Warsaw Uprising: Encyclopedia II - Warsaw Uprising - The capitulation

Warsaw Uprising - The capitulation

On October 2 General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski signed the capitulation of the remaining Polish forces (Warszawski Korpus Armii Krajowej or Home Army Warsaw Corps) in the German headquarters in the presence of General von dem Bach. According to the capitulation agreement the Wehrmacht promised to treat Home Army soldiers in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and to treat the civilian population humanely. Fighting was so fierce that SS chief Heinrich Himmler remarked: One of the most deadly fights since the beginning of the war, as difficult as the fight for Stalingrad – to other German generals on 21 September 1944.

The next day the Germans begun to disarm the Home Army soldiers. They later sent 15,000 of them to POW camps in various part of Germany. Between 5,000-6,000 insurgents decided to blend into the civilian population hoping to continue the fight later. All Warsaw civilians were expelled from the city and sent to a transit camp Durchgangslager 121 in Pruszków. Out of 350,000-550,000 civilians who passed through the camp, 90,000 were sent to labour camps in the Reich, 60,000 were shipped to death and concentration camps (Ravensbruck, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, others), while the rest were transported to various locations in the General Gouvernment and released.

One of the reasons why the Warsaw uprising failed was due to the failure of the Soviet Red Army to aid the Resistance. The Red Army, who was ordered to halt and therefore positioned just a short distance away on the right bank of the Vistula, was ordered not to link up with or assist the Resistance forces. Post-war political considerations and malice by Stalin are seen as the reason for the Red Army's failure to act.

It has been suggested that Stalin ordered his forces to halt right before entering the city because the home army would then have more legitimacy to reinstate a government of their own, rather than accept a soviet regime. By halting the Red Army's advance Stalin secured Soviet influence over Poland.

Warsaw Uprising - Destruction of the city

After the remaining population had been expelled, the Germans started the destruction of the remnants of the city. Special groups of German engineers were dispatched to the city in order to burn and demolish the remaining buildings. According to German plans, after the war Warsaw was to be turned into a lake. The demolition squads used flame-throwers and explosives to methodically destroy house after house. They paid special attention to historical monuments and places of interest: nothing was to be left of what used to be a city. By January 1945 85% of the buildings were destroyed: 25% as a result of the Uprising, 35% as a result of systematic German actions after the uprising, the rest as a result of the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (15%) and other combat including the September 1939 campaign (10%). Material losses were estimated at 10,455 buildings, 923 historical buildings (94 percent), 25 churches, 14 libraries including the National Library, 81 primary schools, 64 high schools, Warsaw University and Warsaw University of Technology, and most of the historical monuments. Almost a million inhabitants lost all of their possessions. The exact amount of losses of private and public property as well as pieces of art, monuments of science and culture is unknown. However, various estimates place it at an equivalent of approximately 40 billion 1939 US dollars. In 2004 the Warsaw self-government authorities estimated that the approximate loss of the municipal property is 45 billion 2004 US dollars (this includes only the property owned by the city of Warsaw on August 31, 1939). The municipal council of Warsaw is currently disputing whether claims for German reparations should be made. Destruction was so bad that in order to rebuild much of Warsaw, a detailed landscape of the city which had been commissioned by the government before the Partitions of Poland, painted by two Italian artists Bacciarelli and Canaletto who ran an arts school there as well, had to be used to recreate most of the buildings.

Warsaw Uprising - Liberation of the ruins

The Red Army finally crossed the river on January 17, 1945. They captured the ruins of Festung Warschau in a few hours, with little or no opposition from the Germans. German units put up some minor resistance in the Warsaw University area, but Soviet forces broke the German defences in less than an hour.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The capitulation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki