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On 5 August, three attack groups started their advance westward along ''Wolska'' and ''Górczewska'' streets toward the main East-West communication line of [[Aleje Jerozolimskie|Jerusalem Avenue]]. The German forces were units from the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' and the [[Ordnungspolizei|SS Police Battalions]], as well as the ''[[S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A.]]'' and the ''[[SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger|SS-Dirlewanger Brigade]]'', an infamous penal unit led by [[Oskar Dirlewanger]]. British historian [[Martin Windrow]] described them as a "terrifying rabble" of "cut-throats, renegades, sadistic morons, and cashiered rejects from other units".<ref>{{cite book|author=Windrow, Martin & Francis K. Mason|title=The World's Greatest Military Leaders| page=117| publisher=Gramercy | year=2000| ISNB=0517161613}} </ref> |
On 5 August, three attack groups started their advance westward along ''Wolska'' and ''Górczewska'' streets toward the main East-West communication line of [[Aleje Jerozolimskie|Jerusalem Avenue]]. The German forces were units from the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' and the [[Ordnungspolizei|SS Police Battalions]], as well as the ''[[S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A.]]'' and the ''[[SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger|SS-Dirlewanger Brigade]]'', an infamous penal unit led by [[Oskar Dirlewanger]]. British historian [[Martin Windrow]] described them as a "terrifying rabble" of "cut-throats, renegades, sadistic morons, and cashiered rejects from other units".<ref>{{cite book|author=Windrow, Martin & Francis K. Mason|title=The World's Greatest Military Leaders| page=117| publisher=Gramercy | year=2000| ISNB=0517161613}} </ref> |
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Shortly after the advance had started towards the center of Warsaw, the three attack groups were halted by heavy fire from Polish resistance fighters. Unable to proceed forward, some of the German troops began to go from house to house carrying out their orders to shoot all inhabitants. Many were shot, but some were killed after torture and sexual assault.<ref>{{cite book|first=Steven J. & Richard Hook|last= Zaloga|title=The Polish Army 1939–45|publisher= Osprey Publishing|year= 1982| ISBN= 0-85045-417-4|page=25}}</ref> Estimates vary, but on the first day of the operation to crush the uprising in Warsaw on August 5, it is believed that up to 10,000 civilians were killed in the Wola district.<ref name="The Rape of Warsaw">{{cite web|url=http://stosstruppen39-45.tripod.com/id6.html |title=The Rape of Warsaw |publisher=Stosstruppen39-45.tripod.com |accessdate=3 February 2009}}</ref> Most of the victims were the elderly, women and children. |
Shortly after the advance had started towards the center of Warsaw, the three attack groups were halted by heavy fire from Polish resistance fighters. Unable to proceed forward, some of the German troops began to go from house to house carrying out their orders to shoot all inhabitants. Many were shot, but some were killed after torture and sexual assault.<ref>{{cite book|first=Steven J. & Richard Hook|last= Zaloga|title=The Polish Army 1939–45|publisher= Osprey Publishing|year= 1982| ISBN= 0-85045-417-4|page=25}}</ref> Estimates vary, but on the first day of the operation to crush the uprising in Warsaw on August 5, it is believed that up to 10,000 civilians were killed in the Wola district.<ref name="The Rape of Warsaw">{{cite web|url=http://stosstruppen39-45.tripod.com/id6.html |title=The Rape of Warsaw |publisher=Stosstruppen39-45.tripod.com |accessdate=3 February 2009}}</ref> Most of the victims were the elderly, women and children. Nazi units also burned down three local hospitals with the patients still inside.<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard|last=Lukas|title=Forgotten Holocaust. The Poles under German Occupation 1939-1944|publisher= Hippocrene Books, New York|year= 1997|ISBN= 0-7818-0901-0}}</ref> The nurses were "whipped, gang-raped and finally hanged naked, together with the doctors... to the accompaniment of flute music".<ref>{{cite book|first=Timothy|last= Snyder|title= [[Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin]]|publisher=[[Basic Books]]|year=2010|pages= 241-242, 304|ISBN=}}</ref> |
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All these atrocities were committed by forces under the command of ''[[SS-Oberführer]]'' Oskar Dirlewanger and ''[[Brigadeführer|SS-Brigadeführer]]'' [[Bronislav Kaminski]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poloniatoday.com/uprising5.htm |title=Warsaw Uprising of 1944: PART 5 – "THEY ARE BURNING WARSAW" |publisher=Poloniatoday.com |date=5 August 1944 |accessdate=3 February 2009}}</ref> Research historian [[Martin Gilbert]], from the [[University of Oxford]], states: |
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| Wola Massacre | |
|---|---|
A memorial recalling the massacre.
| |
| Location | Wola, Warsaw |
| Date | August 05-12, 1944 |
| Target | Polish civilians Polish resistance |
Attack type | Massacres |
| Weapons | Automatic weapons Armoured fighting vehicles Flamethrowers |
| Deaths | 40,000[1] - 100,000[2] |
| Perpetrators |  Nazi Germany |
The Wola massacre (Polish: Rzeź Woli, "Wola slaughter") (5 – 8 August 1944 in Wola, Warsaw) was the systematic killing of at least 40,000 people [1]byNazi German troops during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.[3] Polish civilians along with captured resistance fighters were indiscriminately shot or killed in organised mass executions throughout the Wola district of the Polish capital Warsaw. Recent research in Poland suggests the number of victims maybe even as high as 100,000.[2]
The action was designed to crush the Poles' will to fight and put the uprising to an end without having to commit to heavy city fighting.[4] Prof. Timothy Snyder, from Yale University, states "the massacres in Wola had nothing in common with combat" as "the ratio of civilian to military dead was more than a thousand to one, even if military casualties on both sides are counted".[5] However the Germans soon found that the atrocities in Wola only stiffened Polish resistance. German authority across the city was only achieved after more than two months of heavy fighting and the total destruction of Warsaw.
