On January 17, 1945, units of the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Army of the Polish Army completed the liberation of Warsaw, which had been under Nazi occupation since September 1939. The city was cleared of the Nazis in three days, and the expulsion of the Wehrmacht units from all over Poland ended in early February during the Wisla-Oder offensive operation. As Marshal Georgy Zhukov, commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, noted in his report, about 600 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers were killed in the battles for independence of Poland.
“The Germans realized that their front was broken”
Initially, the command of the Red Army (Red Army) intended to launch an offensive on Polish territory on January 20, 1945. However, due to the failure of the Anglo-American forces in the Ardennes and the request of the head of the British government, Winston Churchill, for help, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the postponement of the start of the Wislo-Oder operation to January 12.
The fighting on the outskirts of Warsaw broke out on January 14. From the southern direction, the 61st army of Colonel General Pavel Belov was advancing on the capital of Poland, from the north - the 47th army of Major General Franz Perhorovich. The 2nd Guards Tank Army of General Semyon Bogdanov, acting from the bridgehead on the left bank of the Pilitsa River, played an important role in the liquidation of the enemy group.
The documents of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, published on January 17, 2020, say that the battles for Warsaw were "large-scale and bloody." The offensive of the Red Army was actively supported by the 1st Army of the Polish Army under the command of Soviet General Stanislav Poplavsky. On January 16, the Poles crossed to the west bank of the Vistula. It was parts of the Polish Army that were the first to break into Warsaw. These were the soldiers of the 4th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Division of Jan Rotkevich.
Battles on the streets of the city began on January 17 at eight in the morning and ended by three in the afternoon. Despite the fact that the Nazi troops were in a dense ring of encirclement, they tried to resist. The battles for the main city station were heavy. However, all attempts by the Wehrmacht to contain the offensive were unsuccessful.
The liberation of Warsaw was of great strategic importance. It allowed the Red Army to expel the invaders from the rest of Poland and create a bridgehead for an attack on Germany. In addition, the support of local Polish resistance forces had a positive effect on Soviet-Polish relations after the war.
On the part of the Red Army, in addition to the infantrymen, tankers, and artillerymen, fighters of the USSR Navy and NKVD officers participated in the operation to liberate the Polish capital. In total, more than 690 thousand soldiers and officers received the medal “For the Liberation of Warsaw”.
In an interview with RT, the head of the scientific department of the Russian Military Historical Society, Yuri Nikiforov, noted that the operation of the Red Army and the Polish Army was prepared at the highest level. The advancing forces outnumbered the enemy in numbers of tanks, artillery and aircraft.
“The Nazis practically did not defend the city itself. The outcome of the operation was decided on the approaches to Warsaw. The Germans realized that their front was broken and that they were in danger of encirclement. For this reason, they began to retreat west to save strength for further resistance, ”Nikiforov explained.
Warsaw suffered enormous damage during the years of occupation. In addition, the Nazis, retreating, mined the Polish capital. A report by Colonel-General Mikhail Malinin, Chief of Staff of the 1st Belorussian Front, said that Soviet soldiers cleared more than 14 tons of explosives in the Polish capital, 5412 anti-tank and 17,227 anti-personnel mines, 46 land mines, 232 “surprises” (a kind of mine) 14 thousand shells, aerial bombs, mines and grenades.
In an interview with RT, Cheslav Lewandowski, who lived in occupied Warsaw, said that the peak of Nazi terror occurred in 1942-1943. According to him, the Germans hung and shot people right on the streets.
“It was awful. It was scary to go out, because cars drove up and took anyone. It was terrible to go by tram, because it is not known where he will be stopped and taken away. It was one period. Terrible. He took the life of Warsaw, ”said Lewandowski.
He also recalled that for the Jews, the Germans did organize a ghetto in which about half a million people settled. According to Lewandowski, there were "a lot of dying children" on the streets of the ghetto.
On January 17, 1945, Lewandowski did not immediately learn about the liberation of Warsaw, as he was in a concentration camp.
- Map of Red Army strikes on Wehrmacht factions in Poland
- © Archive of the Ministry of Defense of Russia
The author of the Warsaw-Poznan offensive operation, during which the Polish capital was liberated, the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, Georgy Zhukov, recalled that before the Soviet-Polish forces attacked, the Germans killed tens of thousands of people, consistently destroyed residential areas, urban facilities and major industrial enterprises.
“The city is dead. Listening to the stories of the inhabitants of Warsaw about the atrocities committed by the German fascists during the occupation and especially before the retreat, it was difficult to even understand the psychology and moral character of the enemy troops, ”Zhukov described the situation in the liberated Warsaw.
Nevertheless, the rapid offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front, according to Zhukov, prevented the Nazis from destroying the remaining “industrial enterprises, railways and highways, and prevented them from hijacking and exterminating the Polish population, and removing livestock and food.”
After the defeat of the Warsaw Wehrmacht group, the Red Army and the Polish Army continued to develop an intensive offensive in other directions. On February 3, Soviet units reached Oder, stopping 60–70 km from Berlin.
Two resistance camps
It is worth noting that post-socialist Poland is dominated by a negative assessment of the Wisło-Oder and Warsaw-Poznan operations. In particular, the authorities of the Polish capital refused to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the city by the Red Army and pro-Soviet forces. Warsaw equates the policies of the USSR in the pre-war period with the actions of Nazi Germany.
Adherence to this course is puzzling in Moscow.
“If we talk about an obvious trend, then I can’t understand how to mark the start date of the war and at the same time practically ignore the release dates. At the same time, the preconditions for the outbreak of war and the pre-war situation are completely distorted, ”Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, stressed on January 13.
