Little more than a month after the first act of war, the Fuehrer of the Nazi Reich
entered Poland's capital as a conqueror. At almost the same hour the last of
the scattered outposts of Polish resistance hoisted the white flag of surrender.
On 05th October, while the smoke was still rising from the ruins of the city so terribly
ravaged by his bombers and artillery the Fuehrer made his triumphal entry into Warsaw. For
some days before men and women of civilian population had been conscripted to help the
labour corps of the invaders in cleaning up the place. ‘The streets had been swept, the
debris piled in heaps, and the more dangerous structures demolished.
Nazi taskmasters had also seen to it that such inscriptions as “Death to the
German invaders,” scribbled on the bare walls, were obliterated, and others—
“Death to Poland,” for instance—substituted. Then the Gestapo had made, of
course, most careful round-up of all the dangerous or suspicious elements.
Polish representatives are receiving conditions of surrender after the white flag had been hoisted over the city.
The Fuehrer travelled from Berlin to Warsaw by air, and after inspecting the
guard of honour at the air-port he drove into the city to the Plac Wolnosci
situated in the diplomatic quarter. The immediate neighbourhood was decorated
with green garlands, and there was little to remind the conqueror of the havoc
that the siege had wrought. From those sections of the city, the suburbs and the
business quarter, where the destruction had been most terrible, the parade was
carefully shepherded.
At the close of the proceedings, the Fuehrer issued an Order of the Day,
thanking the troops which had been engaged in the Polish conquest. It read:
“On September 1 you fell into Tine, in compliance with my orders. to protect our Reich
against the Polish attack. In exemplary comradeship between army. air force and navy you
have fulfilled your task. You have fought courageously and valiantly
"Today I was able to greet the troops that have participated in the conquest of Warsaw,
today concludes a combat in keeping with the best traditions of German soldiery. ‘Together
me the German people proudly thank you. In unshakable confidence the nation again looks
10 its armed forces and its leaders.
“We remember our dead who, like the 2,000,000 dead of the Great War. sacrificed their lives
that Germany might live. Under banners fluttering in proud joy everywhere in Germany we stand
together more closely than ever and are tightening our helmet bands. . . ."
‘The fortress of Modlin made a gallant stand against the Nazis, but eventually surrendered, negotiations being opened on 27th September. In this photograph German bombers are making an onslaught on the position to prepare for an infantry attack. On the right of the column of smoke that rises from the bombs, is a portion of the fortress.
In his speech in the Reichstag the next day, Hitler announced that Germany’s
losses in the Polish campaign had been 10,572 killed, 30,322 wounded, and 3,400
missing. “ With the fall of the fortresses of Warsaw and Modlin,” the Fuehrer
went on, “‘and the surrender of Hela, the Polish campaign is ended.” The result
of the struggle had been the complete destruction of all the Polish armies.
"Now,” he added, “ 694,000 prisoners. have begun to march towards Berlin.”
A little later he paid a tribute to the German navy which had carried out its
duties in the “ battles” around Westerplatte, Gdynia, Oxhoetf, and Hela.
Shortly before, the German High Command had announced the surrender of the
last remnant of the Polish Army—a little force of some 8,000 men who had held
out at Kock, east of Deblin, to the southeast of Warsaw, under General Kleber.
While the carefully-groomed German soldiers were goose-stepping in triumph
past the Fuehrer, in another quarter of Warsaw troops of the disarmed garrison
were still trudging on their way to the prison camps. A little more than a month
before, the city they were leaving had been their country’s pride, the home of a
million people. Now it was half destroyed; its streets were strewn with the rubbish
of its palaces and humble homes alike; many of its great buildings were little more
than shells, smoke-blackened and bomb-shattered; great numbers of its people
had suffered a terrible death
Nazi riflemen, occupying a point of vantage
near the capital, are picking off stragglers of the Polish army as they leave the doomed city.
Through the ruined streets, as soon dark fell, prowled bands of looters. The
worst of the plunderers, indeed, did not have to wait till nightfall, for in their
rapine they were acting under the orders of the conquerors, breaking open the
closed homes and shuttered shops, and stealing from them valuable furniture,
paintings and brie-a-brac to be dispatched to the Reich as spoils of war.
There were strange tales of members of the Warsaw underworld having been
patronized by the Nazi conquerors—of being fed and clothed with the good things
torn from those who until a few days before hail been set high above them in
the social scale.
Such Robin Hood tacties, however, did little to ingratiate the conquerors with
the conquered, and the bad feeling was intensified by the conduct of members
of the German minorities in Poland, who openly gloated over the triumph of the
invaders, and of the officers — many of them were very young and quite fresh to
service conditions—who were creating what was described as a reign of terror
in the country districts, seizing the crops and any provisions on which they could
lay their hands.
Everywhere, moreover, there were the agents of the Gestapo looking for those
who refused to disclose stores of food and fuel, and those suspected of still
being patriotic after all their city and country had gone through.
Sorry "Triumph" in a City of the dead.
means "Freedom Square. " This photograph shows the troops converging on the saluting base along the Aleja Ujazdowska in the aristocratic quarter of Warsaw, and the one which had been least damaged by the fury of war. The streets were lined with troops, but the entire absence of civilians was an eloquent reminder that Warsaw to them a city of the dead. In the foreground is the Three Crosses church with soldiers on the roof to guard against possible "incidents."
