The Warsaw Uprising as part of the Western information war against Russia
The technology of lies is the same as in the case of the Malaysian Boeing
70 years ago, on August 1, 1944, the Warsaw Uprising began. It lasted 63 days and ended with a crushing defeat for the Poles.
The people in the West who are considered to blame for the failure of the poorly prepared action are not its initiators, but... the soldiers of the Red Army, who, supposedly for the sake of the “great power interests” of the USSR, did not come to the aid of the Warsaw people and phlegmatically watched from the other bank of the Vistula as the Nazis dealt with the rebels.
Once again, this lie was reproduced on June 23, 2014 by the British The Guardian, which reproached Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for allegedly refusing “to provide even symbolic support to the Poles.”
There is approximately as much truth in this statement as there is in statements by US officials and their satellites regarding the reasons for the death of the Malaysian plane near Donetsk.
The handwriting is similar. Very little time had passed since the crash of the airliner, the investigation into the causes of the plane crash had not yet begun, and on the other side of the planet an Australian “rooster” was already “crowing”, who “exactly” knew who was involved in it.
The loud-mouthed “bird” was immediately supported by the presidents of the United States, Ukraine and other highly interested persons. How can one not remember that the first accusations against the Kremlin for the “inaction” of the Red Army were made by representatives of the Polish government in exile in London at a time when fighting was still going on on the streets of Warsaw...
The Liberating Army and the Polish Vandals
However, first things first. The Red Army, having won a grandiose victory over the German Army Group Center at the end of June and the first half of July 1944 (see the article “The Main Battle of 1944”), continued to rapidly advance to the West. On July 17, 1944, the valiant troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front crossed the state border of the USSR and entered the territory of Poland, beginning its liberation.
It is today that Polish “civilized” vandals are destroying monuments to Soviet soldiers (recently this happened in the city of Limanova, where, contrary to the agreement between Russia and Poland on burials and places of memory of war victims, the Poles demolished a monument to our soldiers), hiding behind the lie that they were supposedly the same occupiers, like the Nazis.
The Poles, who survived five years of German rule, certainly did not think so. And they had good reason for this.
The commander of the 2nd Polish Army, General Stanislaw Poplawski, remembered his visit to Majdanek until the end of his days:
“I can’t convey the feeling that gripped me when I saw piles of charred human bones near the crematorium and walked along countless gray barracks where prisoners had recently languished awaiting death. During the war years I saw a lot of horrors. It seemed that the heart had already hardened so much that nothing could shake it. But, looking at the bales with human hair matched in the same color, at the mountains of neatly folded children's and women's shoes, I wanted to scream from acute pain, rage and anger.
My guide was a skeletal, toothless old man with a shaking head and glowing eyes. He experienced all the horrors of this camp and survived miraculously: his wife and five children died in the ovens of the crematorium. When liberation came, he did not have the strength to part with this terrible place. From morning to evening he wandered around the barracks, the crematorium, and the gallows lined up in a row. And he told, and he told..."
How would this grief-stricken Pole perceive the anti-Soviet and Russophobic ravings of Polish Russophobes and anti-Sovietists that the Soviet Union was no better than the Nazi Third Reich? 70 years ago, both he and other Poles knew well why their relatives died and who ended the nightmare of Nazi rule.
They also knew that, saving them from the Nazi noose, the Red Army lost more than 600,000 soldiers and officers in Poland - those same selfless heroes whose monuments are today being destroyed by the ungrateful descendants of the Poles saved by the Russians.
Surprise Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising was started by city residents and Home Army (AK) soldiers at the request of the Polish exile government. Its head, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, “ordered” the “Akovites” to push the Warsaw residents to take action and seize power in the Polish capital at the moment when the Nazis left Warsaw, and the Red Army and the 1st Army of the Polish Army had not yet entered it.
In this cunning way, the Polish government in exile hoped to gain power in the country. And since the idea was directed against the Polish left-wing forces, Mikolajczyk and his ministers kept their plan secret, first of all, from the leaders of the Soviet Union and Soviet military commanders, who were later accused of inaction!
