Then, historically, the Polish problem will no longer be a significant issue for our children or anyone who comes after us – even for us.Hitler, still recovering from the recent assassination attempt on his life, entrusted the task of regaining control over Warsaw not to the Wehrmacht generals – whom he deeply distrusted – but to Himmler.

Warsaw is to be razed to the ground, creating a terrifying example for all of Europe.SS-Brigadeführer Ernst Rode, von dem Bach's chief of staff, testified post-war that SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger, the commander of one of the units assigned to the uprising, received a handwritten order from Himmler.

SS-Oberführer Paul Otto Geibel, SS and Police Leader for the Warsaw District, testified after the war that on the evening of August 1, Himmler had instructed him by telephone: "Destroy tens of thousands".

[28] Simultaneously, units of this division, supported by soldiers of the 608th Security Regiment, systematically expelled Polish civilians from residential buildings, committing murders, looting, and raping women in the process.

On August 2, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler flew to Poznań, where, along with local Gauleiter Arthur Greiser and General Walter Petzel, commander of the XXI Military District, he began forming a police group to assist the German garrison in Warsaw.

[48] General Nikolaus von Vormann, commanding the German 9th Army operating in the region, temporarily reinforced them with a reserve battalion from the Hermann Göring Armoured Paratrooper Division (approximately 800 soldiers).

German plans envisioned the "relief forces" advancing along two axes:[48] In the early morning of August 5, a briefing took place at Reinefarth's command post near the intersection of Wolska and Syrena [pl] streets.

[55] Friedrich Peterburs, commander of a police battalion from the Wartheland, stated that Reinefarth ordered his subordinates to consider every person encountered as a "participant in the uprising", threatening court-martial for anyone who failed to show "proper energy".

SS non-commissioned officer Helmut Wagner, a platoon leader in the Dirlewanger Brigade, testified while in Soviet captivity that on the morning of 5 August 1944, a Himmler order was read to his unit, instructing them to kill both insurgents and civilians and to destroy the city.

[58] A platoon commander in a police battalion from the Wartheland, interrogated after the war by a West German prosecutor, testified that a message was read to his unit on that day: "The Führer has ordered the complete destruction of Warsaw".

[67] However, the other companies of the Dirlewanger's regiment, attacking on the right flank, managed by noon to seize the tram depot on Młynarska Street and subsequently the nearby St. Stanislaus Infectious Diseases Hospital.

[85] There were acts of exceptional brutality, including stabbing defenseless people with bayonets, burying the wounded alive, smashing infants' heads, and throwing small children with their mothers into burning buildings.

Patients and staff were then forced into the hospital courtyard amid looting, beating, and terrorizing the ill. At one point, SS soldiers fired randomly into the crowd, killing up to a dozen people and wounding many others.

[125] Under von dem Bach's directive, Polish women and children were to be sent to a transit camp established on August 6 in the defunct Railway Rolling Stock Repair Shops in Pruszków (Dulag 121).

[136] Also on August 5, the Zośka battalion of the Home Army had managed to liberate the Gęsiówka concentration camp and to take control of the strategically important surrounding area of the former Warsaw Ghetto with the aid of two captured Panther tanks belonging to a unit commanded by Wacław Micuta.

[144][145] On August 6, German forces conducted mass executions in various locations across Wola, including the Franaszek factory, areas near St. Lawrence Church, and the vicinity of the Redemptorist monastery on Karolkowa Street.

[152] The forced displacement of Warsaw residents continued as thousands of people from Wola, Powiśle, and Northern City Centre were driven through burning streets and piles of corpses to St. Wojciech Church.

[168][169][170] Eyewitnesses reported that on August 7, German soldiers created a human chain of dozens of Polish men, women, and children, using them as a shield while firing at insurgent positions near Kerceli Square.

If you can help, do so quickly, as there is little time left.The insurgent units in Wola, poorly armed, decimated, and engaged in fierce battles against superior enemy forces, were unable to assist the slaughtered civilians.

Historians estimate that in August and September 1944, at least 30,000 civilians sheltering in the Old Town died due to air raids, artillery shelling, hunger, thirst, and executions carried out by German soldiers.

Factors such as the limitation of the judicial panel to representatives of the four Allied powers and the main prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson's, focus on prosecuting primarily those responsible for crimes against peace, hindered such an analysis.

[192] After a West German court released him citing a lack of evidence, Reinefarth enjoyed a successful post-war career as a lawyer, becoming the mayor of Westerland, and a member of the Landtag parliament of Schleswig-Holstein.

After the war, General Heinz Guderian argued that the responsibility for the crimes committed during the suppression should be placed solely on the "doubtful elements", such as undisciplined collaborationist units and criminals from the Dirlewanger Brigade.

[199] This idea was also echoed by some Western historians, including Hanns von Krannhals, author of the only German monograph on the Warsaw Uprising, who suggested that the massacre of Wola (limited by him to 5 August 1944) was carried out by "special groups of police officers" whose sole purpose was the murder of civilians.

Numerous testimonies from survivors of the massacre indicate that the primary role in the extermination of Wola's population was played by police units from the Reichsdeutsche (Germans and Austrians) and Volksdeutsche – often older reservists who were unable to serve on the front lines.

[202] German prosecutors investigating the war crimes committed during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising concluded that the Dirlewanger Brigade could only be held exclusively responsible for 16 of the 41 mass executions carried out in the Wolkastrasse area (most likely referring to Wolska Street).

[204] Piotr Gursztyn argues that placing the blame entirely on the Dirlewanger Brigade serves to portray the mass extermination of thousands of women and children as an unfortunate incident, rather than a planned and eagerly executed operation.

[222] This condition, however, was not met in the case of the Wola massacre, or more broadly, the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, as large areas populated by Poles remained under German occupation at the time, where no crimes of such scale occurred.

[225] The term "Wola massacre" was first used in reference to the events of early August 1944 by Zygmunt Wojciechowski and Edward Serwański [pl] in their publication Zbrodnia niemiecka w Warszawie 1944 r. (German Crime in Warsaw 1944), published by the Western Institute in 1946.

The coffins contained between 8[229][230] and 12[229] tons of human ashes, collected from execution sites on the streets, squares, and courtyards of Wola, as well as from areas around Pawiak, the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Gestapo headquarters on Szuch Avenue, and the Radium Institute in Ochota.