On August 1, 1944, the Warsaw Uprising began – and it’s the subject of a new movie by Jan Komasa, of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, to be released this year.
At the time of the Uprising, Poland was on the brink of utter defeat – but in the nation’s capital, a last-gasp effort to repel the Nazi invaders with the help of Soviet troops was launched.
It ended in bloodshed and bitter defeat, as the Soviets halted short of the main battlefield, allowing the Nazis time to regroup and leading to the deaths of up to 200,000 Poles.
Official trailer for Jan Komasa’s Powstanie Warszawskie, 2013:
Historians, in Poland and elsewhere, disagree in their interpretations of the Uprising and its outcome. Some suggest that it was a necessary and courageous ‘last stand’. Others claim that it was a futile and pointless gesture, always doomed to failure.
Certainly, the outcome might have been different if the Allied forces had acted in a more timely or constructive manner. The British, hosts of the Polish government in exile, sent a mission to Warsaw – but this did not arrive until December, some two months after the Uprising had been defeated. The RAF did, however, train more than 100 Polish recruits and drop them into Poland, along with supplies and money.
From Kanał – Andrzej Wajda’s 1957 movie about the last days of the Uprising:
However, much criticism has been leveled at the Soviet Union, both for its halt short of the capital, and for not allowing Allied forces to use its air bases in support of the Uprising.
The Uprising was finally suppressed on October 2, 1944. By January the following year, the Nazis had abandoned Warsaw – and the Soviet army marched in.
In the words of one German report, from September, halfway through the Uprising, “The insurgents fought to the very last bullet.”
Picture: Armia Krajowa soldier defends the barricades in Powiśle. Creative Commons
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