Destruction of Warsaw
On June 20, 1939, while Adolf Hitler was visiting an architectural bureau in Würzburg am Main, he noticed a project of a future German town – Neue deutsche Stadt Warschau.
Third Reich planners drafted precise drawings outlining a historic "Germanic" core where a select few landmarks would be saved, such as the Royal Castle which would serve as Hitler's state residence.
[6][page needed] The Warsaw Uprising was launched by the Polish Home Army on August 1, 1944, as part of Operation Tempest.
In response, under orders from Heinrich Himmler, Warsaw was kept under ceaseless barrage by Nazi artillery and air power for sixty-three days and nights by Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski.
[citation needed] In 1944, a large transit camp (Durchgangslager, or Dulag) was constructed in Pruszków's Train Repair Shops (Zakłady Naprawcze Taboru Kolejowego) to house the evacuees expelled from Warsaw.
[citation needed] They included people from a variety of social classes, occupations, physical conditions, and ages.
[7][additional citation(s) needed] After the remaining population had been expelled, the Germans began the destruction of the remnants of the city.
[8] Special groups of German combat engineers were dispatched throughout the city in order to burn (Brandkommandos) and demolish (Sprengkommandos) the remaining buildings.
[8][failed verification] Material losses were estimated at 10,455 buildings, 923 historical buildings (94%), 25 churches, 14 libraries including the National Library, 81 primary schools, 64 high schools, the University of Warsaw, the Warsaw University of Technology, and most of the city's historical monuments.
[16] The Przeździecki Estate Library in 6 Foksal Street included 60,000 volumes and 500 manuscripts, a rich archive containing 800 parchment and paper documents, and a cartographic collection consisting of 350 maps, atlases and plans.
[15] In addition to 10,000 prints and drawings, there was an extensive art gallery (Portrait of Casimir Jagiellon from the 15th century, Portrait of John III Sobieski from the Schleissheim Palace, the House altar of Sophia Jagiellon, 1456), valuable collection of miniatures and decorative art: textiles, porcelain, faience, glass, gold objects, military, etc.
[18] The greater part of library's collections, originally 20,000 engravings, 92,000 books and 27,000 manuscripts, were deliberately destroyed by the Germans in 1944.
[19] This resulted in the disappearance of many valuable old books and scrolls among about sixteen million volumes from National Library, museums and palaces burnt indiscriminately by Germans in Poland during World War II.
