Cold Open

It’s September 1st, 1944, in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, five years into World War II.

Teresa Wilska, a young, female liaison officer with the Polish Home Army, leads a group of fifty men through the labyrinthine sewage system running beneath the city.

Teresa is in charge of taking them across town to a rendezvous point where the Polish Army needs backup. It’s also her job to keep them orderly and silent. Which is no easy feat. Many of the men in the tunnels are not trained soldiers. The majority are simply civilians, who see now as the moment to rise up against their German occupiers.

They struggle to keep their cool in the underground. Frightened by the eerie silence of their strange new surroundings, some begin to raise their voices.

One switches on a flashlight. Teresa flinches. She knows the smallest of sounds, the briefest of lights, will alert the German soldiers above, and if found, they’ll pay with their lives.

Teresa silences the soldiers around her, but some brush off her warnings and continue their nervous conversation. Teresa grabs one man by the collar and tells him she’ll shoot him dead if he makes another sound. The threat is a bluff. She isn’t even armed. But the soldiers don’t know that.

The men finally fall silent, and just in time. Above them is an open manhole, guarded by two German soldiers. Teresa holds her breath as she silently shuffles through the tunnel and the others follow suit. Finally, they have made it past the soldiers. But the journey is not even half over.

The walls around them shake as bombs drop from German planes overhead. Just one could bring the entire tunnel system crashing down. But Teresa can’t think like that. She has a job to do.

So they trudge on until Teresa spots another open manhole. This time she breathes a sigh of relief, realizing they’ve reached their destination. She motions for the men to start climbing the ladder leading up to the opening. And one by one, they’re pulled up from the sewers by fellow Polish soldiers. Teresa is the last to climb up. Her mission is a success. But the battle is far from over.

For 31 days, the citizens of Warsaw have been fighting to retake their city. Over the next month, Polish fighters and others from the surrounding area will lay down their lives in the pursuit of freedom, in an effort that will come to be known as the Warsaw Uprising. But political games played out far from Poland will frustrate those fighting for their lives, and eventually force the rebels of Warsaw to accept defeat on October 2nd, 1944.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is October 2nd, 1944: The End of the Warsaw Uprising.

Act One: Uprising

It’s August 1st, 1944 in Warsaw, Poland, just before 5 in the afternoon. 

General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, the leader of the Polish Home Guard, walks through the streets of Warsaw, heading to the tobacco factory that houses his impromptu headquarters. As the general traverses through the city, he passes faces he recognizes as men from his underground resistance movement, milling about incognito.

At exactly 5 PM, these men will be full soldiers, members of the Polish Home Army, ready to follow his orders, rise up, and finally attack the occupying Nazis.

In 1939, Poland was invaded by Germans on the West and Soviets on the East. The two superpowers had made a deal to divide and conquer Eastern Europe, and Poland became their first target. Stuck between the might of both Hitler and Stalin, Poland had little hope of survival.

But, over the past five years, a lot has changed.

Now, the Soviets are sworn enemies of the Nazis and after having dealt Germany several defeats, the Soviets have taken to the airwaves, asking the Polish army to rise up against their occupiers. But the Polish people face a dilemma. If they fight and beat the Germans, the Soviets are likely to come and claim Warsaw for their own. And the last thing many Polish people want is to trade one occupier for another. But there is a glimmer of hope that if the Polish Home Army retakes Warsaw quickly enough, they’ll have a slim chance of defending the city against their supposed ‘Allies’ to the East.

So, the Polish Army has decided to go through with the battle. And the man to lead this military campaign is General Bor-Komorowski.

The general arrives at the factory and checks his watch. In just fifteen minutes' time, forty thousand members of the Home Army will take to the streets of Warsaw, armed with whatever they can find and turn on the Nazis.

But as a truck approaches the factory, the general worries that their plans may still be derailed. The vehicle is filled with several members of the German police. They’re most likely just passing by, but if they recognize the sentry stationed outside the factory’s entrance as an armed Polish fighter, the rebels’ element of surprise could be lost.

