By the summer of 1944, the end of Nazi Germany was at hand. As the Red Army continued to make gains on the Eastern Front, Allied forces were in the process of liberating France after making a dramatic and massive landing on the Continent at Normandy on 6 June..
The Poles, who had been subjected to some of the worst German atrocities in the war, were more than ready to throw off the yoke of Nazi oppression and planned a coordinated revolt for 1 August. The idea was simple and honorable. Polish forces would stage a rebellion in the capital in order to draw off German soldiers and resources from the Eastern Front - thus allowing the Red Army a path of less resistance to Warsaw and then Berlin.
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Stalin, however, had imperial ambitions of his own, and the liberation of Poland was not on his agenda. Why would it have been? Only five years earlier in August 1939, Stalin decided to sign a non-aggression treaty with his ideological nemesis in order to prevent Hitler from invading a still fragile USSR. Secret clauses in the agreement called for an end to Polish sovereignty and
allowed each dictator to claim half of Poland as a sphere of influence. When Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September (1939), setting off World War II, he had the full blessing of his counterpart in Moscow.
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Stalin may have been engaged in a total war with Hitler in 1944, but he still did not recognize Poland as a legitimate nation state. Rather than sending his armies into Warsaw, he purposely held the Red Army back to allow the Nazis enough time to crush the uprising. Once Polish resistance was eliminated, the Red Army would be sent into Warsaw to both take the city back from the Nazis and impose its will on the nation. Stalin's scheme worked perfectly.
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Between the beginning of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August and its end two months later (3 October), the Nazis launched an incomprehensible reign of terror and destroyed all hopes for an independent Poland at the conclusion of the war. Aside from inflicting 22,000 casualties upon Polish forces (16,000 dead, 6,000 seriously wounded), Heinrich Himmler's SS raided residential homes and indiscriminately murdered between 150,000-200,000 men, women and children. Most of these heinous atrocities occurred in Wola district of Warsaw from 5-8 August.
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Hitler's unconscionable tactics were employed to break the will of Poland to fight, but the Polish spirit was not broken. After surviving decades of both Nazi and Soviet tyranny, Poland emerged victorious in the Cold War and became an autonomous, democratic nation once again.
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The Warsaw Uprising must remain on the pages of European and world history. It is a case of hope after defeat and triumph after tragedy, and those who died - died with honor.
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(Picture: Memorial of 'The Wola Massacre' - Warsaw, Poland)
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J Roquen