No Warsaw Uprising

[sillygoose]

What if the Polish underground realized that the situation was too risky to launch a revolt against the German occupation and refrained from uprising? ITTL they would wait for the Soviets to drive out the Germans and maintain more passive resistance in the meantime. What then happens in the course of the war and to the Polish nation after Soviet occupation?

 

[Buba]

No change to the war at large and to post-war. That was decided elsewhere.
Operational - front still freezes on the Vistula, with the city divided, until Red Army sorts out its logistics after a dash of several hundred kilometres.
Strategic/political - Poland still gets a Soviet appointed Government as that is what FDR and Churchil agreed with Stalin.
The big changes are lower down, at the level of the city, e.g. no 200K civilians murdered by the Wehrmacht.
Some of the AK members and civilians not killed in the Uprising get murdered by Germans anyway, or later by Soviets/Polish NKVD/die in Soviet concentration camps. Nevertheless I expect loss of human life to be a magnitude lower than in OTL.
The city is less damaged (i.e. the left bank is not leveled). The cityline and city geography are different.
Some day I will go to the cemetery and piss on the graves of the criminal idiots who ordered the Uprising ...

 

[sillygoose]

No change to the war at large and to post-war. That was decided elsewhere.
Operational - front still freezes on the Vistula, with the city divided, until Red Army sorts out its logistics after a dash of several hundred kilometres.
Strategic/political - Poland still gets a Soviet appointed Government as that is what FDR and Churchil agreed with Stalin.
The big changes are lower down, at the level of the city, e.g. no 200K civilians murdered by the Wehrmacht.
Some of the AK members and civilians not killed in the Uprising get murdered by Germans anyway, or later by Soviets/Polish NKVD/die in Soviet concentration camps. Nevertheless I expect loss of human life to be a magnitude lower than in OTL.
The city is less damaged (i.e. the left bank is not leveled). The cityline and city geography are different.
Some day I will go to the cemetery and piss on the graves of the criminal idiots who ordered the Uprising ...

You don't think there would be a resistance movement that is larger in 1944-45 against the Soviets? Or that there would be a later uprising as part of the Vistula-Oder offensive?

 

[Buba]

2xNo
As unsavoury the Soviets and the Polish People's Republic were - they still were a MASSIVE improvement on the Germans. Hence the OTL scale of the resistance - I do not see it increasing much by having a few thousand more ex-Home Army people around.
Same goes for an uprising - too small support from the Rank and File, too small support from the populace, too skillful Soviet/commie propaganda, too much general relief at not longer living in fear of being killed at random (in most cases you had to do something for the NKVD/UB to take interest in you; not so with the Germans).

Oh - you mean an uprising against the Germans in January 1945? Again no - Warsaw would had been a frontline city for half a year and thus with dug in German combat troops all over the place. The population - including Home Army members - would mostly had been kicked out/deported.

 

[Sol Zagato]

Warsaw is liberated months earlier. Probably in conjunction with a last-minute rising.

Surprised nobody mentioned that.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Wasn't the point of the operation to support the Soviet Offensive anyways? If it's delayed until some later Soviet Offensive, it does seem rather perfunctory at that point. I honestly don't see it changing much at all at a strategic or other meta level beyond thousands of lives being saved in the immediate time frame.

When it turns out the Soviet Union isn't leaving Poland though, I doubt the Home Army will be able to do much to prevent it. In fact they'll probably be told not to do anything by the Western Allies, at least until the Pacific War is sorted out but even then, the Home Army, as impressive as it was, couldn't oust the Germans on their own in late 1944, there's no way they could oust the Soviets from Warsaw, much less Poland, on its own. Chances are the Home Army and the resistance network behind it either withers away and the amount of active resistance it does try to pull off will be inversely proportional to how many are killed or imprisoned by the Soviet backed authorities post war IMHO.

Only positive I could potentially see is if the Home Army and other pro-Western elements somehow survive until the 1950's and maybe help moderate the Polish Government and Armed Forces so that when Hungary does its revolt in 1956, maybe Poland (and perhaps others) could join in on it and also tell the Soviets to fuck off. That's the best case anti-communist (asnd therefore optimistic) scenario I could see but I feel its unlikely.

 

[Buba]

Warsaw is liberated months earlier. Probably in conjunction with a last-minute rising.
Surprised nobody mentioned that.

