| Warsaw Uprising |
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This is a list of military units taking part in the Warsaw Uprising, a Polish insurrection during the Second World War that began on August 1, 1944.
| Warsaw Uprising |
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This is a list of military units taking part in the Warsaw Uprising, a Polish insurrection during the Second World War that began on August 1, 1944.
Many of the Home Army units were formed before the beginning of the Uprising; several were organised in the following days as new volunteers joined.
Units were assigned to given areas, namely:
Units were organised into battalions, companies and platoons. Many of those became famous either before the Uprising or during it, including 'Battalion Zośka', 'Czata 49', 'Parasol', and 'Miotła'.
On August 1, the Home Army's arsenal consisted of:
Types of weapons used can be divided into the following categories: [1]
The following list does not correspond with the above area list.
| Unit group or sector | Unit name | Composition | Part of | Notes |
| Group Śródmieście-Północ (City Center - North) | ||||
| Group 'Chrobry II' | Battalion 'Lech Żelazny' Battalion 'Lech Grzybowski' | 3 comp. 3 comp | NSZ NSZ | |
| Sector: north | Battalion 'Rum' | 3 comp | AK | |
| Group 'Gurt' | Battalion 'Gurt' Battalion WSOP Group IV | 3 comp. 3 comp. | AK AK | |
| Group 'Kiliński' | Battalion 'im. Kilińskiego' | 5 comp. | AK | |
| Group 'Harnasie' | Group 'Harnasie' Company 'Lewera' | 2 comp. 2 plat. | AK AK | Companies: 'Genowefa', 'Żyrafa' |
| Group 'Bartkiewicz' | Companies 'Żmudzin', 'Andrzej', 'Lechicz', 'Bohun' | each 3 plat. | After fall of Stare Miasto reinforced with company 'Gustaw' | |
| Group 'Wiktor' | Company 'Wiktor' | 4 plat. | AK | |
| Disposition units | Company 'Koszta' Company '100' WSOP | 2 plat. 3 plat. | AK AK | Defensive screen of Warsaw District Headquarters |
| Backup units | Battalion KB | 2 comp. | KB | Due to lack of weapons disbanded, separate platoons assigned as support for main units |
| Group 'Hal' | Battalion 'im. Sowińskiego' | 2 comp. | AK | |
| Group Śródmieście-Południe (City Center - South) | ||||
| Sector: east 'Bogumił' | Battalion 'Ruczaj' Battalion 'Miłosz' | 3 comp. 3 comp. | AK AK | known as Battalion 'of cpt. Sęp' |
| Sector north: 'Sarna' | Battalion WSOP 'Bełt' Battalion 'Sokół' | 3 comp. 1 comp. | AK KB | later named Battalion 'Ostoja' |
| Backup units | Battalion 'Iwo' Company from Group 'Ubogi' | 4 comp. 2 plat. | AK AK | Retreated from Ochota |
| Sector: west 'Golski' | Battalion 'Golski' Company 'Szafrański' | 5 comp. 1 comp. | AK AK | later incorporated Battalion 'Odwet' |
| Sector: south 'Piorun' | Battalion 'Piorun' | 3 comp. | AK | Created from Battalion 'Zaremba' and smaller units |
| Powiśle | ||||
| Group 'Krybar' | Battalion 'Ubogi' Battalion 'Konrad' | 4 comp 4 comp | AK AK | |
| Group Warszawa-Północ (Warsaw-North) | ||||
| Group 'Radosław' and units of 'KeDyw' KG | Battalion 'Czata 49' Battalion 'Miotła' | several comp. 4 comp. | AK AK | After Wola fights disbanded due to losses |
| Backup units | Battalion 'Chrobry I' Brygada Koło | 3 comp. 4 comp. | AK NSZ | Construction and firefight duties |
| Group 'Kuba' and 'Sosna' | Battalion 'im. Łukasińskiego' Battalion 'im. Czarnieckiego Gozdawa' | 3 comp. 3 comp. | AK AK | |
| Group 'Róg' | Battalion 'Gustaw' Battalion WSOP 'Dzik' | 2 comp. 3 comp. | AK AK | later increased to 3 comp.
