The Warsaw Uprising (Powstanie Warszawskie) was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (AK-Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1, 1944, as part of a nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the German-led forces until October 2 (63 days in total). Losses on the Polish side amounted to 18,000 soldiers killed, 25,000 wounded and over 250,000 civilians killed, mostly in mass executions conducted by advancing German troops. Casualties on the German side amounted to over 17,000 soldiers killed and 9,000 wounded. During the urban combat-and after the end of hostilities, German forces, acting on Hitler's orders, burned the city systematically block after block.

The Home Army's initial plans for a national uprising, Operation Tempest, which would link up with British forces, changed in 1943 when it became apparent that the Red Army would force the Germans from Poland. The situation came to a head as the Soviet attack on Germany, reached the old Polish border on 13 July. The urgency of this decision increased as it became clear that the Soviet NKVD units who followed behind would either shoot or send to gulags most Polish officers and those Polish soldiers of AK who would not join the Soviet Army.

In the early summer of 1944, German planning required Warsaw to serve as the strong point of the area and to be held at all costs. The Germans had fortifications constructed and built up their forces in the area. This process slowed after the failed July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but by late July of 1944, German forces had almost reached their full strength again. On July 27, the governor of the General Government, Hans Frank, called for 100,000 Polish men between the ages of 17-65 to present themselves at several designated meeting places in Warsaw the following day. The plan envisaged the Poles constructing fortifications for the Wehrmacht in and around the city. The Home Army viewed this move as an attempt to neutralise the underground forces, and the underground urged Warsaw inhabitants to ignore it.

As the Soviet forces approached Warsaw in June and July 1944, Soviet radio stations demanded a full national uprising in Warsaw to cut German communication lines of units still on the right bank of Vistula. On July 29, 1944, the first Soviet armoured units reached the outskirts of Warsaw, but were counterattacked by German 39th Panzer Corps, comprising 4th Panzer Division, 5th SS Panzer Division, 19th Panzer Division, and the Hermann Goering Panzer Division. This attack enveloped and annhiliated Soviet 3rd Tank Corps at Wolomin, 15 kilometers outside Warsaw. The Germans crushed its resistance by August 11th, inflicting a 90% casualty rate on this encircled Soviet force.

On 25 July the Free Polish Cabinet in London approved the planned uprising in Warsaw. Fearing German reprisals following the ignored order to support fortification construction, and believing that time was of the essence, General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski ordered full mobilisation of Home Army forces in the Warsaw area on 1 August 1944.

This mobiization decision had some key ramifications with the Soviet Union. Stalin decried for not being officially consulted on the uprising and thus suspected subterfuge from his Western allies. In retrospect, both sides were jockeying for regional political alignment, with the Polish Home Army's desire for a pro-Western Polish government and the Soviet's intention of establishing a Polish Communist regime.

The Home Army forces of the Warsaw District numbered about 50,000 soldiers, 23,000 of them equipped and combat-ready. Most of them had trained for several years in partisan warfare and urban guerrilla warfare, but lacked experience in prolonged daylight fighting. The forces lacked equipment, especially since the Home Army had shuttled weapons and men to the east of Warsaw before making the decision on 21 July to include Warsaw in Operation Tempest. Besides the Home Army itself, a number of other partisan groups subordinated themselves to Home Army command for the uprising. Finally, many volunteers, including some Jews freed from the concentration camp in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, joined as the fighting continued.

Polish insurgent, wearing armband in the national colors, at a Warsaw Uprising barricade. He is using the 'Police' version of the MP40 Sub-machine gun, which is single shot/repeater and with a wooden stock.

General Antoni Chruściel, codename 'Monter', commanded the Polish forces in Warsaw. On August 1 their military materiel consisted of: 1000 rifles, 1700 pistols, 300 MP40 machine-pistols, 60 submachine guns, 7 machine guns MG 42, 35 anti-tank guns and carbines (including several PIATs), 25,000 hand grenades. In the course of the fighting the Poles obtained further gear through air drops and by capture from the enemy (including several armoured vehicles). Also, the insurgents' workshops worked busily throughout the uprising, producing 300 automatic pistols, 150 flame-throwers, 40,000 grenades, a number of mortars and PIATs, and even an armoured car.

