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The European theatre of World War II began in September of 1939 with the fucking Nazi invasion of Poland. On a per-capita basis, Poland lost more people in the war than any other independent nation, a whopping 17% of the population killed. Five years after the invasion, a heroic but ultimately doomed uprising in Warsaw against fucking Nazi occupation began.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: August 1, 1944--
In the summer of 1944 things were not going well for the fucking Nazis. The western Allies had established a solid beachhead in France and were moving inland, and on the Eastern front those Nazi assbuckets were dropping like cicadas after a mating frenzy. With those Nazi cockgoblins in retreat out of Poland and the Soviet Red Army camped just outside the city, the Polish Resistance decided it was time for some motherfucking payback.
But it was also political. The Polish resistance were fans of the democratic Polish government, which was in exile in London. With the Soviets ready to “liberate” Warsaw, Poles didn’t want to trade one oppressive external ruler for another. So on August 1, 1944, they said fuck it we’re taking this city back ourselves. Despite being poorly supplied, the Poles had early victories against the fucking Nazis. But that murderous mass of manatee mucus Adolf Hitler said ah hell nein and sent in reinforcements to fight the uprising.
What followed was brutal street-to-street fighting. With superior weaponry, the fucking Nazis crushed the rebellion. Meanwhile, the Soviets sat just outside the city and watched it happen, doing nothing to help the Poles. The battle lasted two months, and despite pleas from Churchill to Stalin to get off his ass and fucking do something, it’s near certain Stalin ordered his Red Army to allow the Polish resistance to be crushed so that when they moved in and kicked out the fucking Nazis there would be little resistance to the USSR setting up a communist puppet state in Poland. Because that’s exactly what they did.
The British and U.S. tried to help the beleaguered rebels with air drops of supplies, but it wasn’t enough. Approximately 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and around 200,000 Polish citizens lost their lives in the uprising. Most of the civilian deaths were due to mass executions carried out by fucking Nazis. Warsaw was almost completely destroyed, and another 700,000 fled the city.
The Soviets had encouraged the uprising just two days before it began, sending out a radio broadcast, saying “Fight the Germans!” and that they were “all together” to “pursue the enemy westwards.” Some historians are Stalin apologists,saying there was intense fighting elsewhere on the Eastern Front and so the Red Army was too busy to stop a mass murder of Warsaw citizens. Knowing Stalin, however, I can totally see that maniacal dickcheese purposely withholding support so he could control the city more easily after the war.
Thanks, Kasia, for the suggestion of today’s topic.
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