Despite all this its national spirit has been preserved throughout the centuries so that its flames always burn up again from the charred ruins, and rekindle themselves--the stormier things are, the better the blaze!"

Bravery notwithstanding, by 20th August no-one (even the leaders of the AK) could deny that the Old Town pocket could be held for only a few more days. Three possibilities lay open to them - to break out, to be relieved from outside or to surrender. But there was no question of surrender. Peace-delegates from the German side had suggested it for the first time as early as 18th August. They came through the lines - but did not return. A second attempt by Bach-Zelewski towards the end of August suffered the same fate. The fact that the Poles were uncertain about their status as combatants undoubtedly played a part in these brusque refusals.

Officially, the Germans now recognized the Poles as combatants, and officially, no prisoners were to be shot. Therefore Anthony Eden's threats of reprisals against German prisoners of war in England had come at a very handy moment for the Wehrmacht spokesman who had to convince Himmler that the Poles were full combatants. But would the Germans keep their word?

As for breaking out--this would have meant giving up the Old Town. Days were wasted in trying to relieve the pockets of resistance from outside. The problem was to get a decisive number of reinforcements through to strengthen the depleted ranks of the besieged men. The most important operation in this direction took place around August 20, when an over 700 strong, well-armed AK unit, which had slipped through from Puszcza Kampinoska as far as Zoliborz, tried to break through into the Old Town. Simultaneously a group from the Old Town were to attack northwards. It was hoped that this combined action would join up the two pockets in the Old Town and Zoliborz--or at least establish a useable link between them. However, the 1,500 men in the German combat group commanded by Schmidt lay between the two pincer-arms and in addition the Germans had covered the greater part of the battle zone with barbed wire and concrete machinegun posts, mainly in the area of Danzig [Gdansk] Station. The Polish attack would have had to eliminate or at least break through both these elements.

General Pelcynski took charge of the action. First he made the journey to Zoliborz from the Old Town through the sewers in order to lead the attack from there.

As with many AK operations before, however, this one failed because of lack of organization. One AK group began attacking prematurely and alone on August 20. They were much too weak to break through the German defenses and were soon halted in their tracks by a hail of machinegun fire, which claimed almost 80% of the attackers in lost or wounded. Even worse, Schmidt’s companies had now been warned and as the alarm spread they waited expectantly for further attacks from the North. When the main attack from North and South began on the night of August 22 as planned, it collapsed in a bloodbath under a barrage of well-prepared defensive fire. One battle-experienced and especially well-equipped Polish battalion, scheduled to relieve the exhausted rebels, was annihilated at one fell swoop. Only isolated members of this unit managed to fight their way through the hell created by Stukas and cannon to the Old Town.

An attempt to break out in the direction of the city center failed likewise. Then AK command made a correct decision. The Headquarters personnel with General Bor were taken out of the Old Town and after stealing en masse through the sewers, moved into the city center. For any large number this route was very dangerous. The Germans had known about the lively underground traffic for some time. They tried cutting it off, using various methods above ground; listening-posts above the manhole covers followed all movements in the sewers below. Main sewers were wired off and blocked up, tributaries were stopped up.

Polish accounts kept reporting the use of poison gas. This, however, is incorrect. What Polish sources called poison gas was, in fact, the Taifun system, one of the many new weapons tried out first in Warsaw. An explosive gas was blown down into the sewers by special engineer units. When this was ignited the ensuing explosion could set off a chain reaction similar to the fire-damp explosions in coal mines. In this connection, Dr. Ludwig Hahn, Chief of Warsaw’s Security Police, still remembers inspecting the sewers with other officers a few days after the end of the Uprising: "Wherever ‘Typhoon’ had been used we could still see the effects--numbers of dead rats and cats. The pressure [from the explosion] had plastered them on to the walls of the shafts like postage stamps …"

Finally, the Polish leaders realized that any attempt to stay longer in the city would cause the battle to develop into a mere senseless slaughter of their soldiers. After they had left the pocket on August 25-26, Colonel Ziemski (the defender of the old city around the turn of the month) had the battle area up to now evacuated. The troops who filled the streets on the night of August 31- September 1 were, in the words of a German historian, "no longer organized rebels." Many among them were prepared to capitulate. The reason for this was the absolute fire superiority of the Germans, as well as the fact (which was becoming increasingly clear) that a surprise attack could not break the cordon around the city. Attempts, we have already seen, failed because of lack of tactical skill and not because of any lack of bravery in the men and women who tried to break through.

At this time the first signs of breakdown began to appear in this army, fighting in a hopeless situation, though one could not deduce the fact from Colonel Ziemski’s remarks:

"I would like to emphasize that the soldiers fought heroically to the very last moment. From the evaluation of the staff of the Home Army it is clear that the Warsaw Rising lasted 63 days due solely to the obstinate defense put up by the defenders in the old city. I am very proud of the fact that I had so many splendid sections under my command; that the men and women, boy scouts and boys fought with such enthusiasm for the freedom of the capital of their homeland. It is also the achievement of all that the old city managed to last out so long."

These proud words scarcely express the terrible reality, the agony of the battle in the old city. After wading for several hours through the sewers of Warsaw 2,300 soldiers reached the city center and Zoliborz on the morning of September 1; some did not even have weapons. In addition there were 3,000 civilians. Many of the wounded drowned during the long march through the sewers in the foul waters of their own capital, which they had wanted to free.

About 2,500 badly wounded men and women were left in the old city by the High Command and in addition approximately 45,000 members of the civilian population were in the ruins of Old Warsaw at this time. Polish historians reckon the number of dead under the ruins of their houses, in the provisional trenches in the pavements, in backyards and park areas to be more than 30,000.

The German radio announced on September 3 (in a rather subdued tone, the Wehrmacht having reported that victory had been achieved over the rebels fourteen days earlier): "The old town of Warsaw was completely cleared of rebels after severe fighting."