Topic summary
Warsaw Uprising
Polish Army in the East
(from 14 September)
United Kingdom
(4 August – 21 September)
United States
(only on 18 September)
South Africa
Soviet Union
(limited aid)
Tadeusz Pełczyński(POW)
Antoni Chruściel(POW)
Karol Ziemski(POW)
Edward Pfeiffer(POW)
Leopold Okulicki
Jan Mazurkiewicz
Zygmunt BerlingNikolaus von Vormann
Rainer Stahel
E. v.d. Bach-Zelewski
Heinz Reinefarth
Bronisław Kaminski
Oskar Dirlewanger
Robert von Greim
Paul Otto Geibel
- City Center – North
- City Center – South
- Powiśle
- Warsaw – North
- Żoliborz
- Kampinos Forest
- Warsaw – South
- Kedyw Units
Warsaw Airlift:
Royal Air Force
(including Polish squadrons)
US Army Air Force
South African Air Force
Soviet Air Force
- Warsaw Garrison
- Kampfgruppe Rohr
- Sturmbrigade RONA
- Kampfgruppe Reinefarth
- Sturmbrigade Reck
- Sturmbrigade Schmidt
- Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger
- Schutzpolizei
- Kampfgruppe Rohr
Supported by:
Luftwaffe20,000–49,000
2,500 equipped with guns (initially)
2 captured Panther tanks
1 captured Hetzer tank destroyer
2 captured armoured personnel carriers
Improvised armored vehicles
Warsaw Airlift:
- 107 B-17s,
- P-51 Mustangs
13,000–25,000 (initially)
Dozens of tanks
LuftwaffePolish resistance:
15,200 killed and missing
5,000 wounded in action
15,000 POW (incl. capitulation agreement)
Polish First Army: 5,660 casualties
Warsaw Airlift: 41 aircraft destroyed
German forces:
2,000–17,000 killed and missing
9,000 wounded in action
700,000 expelled from the city
The Warsaw Uprising (Polish: powstanie warszawskie; German: Warschauer Aufstand), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (Polish: powstanie sierpniowe), or the Battle of Warsaw, 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 (Polish: 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 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 defeat of the uprising and suppression of the Home Army enabled the pro-Soviet Polish administration, instead of the Polish government-in-exile based in London, to take control of Poland afterwards. Poland remained part of the Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc throughout the Cold War until 1989.
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 of Warsaw while helping the Allies defeat Germany. An additional, political goal of the Polish Underground State was to liberate Poland's capital and assert Polish sovereignty before the Soviet Union and Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation, which already controlled eastern Poland, could assume control. Other immediate causes included a threat of mass German round-ups of able-bodied Poles for "evacuation"; calls by Radio Moscow's Polish Service for uprising; and an emotional Polish desire for justice and revenge against the enemy after five years of German occupation.
Despite the early gains by the Home Army, the Germans successfully counterattacked on 25 August, in an attack that killed as many as 40,000 civilians. The uprising was now in a siege phase which favored the better-equipped Germans and eventually the Home Army surrendered on 2 October when their supplies ran out. The Germans then deported the remaining civilians and razed the city itself.
While the Germans lost around 16,000 men during the Warsaw Uprising, Polish casualties were catastrophic. Although the exact number of casualties is unknown, it is estimated that about 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and about 6,000 badly wounded. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. Jews being harboured by Poles were exposed by German house-to-house clearances and mass evictions of entire neighbourhoods.
Historians and the public have debated and interpreted the impact of the Uprising in a wide range of ways, including as a deeply heroic effort and as a terrible loss with little gain. Polish and Western historians agree that Joseph Stalin tactically halted his forces from advancing on Warsaw in order to exhaust the Polish Home Army and to aid his political desires of turning Poland into a Soviet-aligned state. Some scholars argue that the two-month period of the Warsaw Uprising was a step in the direction of the Cold War.