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| Żoliborz | ||||
| Sector: 'Żubr' | Battalion 'Żubr' | 1 comp. | AK | |
| Sector: 'Żmija' | Battalion 'Żmija' | 3 plat. | AK | |
| Sector: 'Zaglowiec' | Company 'Żaglowiec' | 3 plat. | AK | |
| Sector AL | Company AL | 2 plat | AL | |
| Sector: 'Żyrafa' | Company 'Zyrafa' | 3 plat. | AK | |
| Puszcza Kampinoska (Kapminos Forest) | ||||
| Pułk 'Palmiry-Młociny' | III Battalion 78 pp. I Battalion 'Janusz' | 3 comp. 3 comp. | AK AK | |
| Group Warszaw-Południe (Warsaw-South): Mokotów | ||||
| Group 'Baszta' | Battalion 'B' Battalion 'O' | 3 comp. 3 comp. | AK AK | Mokotów sector |
| Group 'Ryś' | Company 'Gustaw' Company 'Krawiec' | 3 plat. 3 plat. | AK AK | Czerniaków-Południe sector |
| Group 'Olsza' | Company 'Grochów' Szwadron 'Jeżycki' | 3 plat. 3 plat. | AK AK | |
| group 'Góral' | Szwadron szwoleżerów | 3 plat. | AK | |
| Forest Chojnowski and Kabacki | ||||
| Group 'Lasy Chojnowskie' | Battalion 'Grzegorz' Battalion 'Szary' | 3 comp. 3 plat. | AK NSZ | |
| Group 'Gustaw' | Battalion 'Gustaw' | 3 comp. | AK | |
On September 20 this structure was reorganised to fit the structure of Polish forces fighting among the Western Allies. The entire force was renamed to Warsaw Home Army Corps (Warszawski Korpus Armii Krajowej), commanded by general Antoni Chruściel (Monter) and consisted of three infantry divisions:
The names of smaller units (battalions, companies and platoons) were left intact (as in the above table).
Although the vast majority of the resistance in Warsaw were members of Home Army, there was a small number of fighters who weren't members of that organisation. In the course of the Uprising some 1,700 members of other resistance organisations joined the Uprising. Those included the Armia Ludowa, Gwardia Ludowa and Narodowe Siły Zbrojne.
Along with the Polish soldiers who took part in the Uprising, there were also members of other nationalities. Among them was a number of Hungarian deserters [ citation needed ] and Italian escapees from POW camps in Poland. Another ex-POW soldier was RAF Sgt. John Ward, whose numerous coded radio dispatches gave an eyewitness account of the fighting to the British government and Polish government-in-exile, as well as the London press. There was also a Slovak 535th Home Army platoon under Lt. Stanko. It was composed mostly of Slovaks, Georgians, Armenians and Azeri, and suffered heavy casualties in the course of the uprising (up to 70%).
It is believed that some 25,000 Jews were hiding in Warsaw before the Uprising. The vast majority of them died together with other Polish civilians. However, many Jews (possibly as many as 1,000), including those released by Home Army from the Warsaw concentration camp (Gęsiówka), joined the Home Army. During the final stage of the battle a number of Soviet soldiers (possibly as many as 3,000, most of them members of Polish units in Soviet army) also crossed the river and fought the Germans in Powiśle area. Airdrops were carried out by allied airmen from Italy, mostly by Poles, Canadians and the British.
As of 23 August 1944 the German units directly involved with fights in Warsaw were divided into:
A large section of the forces on the "German" side were, according to Norman Davies, drawn from "'collaborationist forces'" including Russians who had left in the Tzar's era and Azeris.[ This quote needs a citation ]
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army. The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II.
Bronislav Vladislavovich Kaminski was a Russian Nazi collaborator and the commander of the Kaminski Brigade, an anti-partisan and rear-security formation made up of people from the so-called Lokot Autonomy territory in the Nazi Germany occupied areas of the Soviet Union, which was later incorporated into the Waffen-SS as the SS Sturmbrigade RONA. Older publications mistakenly give his first name as Mieczyslaw. Under Kaminski's command, the unit committed numerous war crimes and atrocities in the German-occupied Soviet Union and Poland.
This article discusses the Polish order of battle during the invasion of Poland. In the late 1930s Polish headquarters prepared "Plan Zachód", a plan of mobilization of Polish Army in case of war with Germany. Earlier, the Poles did not regard the Germans as their main threat, priority was given to threat from the Soviets.