The London Poles were preparing a surprise not only for the Kremlin and the Red Army. While persistently pushing the Warsaw residents to march, the London “strategists” “forgot” to inform them that the British and Americans refused active assistance. However, this did not bother Mikolajczyk and his ministers: after all, it was not they who had to risk their lives...
For counterfeiters storieswho shift responsibility for the failure of the Warsaw Uprising onto the Red Army, it must be recalled that at the end of July the Polish Prime Minister was in Moscow. Going there on July 26, he knew that Warsaw would rise on August 1. However, during the negotiations that began on July 31 with the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vyacheslav Molotov, he did not consider it necessary to inform him about the speech planned for the next day. Prepared a surprise!
The “presentation” of the surprise was, however, a mess. On August 3, during a meeting with Stalin, Mikolajczyk reported that the capital of Poland had rebelled and several ministers of the exile government were already there. Moreover, he himself is going to fly to Warsaw! In response to Stalin’s remark that German troops were in charge there, the arrogant Polish politician declared that Warsaw would be free literally any day now.
Mikolajczyk considered it unnecessary to ask the Red Army for help...
On the approaches to Warsaw
Within a few days, Mikolajczyk had to return from the world of sweet dreams to harsh reality. As mentioned above, the Polish politician hoped that the main work of defeating and expelling the Nazis from Warsaw would be carried out by units of the Red Army, whose rapid advance made such hopes unfounded.
However, Mikolajczyk outwitted himself, not taking into account the fact that any offensive eventually ends. By the end of July, the offensive impulse of the 1st Belorussian Front units weakened. On August 1, units of the 8th Guards Army under the command of General Vasily Chuikov barely managed to cross the Vistula and seize a bridgehead near the village of Maly Magnush.
We read about what happened next in the memoirs of a Soviet general who previously defended Stalingrad:
“On August 2 and 3, we continued to expand the bridgehead, transport troops and reinforcements to it. It was very difficult, since things were not going well with our bridges: enemy planes immediately destroyed them. And yet the bridgehead existed and grew. The corps commanders were ordered to prepare command posts for themselves on the left bank of the Vistula.
Hassled us aviation enemy. Enemy planes endlessly attacked our crossing troops. Since the enemy had few infantry in this sector, he pinned all his hopes on his aviation, while at the same time bringing reserves to the captured bridgehead. Fascist planes, in flights and individually, burst out from behind the forest to the crossing and dropped cassettes with small bombs. Dozens of boats and boats were damaged.”
Despite the lies of Russophobes about the inaction of the Red Army on the approaches to Warsaw, the Red Army soldiers heroically continued to fight and give their lives for the freedom of Poland.
Chuikov recalled:
“A hot battle unfolded in the defense sector of the 220th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 79th Guards Rifle Division. The rifle company, commanded by Vladimir Trifonovich Burba, took up defensive positions in rye...
The Nazis launched six attacks one after another, but could not break through the line occupied by the guards. The seventh attack began. Tanks came close to the positions of our infantrymen. The lieutenant rushed towards the lead tank and knocked it out with a bunch of grenades. But then a second tank approached. Burba, seeing no other way to stop the enemy, threw himself under the enemy vehicle with a second bunch of grenades and blew it up.”
The 1st Belorussian Front did not have the opportunity to continue the offensive further. Its fighters have already accomplished the incredible, having fought more than 600 kilometers since the beginning of Operation Bagration. Convoys with ammunition, medicine, food and fuel fell behind them, and the 16th Air Army attached to the front did not have time to relocate to the airfields closest to the front, which temporarily deprived the front of air cover.
The Wehrmacht command was also aware of the difficulties that had arisen, and did not intend to wait for the Red Army to bring up the rear and reserves.
The commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, recalled: “Having found our weak point - the gap between Prague and Sedlec (Siedlce), the enemy decided from here to strike at the flank and rear of the troops crossing the Vistula south of the Polish capital. To do this, he concentrated several divisions on the eastern bank in the Prague area: the 4th Panzer, 1st Panzer Division "Hermann Goering", 19th Panzer and 73rd Infantry. On August 2, the Germans launched their counterattack, but were met on the approaches to Prague by units of our 2nd Tank Army approaching there from the south. A stubborn oncoming battle ensued. German troops found themselves in a more advantageous position, since they relied on the strong Warsaw fortified area.”