You think that once they arrive in mid-September the Soviets and 1st Polish Army force a crossing and in a Stalingrad-like grinder liberate the left bank?
No uprising possible at that point - the situation on the left bank would be absolutely different than in the last days of July.

 

[Sol Zagato]

You think that once they arrive in mid-September the Soviets and 1st Polish Army force a crossing and in a Stalingrad-like grinder liberate the left bank?
No uprising possible at that point - the situation on the left bank would be absolutely different than in the last days of July.

No, maybe after a 1-month pause. The Soviets pointedly waited OTL to let the uprising be destroyed.

 

[sillygoose]

Wasn't the point of the operation to support the Soviet Offensive anyways?

Not that I can find. It was done to liberate the city before the Soviets got there so they could present themselves as the rightful authority in Poland for the government in exile to return to. As a byproduct it would make the Soviet advance easier of course, which they could use in bargaining with the post-war political situation, citing their sacrifice/efforts to liberate the capital independent of the Soviets and sparing Soviet lives. I think also to then make it look really bad if Stalin suppressed them thereafter. They just misjudged the state of German and Soviet forces at the time.

 

[History Learner]

What if the Polish underground realized that the situation was too risky to launch a revolt against the German occupation and refrained from uprising? ITTL they would wait for the Soviets to drive out the Germans and maintain more passive resistance in the meantime. What then happens in the course of the war and to the Polish nation after Soviet occupation?

Based on what happened further East in Soviet-occupied territory, they invite Poles to celebratory dinners and then after said dinner load them up into NKVD trucks where they are murdered. No real change to the course of the war, as it wasn't the uprising that prevented the Soviets from taking the city but rather Walther Model's excellent and devastating counter-attack that savaged 1st Belorussian Front.

 

[ATP]

2xNo
As unsavoury the Soviets and the Polish People's Republic were - they still were a MASSIVE improvement on the Germans. Hence the OTL scale of the resistance - I do not see it increasing much by having a few thousand more ex-Home Army people around.
Same goes for an uprising - too small support from the Rank and File, too small support from the populace, too skillful Soviet/commie propaganda, too much general relief at not longer living in fear of being killed at random (in most cases you had to do something for the NKVD/UB to take interest in you; not so with the Germans).

Oh - you mean an uprising against the Germans in January 1945? Again no - Warsaw would had been a frontline city for half a year and thus with dug in German combat troops all over the place. The population - including Home Army members - would mostly had been kicked out/deported.

Hitler 27.7.44 ordered Warsaw to be defend to the last german soldier.Just like Belaruss capital,Mińsk.Results - the same like Warsaw - 40% of population killed,85% of city destroyed.
So no,nothing for Warsaw would change.

But - in OTL Stalin faited till 12.1.45 with attack,when he could do that 3 months earlier.Soviet attack 3 moths earlier means more Germany and Austria taken,maybe even part of Denmark.

It seems,that we only helped germans.

 

[WolfBear]

When it turns out the Soviet Union isn't leaving Poland though, I doubt the Home Army will be able to do much to prevent it. In fact they'll probably be told not to do anything by the Western Allies, at least until the Pacific War is sorted out but even then, the Home Army, as impressive as it was, couldn't oust the Germans on their own in late 1944, there's no way they could oust the Soviets from Warsaw, much less Poland, on its own. Chances are the Home Army and the resistance network behind it either withers away and the amount of active resistance it does try to pull off will be inversely proportional to how many are killed or imprisoned by the Soviet backed authorities post war IMHO.

There is the possibility of Polish resistance terrorism against the Soviet Union, no? I mean, the odds were hopeless against them, and yet the UPA in western Ukraine still waged an anti-Soviet insurgency for years after the end of World War II.

Only positive I could potentially see is if the Home Army and other pro-Western elements somehow survive until the 1950's and maybe help moderate the Polish Government and Armed Forces so that when Hungary does its revolt in 1956, maybe Poland (and perhaps others) could join in on it and also tell the Soviets to fuck off. That's the best case anti-communist (asnd therefore optimistic) scenario I could see but I feel its unlikely.

The Soviets would simply send troops to crush the Poles as well, no? They didn't in 1981, true, but they were busy with Afghanistan then and were in more terminal decline than they were back in 1956.