On August 1, 1944, the German garrison in Warsaw numbered some 10,000 troops under General Rainer Stahel. Together with various units on the left bank of the Vistula River, German forces comprised some 15,000 to 16,000 Wehrmacht soldiers as well as SS and police forces. Critically, these well-equipped German forces had been prepared for the defence of the city's key positions for many months. Several hundred concrete bunkers and barbed wire lines protected the buildings and areas occupied by the Germans. Also, at least 90,000 additional German troops were available from occupation forces in the surrounding area. A large section of the personnel on the "German" side, came from Kaminski's "collaborationist forces", including Russians, Ukrainians and Azeris. All of these forces, however, remained clearly subject to the control of the German war machine.

The uprising began officially in daylight at 17:00 or "W-hour" August 1. Lack of surprise, a sudden changes of plan, inexperience in day fighting and incomplete mobilization meant that many of the earlier Polish objectives of the uprising were not achieved. The first two days were crucial in establishing the battlefield for the rest of the uprising. Most successes were achieved in the city centre and old town, where most objectives were captured, although major German strongholds remained. In other areas such as Mokotów the attackers almost completely failed to capture their objectives or they captured most of their targets, but with very heavy losses that forced them to retreat. In Praga, on the East bank of the river, the German concentration was so high that the Polish forces fighting there were forced back into hiding. Most crucially, the fighters in different areas failed to link up, either with each other or with areas outside Warsaw, leaving each section of the city isolated from the others.

The moment of greatest success, on August 4, was also the moment at which the German army began receiving reinforcements. SS General Erich von dem Bach was appointed commander and soon after began to counter-attack with the aim of linking up with the remaining German pockets and then cutting off the Uprising from the Vistula (Wisla) river. August 5 is marked by the liberation of the former Warsaw Ghetto area by insurgents and by the beginning of the Wola Massacre, where in mass executions approximately 40,000 civilians were slaughtered by the Germans. A critical aim of this German policy was to crush the will of the Poles to fight and bring the uprising to an end without having to commit to the heavy city fighting; until late September, the Germans were, in fact, shooting all captured insurgents on the spot for the same reason. In other areas, the prime aim of the German "collaborationist" troops seems to have been looting and raping rather than fighting. This German policy was later reversed when the German commanders realized that such atrocities only stiffened the resistance of the Poles to fight their oppressors. From the end of September on, some of the captured Polish soldiers were treated as POWs. On August 7 German forces were strengthened by the arrival of tanks with civilians being used as human shields. After two days of heavy fights they managed to cut Wola in two and reach the Bankowy Square.

German tactics very much hinged on bombardment through the use of huge cannons and heavy bombers and the Poles, without any anti-aircraft artillery and few anti-tank weapons, were unable to effectively defend against.

The Warsaw sewer system was used to move insurgent forces, unseen, between the Old Town and the Downtown and Żoliborz districts.

The 1st Polish Army (1 Armia Wojska Polskiego), formed from Polish deportees in bolshevik Russia, arrived on the Eastern bank of the Vistula in mid-September. When on September 10, the officers of the Home Army units stationed there proposed cooperation, the NKVD arrested them all and sent them to Russia. At that point, the commander of the 1st Polish Army, General Zygmunt Berling, was relieved of his duties by his soviet superiors. Fighting ended on 2 October when the Polish forces were finally forced to capitulate.

Also of significant note was the existence of an American airbase at Poltava in the Ukraine, from which ONE airdrop was made in mid-September. However, this action infuriated Stalin, who immediately forbade all Allied presence in Soviet airspace.

On October 2, General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski signed the capitulation order of the remaining Polish forces (Warszawski Korpus Armii Krajowej or Home Army Warsaw Corps) at 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 began to disarm the Home Army soldiers. They later sent 15,000 of them to POW camps in various parts of Germany. Between 5,000-6,000 insurgents decided to blend into the civilian population hoping to continue the fight later. The entire Warsaw civilian population was 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 Government and released.

After the remaining population had been expelled, the Germans started the destruction of the remains of the city. Special groups of German engineers were dispatched throughtout 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. Destruction was so bad that in order to rebuild much of Warsaw, a detailed landscape of the city painted by two Italian artists Bacciarelli and Canaletto, had to be used as a model to recreate most of the buildings.

The Red Army finally did cross the Vistula River on January 17, 1945. They captured the ruins of Polish capital. German units put up some minor resistance in the Warsaw University area, but Soviet forces broke the German defenses in less than an hour.

Similar, strategically pointless, destruction of historical buildings and monuments was the work of soviet artillery in many historic towns of Poland. Gdańsk's Old Town was leveled by soviets well after German units retreated.

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