Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler and the Crushing of a City. Alexandra Richie

history. More than any other, he consistently spelled out the dangers of underestimating the Germans and above all of pinning their hopes on salvation by the Russians.⁴³ Bokszczanin’s view was very clear and consistent: ‘The first condition to start the uprising is to see the destruction of the Germans in Praga, on the left bank of the river. But that is not enough. You have to wait for the Russians to get the pontoons necessary to cross the river and start artillery attacks on the western side of the Vistula. You have to be very careful and double-check all the information especially to do with the 8th Army. The Russians can send patrols out so we think that they are attacking. We have to make sure that these are main forces and not bait.’ Even Osmecki initially thought Bokszczanin was ‘overdoing it’, only later admitting that his fears about Soviet intentions had been well-founded. ‘Bokszczanin understood everything, but he told us things we did not want to hear because to accept them meant that we would have to resign and not begin the uprising.’⁴⁴

      Osmecki wanted to delay the start of the uprising until the situation at the front was more clear, but he was not against it per se. ‘As a man and a Pole I shared their passion and certainty that Warsaw could not be allowed to move from German hands to Soviet hands without us expressing our will to maintain independence, even if it meant we gave a great cry of rebellion and sorrow. Bokszczanin was right, but his arguments were unacceptable as they destroyed our whole raison d’être.’ Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, the Home Army courier who heard Bokszczanin speak in those final days before the uprising, said that he was ‘greatly impressed by this officer’s coolness and assurance’.⁴⁵ But his attempts to warn the others came to nothing in the end, and his role has virtually disappeared from history.

       The Decision is Taken

      The arguments about what to do continued over the next two days, as tension mounted in the city. On 26 July Osmecki again stressed that three SS divisions had been sent into the Warsaw area, but Monter retorted that the German troops were of ‘poor quality’. Given that he was referring to the Waffen SS Viking and Totenkopf Divisions, and Hermann Göring’s own elite Luftwaffe division, he was either incredibly badly informed, or did not understand their significance: these elite units may have been under strength, but to refer to them as of ‘poor quality’ was ludicrous. Monter admitted that his own armoury was in a dire state, and was worried about the strength of the AK.

      The mood among the Germans seemed to be changing too. On 27 July Governor Fischer, who had fled the city, suddenly returned, had the street megaphones switched on at 5 p.m. and announced that the next day, 28 July, at 8 a.m., all men between the ages of seventeen and sixty-five were to appear at gathering points to dig anti-tank ditches. The AK banned compliance, so only a few hundred people showed up. Even so, Monter was worried that the Nazis would start to round up men by force, thereby destroying the very fabric of the AK in Warsaw. To counter this he took the extraordinary decision to mobilize the armed forces and call the alert for the uprising without consulting the other members of the AK leadership. Orders were sent out, and the young men and women of the AK hurried to their designated areas, convinced that the fight was about to begin.

      In reality, the Germans had neither the manpower nor the authority to enforce the order to dig trenches; both Frank and Fischer agreed to ignore the snub to their authority so as not to provoke the very uprising that they wished to avoid. With the Germans not reacting after all, Monter was forced to recall his order. But the false alarm sowed confusion and discontent among those who had struggled to get to their positions on time, and it was also to have a great influence on Bór two days later. To cancel the mobilization order a second time, he felt, would have a disastrous impact on morale. Monter’s rash decision to act alone would therefore have fateful consequences on 31 July.

      As for the call to Warsaw’s male inhabitants to dig ditches, the AK High Command failed to ask themselves an important question: why, if the Germans were set to abandon the city, had they called for men to dig anti-tank ditches? This too hinted at a dramatic shift in German policy.

      On 26 July the German panic in Warsaw had ceased. The columns of bedraggled soldiers had vanished, and the cars which had left in such haste, packed with belongings, began to return. Bureaucrats and policemen quietly reoccupied their apartments, and German functionaries reported for work as if they had never been away. The SS and police presence on the streets doubled and then tripled, and the pillboxes and bunkers next to important buildings and institutions suddenly bristled with troops. Many Germans who had fled illegally were arrested; Himmler even ordered that the President of the Warsaw court, who had released the prisoners from Mokotów prison without permission, be tracked down and shot. On 31 July all releases were stopped; two days later the thousand remaining prisoners were murdered by the SS.

      The real reason for the change on the streets of Warsaw was down to Hitler. The Führer had been appalled by news of the exodus from Warsaw, and on 27 July he had ordered an end to the shameful retreat and declared it a ‘fortress city’. The Germans were going to stay put. On the same day, he summoned Luftwaffe General Reiner Stahel to the Wolfsschanze. Stahel, the ex-Commandant of Rome and ‘Defender of Wilno’, was one of Hitler’s favourites, not least because of his vigorous defence of earlier ‘fortresses’. Hitler ‘gave me the Swords of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and nominated me to the position of Warsaw Kommandant. My tasks were a) to maintain order and calm in the city and b) to support building of fortifications.’⁴⁶

      The AK leadership were unaware of Hitler’s decision, and pressed ahead with their plans for the uprising. On 29 July the government-in-exile in London informed the Home Army that Prime Minister Mikołajczyk was on his way to Moscow for talks with Stalin, and that the AK were free to do what they thought best. The Government Delegate, Jankowski, received a message empowering Bór to start the rising at a moment selected by him, without having to consult the Cabinet in London. Mikołajczyk asked Jankowski to inform the government beforehand ‘if possible’, but in effect gave Bór the authority to do as he wished.

      On the same day, the Polish Deputy Chief of Staff, General Stanisław Tatar, sent a dispatch to Warsaw informing Bór that his request of 25 July for assistance from Britain had been submitted to the ‘highest authorities’ in London. The response had been discouraging, to say the least. There was only a ‘slight possibility’ that the British would bomb sites in Warsaw, and ‘little chance’ that a squadron of Mustangs would be handed over. The next day Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, the extraordinary courier who had travelled between London and Warsaw throughout the war, reported to AK headquarters with more news from London. Nowak-Jeziorański clearly stated that the AK could not count on large-scale British help or the arrival of the Polish Parachute Brigade. He also said that the effect of an uprising on Allied governments and on Western public opinion would be ‘negligible’.

      During the meeting, Nowak-Jeziorański realized that nobody was paying any attention to him. He was constantly interrupted by the arrival of other couriers and messengers, and felt as if his warning about the lack of help from the West had been completely ignored.⁴⁷ He had told the AK leadership in Warsaw point blank that they would not receive any outside assistance should they begin the fight. Later, when the uprising began to go badly, this warning was conveniently forgotten, and the AK would bitterly accuse the West of not having done enough to help those suffering and dying in Warsaw.

      A number of factors have been cited to justify the call for an uprising in Warsaw on 1 August 1944. One of the most commonly mentioned is the Soviet radio broadcasts at the end of July, encouraging the people of Warsaw to take up the fight. On the night of 29 July, for example, Radio Moscow announced that ‘the waiting’ was over. ‘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 hour of action has arrived.’ However, such propaganda was commonplace, and there were never any direct instructions to the Home Army to rise up. Furthermore, why should the AK take Soviet propaganda broadcasts seriously when they had decided long before not to make contact with the Soviets themselves? On 26 July Colonel Pluta-Czachowski, the AK’s Chief Signals Officer, had worried that the lack of operational liaison with the Red Army would cause grave complications, but Rzepecki had told him that the establishment