At the same time, the Polish authorities are actively heroizing the Warsaw Uprising, initiated by the government in exile, which was located in London. The rebels launched military operations on August 1, 1944. But the strategy turned out to be a failure: the uprising ended on October 2 with a German victory. According to Warsaw, the Soviet leadership did not provide the rebels with the necessary assistance and thereby doomed them to death.
However, in modern historiography, the Warsaw Uprising is considered one of the most controversial episodes of the final phase of World War II.
It is worth recalling that during the period of occupation, the Polish resistance consisted of several armed groups. The London government relied on the Army Craiova (AK), while Moscow actively helped the Polish Army and the Ludova Army.
The relationship between these two Polish resistance camps was very complex. So, the command of the Home Army intended to liberate Poland and the western regions of the USSR without the support of the Red Army. The key political goal of the AK and the Polish government in exile was to recreate the Polish state within its borders until September 1939. Thus, they intended to “return” Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.
The leadership of the AK and the government, which was in London, counted on the support of Western countries, however, as stated in the materials of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin Roosevelt “were realists” and understood the inevitability of the liberation of Poland by the Red Army.
The uprising in Warsaw, AK and the Polish government in exile also organized unilaterally, without consultation with Moscow. Only Great Britain was informed of these plans. The USSR was notified only on August 2, a day after the AK’s speech. At the same time, despite the previous defeats, the rebels expected to knock out the Germans in a few days.
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However, the occupation commandant of Warsaw was aware of the plans of the rebels. Already on August 1, 1944, the Reich Minister of the Interior Heinrich Himmler, following Hitler’s instructions, ordered that the insurrection be brutally crushed, razing the city to the ground. Units of the SS, Ukrainian nationalists and Soviet collaborators were thrown into the liquidation of the rebels, including supporters of General Andrei Vlasov, who switched to Hitler in 1942.
Despite serious political differences, the assistance of the Home Army was provided by the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts, as well as armed groups loyal to Moscow. However, Soviet and Polish units moved slowly and with heavy losses due to a lack of aircraft and heavy equipment.
Meanwhile, the Germans strengthened reserves and grouping on the outskirts of Warsaw. Could not help the rebels and the Western allies. For their own safety, the British pilots were forced to drop loads of weapons over 4 km from Warsaw. Often such "premises" fell into the hands of the Germans.
Stalin called the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 "reckless terrible adventure." At the same time, the Soviet leader noted that "the Red Army will spare no efforts to defeat the Germans near Warsaw and free Warsaw for the Poles."
One of the most dramatic periods of the occupation of the city calls the Warsaw Uprising Cheslav Lewandowski. According to him, it was then that "it came to an understanding of the whole Polish society, especially Warsaw, that everything needed to be done to harm the invader."
- Cheslav Lewandowski on Occupied Warsaw
“Therefore, work was sabotaged, deadlines were violated, conspiratorial movements developed. During this period, there were most of those who joined various underground organizations and created an army, ”said Lewandowski.
The Defense Ministry materials published on January 17 say that the Warsaw Uprising was poorly prepared and carried out for political purposes that "did not take into account the expectations and hopes of the majority of the Polish population."
Inconvenient Truth
Commenting on the situation on the fronts, Yuri Nikiforov noted that as of July - August 1944, the USSR did not have the resources to successfully attack the capital of Poland due to the recent heavy fighting for the liberation of Belarus. Nevertheless, the Soviet units and the Polish Army attempted to break through to the city and divert the enemy forces, which at that time destroyed the Warsaw rebels.
“The Red Army did everything it could in that situation. It was a manifestation of true heroism. We must also pay tribute to the courage of the rebels. They stubbornly and fiercely resisted. In response, the Germans and Ukrainian nationalists mercilessly killed both AK fighters and civilians, ”Nikiforov emphasized.
The expert is convinced that the entire government in London bears the full political responsibility for the failure of the Warsaw Uprising. However, this view does not fit into the framework of the ideology of post-socialist Poland, which is based on the denial of the contribution of the USSR and pro-Soviet forces to the defeat of the Nazi occupiers, the historian says.
- Captured German soldiers in Poland
- © Archive of the Ministry of Defense of Russia
A similar point of view is held by Alexander Kobrinsky, doctor of historical sciences, professor of Moscow State University. In an interview with RT, he stated that the history of the liberation of Poland by the Red Army was the victim of political Russophobic manipulations of the ruling elite.
“Official Warsaw refuses to recognize the obvious lack of resources for the liberation of the country without large-scale assistance from the USSR. This is an inconvenient truth for modern authorities. Of course, our countries have a very complicated and contradictory history of relations, but it’s criminal to deny the enormous positive significance of the liberation of Warsaw and the whole country by the Red Army, ”said Kobrinsky.
The expert recalled that the Soviet Union paid a huge price for the Wisla-Oder offensive operation. Kobrinsky also emphasized that the USSR actually saved the Polish people not only from extermination, but also from hunger. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, from March to November 1945, Warsaw received from Moscow food and fodder worth more than 1.5 billion rubles from Moscow to ensure the sowing campaign. at 1945 prices.
“Anti-Soviet assessments of modern Poland and barbarism in relation to the monuments of the Red Army cause a feeling of deep disgust. Warsaw lacquers historical reality by striking out the positive pages related to the Soviet Union, as well as the facts of aiding the Poles to the Germans, which Vladimir Putin also spoke about. Poland received independence from the hands of the Soviet state and should be grateful for that, ”Kobrinsky concluded.