Warsaw Uprising (1944)
The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa). The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army temporarily halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II. The Uprising began on 1 August 1944 as part of a nationwide Operation Tempest, launched at the time of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans out o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Operation Tempest
file:Akcja_burza_1944.png, 210px, right Operation Tempest ( pl, akcja „Burza”, sometimes referred to in English as "Operation Storm") was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II against occupying German forces by the Polish Home Army (''Armia Krajowa'', abbreviated ''AK''), the dominant force in the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish resistance. Operation Tempest's objective was to seize control of German-occupied cities and areas while the Germans were preparing their defenses against the advancing Soviet Red Army. Polish underground civil authorities hoped to take power before the Soviets arrived. A goal of the Polish Government-in-Exile, in London, was to restore Poland's 1939 borders with the USSR, rejecting the Curzon Line border. According to Jan. M. Ciechanowski, "The [exiled] Polish Cabinet believed that by refusing to accept the Curzon Line they were defending their country's right to exist as a national entity. They were determined that ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Warsaw Airlift
The Warsaw airlift or Warsaw air bridge was a British-led operation to re-supply the besieged Polish resistance Home Army (AK) in the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi Germany during the Second World War, after nearby Soviet forces chose not to come to its aid. It took place between 4 August and 28 September 1944 and was conducted by Polish, British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African airmen flying from Celone and Brindisi in Italy and was denied flyover rights from their Soviet allies, who shot at them when the planes entered Soviet airspace. On 18 September, in the final stages of the Nazis crushing the uprising, one United States airdrop was launched from Great Britain and landed at Poltava in Soviet Ukraine as the distance to the drop-zone precluded the aircraft returning to base. The flights from Italy were night operations with low level cargo drops, conducted without fighter escort while the single United States Army Air Forces mission of 18 September 1944 was a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zygmunt Berling
Zygmunt Henryk Berling (27 April 1896 – 11 July 1980) was a Polish general and politician. He fought for the independence of Poland in the early 20th century. Berling was a co-founder and commander of the First Polish Army, which fought on the Eastern Front of World War II. Military career before World War II Zygmunt Berling was born in Limanowa, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on 27 April 1896. He joined the Polish Legions of Józef Piłsudski in 1914, serving in the 2nd and 4th Legions Infantry Regiment (''Pułk Piechoty Legionów''). Between the "oath crisis" of June 1917 and October 1918 he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. At the end of the World War I he joined the reborn Polish Army, becoming the commander of an infantry company in the 4th Infantry Regiment. During the Polish–Soviet War, he gained fame as an able commander during the Battle of Lwów and received the Virtuti Militari medal. After the war, he remained in the military and in 1923 he was p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jan Mazurkiewicz
Jan Mazurkiewicz, pseudonym: "Zagłoba", "Socha", "Sęp", "Radosław" (27 August 1896 – 4 May 1988) was a Polish military leader and politician, colonel of Home Army and brigadier general of the Polish People's Army. Founder of the Secret Military Organization (later merged with the Home Army), commander of Kedyw and the Radosław Group during Warsaw Uprising. After the World War II, war, he was a political prisoner of the Stalinism, Stalinist period (until 1956). From 1964 he was vice-president of Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy. Early life and World War I Jan Mazurkiewicz was born in a craftsman's family in Lviv. He spent his childhood in Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast, Zolochiv, where from 1902 he attended primary school and from 1906 to the Gymnasium (school), gymnasium. He was active in Scouting, a member of the Sokół, "Falcon" Polish Gymnastic Society. In 1911 he moved with his family to Lviv, where he continued his education. He was a member of the Zarzewie, Orga ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Leopold Okulicki
General Leopold Okulicki (noms de guerre ''Kobra'', ''Niedźwiadek''; 1898 – 1946) was a general of the Polish Army and the last commander of the anti-Nazi underground Home Army during World War II. He was arrested after the war by the Soviet NKVD and died while imprisoned at Butyrka prison in Moscow. Life Okulicki was born in November 1898 in Bratucice, Bochnia County in the Austrian section of partitioned Poland (" Galicia"). His exact date of birth is unknown as the birth record was not preserved in Polish archives and Okulicki himself used two dates: 11 November and 13 November. In 1910 he joined a local gymnasium, and after 1913 he was also an active member of the Związek Strzelecki. The following year, at the age of 16, after finishing basic military training, Okulicki passed his NCO exams. After the outbreak of World War I, in October 1915, he left school and volunteered for the Polish Legions, where he served with distinction in the 3rd Legions Infantry Reg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edward Pfeiffer
Franciszek Edward Pfeiffer, nom-de-guerre ''Radwan'' (January 21, 1895 in Łódź – June 13, 1964 in London) was a Polish military commander, Brigadier General of the Polish Army, commander of the Region I Śródmieście of the Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising, cavalier of the Order of Virtuti Militari Edward Pfeiffer was born in 1895 in a middle-class family in Łódź. He also attended high school there and between 1910 and 1912 he helped to found the Polish Scouting Association and a secret school organization "Collegial Self-Help" whose purpose was education in the Polish language (partly banned or restricted in the Russian Empire) and the study of Polish history. The group also distributed books which had been banned by the Tsarist censors. Honours and awards * Gold Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari, previously awarded the Silver Cross * Cross of Independence * Cross of Valour - four times * Gold Cross of Merit with Swords * Order of Lāčplēsis The Order ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Karol Ziemski