On 2 August, two days after the start of the fighting in Warsaw, SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was placed in command of all German forces in Warsaw. By then several parts of the city were now held by units from the Polish Home Army. Following direct orders from SS-Reichfuhrer Heinrich Himmler to show no mercy, his strategy was to use terror tactics against all inhabitants of Warsaw to decisively end the uprising and destroy the Poles will to fight.[4] No distinction would be made between Polish insurgents and civilians.
On 5 August, three attack groups started their advance westward along Wolska and Górczewska streets toward the main East-West communication line of Jerusalem Avenue. The German forces were units from the Wehrmacht and the SS Police Battalions, as well as the S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A. and the SS-Dirlewanger Brigade, an infamous penal unit led by Oskar Dirlewanger. British historian Martin Windrow described them as a "terrifying rabble" of "cut-throats, renegades, sadistic morons, and cashiered rejects from other units".[6]
Shortly after the advance had started towards the center of Warsaw, the three attack groups were halted by heavy fire from Polish resistance fighters. Unable to proceed forward, some of the German troops began to go from house to house carrying out their orders to shoot all inhabitants. Many were shot, but some were killed after torture and sexual assault.[7] Estimates vary, but on the first day of the operation to crush the uprising in Warsaw on August 5, it is believed that up to 10,000 civilians were killed in the Wola district.[8] Most of the victims were the elderly, women and children. Nazi units also burned down three local hospitals with the patients still inside.[9] The nurses were "whipped, gang-raped and finally hanged naked, together with the doctors... to the accompaniment of flute music".[10] All these atrocities were committed by forces under the command of SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger and SS-Brigadeführer Bronislav Kaminski.[11] Research historian Martin Gilbert, from the University of Oxford, states:
More than fifteen thousand Polish civilians had been murdered by German troops in Warsaw. At 5:30 that evening, General Erich von dem Bach gave the order for the execution of women and children to stop. But the killing continued of all Polish men who were captured, without anyone bothering to find out whether they were insurgents or not. Nor did either the Cossacks or the criminals in the Kaminsky and Dirlewanger brigades pay any attention to von dem Bach Zelewski's order: by rape, murder, torture and fire, they made their way through the suburbs of Wola and Ochota, killing in three days of slaughter a further thirty thousand civilians, including hundreds of patients in each of the hospitals in their path.[12]
By August 6, the Polish resistance, comprising Batalion Zośka and tanks belonging to a unit commanded by Wacław Micuta, managed to capture the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Warsaw concentration camp. The area became one of the main communication links between the Polish fighters holding Wola and those defending the Warsaw Old Town. On 7 August 1944, the German ground forces were strengthened with tanks. To enhance their effectiveness, the Nazis forced civilian women onto the armoured vehicles as human shields.[13] Within two days, the tactics had helped the Germans fight their way to the Plac Bankowy and cut the Wola district in half.
On August 12, the order was given to stop the indiscriminate killing of Polish civilians. SS-General von dem Bach-Zelewski issued a new directive that stated captured civilians were to be sent to concentration camps or to Arbeitslager. Other Polish civilians were formed into Verbrennungskommando ("burning detachment") by the SS and forced to hide evidence of the massacre by burning victims' bodies and their homes.[14]
Up until mid September, the Nazis were shooting all captured insurgents on the spot. After SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach arrived in Warsaw (7 August 1944), it became clear that atrocities only stiffened the resistance and that some political solution should be found, considering the limited forces at the disposal of the German commander. The aim was to gain a significant victory to show the Armia Krajowa the futility of further fighting and make them surrender. This did not immediately succeed, but from the end of September on, some of the captured Polish fighters were treated as prisoners of war and civilians were spared, and in the end the districts of Warsaw still held by insurgents capitulated on 3 October 1944.
The main perpetrators were Heinz Reinefarth and Oskar Dirlewanger, who presided over the most cruel atrocities. Dirlewanger was arrested near the town of AltshauseninUpper Swabia on June 1, 1945 by the French occupational authorities while wearing civilian clothes and hiding under a false name. He died on June 7, 1945 in a French prison camp at Altshausen, probably as a result of ill-treatment.[15][16][17] Reinefarth was never prosecuted. After the end of the war, no German soldier involved in the Wola and Ochota massacres during the Warsaw Uprising was prosecuted for their crimes. A list of several former SS Dirlewanger members still alive, and never prosecuted, was made available by the Warsaw Uprising Museum in May 2008.[18]
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52°14′N 20°58′E / 52.23°N 20.96°E / 52.23; 20.96 Template:Link GA
