The Warsaw Uprising occurred at a stage of the Second World War when it was becoming clear that Nazi Germany was likely to lose. The Uprising ended in capitulation, the deaths of between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians, and only 15% of Warsaw intact; with the benefit of hindsight, many people have argued that it should never have been started. Others have argued that it was inevitable and even crucial for Poland to prove its commitment to the Allied cause. Although Stalin was later to describe it as a "criminal enterprise", just two days prior to its initiation, Radio Moscow had called for the Polish people to rise in arms.
Research in the circumstances that led up to the initiation of the Uprising is difficult because the facts are not always fully available: there are still some sources of information, such as the British and Soviet archives, which remain closed . Therefore, analysis of the Uprising must also incorporate the speculation, past and present, concerning the time prior to the uprising.
Operation Tempest
From the very beginning of its existence the Home Army was planning a national uprising against the German forces. Initial plans created by the Polish government-in-exile in 1942 assumed that the allied invasion of Europe would lead to the withdrawal of considerable German forces from the Eastern Front for the defence of the Third Reich. The Home Army would act to prevent troop transfer to the west and to allow the British and American forces to seize Germany by breaking all communication links with the majority of German forces massed in the Soviet Union.
However, by 1943 it became apparent that the allied invasion of Europe would not come in time, and that in all probability the Red Army would reach the pre-war borders of Poland before the invasion had well begun. In February 1943 general Stefan Rowecki amended the plan. The Uprising was to be started in three phases, the first being in the East (with main centres of resistance in Lwów and Wilno), before the advancing Red Army. The second part was to include armed struggle in the belt between the Curzon Line and the Vistula river, while the third part was to be a nationwide uprising in all of Poland.
Diplomacy with the Soviets and other Allies
In the lead-up to the Warsaw Uprising of 1 August 1944, the Polish government-in-exile and the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) faced growing diplomatic isolation due to shifting wartime alliances and the broader context of Soviet-Western relations. Operation Tempest, launched in early 1943 under General Stefan Rowecki, sought to liberate Polish territory ahead of the Red Army’s advance in order to assert national sovereignty. However, the 1943 Katyn massacre and earlier Soviet annexation of eastern Poland had already severed Polish–Soviet relations. At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, the United States and the United Kingdom accepted Stalin’s demand to shift Poland’s eastern border to the Curzon Line, effectively endorsing Soviet influence over postwar Poland.
As Soviet forces reached the eastern outskirts of Warsaw on 30 July, Stalin refused to provide effective support for the uprising, delaying Allied air operations and dismissing the AK’s leadership as "adventurers". The lack of Soviet intervention and limited Western aid contributed to the uprising’s failure, culminating in massive civilian casualties and the near-total destruction of Warsaw by 2 October 1944.
See also
- Warsaw Uprising
- Battle of Radzymin (1944)