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The 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in Color
- sdoering 6mo agoGreat work. My SO is doing family research on the part of her family that came from Warsaw (and a few other parts of Poland). I know she will love to see those.
- TheOtherHobbes 6mo agoHarrowing. For those who don't know, the Uprising was a planned resistance action to expel the Nazis from Warsaw. Supposedly it was planned in collaboration with the Russians. But the Russian army stood down while the resistance fought alone for two months. This allowed the Germans to regroup, fight back, and eventually to destroy the city, and most of the resistance itself.
- pstuart 6mo agoDid Russia back out to intentionally let it happen or did they chicken out to avoid fighting the nazis?
- Robotbeat 6mo agoIntentionally. Allowed the Soviets to administer the place when the Nazis finally left, as the Polish resistance had been crushed. Unforgiveable.
- spwa4 6mo agoIt was an attempt of the Polish resistance to avoid being "liberated" by the Soviets to just immediately become occupied by the communist red army. The idea being to liberate Warsaw and get US/UK assistance through the Polish government-in-exile in London to establish Polish military control before the Soviet army arrived. Getting US/UK support could have meant that Poland remained an independent state. Instead, Stalin not only betrayed them, but later actually convicted the surviving leaders of the uprising. "Crimes against communism". This is now politely referred to as a Soviet betrayal in service of "Stalin's post-war political goals for Poland".
- expedition32 6mo agoThe West aren't entirely the good guys here. My own city was liberated by Polish troops. After WW2 they obviously couldn't go back to Poland. A lot of them ended up in relative poverty after the war. At least Canadians and Australians went back home and got a parade.
- 0rzech 6mo agoYes, that was awful. Not to mention pushing Poland into Eastern Bloc and then putting embargoes on it.
- spwa4 6mo agoIt was definitely Soviets/Stalin that started conquering and this was a western reaction to it. The Yalta conference was an attempt to appease Stalin and give Russia the conquests it wanted (it's not like they appeased someone else 10 years before leading to the incredible disaster, arguably the biggest disaster in human history, or anything like that. But not giving up Eastern Europe would have likely meant war with the Soviets right then and there) It was a choice between giving up a lot, not just Poland, and continued war. Must have sucked pretty damn badly if you were one of the things given up to Stalin, but ...
- 0rzech 6mo agoWe can only guess if it would mean war or not, but it looks like Churchill assumed it would, given he tried to campaign for taking Poland from USSR by force. I know that not only Poland was sold. It was a horrible betrayal in both how it was done and in its outcomes. Embargoing those countries by the West, which the same West has sold to Stalin in the first place, was just a cherry on top.
- shakow 6mo agoIt was definitely not planned with the Soviets, for multiple reasons: - the Poles of the AK (London government loyal) were not the communist faction (Lublin government loyal), and saw the insurrection as the last chance to get a Poland out of the Soviet sphere of influence post WWII – especially after the publicization of Katyn; - even if they had wanted, Stalin had zero interest in giving a hand to London-loyal Poles that were in frontal opposition to “his” Lublin-loyal Poles; - the Germans were not caught flat-footed, they already knew of the insurrection preparations and therefore not only was the city well garrisoned, it would have been in any case, as it was the strategic lock of the area to hold the RKKA on the Vistula; - and all the above is moot in any case, because the RKKA units that reached the neighborhood of Warsaw in '44 had as many chance of taking the city as the German units that reached Moscow in '41 – they were just spent and at the end of their logistic tail after months of fighting during the Bagration operation, and had no chance of successfully developing an opposed crossing of the Vistula against two Panzerkorps. So the London-loyal Poles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and at least they were able to go with a glorious bang. Like a Marshal said, “c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre”.
- pzo 6mo ago> So the London-loyal Poles were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and at least they were able to go with a glorious bang. Many argue this uprising is nothing to be proud of and the crime of the leadership with devastating results: ~200k civilians went with this bang, and city completely wiped out.
- consumer451 6mo agoFor more context, WWII was started as a partnership between Hitler and Stalin to partition Poland. [0] Spreading this knowledge is now illegal in Putin's Russia. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Against_Rehabilitation_of_Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Against_Rehabilitation_of_...
- mr_toad 6mo agoIt would be naive to think that either ruler intended to honour this agreement in the long run. Both sides were probably gambling on when, not if, the agreement would be broken.