As a result, success in a major tank battle near Volomin accompanied the enemy. Now our troops had to hold back the onslaught of large enemy forces.
In rebellious Warsaw
Later it became clear what was happening in Warsaw. The commander of the AK, General Tadeusz Bur-Komorowski, who was appointed to lead the uprising, on July 21, after receiving news of the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler, summoned his deputy, General Leopold Okulicki, and the chief of staff, General Tadeusz Pelczynski.
Bur-Komorowski conveyed the thoughts of the three generals to London: “Germany suffered defeat on the Eastern Front... The last attempt on Hitler’s life, as well as Germany’s military situation, could at any moment lead to its collapse, which forces us to be in constant and complete readiness for an uprising.”
It is fundamentally important that Bur-Komorowski at least guessed that the Red Army’s offensive was running out of steam. In the same dispatch, he noted: “In all likelihood, this was caused not by the strengthening of the German defense, but by the temporary fatigue of the Soviet troops. I assume that the advance of the Soviet troops after their rest in this direction will accelerate... and they, without encountering serious resistance from the Germans, will reach the Vistula, cross it, and move further to the west.”
Although playing with many unknowns was very risky, on August 1 at 17:00, on the orders of Bur-Komorowski, the Warsaw people rebelled. If for the Germans the day and time of the speech were not a secret, then in Moscow they learned about the beginning of the uprising very late. The testimony of the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front is also interesting.
Pokossovsky recalled: “On August 2, our intelligence agencies received information that an uprising against the Nazi occupiers had allegedly begun in Warsaw. This news greatly alarmed us. The front headquarters immediately began collecting information and clarifying the scale of the uprising and its nature. Everything happened so unexpectedly that we were at a loss and at first thought: are the Germans spreading these rumors, and if so, then for what purpose?”
The Polish historian Ryszard Nazarewicz, who took part in the uprising and later described it, noted that it “began not in the zone between the fronts, as expected, but in the rear of the German group, strengthened by the end of July, which managed to achieve success at the front, repelling the blow of the Soviet tank wedge that had advanced forward with heavy losses for him.”
Contrary to the basics of military strategy, the Warsaw residents did not coordinate their actions with the Red Army and rebelled at the most inopportune moment. However, it is not them who should be blamed for this, but the London “strategists” and AK generals.
It is not known whether Bur-Komorowski believed Mikolajczyk’s promises that as soon as the uprising began, the British would transport AK units created in exile on planes and help weapons, ammunition, food. Even if he believed, his hopes for the British were not justified. Vague promises came from the shores of Foggy Albion. During the two months of the uprising, British aircraft dropped weapons and food over Warsaw only five times. And since this was done from great heights, the bulk of the cargo fell to the Germans.
From a sore head to a healthy one
In the first four days, when the rebels were confronted only by rear and police units, they captured most of the city. But the enemy kept control of transport arteries, bridges, train stations, telephone exchanges, barracks and main government buildings. Soon the German command brought up tanks, guns and armored trains.
After this, the destruction of the poorly armed rebels began. And they began to ask the leaders of the uprising logical and unpleasant questions.
On August 21, the deputy chairman of the Polish exile government, Adam Ben, who was in Warsaw, reported to London: “Under the influence of communist propaganda, which is spreading more and more widely, the question is being asked here who is responsible for the premature uprising without prior guarantees of help from the Allies and Russia. After three weeks of fighting, the situation in Warsaw, due to the lack of sufficient assistance to the rebels, takes on the characteristics of a political scandal. Public opinion accuses the government of having no weight in the international arena. There is growing dissatisfaction with the allies, bordering on hostility... We demand immediate effective assistance, we demand explanations for the three-week delay, which led to the fact that instead of victory, we have ruins and thousands of victims.”
The London Poles, having come under fire from the criticism of the heroically fighting Warsawians and being unable to either clearly answer or help them, began to look for a way to relieve themselves of responsibility. And soon they started talking about the fact that the uprising began in response to a call... from Moscow radio, allegedly made on July 29. Probably, the London “strategists” considered it possible to negotiate an uprising by radio.