The Warsaw Uprising began with simultaneous coordinated attacks at 17:00 hours on August 1, 1944 (W-hour). The uprising was intended to last a few days until Soviet forces arrived; however, this never happened, and the Polish forces had to fight almost without any outside assistance. Initially the battle raged throughout most of Warsaw, but after a short time it became confined to districts in the West of the town. The key factor in the battle was the massive imbalance of weapons between the two sides. The German side was extremely well equipped whilst the Polish side had, initially, barely enough ammunition for a few days. The policy of one bullet, one German allowed the Polish fighters to sustain the uprising for many weeks at the cost of their own lives. Some areas fought for a full 63 days before an agreed capitulation took place. The losses on the Polish side amounted to 18,000 soldiers killed, 25,000 wounded and over 250,000 civilians killed; those on the German side amounted to over 17,000 soldiers killed and 9,000 wounded.
Heinz Reinefarth was a German SS commander during World War II and government official in West Germany after the war. During the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944 his troops committed numerous atrocities. After the war, Reinefarth became the mayor of the town of Westerland, on the isle of Sylt, and member of the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag. Polish demands for extradition were never accepted, and Reinefarth was never convicted of any war crime.
Azerbaijani SS volunteer formations were recruited from prisoners of war, mainly from the Soviet Union and the countries annexed by it after 1939. Nazi Germany organised them to fight against the Soviet Union.
Jerzy Maria Kirchmayer (1895–1959) was a Polish historian and military commander, a brigadier general of the Polish Army and one of the first historians of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
The Wola massacre was the systematic killing of between 40,000 and 50,000 Poles in the Wola neighbourhood of the Polish capital city, Warsaw, by the German Wehrmacht and fellow Axis collaborators in the Azerbaijani Legion, as well as the mostly-Russian RONA forces, which took place from 5 to 12 August 1944. The massacre was ordered by Adolf Hitler, who directed to kill "anything that moves" to stop the Warsaw Uprising soon after it began.
Tadeusz Walenty Pełczyński was a Polish Army major general, intelligence officer and chief of the General Staff's Section II.
Reiner Stahel was a German officer and war criminal. He is best known for his retreat from Vilna and the command of the garrison of Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Arrested by the NKVD in Romania, he spent the rest of his life in Soviet captivity.
Army Poznań, led by Major General Tadeusz Kutrzeba, was one of the Polish Armies during the Invasion of Poland in 1939.
The Sub-district I of Ochota – one of territorial organisational units of the Warsaw District, which operated during the German occupation of Poland 1939–1945. It comprised the area of the Ochota district of the city of Warsaw.
The District of Warsaw (of Armia Krajowa) (Polish: Okręg Warszawa) - one of territorial organisational units of Polish Home Army, which covered the territory of Warsaw and its close neighbourhood i.e. the Powiat of Warsaw. Military units belonging to that district took part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
The Sub-district VII of Warsaw suburbs also called Sub-district collar - a territorial organisational unit of the District of Warsaw of Armia Krajowa, which acted during the German occupation of Poland. Military units of that sub-district took part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
The Żaglowiec Group - a group of conspiracy military units of Armia Krajowa in the Sub-district II of Żoliborz in Żoliborz of Warsaw during the German occupation of Poland. They fought in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
104 Company of Syndicalists was a military unit created by the Union of Polish Syndicalists, which participated in the Warsaw Uprising.
The 2nd Legions Home Army Infantry Division “Pogon” was a unit of the Polish Home Army (AK), created in 1944 in the Home Army District Radom - Kielce. Creation of the division was based on a September 1942 order of the AK headquarters, which stated that in the future Operation Tempest, the Home Army units were to be named after pre-September 1939 units of the Polish Army. Therefore, the Second Legions Home Army Infantry Division was based on and named after the 2nd Legions Infantry Division, which until the Invasion of Poland had its headquarters in Kielce.
"W" Hour, also spelled as W-Hour(Polish: Godzina „W”'), was the codename for the date and time that began Operation Tempest in German-occupied Warsaw, and hence the Warsaw Uprising. The exact time was 5:00 PM on 1 August 1944.
Suppression of Mokotów - a wave of mass murders, looting, arson and rapes that swept through the Warsaw district of Mokotów during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Crimes against prisoners of war and civilians of the district were committed by the Germans until the capitulation of Mokotów on September 27, 1944, although they intensified in the first days of the uprising.