- consumer451 6mo agoSure, that's debatable supposition. I would think that it's likely correct. What is fact is that Hitler and Stalin were military allies to start WWII. This is documented history. Would you agree with my latter statement?
- NooneAtAll3 6mo agomeanwhile France and UK simply sat on their asses against empty unguarded border nobody cared about the poles
- consumer451 6mo agoYes, and actual history yet again subverts the dominant story: > The citizens of Poland have the highest count of individuals who have been recognized by Yad Vashem as the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, for saving Jews from extermination during the Holocaust in World War II. There are 7,232 (as of 1 January 2022) Polish men and women conferred with the honor, over a quarter of the 28,486 recognized by Yad Vashem in total. The list of Righteous Among the Nations is not comprehensive and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Poles concealed and aided tens of thousands of their Polish-Jewish neighbors. Many of these initiatives were carried out by individuals, but there also existed organized networks of Polish resistance which were dedicated to aiding Jews – most notably, the Żegota organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Righteous_Among_the_Nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Righteous_Among_the_Nat... As a Pole, I am pissed af about the fact that this true story of WWII is not known. In fact, very often the Russian version of "pravda" is what has been spread. Why tf is there no Oscar winning movie about this story? Poland is invaded from both sides, saves the most lives of our fellow Jewish brothers and sisters: the most heroic story, and the movie count is zero.
- varispeed 6mo agoRussians started the war together with Germans. The idea that they could "help" is Western propaganda that tries to whitewash helping Soviet Union.
- TheAlchemist 6mo agoThat's not accurate - the uprising was not planned in collaboration with the Russians. The whole point of the uprising was to liberate Warsaw before the Russians get in, as everybody knew that Russians are not liberating Poland - they are looking to occupy the country, just as Germany did. If the Uprising was successfull, it would give a great credit and negotiating card to the Polish government. Unfortunately, Russians knew that too - that's exactly why they stopped their advance and watched the city being razed to the ground. Also unfortunately, they were right and ended up occupying Poland for the next 45 years.
- Keyframe 6mo agoThese two in particular: https://www.barwypowstania.pl/photos/22 https://www.barwypowstania.pl/photos/22 https://www.barwypowstania.pl/photos/51 https://www.barwypowstania.pl/photos/51 and the world is stupid enough to repeat the endless cycle of violence.
- cyclopeanutopia 6mo agoWe have a monument commemorating children fighting in the uprising: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomnik_Ma%C5%82ego_Powsta%C5%84ca_w_Warszawie https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomnik_Ma%C5%82ego_Powsta%C5%8...
- pndy 6mo agoAnd the "W" Hour is commemorated on every 1st August at 1700 hours https://youtu.be/Ejd2rsXoQSI https://youtu.be/Ejd2rsXoQSI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22W%22_Hour?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22W%22_Hour?useskin=vector --- Also, if you ever have a chance then head to Warsaw Rising Museum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Rising_Museum?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Rising_Museum?useskin=v...
- cowmix 6mo agoI was in Warsaw a few weeks ago and ended up visiting that museum almost on a whim, so I wasn’t prepared for the experience. I don’t think a museum has ever hit me that hard — inspiring, gut-wrenching, and unforgettable.
- 0rzech 6mo agoAnd the parent comment has been flagged to death until now. What for? Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego [1] indeed makes an exceptional work of walking people through the dramatic story of the Warsaw Uprising. [1] https://www.1944.pl/en https://www.1944.pl/en
- tasuki 6mo ago
- maradon 6mo ago[dead]
- Robotbeat 6mo agoIncredible to see just so many smiling, cheerful faces surrounded by utter destruction and death. The power of comradery, I suppose.
- pzo 6mo agoIt shows only the better part but doesn't show the bad part. Poles are divided about usefulness of this uprising, how it was (badly) executed and many believe it was deemed to fail. The aftermath [1] was that ~220k Poles died and out of that 150-200k civilians, often with mass execution - later on a lot of warsaw population was sometimes bitter toward the uprising’s leadership. To put it in context: within 2 months 200k people died, similar number like in Hiroshima but almost nobody wordwide know about warsaw uprising. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising#Aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising#Aftermath
- cramsession 6mo ago[flagged]
- breppp 6mo ago[flagged]
- cramsession 6mo ago[flagged]
- sdoering 6mo ago[flagged]
- cramsession 6mo agoWhat did I say that's antisemitic? Ashkenazis aren't even Semitic and their factual history is just that.
