Warsaw 1944

The dramatic story of the Warsaw Uprising, one of the last major battles of World War II, in which the Poles fought off German troops and police, street by street, for sixty-three days.The Warsaw Uprising of August 1944 was a shocking event in a hideous war. This is the first account to recall the tragedy from both German and Polish perspectives and asks why, when the war was nearly lost and resources were so urgently needed in Germany, Hitler and Himmler decided to return to Warsaw bent on murder, deportation, and destruction. For the only time in European history a capital was entirely emptied and razed.

Hundreds were thrown from windows, burned alive, trampled to death. 40,000 innocents were murdered on 5th August - the largest battlefield massacre of the war. But the Poles did not give in.

The Uprising, which had been expected to last under a week, battled German troops, including Himmler's notorious SS, for sixty-three days.Using the vast archive of her father-in-law Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, who fought among them, Alexandra Richie interweaves transcripts from war-crimes trials and testimonies from all sides. Charting the crimes of the SS and then their final break-down of morale, The Warsaw Uprising reveals how the Nazi leadership, particularly Himmler, had hoped that the increasing Allied divisions over Warsaw would lead to a Third World War. Meanwhile, Stalin's refusal to help Warsaw would change negotiations over the fate of post-war Europe significantly: the Uprising is rightly called the first battle of the Cold War.