Подавление Варшавского восстания

WOLA MASSACRE, 1030HRS, 5 AUGUST 1944
Both Adolf Hitler and Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler ordered the SS to use terror to crush the Warsaw Uprising as quickly as possible. On the morning of 5 August, the Germans began attacking into Wola, the western suburb of Warsaw, spearheaded by the troops of SS-Oberfuhrer Oskar Dirlewanger. These were no ordinary Waffen-SS troops, but a special antipartisan unit formed from former convicts and military misfits. After the small number of AK troops in this part of Wola had been eliminated, Dirlewanger ordered his troops to use squad-sized assault groups to smash in the doors of each house with axes and crowbars and then drag out all the inhabitants. Civilians who resisted were shot on the spot or even thrown out of upper-storey windows. Groups of civilians were executed in alleyways by Dirlewanger's men with small arms fire. Soon, Wolska Street was littered with the corpses of several thousand civilians, most with bullet holes in their heads. Dirlewanger's men took no prisoners for the first three days in Warsaw and murdered men, women and children indiscriminately. Many female prisoners, like these Polish nurses from the Wola Hospital, were first raped then murdered. Dirlewanger's men were also authorized to loot from their victims and the houses, before setting the buildings alight with hand grenades or flame-throwers. Although not directly involved in most of the slaughter of civilians, the German Army did provide support units to Dirlewanger, such as this StuG III from Sturmgeschiitz-Ersatz-Abteilung 200. Within two days, the Germans had murdered well over 30,000 civilians in Wola - the worst massacre in Europe in World War II.