Series
The Warsaw Uprising
1944–1945 · 10 articles · about 120 min of reading
In the summer of 1944 the Red Army destroyed Army Group Centre and reached the Vistula. On 1 August the Home Army rose in Warsaw to free the city before the Soviets arrived. The insurgents fought for 63 days with little help from outside. The series runs from Operation Bagration and Operation Tempest through the Wola massacre and the fall of the Old Town to the surrender, and ends with Soviet and Polish troops entering the ruined capital in January 1945.
The whole story in one article · 19 minWarsaw Uprising1 August – 2 October 1944From 1 August to 2 October 1944 the Home Army fought the Germans for Warsaw. After 63 days it capitulated; the city was emptied and razed.1944
- 0122 June – 29 August 1944BattleKey moment18 minOperation BagrationThe Red Army halts on the Vistula just as the uprising breaks out, so the offensive in Belarus sets the place and moment at which the Home Army takes up the fight.From 22 June to 29 August 1944 four Soviet fronts destroyed Army Group Centre in Belarus and reached the Vistula, the Narew and East Prussia.
- 027 July 1944Event9 minOperation Ostra BramaWilno is the first attempt to seize a large city before the Red Army, and, as the article notes, its experience was repeated in Warsaw.On 7 July 1944 Home Army units attacked Wilno to take it before the Red Army. The same day the spearheads of the 3rd Belorussian Front reached the city.
- 031 August 1944EventKey moment13 minThe Warsaw Uprising beginsThe Home Army sets out to free the capital by its own efforts and receive the Red Army as host – the plan of Operation Tempest carried to its largest scale.At 5 p.m. on 1 August 1944 Home Army units attacked the Germans in Warsaw to liberate the capital before the Red Army entered it.
- 045 August 1944EventKey moment13 minThe Wola massacreThe Germans treat the uprising as a chance to settle accounts with the city: on its fifth day the systematic killing of Wola’s inhabitants begins.On 5 August 1944 Reinefarth's police and SS began murdering the people of Warsaw's Wola. In three days 10,000 to several tens of thousands of civilians died.
- 055 September 1944Event8 minThe Uprising after the fall of the Old TownWith the Old Town lost, the insurgents hold districts cut off from one another, and in starving Śródmieście talk of capitulation begins.In early September 1944 Warsaw fought on after losing the Old Town. Powiśle fell on 5–6 September, and in starving Śródmieście talk of surrender began.
- 0624 September 1944Event7 minThe Red Army and Berling on the VistulaThe failed landing of the Polish 1st Army and a front halted on the Vistula leave the uprising with no hope of linking up with the troops across the river – a week from surrender.In late September 1944 the front in Poland stood on the Vistula and Narew. The Polish 1st Army's Warsaw landing failed; the last men withdrew on 23 September.
- 072 October 1944EventKey moment10 minThe surrender of the Warsaw UprisingAfter 63 days the uprising ends with the Ożarów agreement, in which the Germans recognise the insurgents as soldiers, while the capital’s population is expelled.On 2 October 1944 an agreement ending the Warsaw Uprising was signed at Ożarów. The Home Army received combatant rights; the city's people were expelled.
- 089 October 1944EventKey moment11 minThe Moscow Conference of 1944Days after the surrender Stalin sets Mikołajczyk his terms – the Curzon Line and a government based on the Lublin Committee – and this is where the Polish question stands after the uprising.On 9 October 1944 Churchill flew to Moscow. Talks with Stalin brought the percentages agreement on the Balkans, a clash over Poland and a pledge on Japan.