The general rises from his seat to intervene. But several other soldiers beat him to the scene. They raise their guns and kill all the Germans inside the truck. But their gunshots alert other Germans positioned in pillboxes around the street. They open fire and bullets cascade in the direction of the general and his men in the factory above. 

As the Polish unit inside the factory fights back, the 5 PM, deadline comes to pass. Church bells ring and sirens scream throughout the city, immediately followed by gunfire, as nearly forty thousand Home Army soldiers take to the streets, aiming their weapons at anything in a German uniform.

All over the city, tanks are lit ablaze by bottles filled with gasoline and corked with explosives. With what seems like the entire populace of Warsaw working as one, the Germans in the street have no idea where to return fire.

For three hours, the fighting continues. Then, at 8 PM, the general hears screams from all around him. And for once, these are screams of joy. The red and white colors of the Polish flag once again fly above the offices of Prudential House, the tallest building in Poland. One by one, more flags begin to fly. On the post office, on the town hall building.

The general takes in the scene. He looks to the west and sees a German fuel dump on fire. He knows that all of this must be visible to the Soviet forces on the horizon to the East.

And that is a worrying thought. Today he may have felt triumphant, but their ammunition won’t last much longer. If their grand plan is to succeed, the general knows the fighting has to be over in only a matter of days. Or else the Poles have no hope of keeping their city.

And still, the fighting continues. The Polish Home Army suffers heavy causalities. In the first twenty-four hours alone, they lose two thousand men, and the Germans only five hundred.

And over the coming weeks, positions will be taken and surrendered. There will be battles for the city’s highways, as the Polish try to eliminate the Germans’ ability to escape or receive reinforcements. But though they will fight with a fierce passion, the Polish soldiers will soon realize that their uprising’s success will depend on something they do not control: the support of Poland’s Allies.

Act Two: Aid

It’s September 18th, 1944 on a United States air base in Suffolk, England, 49 days after the Warsaw Uprising began.

At 3 AM, a group of airmen are roused from bed. They eat breakfast and collect their equipment, gathering oxygen masks, parachutes, and emergency landing kits, before being hustled into a briefing room.

There, they learn of today’s mission. They’re informed that they’ll be part of an assignment to bring much-needed aid to the Polish soldiers fighting in Warsaw. They’re told that for weeks the Polish people have been battling Nazi occupiers bravely and without question. But their supplies are short. If they are to have any hope of reclaiming Warsaw, they’ll need more ammunition and medical supplies, which the Allies intend to provide.

Maps are handed out indicating where the Polish Home Army has seized back control from the Nazis. The airmen are divided into two separate groups, each with their own location to target within the city. They won’t be bombing, only parachuting in supplies.

Pilots nod in understanding. The mission sounds simple enough. But before they can take off, their commanding officer explains there’s one complication. After dropping off supplies in Warsaw, the planes will need to land in nearby Soviet territory.

A murmur circles the room.

In recent months, tensions between the Soviet Union and its Western allies have ratcheted up. Despite all being on the same side in their fight against the Axis powers, divisions have become evident regarding post-war plans.

The Soviet Union wants to establish a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and set up a pro-Soviet government in Poland after the war. The United States and the United Kingdom, on the other hand, want to prevent the spread of communism and hope to see a free and democratic government established in Poland instead. These competing interests have started to manifest themselves in the battle over Warsaw.

The UK’s leader, Winston Churchill, has already sent internal messages questioning Soviet commander Joseph Stalin’s reluctance to help Warsaw. Rumors abound that the Soviets want Hitler’s men to take out as much of the anti-Soviet Polish army as possible before they themselves can sweep in.

This atmosphere of suspicion and distrust gives the airmen pause about landing in Soviet territory. Their commanding officer understands and shares their hesitation. But this mission is too important. They must see it through, though he advises his pilots to leave behind their side arms. When they do land on Soviet soil, it’s best that they are unarmed, less tensions between their countries escalate further.

