Home Army launches the Warsaw Uprising against German occupation

On 1 August 1944, at 5 p.m. (known as "W-Hour"), soldiers of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), the main Polish underground force loyal to the government-in-exile, attacked German forces in Warsaw. The city had been under occupation since 1939.

The uprising was timed as the Red Army approached the eastern bank of the Vistula. Its leaders hoped to liberate the capital themselves and establish Polish authority before Soviet forces arrived. Fighting spread across the city centre and several districts, including the Old Town, Wola and Śródmieście. Insurgents had limited weapons and little outside help.

German units responded with heavy force and mass killings of civilians, especially in Wola in the first days. The uprising ended in early October 1944 with capitulation. Many tens of thousands of fighters and civilians died, and the surviving population was expelled from the city.

Afterwards the Germans systematically burned and demolished much of what remained, including large parts of the historic housing. This destruction is why archaeologists today often find wartime debris and older layers beneath central Warsaw's streets and squares.