- sdoering 6mo ago[dead]
- breppp 6mo agoJewish communities in Europe trace their roots to Israel/Judea and the Roman expulsion and subsequent colonization. Israel nowadays is mostly non-Ashkenazi in any case, and is mostly composed of Jews ethnically cleansed from Arab countries following the 1948 war There's a widespread antisemitic conspiracy theory which links Ashkenazi to Khazars, but except being historically unsound, it echoes very ancient antisemitic (racist) tropes such as British Israelism, which are christian ideas claiming Jews are imposters to their own religion/nationality
- cramsession 6mo ago
- siltcakes 6mo ago[dead]
- varispeed 6mo agoDon't forget that Germans were able to quickly find people they wanted to exterminate by going through municipal and church records. Today it will be much easier thanks to push for Digital ID. Choose demographic and the dashboard will show where everyone is and their connections.
- billypilgrim 6mo agoTen years ago multiple tech giants openly stated they would not help the Trump administration build a Muslim registry [1]. Since then, several of them have bowed the knee and donated to his second inauguration. I’m from Germany, and keep wondering how much more damage the NSDAP could have done if they had access to the data these companies now have on everybody. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/16/13990234/google-muslim-registry-refusal-donald-trump-silicon-valley https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/16/13990234/google-muslim-r...
- blub 6mo agoGermany has the Schufa. Should be trivial to narrow down to a specific group based on name only.
- snowpid 6mo agoAgain a reminder that Google etc have data far more than historical dictatorship like Stasi, KGB etc. just for better marketing. we need better data protection though GDPR is a good start.
- nicbou 6mo agoGermany already has religion logged in the Melderegister
- flohofwoe 6mo agoThis was voluntarily before 2022 and has been removed entirely since 2022: https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2022/kw39-de-personenstandsrecht-911384 https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2022/kw39-de-p... https://www.vaticannews.va/de/kirche/news/2022-10/deutschland-religionseintrag-bei-personenregister-entfaellt.html https://www.vaticannews.va/de/kirche/news/2022-10/deutschlan...
- 7e 6mo ago[flagged]
- xyzelement 6mo ago[flagged]
- datsci_est_2015 6mo agoWell for one thing there are still buildings in Berlin that were built before 1945 (“Altbau”) but the policy of IDF appears to be to make the strip entirely uninhabitable except by their terms. At least, that’s what independent satellite imagery studies would imply (90%+ buildings uninhabitable).
- xyzelement 6mo agoUnsure about that "policy" but was there anything going on recently - any sort of context?
- datsci_est_2015 6mo agoTo expand on my usage of the word “imply”: the implication of destroying buildings to the point where independent satellite imagery analysis deems 90%+ off buildings uninhabitable would be that there is a policy of making that area entirely uninhabitable, whether explicit or implicit. To use the very example the grandparent comment gave as contrast, the advancing Russian army did not have a policy of making Berlin entirely uninhabitable - and if it did it was stopped through diplomatic means at the end of the war.
- xyzelement 6mo agoThe idea that the allies restrained themselves to win the war is best underwood by considering Hiroshima or Dresden than whatever we can divine from the remaining pre war architecture in berlin. My point was that looking at what was happening. In berlin (or Hiroshima or Dresden) in 1945 without considering that those countries had done immediately prior is dumb.
- enoughstupid 6mo ago[flagged]
- elia_is_me 6mo agouprising together with Germans against russia invasion, and it garnered sympathy from many Chinese people --- though Polish people are anti-Chinese for religious and communism (maybe also religious) reasons
- 0rzech 6mo ago> though Polish people are anti-Chinese for religious and communism (maybe also religious) reasons Where did you get that from?
- lukwoz 6mo agoI don't think there's any such sentiment in Poland; in fact, this research points to (slightly) positive sentiment of the Polish towards the Chinese: https://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2026/K_016_26.PDF https://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2026/K_016_26.PDF
- flohofwoe 6mo ago> uprising together with Germans against russia invasion Please educate yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising Maybe you've been confused by some of the resistance fighters wearing German helmets? The Germans crushed the uprising because the Soviets conveniently stopped their advance, giving the Germans time to focus on the Polish resistance, which was convenient for the Soviets because it eliminated a potential "problem" for the Soviet occupation of Poland after WW2.
- lifestyleguru 6mo ago[flagged]
- weezing 6mo agoGlory to heroes
- dostick 6mo agoIt’s in colour if you have a computer