 

[sillygoose]

There is the possibility of Polish resistance terrorism against the Soviet Union, no? I mean, the odds were hopeless against them, and yet the UPA in western Ukraine still waged an anti-Soviet insurgency for years after the end of World War II.

They tried that and were defeated. Turns out the NKVD were more effective than the Gestapo since Communist Poles were willing to collaborate against their countrymen in a way no one was with the Germans.

 

[WolfBear]

They tried that and were defeated. Turns out the NKVD were more effective than the Gestapo since Communist Poles were willing to collaborate against their countrymen in a way no one was with the Germans.

Because there were many more Leftist Poles than there were Fascist Poles?

Also, very off-topic, but since I don't want to create a separate thread about this topic, why did Bulgaria never join Yugoslavia, not even after the end of World War I, when doing this would have allowed Bulgaria to become a part of a victorious country rather than remain a defeated country?

 

[sillygoose]

Because there were many more Leftist Poles than there were Fascist Poles?

Probably not. There was probably a considerable overlap as with Nazism and Communism within Germany.
No the reason is Fascist Poles were Polish nationalists first and Leftist Poles were internationalists who looked at the Soviets as ideological brothers and were willing to sell out their own people for power and ideology. Right wingers who are conquered generally resist against a nationalist conqueror, while lefties assimilate in an 'internationalist' conqueror's new government.

Also, very off-topic, but since I don't want to create a separate thread about this topic, why did Bulgaria never join Yugoslavia, not even after the end of World War I, when doing this would have allowed Bulgaria to become a part of a victorious country rather than remain a defeated country?

Why would they? They aren't the same people as the Yugoslavs. Also they had serious beef with the Serbs over the Balkan Wars and the Serbs pretty much just imposed Greater Serbia on everyone in Yugoslavia rather than it being a pan-Slavic union where everyone had equal say.

 

[WolfBear]

Probably not. There was probably a considerable overlap as with Nazism and Communism within Germany.
No the reason is Fascist Poles were Polish nationalists first and Leftist Poles were internationalists who looked at the Soviets as ideological brothers and were willing to sell out their own people for power and ideology. Right wingers who are conquered generally resist against a nationalist conqueror, while lefties assimilate in an 'internationalist' conqueror's new government.


Why would they? They aren't the same people as the Yugoslavs. Also they had serious beef with the Serbs over the Balkan Wars and the Serbs pretty much just imposed Greater Serbia on everyone in Yugoslavia rather than it being a pan-Slavic union where everyone had equal say.

Makes sense.

FWIW, Bulgarians are quite literally a South Slavic people. Yugoslav means Southern Slav. And this would solve the Macedonia dispute since both Serbia and Bulgaria would now be a part of one giant Yugoslav state. The point about Serb domination is very valid in the interwar era, but not in the post-WWII era. Yet Bulgaria still did not join Yugoslavia even in the post-WWII era. Why not?

 

[Buba]

They tried that and were defeated. Turns out the NKVD were more effective than the Gestapo since Communist Poles were willing to collaborate against their countrymen in a way no one was with the Germans.

Stalinist Poland was a BIG improvement on the German occupation.

 

[sillygoose]

Stalinist Poland was a BIG improvement on the German occupation.

Given the territorial gains, sure. Overall given the memory of Soviet occupation and general seeming disregard for the German occupation today the Soviet one seems to have left the worse impression.

 

[sillygoose]

Makes sense.

FWIW, Bulgarians are quite literally a South Slavic people. Yugoslav means Southern Slav. And this would solve the Macedonia dispute since both Serbia and Bulgaria would now be a part of one giant Yugoslav state. The point about Serb domination is very valid in the interwar era, but not in the post-WWII era. Yet Bulgaria still did not join Yugoslavia even in the post-WWII era. Why not?

Yugoslav means literally 'greater glory'. Or Greater Slavia.
Ethnic antagonism wouldn't allow it.

 

[ATP]

Stalinist Poland was a BIG improvement on the German occupation.

Depend.They killed less,but fucked economy more.Germans,at least,do not take land from peasants,unless they decide to kill them.
And soviets teached children of murdered poles poems about how good their murderes were.Germans was genociders - but,at least,do not demanded our gratitude for their crimes.

And,they would be genocide us later anyway - but planned take Europe first.
P.S about uprising - since german ordered his troops hold it to the last soldier,our capitol would be destroyed again.