Retreat to Warsaw

As Operation Bagration gathered momentum and the German front began to crumble, the Totenkopf Division was ordered to form a defence line near the Polish city of Grodno and to provide a safe haven for the remnants of the German Fourth Army, which were fleeing west ahead of the Russian advance. More than 400 tanks were soon thrown against the Totenkopf's rearguard. It held them off for 11 days, until the division was ordered to fall back towards Warsaw. At this point the Luftwaffe's Hermann Göring Panzer Division moved up to support the Totenkopf, and for almost a week the two divisions held Siedlce, 80km (50 miles) east of Warsaw, in the face of attacks by the Soviet Second Tank Army (the German panzer units had arrived at the key road and rail junction on 24 July, only hours ahead of the Soviet XI Tank Corps). Luftwaffe Stuka dive-bombers also provided support in these battles.

As this battle was raging, on 27 July the Soviet High Command launched III and XVI Tank Corps, supported by VIII Guards Tank Corps, with a combined strength of some 500 tanks, in a wide flanking movement to the south. This move caught the Germans by surprise, and two days later Soviet tanks had advanced 48km (30 miles) and were in the suburbs of the Polish capital, Warsaw.

The Warsaw Uprising

Again, Model ordered his panzer divisions to race back to head off the Soviet spearheads. The Totenkopf and Hermann Göring Divisions, now joined by Wiking, were launched into a desperate counterattack to drive back the Soviet spearheads from the River Vistula. The Wiking Division had arrived by train in western Warsaw on 27 July, and moved through the city to take up defensive positions to hold off the Russians. The city was tense, and on 1 August the freedom fighters of the Polish Home Army rose in rebellion. All over the city guerrilla fighters attacked German-held buildings and started to fortify "liberated" zones in the city and along the western bank of the Vistula, which cut Warsaw in two. The Polish leaders depended on the swift arrival of Soviet tanks on the western side of the Vistula. However, the Home Army had failed to read the flow of the battle on the eastern bank of the Vistula between the Germans and the Soviet Second Tank Army.

As Soviet tanks cautiously entered Praga, the eastern suburb of Warsaw, during the morning of 31 July the prospects for an early liberation of Poland's capital seemed high. Unknown to the Russians, they were about to encounter a whirlwind. The Totenkopf, Wiking and Hermann Göring Divisions were attacking, as well as two army panzer divisions. The Soviet III Tank Corps only just managed to escape the German pincers, and by the end of the day the Soviets had been evicted from Praga. The attack was decisive and sealed the fate of the Warsaw Rising, even before it had begun. With the Germans now entrenched in Praga in strength, there was no hope that the Russians would be able easily to link up with the Polish Home Army.

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