His men oblige and finish their preparations. Then, at 7:30 AM, under cover of fog, three bomber groups and three fighter groups, take off for what will be an eight-and-a-half-hour journey.

For the first few hours, the aircraft fly uneventfully. Then, just after 11 AM, a lone German fighter is spotted but swiftly dispatched. As the Allied planes continue above Northern Germany, more German aircraft take to the skies. And the first casualty on the Allied side is lost in a dogfight. But the majority of the planes make it to the skies above Warsaw and drop the much-needed supplies below.

On the ground, the Polish Home Army rejoices, cheering and shouting praise to the Americans for coming to their aid.

And as the crates parachute down to their targets, delighted soldiers rip open the boxes to reveal everything from guns and ammunition to anti-tank weapons and food. One crate even holds blood for transfusions, donated from a Scottish hospital. 

But many of the drops don’t go to plan. Even when the packages land in the correct location, they immediately provoke a direct response from Germens on the ground. Many attempts to claim the boxes are stopped by concentrated German fire. Some of the larger crates dropped from the sky fall into no man’s land, inspiring tense stand-offs between Polish soldiers on one side, desperate to get the crates and their contents, and German soldiers on the other, doing anything they can to prevent their enemy from re-arming.

And the Polish rebels put up a spirited fight, but it’s of little use. The Allies’ support has come too late to tip the tide in favor of the Polish. And with many of the Home Army already without amination the majority of the thousand or so supply containers are claimed by the Nazis.

All told, nearly eighty percent of the parcels intended for the Polish will fall into enemy hands. And as well-intentioned as the mission was, it will not be the miracle the people of Warsaw needed. As a result after two months of fighting, and countless lives lost, the Warsaw Uprising will come to a tragic end.

Act Three: Capitulation

It’s October 2nd, 1944, sixty-three days after the start of the Warsaw Uprising.

General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski sits across from a German commander with a pen in his hand. He stares his counterpart in the eyes, wondering if he can trust the man in front of him. He thinks about how two weeks earlier, the German forces had been good to their word, and let over twenty-thousand civilians leave the city to look for safety. He weighs that with the horrors he knows the Nazis have committed over five years of occupation.

But after sixty-three days of fighting, the Polish rebels are out of arms, supplies, food, and water, giving the general little choice but to negotiate an end to their uprising.

One of the terms of his agreement with the Germans is that all those who fought will be given combatant rights and face no reprisal from German forces. The general is skeptical of whether he can trust the Nazis to follow through with this. But with no further support coming from the Allies, the general sees no option but to sign the paper in front of him, agreeing to the immediate capitulation of the Polish Home Army.

The next day, Polish soldiers will hand over their weapons and make their way to Germany’s Prisoner of War camps. A further half a million Polish civilians will be forced once again to surrender to Nazi occupation.

During the Uprising and its aftermath, over 10,000 Polish soldiers and an estimated 200,000 civilians will be killed. And once the Polish Army is gone, German forces will lay waste to Warsaw. Nazis will take flamethrowers to buildings, focusing in particular on those with historic significance. And over the course of three months, they will level the city to the ground.

Despite the capitulation agreement, around 100,000 Polish civilians will be sent to Germany as slave laborers. Several thousand more will find themselves in concentration camps.

And by the time the Soviet Union finally captures Warsaw on January 17th, 1945, there will be little left of the once grand city. With so many of the anti-Soviet forces killed in the Uprising, it will be simple for Stalin to assert control of the region. For years after World War II, Poland will be ruled by a puppet communist government. But in 1989, the country will re-establish itself as a democratic state — over four decades after the country’s hope of self-determination was crushed by the unfortunate end of the Warsaw Uprising on October 2nd, 1944.

Outro

Next on History Daily. October 3rd, 1849. Author Edgar Allan Poe is seen in public for the last time when he’s found delirious in a gutter in Maryland, just a few days before he dies under mysterious circumstances.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Owen Paul Nicholls.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.