Karol Ziemski (24 May 1895 – 17 January 1974) (nom de guerre ''Wachnowski'') was a general of the Polish Army, participant of the Polish September Campaign and the Warsaw Uprising, officer of the Home Army. He was born on May 24, 1895 in the village of Nasutów, Lublin County. In June 1914, Ziemski graduated from a high school in Lublin, and next year he was drafted into the Russian Imperial Army and was sent to a cadet school in Kiev. After graduation, he fought in Ukraine and Romania, and in January 1918 he got to Babruysk, where he joined the Polish I Corps in Russia, under general Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki. In June 1918 Ziemski returned to Poland and began studies at the Warsaw Polytechnic. Soon afterward he quit to volunteer in the freshly created Polish Army. He co-organized the 36th Infantry Regiment (Poland), Warsaw Battalion of Academic Legion, and in 1919 was promoted to captain. Ziemski fought in the Polish-Soviet War, during which he was wounded. In 1923 promoted to ca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antoni Chruściel
Gen. Antoni Chruściel ( '' nom de guerre'' Monter; 16 July 1895 – 30 November 1960) was a Polish military officer and a general of the Polish Army. He is best known as the ''de facto'' commander of all the armed forces of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, as well as Home Army's chief of staff. Early life Antoni Chruściel was born on 16 July 1895 in the village of Gniewczyna Łańcucka halfway between Łańcut and Przeworsk, to Andrzej Chruściel, a local farmer and the vogt of that village. In 1909, while still a student at a local gymnasium in Jarosław, Chruściel joined the secret scouting troop; he was also active in the Zarzewie movement. In 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War he moved to Lwów, where he joined the Eastern Legion. Soon afterwards, as a citizen of Austria-Hungary, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. After graduating from an NCO school in May 1915 he served at various posts, including his service as a commanding officer of a company ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tadeusz Pełczyński
Tadeusz Walenty Pełczyński (codenames: ''Grzegorz'', ''Adam'', ''Wolf'', ''Robak''; Warsaw, 14 February 1892 – 3 January 1985, London) was a Polish Army major general (''generał brygady''), intelligence officer and chief of the General Staff's Section II (the military intelligence section). During World War II, he became chief of staff of the Home Army (''ZWZ'', ''Armia Krajowa''; July 1941 – October 1944) and its deputy commander (July 1943 – October 1944). Early life and education Tadeusz Pełczyński was the son of Ksawery Pełczyński, a Sanniki sugar-mill technician, and Maria, ''née'' Liczbińska, a teacher, and was a great-grandson of Michał Pełczyński, a general in the Army of Congress Poland. Pełczyński began school in Łęczyca. In 1905 he participated in a school strike connected with Polish efforts to win independence from the Russian Empire. He continued his schooling in Warsaw at the Gen. Paweł Chrzanowski '' Gymnasium''. In 1911 he began medica ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski
Generał Tadeusz Komorowski (1 June 1895 – 24 August 1966), better known by the name Bór-Komorowski (after one of his wartime code-names: ''Bór'' – "The Forest") was a Polish military leader. He was appointed commander in chief a day before the capitulation of the Warsaw Uprising and following World War II, 32nd Prime Minister of Poland, 3rd Polish government-in-exile in London. Life Komorowski was born in Khorobriv, in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (the Austrian partition of Poland). In the First World War he served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and after the war became an officer in the Polish Army, rising to command the Grudziądz Cavalry School. He was a member of the Polish equestrian team that went to the 1924 Summer Olympics. After taking part in the fighting against the German invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II in 1939, Komorowski, with the code-name ''Bór'', helped organise the Polish underground in the Kraków area. In Ju ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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General Government
The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovakia and the Soviet Union in 1939 at the onset of World War II. The newly occupied Second Polish Republic was split into three zones: the General Government in its centre, Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in the west, and Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union in the east. The territory was expanded substantially in 1941, after the German Invasion of the Soviet Union, to include the new District of Galicia. The area of the ''Generalgouvernement'' roughly corresponded with the Austrian part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The basis for the formation of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polish Armed Forces In The East
The Polish Armed Forces in the East ( pl, Polskie Siły Zbrojne na Wschodzie), also called Polish Army in the USSR, were the Polish Armed Forces, Polish military forces established in the Soviet Union during World War II. Two armies were formed separately and at different times. ''Anders' Army'', created in the second half of 1941, was loyal to the Polish government-in-exile. After Operation Barbarossa and the consequent Polish-Soviet Sikorski–Mayski agreement, an amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union was declared, which made the formation of Polish military units possible. In 1942, Anders' Army was evacuated to Iran and transferred to the command of the Allies of World War II, Western Allies. It became known as the II Corps (Poland), Polish II Corps and went on to fight Nazi Germany, Nazi German forces in the Italian Campaign (World War II), Italian Campaign, including the Battle of Monte Cassino. From Poles who remained in the Soviet Union, the Polish 1st Tadeusz K ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |