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Warsaw 1944: Poland's bid for freedom (Campaign)

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Warsaw uprising in 1944 is a page of history still hardly known in the western world - most people never heard of it and easily confuse it with Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943. Publications in English on this topic are still surprisingly scarce. This Osprey Campaign is therefore particularly precious, especially considering its high quality level.

Robert Forczyk, who already wrote the highly successful titles on "Sevastopol 1942" and "Moscow 1941", reached here a new high. This book is particularly well written, making its lecture an easy and yet passionate experience. The account of events is very clear and easy to follow. The quite complicated agendas of Polish Home Army and Stalin are very well analyzed and explained (German agenda was in comparison simple - destroy the city, kill the population, have a schnapps). Illustrations are excellent, maps very precise and the three color plates by Peter Dennis simply splendid - although the first one, showing the extermination of Polish civilians in Wola quarter of Warsaw on 5 August by the SS, is also horribly shocking. Military enthusiasts will certainly appreciate the second plate, showing the incredibly intense close quarter street fight between Polish Home Army insurgents and Waffen SS soldiers from the Dirlewanger brigade. Even more surprising is the third plate, showing insurgent armored vehicles (yes, Home Army insurgents in Warsaw had some armor, including two Panther tanks!) attacking at night a German fortified position in center of Warsaw.

This book stresses very well the fact, that Stalin left Polish insurgents without any help, as their destruction by Germans suited him well, in order to better submit Poland after war. Author is very right to remind that many Polish resistance fighters, who survived five years of German occupation and helped Red Army in its progress through Poland, were then arrested and executed by Soviet secret police NKVD. The situation of Home Army, trapped between two equally dangerous foes, was dire indeed and this book shows it very well.

All the important episodes of the 63 days of uprising (1 August - 2 October) are described in this book, none being forgotten: the horrible Wola massacre (5-8 August 1944), in which us much as 30 thousand Polish civilians were exterminated, the use of Polish civilians as human shields by German troops, the capture of PASTA fortified complex by the Home Army insurgents thanks to the massif use of flamethrowers, the ordeal of insurgents and civilians using the sewers to evacuate from areas taken back by Germans, and many many others.

For any military equipment passionate, this book will be a delight, as it describes the use of such weapons as remote controlled armored mobile mines ("Goliaths"), super heavy 600 mm siege mortar "Karl" or gaseous explosives "Taifun". On insurgent side you will be probably surprised by the Polish submachine gun "Blyskawica" (Lightning), produced by hundreds in hidden underground facilities during Nazi occupation (together with pistols, grenades, flame throwers and 80 mm mortars).

The scope of tragedy that was Warsaw uprising is illustrated the best by the number of civilians massacred by SS and killed by shelling and bombing by German artillery and aviation - no less than 220 000 (two hundred and twenty thousand). This is more than the combined number of civilians killed in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden bombing in 1945! This book stresses this point well, together with the fate of survivors, many of whom were deported to concentration camps, most of the remaining having been send to Germany as slave laborers. The book ends with the description of systematic destruction of Warsaw, once emptied from its population by the SS, house by house. Before WWII, Warsaw had one million habitants - 17 January 1945 advancing Soviet soldiers found a city destroyed at 95% and only two hundred hiding survivors...

This is a precious and brilliantly written book about a great tragedy - to buy, read and keep. If you want to know more about Warsaw uprising, I recommend Norman Davies book "Rising 44" and also the incredible movie "Kanal" (Canal) by Oscar winning Polish director Andrzej Wajda (part of "War Trilogy").

I must say that I totally agreed with the previous reviewer regarding this book. I have just finished reading Rising '44 by Norman Davies and that book gave me an excellent understanding of the Warsaw Uprising. But it took that book 635 pages plus another 100 pages of appendix to do the job that Robert Forczyk did in 93 pages. I am continually amazed at Dr. Forczyk's ability to write so much in so little space as he has shown in the past Osprey books that bears his name. He definitely does not waste words in his narrative. While this book may not be as detail as Davies' book, any reader who read Dr. Forczyk's book will have a clear understanding of the Warsaw Uprising 1944. If they wish, they can move on to the more detail version by Davies. I am also pleased that this author choose to keep the Polish names intact in its narrative, a direct contrast to Davies' book (and Davies' contention that English speaking readers will be turned off by Polish names).

This book allows you to followed step by step the military actions of this uprising that saw the utter destruction of the city of Warsaw and its huge civilian losses. Mistakes made by both sides were clearly pointed out in the book and I found the conclusion made by the author to be in agreement with what I believe. I found the maps, photographs and colorful prints to be quite excellent in portraying and supporting the narrative. Only distraction I can see for some people about this book, probably has to do with the fact that majority of the narrative take the perception from the German point of view then the Polish.

Overall, this book is an excellent addition to the Osprey Campaign series. Anyone who even have a passing interest in this subject will no doubt find the book quite readable and informative in nature.

This work is quite compact. There are separate chapters on the origins of the campaign, the opposing forces, the opposing leaders, the opposing plans, the battle itself, etc. The actual 63-day combat is divided into 2-5 day segments. Old pictures are included, as well as novel 3-D block diagrams depicting some of the combat actions.

Forczyk unmasks the argument about Poland being "too far" from England for substantive airdrops of arms and ammunition. He points out that 170 Lancaster bombers had recently traversed the 1,354 km distance from Lincolnshire to Koenigsberg, each dropping 2.5 tons of bombs, then returning home. The distance was only 74 km less than that of Lincolnshire to Warsaw. (p. 62).

Now consider the Soviet betrayal of the Uprising. Forczyk rejects any attempts at creating a false ambiguity about Soviet conduct towards it. The fact that the Soviets wanted the Uprising to fail is obvious by such things as their refusal (until the very end, when the Uprising was already doomed) to allow Uprising-aiding Allied planes to land on Soviet-held territories. (p. 37). Also, temporary setbacks for the Red Army, just east of Warsaw in early August 1944, were no excuse for them not taking Warsaw long before the Uprising ended. (p. 50).

As soon as the Uprising began, the Germans began murderous reprisals against Polish civilians. Forczyk puts this in perspective: "During the course of 5-6 August, Reinefarth's troops murdered between 30,000 and 40,000 civilians at Wola--exceeding the total of 33,741 Jews killed at Babi Yar outside Kiev in two days in September 1941. The Wola Massacre was the worst single battlefield atrocity committed in Europe in World War II, but it did not produce the effect that Hitler had intended. Instead of terrorizing the population, the indiscriminate murder of thousands of civilians drove the rest of the population into full-hearted support of the AK." (p. 54). The Germans subsequently scaled back their murders of Polish civilians, realizing that the Varsovians would not surrender if they knew that they would all die anyway.

Forczyk traces the battles step by step. He also comments: "Polish snipers became adept at firing from concealed positions within buildings, which made them very difficult for the Germans to spot and suppress." (p. 61). In the end, the overwhelming German superiority in arms and ammunition and the absence of substantive outside assistance made the defeat of the Uprising an inevitability. Forczyk believes that the Uprising softened the intensity of the Communist puppet government subsequently forced on Poland. (p. 92).

The end of the book contains a list of books and websites devoted to the Uprising. [For additional materials, see the Peczkis Listmania: THE FORGOTTEN WARSAW UPRISING (POLES AGAINST GERMANS) IN 1944].

It is merely about an EXCELLENT work, said without wishing to seem subjective! The awesome deeds which took place during the most difficult fighting ever undergone and experienced by the Poles throughout their entire history, are actually thoroughly detailed in Mrs. Forczyk and Dennis book.
Congratulations for both authors! The quality of the text and illustrations is simply EXCELLENT!

Warsaw 1944: Poland's bid for freedom (Campaign), by Robert Forczyk, is an entry in the Osprey "Campaign" series dealing with the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 against the German occupation forces during World War II. The book follows the typical Osprey Campaign format - typically about 96 pages long, consisting of analysis of the campaign, commanders, forces and styles of warfare, pictures, illustrations, and maps.

As usual, Mr. Forczyk does an outstanding job of explaining the origin and chronology of the battle and well as describing each side's strengths, weaknesses, and the commanders involved for both sides and strategies for both sides. Most non-Polish people and non-historians are not familiar with this uprising, and are far more familiar with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, when the Germans began deporting the remaining Jews from Warsaw, and the Polish-Jewish population desperately fought back. As such, this is one of the few books in English on the uprising in 1944, when the Poles attempted to overthrow the Germans just before (they assumed) the liberating Soviet forces could enter Warsaw. (The only other recent works on this battle that I'm aware of are "Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw", by Norman Davies, and "The Warsaw Uprising of 1944", by Wlodzimierz Borodziej and translated from Polish.)

Mr. Forczyk shines a bright light over the numerous duplicities and mistakes on all sides, such as the Soviet refusal to aid the rebellion, the British and Americans giving only token support to the uprising to avoid antagonizing the Soviets, and the many mistakes made by the Polish resistance movement itself. Although given the Soviet desire to see the uprising fail, it is improbable that the uprising could have succeeded no matter how well the Poles implemented their plans, but the many mistakes they made seems inexplicable given that they were planning rebellion for at least two years. While they may not have been able to win, they could have caused the Germans much more pain and heavier casualties than they did historically.

As it turned out, the citizens of Warsaw paid a heavy price for their rebellion ... over 200,000 people died and 85 percent of the city was razed. Many, if not most, of those killed were murdered in cold blood by the Germans. However, Mr. Forczyk believes that uprising probably led to the Soviets taking a softer line in Poland after the war, reasoning that the Poles would likely rebel again if pressed too hard.

Osprey's campaign series are not meant to be the ultimate book on a given campaign, they're meant more as a detailed overview. Mr. Forczyk achieves more than that, primarily due to his mastery of his subject matter and his ability to distill large amounts of information into a small, but interesting, package. The Poles initially believed that "With Germany we lose our freedom, but with Russia we lose our soul." Sadly for the Polish people, they ended up being a pawn between the great powers and would lose virtually everything. If you have an interest in this part of World War II, this book belongs on your bookshelf.

Highly recommended.

There had been much savagery throughout the entire war zone but the history of Poland during and even before the war has got to be one of the worse. For decades Germany and Russia has had an animosity toward Poland and when the country came until their control during the war, the Polish people were truly maltreated. In the first chapter "Origins", Mr Forczyk briefly explains these relationships from WWI as well as the Resistance Movement during occupation. During occupation 1.5 million Poles were sent to labor camps, unknown numbers executed, their treasure looted and the Katyn Affair are a small sampling of the abuse Poland received. To compound that abuse the western Allies abandoned her post war freedom to appease Stalin.

The Poles had been planning this rebellion for years and with the Russians entering Poland, they knew the time had come to expel the Germans from the city before they destroyed it before evacuation. The Poles also hoped that they would have a better chance for independence after the war if they were in control of the capital when the Russians arrived. After delivering background information, a nice two page Chronology is presented to further help the reader get acclimated to the upcoming battle.

The chapter on "Opposing Leaders" was excellent, providing good profiles on three Polish commanders and nine German commanders. Photos of some of these men were presented; I was a little surprised that photos of von Vormann and von Luttwitz were absent.

The "Opposing Forces" chapter was also well done and included background on Poland's AK and LWP Armies. The size of the forces in Warsaw and spread out throughout the country was given, including the fact that thousands of women were part of the movement. Over the years, the British RAF had airdrop tons of weapons and ammo to these freedom fighters which greatly bolstered their cache of Polish weapons which were hidden from the Germans, giving them the only chance to defend themselves. Photos of the Polish uniform and weapons are shown. On the German side the forces of the SS, Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe units are described. An Order of Battle for the two sides is shown as well.

In "Opposing Plans", the plans for the Poles is first. Being a clandestine affair, the planning, coordination and execution of a plan was not ideal and not having firm objectives and control of the forces greatly hampered the Home Army. The Poles wanted to isolate the Germans inside the city by cutting their lines of communications outside Warsaw but it didn't work out exactly as they wanted. Despite initial success, the key bridges and the airport were unable to be taken, dooming their chances for success. The Germans knew that an Uprising was in the making but were completely surprised at the scale of it when it occurred. Its also noted that once the Uprising was underway, the Russians stopped their advance to allow the Germans to put down the rebellion. Stalin, wanted the rebellion to fail; he wanted the Poles to be as weak as possible in order to subdue them when they took over.

