Home Army captures Germans' strategic telephone center 73 yrs ago
On Aug 20, 1944, at the height of the Warsaw Uprising, the insurgents ejected the German occupiers from the PAST, the Polish capital's second-highest building (after Prudential's skyscraper), at that time serving as the Germans' General Government communication center.
This was a symbolic triumph for the Warsaw Uprising (see: NOTE 1).
Since August 2, the insurgents had been laying siege to the 8-storey PAST-a at 37 Zielna St., the headquarters of the Swedish-owned telephone company that during WWII was turned into a strategically prioritised telephone center for the German occupier's General Government.
By August 19, Polish soldiers from Home Army (see: NOTE 2) batallion "Kilinski" managed to cut it off from food supplies, water, electricity and finally telecommunications.
On August 20 at 0200 hrs, they launched a final, successful offensive, in which as many as 250 insurgents attacked the building from 3 sides. It was set ablaze by means of fire brigade pumps artfully adapted to serve as flamethrowers.
In the battle, 25 German soldiers were killed and 115 taken prisoner. Among the insurgents, there were 5 casualties, with a further 10 fighters badly injured.
2 days later, insurgents also captured so-called "Little PASTa", which was Germans' ancillary telephone center.
The PAST-a would remain in Polish hands until the end of the Uprising.
When its construction was finished in 1910, PASTa building was the first skyscraper in Russian Empire, which at time occupied part of Poland's territory. The building was one of Europe's pioneer reinforced concrete constructions of this size. (PAP)
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NOTE 1: The Home Army-organised (see: NOTE 2) Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1, 1944, as the biggest resistance operation in German-occupied Europe. Initially intended to last several days, it continued for over two months before its suppression by the Germans. The uprising claimed the lives of 18,000 insurgents and around 200,000 civilians.
After the insurgents surrendered and the remaining 500,000 residents were expelled, the Germans methodically burned down and blew up Warsaw house by house. By January 1945, app. 90 percent of the buildings and city infrastructure was destroyed.
NOTE 2: The Home Army (AK) was the main resistance movement in Poland when it was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. It was formed from the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) (see: NOTE 3), which in turn evolved from a clandestine organisation called the Polish Victory Service (SZP).
The SZP was launched on the night of Sept. 26, 1939, by a group of senior officers led by Gen. Michal Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, with the participation of Warsaw Mayor Stefan Starzynski. It became the nucleus of a nationwide resistance movement known as the Polish Underground State.
The Home Army, whose allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile, was one of the largest and best organised resistance movements in Europe, with the total number of fighters put at anywhere from 200,000 to 600,000.
In his book God's Playground. A History of Poland, prominent historian Norman Davies said that, "the Home Army could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance [organisations]".
The so-called Polish Underground State, which operated from 1939 to 1945 and by many was looked up to as a model of conspiracy administration, was subordinated to the Polish government-in-exile to have first been based in France and subsequently in Great Britain. In Poland, the government-in-exile had an impressively developed administration with secret courts and prosecutors, underground schools, universities as well as publishing houses.
The Home Army was the armed wing of the Polish Underground State. Along with various combat activities, the AK was also widely involved in rescuing Jews, among others, by means of the famous 1942-founded Council to Aid Jews (Rada Pomocy Zydom) codenamed 'Zegota' - the only organisation in Europe and a unique one on a global scale established to defend and provide help to Jews in ghettos and elsewhere.
The successive commanders of the AK were generals Stefan Rowecki (until June 30, 1943) Tadeusz Komorowski (until Oct. 2, 1944) and Leopold Okulicki (until Jan. 19, 1945).
The culmination of the AK's armed struggle came with the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The AK's wartime losses totalled about 100,000 soldiers killed in fighting or murdered, and about 50,000 taken to the Soviet Union and imprisoned.
In early 1942, the Home Army had about 100,000 soldiers; by the summer of 1944 the number had risen to 380,000. These included 10,800 officers. Poland’s famous Silent Unseen elite special-operations paratroops were also part of the Home Army.
The Home Army's activities did not end with the end of WW II. After 1945 the AK's so-called Enduring Soldiers fought the Soviet regime.
Under communism, AK soldiers were persecuted by Poland's authorities, especially during the Stalinist period. Many of them were handed death penalties; others spent many years in prison.
NOTE 3: The Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) was an underground force formed in Poland following the invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939. On February 14, 1942, it transformed into the Home Army (AK).(PAP)
