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caddymanToday Poland commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw uprising which saw an attempt by the Polish Underground Army to expel the Nazis from Warsaw after five and a half years of brutal occupation.
BBC report here.
The Poles took the occupying Germans by surprise and held out for 63 days against units of the Waffen SS who managed to surpass even that organisation's reputation for horror and brutality in suppressing the uprising. Two hundred thousand Poles died in the uprising. Bitterness is understandable, and it is a mark that wounds are finally healing that Gerhard Schroeder, the German Chancellor is attending the ceremonies.
Prime responsibility for the failure of the uprising was the cynical political attitude of the Soviet Leader, Josef Stalin who refused to mobilise the Red Army to help the Polish fighters despite the Red Army having already advanced to the outskirts of Warsaw. A strong, independent Poland with an independent and experienced army had no place in Stalin's post war Europe, so he allowed the Nazis one final reign of terror which crushed the Poles mercilessly and extended the war by several months.
I am somewhat disappointed to read that the Poles feel that Britain and the US also share some of the responsibility for the failure of the uprising. There was a large Polish contingent in the British Commonwealth forces at that time, and many wanted the western allies to drop them into Warsaw to help their fellow countrymen. The request was refused, and many of the Polish exiles never saw their homeland again. They weren't welcome in the new Stalinist regime that followed the liberation by Soviet forces later in the year.
That the Polish troops in exile couldn't help is one of the many sad and sorrowful aspects of the darkest period of modern European history. But to get them there would have been a logistical impossibility. In these days where one country can threaten another at the touch of a button, we have to remember that in 1944 the technology just wasn't there. Warsaw was well beyond the operational range of UK-based aircraft. Had the RAF or USAF tried to airlift troops in from the UK, across the occupied Low Countries, Germany and Poland, it is doubtful that many would have made it through, and supply would have been equally problematic.
It's easy to feel betrayed in the circumstances, but I would argue that the death toll would have been a lot higher if an airdrop had been tried.
BBC report here.
The Poles took the occupying Germans by surprise and held out for 63 days against units of the Waffen SS who managed to surpass even that organisation's reputation for horror and brutality in suppressing the uprising. Two hundred thousand Poles died in the uprising. Bitterness is understandable, and it is a mark that wounds are finally healing that Gerhard Schroeder, the German Chancellor is attending the ceremonies.
Prime responsibility for the failure of the uprising was the cynical political attitude of the Soviet Leader, Josef Stalin who refused to mobilise the Red Army to help the Polish fighters despite the Red Army having already advanced to the outskirts of Warsaw. A strong, independent Poland with an independent and experienced army had no place in Stalin's post war Europe, so he allowed the Nazis one final reign of terror which crushed the Poles mercilessly and extended the war by several months.
I am somewhat disappointed to read that the Poles feel that Britain and the US also share some of the responsibility for the failure of the uprising. There was a large Polish contingent in the British Commonwealth forces at that time, and many wanted the western allies to drop them into Warsaw to help their fellow countrymen. The request was refused, and many of the Polish exiles never saw their homeland again. They weren't welcome in the new Stalinist regime that followed the liberation by Soviet forces later in the year.
That the Polish troops in exile couldn't help is one of the many sad and sorrowful aspects of the darkest period of modern European history. But to get them there would have been a logistical impossibility. In these days where one country can threaten another at the touch of a button, we have to remember that in 1944 the technology just wasn't there. Warsaw was well beyond the operational range of UK-based aircraft. Had the RAF or USAF tried to airlift troops in from the UK, across the occupied Low Countries, Germany and Poland, it is doubtful that many would have made it through, and supply would have been equally problematic.
It's easy to feel betrayed in the circumstances, but I would argue that the death toll would have been a lot higher if an airdrop had been tried.
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To add some detail
Date: 2004-08-01 08:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-01 04:23 pm (UTC)