Download The Warsaw Uprising of 1944: The History of the Polish Resistance's Failed Attempt to Liberate Poland's Capital from Nazi Germany AudioBook Free
After a short revival following World War I, during which it efficiently defeated a Soviet try to invade in an effort to carry "international revolution" into Germany and Central Europe, Poland once again fell sufferer to its neighbours in 1939. Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and Josef Stalin's USSR collaborated in the conquest and then break up Poland between them. The Germans instituted oppressive rule in their part of Poland, executing some 7,000 people on politics grounds and imprisoning a large number of others. One . 5 million Poles became forced laborers in Germany, and though seldom noted, the Soviets applied equally brutal methods in their sector, executing 22,000 Polish officers at the Katyn Forest Massacre. NKVD loss of life squads murdered 40,000 civilians and deported 1.4 million visitors to Siberia and other remote areas, that a sizable percentage never returned alive. As the Soviets started out to force the Germans back west, the Red Military plunged headlong into Poland in later June 1944, on the pumps of German Military Group Center's retreating causes. The British urged the AK to cooperate with the Soviets, however the Russians wished Poland and cured the Resistance as adversary partisans. The NKVD arrested AK members by the thousands, executing their market leaders beyond control. By later July the Polish authorities in exile thought it was the perfect time to order the AK to lead an uprising in Warsaw. The sight of German systems retreating and Soviet tanks seen on July 31 very near to the location prompted the order to openly retake Poland's capital for the country. Unfortunately it was a decision also predicated on a naively positive trust in Anglo-American support. As a result the Poles fought bravely but futilely in August and Sept from the Nazis, and the Nazis, as they so often did, mercilessly demolished the city leading to the difficulty. Heinrich Himmler, the top of the notorious SS, advised his men, "The city must completely vanish from the surface of the earth and help only as a transfer train station for the Wehrmacht. No rock can remain status. Every building must be razed to its basis." In fact the Germans had intended to ruin Warsaw right from the start of the warfare, plus they were terribly successful. One Allied pilot recalled, "There is no difficulty to find Warsaw. It had been noticeable from 100 kilometers away. The city was in flames, but with so many huge fires burning it was almost impossible to get the prospective marker flares." It's believed that up to 200,000 Poles were killed in the process, and also to top everything off, the Soviets arrested and executed countless more after the Nazis were finally removed.