To make it easier to understand, Mr Forczyk breaks up the two month battle into time segments as well as sectors. The coverage is excellent and every key event seems to be covered. There are seven excellent colored maps that accompany the narrative. Six are 2-D and one is 3-D. Six of the maps cover the fighting within the city and the seventh map shows an area map of the German and Russian dispositions as the Russians move toward Warsaw. I also appreciated the crib notes provided for each map; it really helped my understanding of the action. These street maps were extraordinary. Three color 2-page illustrations of the street fighting were also presented. There are also many fine photos of key people and of the city to study.
In "Aftermath", the author describes how the Germans removed the POWs and civilians from the city and then proceeded to destroy the rest of the city. Despite not being fully coordinated and not concentrating their forces properly, high praise is bestowed on the Poles for their bravery and tenacity in their attempt to vanquish the larger German force.
A Bibliography and Index are included. The Bibliography lists primary and secondary sources and websites which will be helpful if further study is desired.
I've said this before about Mr Forczyk's earlier Campaigns and "Warsaw 1944" is another good example of the author's ability to concentrate all the pertinent information in a 96 page package. This campaign is the ideal starting point to learn about the Uprising and in fact for many of us all you'll need to understand this brutal event and is highly recommended.

I am a big fan of the Osprey Campaign series and was thrilled to find a volume on the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. There aren't that many good (English) titles out there.

Warsaw 1944 covers the uprising in its entirety and as usual the photographs and accompanying action painting are excellent. In fact, the color plates really make this series of books come alive. The three color plates in this volume are really engaging and bring the uprising to life.

If you are looking for one, really great book on the subject, this should fit the bill.

My only complaint is that it wasn't longer. Osprey has scored another hit with this volume and I look forward to collecting others in this wonderful series.

In early August 1944, the Polish Underground Army in Warsaw, buoyed by the approach of the Red Army, rose up against its German occupiers. Two months later, Warsaw lay in ruins and 200,000 civilians were dead, many murdered by brutal SS units involved in crushing the rebellion. The tragic story of the Warsaw Uprising is concisely told in Robert Forczyk's WARSAW 1944, POLAND'S BID FOR FREEDOM, a 2009 Osprey release, being #205 in their 'Campaign' series.

As repeatedly brought out in Forczyk's eminently-readable and evocatively-illustrated text, the August to October 1944 uprising by Warsaw residents was as valiant as it was foredoomed. The leaders of the Polish Underground Army made critical mistakes before and throughout most of the rebellion, dooming their own cause to defeat. The Polish cause was not helped by the indifference of Great Britain nor the duplicity of Russia, both countries leaving Warsaw to die on the vine. Likewise, though ultimately victorious, the Germans performed just as poorly, inept leadership undercutting the advantages held by the Nazis.

Forczyk has the Osprey Campaign format down pat. He discusses the origins of the uprising and opposing commanders/forces/strategies before describing the combats that ensued beginning 1 August 1944. The initial attacks and subsequent moves/counter moves are easily followed. The well-chosen photographs and Peter Dennis' evocative battle-scene artworks really help bring the long-ago battle to life.

Having little knowledge of the Warsaw Uprising, I found Forczyk's book an excellent introduction to and summary of one of the most horrifying battles of World War II. Recommended.

This otherwise excellent study of the Polish Uprising of 1944 is marred by the author leaving out certain facts concerning Soviet - Polish relations during the period between the two world wars. In the opening pages, Forczyk accuses the Soviet Union of aggression against Poland in 1920, when in fact Soviet forces were counter-attacking Polish armies that had reached as far as Kiev. This puts the entire historical spin of his work in question as it becomes understandable why the Soviet Union might not want to support an uprising by a government that had proven its hostility toward their nation. For a historical overview of these events, I invite readers to look up the following Wikipedia articles: "Kiev Offensive (1920)" and "Polish-Lithuanian War".
The author also fails to mention that the Russian territory given to Poland was granted to them in the Paris Peace conference of 1919, to which representatives from Russia were not invited. I have always considered this a shocking betrayal of a nation that had sacrificed millions of soldiers to the Allied cause in World War I.
Other than his obvious axe to grind against the Soviet Union, the author does his usual thorough and insightful analysis. He criticizes both sides for their tactical errors and gives the reader a firm understanding of why the battle turned out the way it did and how each of the key personalities involved influenced the outcome.
I should add that I have nothing but the greatest respect for Robert Forczyk as a historian, and that this book is still well worth the purchase price - I'm just puzzled as to why such important facts were left out.