This statement was a lie. “It is noteworthy that the Warsaw leadership of the AK did not mention this radio broadcast either at the beginning of the uprising, or in the first half of August - neither in internal documents with the most harsh attacks on the USSR, nor in open newspaper publications,” the Polish historian Nazarevich, who participated in the uprising
Stalin's help to the rebels of Warsaw
Before leaving Moscow, Mikolajczyk no longer spoke about the imminent expulsion of the Germans from Warsaw, but asked Stalin to provide assistance to the rebels with weapons and ammunition. Although the goals of Mikolajczyk, who sought to seize power from the Polish left, clearly did not correspond to the interests of the Kremlin, the Soviet leader promised to help with weapons and ammunition.
But throughout the war, the London Poles did not so much help the USSR as they did dirty tricks. In 1942, at the height of the Battle of Stalingrad, they sent the Polish army of General Wladyslaw Anders, formed in the USSR, not to the front, but to Iran. In 1943, they joyfully supported Joseph Goebbels's vile provocation at Katyn. They also sentenced General Zygmunt Berling, commander of the 1st Army of the Polish Army, to death for “desertion.”
Stalin kept his promise. While the British dropped cargo from high altitudes, resulting in little getting to the rebels, Soviet aviation operated at extremely low altitudes. The efficiency of its work was much higher, which was recognized by both the Germans and the Poles.
At the end of August, Soviet troops again went on the offensive. On September 14, Moscow saluted the troops that took Prague. But it was not possible to develop the success. The Nazis blew up all the bridges across the Vistula, which the rebels did not prevent.
The Soviet command continued to look for ways to save the Warsaw residents. On the morning of September 15, Berling received orders to cross the Vistula. Unfortunately, parts of the Polish army took too long to prepare for the crossing, starting it only at dawn on September 16. The Germans subjected them to massive shelling, preventing them from transporting tanks and guns to the west bank. After a week of fighting, the Nazis pushed the Polish landing force to the eastern bank. Polish units lost 3,764 killed and wounded.
On September 27, the Germans launched an offensive against the rebel areas. Collaborators also took part in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising.
Historian Oleg Romanko listed the formations of these fake “fighters for the independence of their peoples” who raped and killed Warsaw residents: “1st Turkestan and 2nd Azerbaijani battalions of the 1st East Muslim SS Regiment (800 officers, non-commissioned officers and privates); combined regiment of the Kaminsky Brigade (1,700 people); 3rd Cossack Cavalry Battalion of the 57th Security Regiment; 69th Cossack battalion of the 3rd cavalry brigade of Cossack Stan; I/111th Azerbaijan Infantry Battalion; 2nd (Azerbaijani) battalion of the special forces regiment "Bergmann" (5 officers, 677 non-commissioned officers and privates); 3 Ukrainian companies as part of Security Service (SD) units. The total number of these formations was about 5,000 people...”
Bur-Komorowski did not force his way through the Vistula. On October 2, he signed a surrender agreement with the commander of the German troops in Warsaw, SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. According to Nazarevich's calculations, more than 17,000 rebels surrendered. The Nazis removed the remaining civilian population from the city, sending 87,250 people to forced labor in Germany, and 68,707 people to concentration camps. By that time, a large part of Warsaw was covered in ruins.
Later, summing up the results of the uprising, the headquarters of the AK, in development for internal use, dryly stated: “The reason for the failure of the battle for Warsaw lies in the general breakdown of the Soviet offensive on the Vistula as a result of the transfer here in late June - early August of new German divisions... The assumption that Soviet troops did not occupy Warsaw because they wanted the destruction of the stronghold of Polish independence.”
Despite the fact that the truth about the true culprits and reasons for the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising has long been known, Western propaganda and its Russian branch continue to blame Moscow for the failure.
However (and this was once again shown by the tragedy in the skies over Donbass), with this public we were and will always be to blame for everything. After all, we are guilty of what we are...
- Oleg Nazarov
- http://www.km.ru/world/2014/07/31/istoriya-khkh-veka/746482-varshavskoe-vosstanie-kak-chast-informatsionnoi-voiny-zap
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