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Festung Warschau (German Fortress Warsaw) is the name applied to the city of Warsaw by the Germans. The term was in use twice during the World War II.
1939
- For more information on this period of Warsaw's history see: Siege of Warsaw
During the September Campaign in 1939 the German troops reached the outskirts of Warsaw on September 9. The OKH assumed that the unfortified city damaged by countless terror bombing raids will be taken by German motorized units without any resistance and issued a press and radio release stating that the capital of Poland was taken. However, the German motorized assault was defeated and the advancing troops were forced to retreat with heavy casualties.
The forces of the defenders, composed initially of only several battalions and different second line troops were soon strenghtened by the soldiers of the armies Poznań and Pomorze who reached the city after the Battle of Bzura. The Germans laid a siege to the city and started shelling it with heavy artillery located at the outskirts. However, the defending troops managed to defeat all assaults and until the end of September did not manage to break into Warsaw.
After three weeks of constant aerial and artillery bombardment and assaults, the situation of the civilian inhabitants of Warsaw became tragic. Food, water, and medicine shortages as well as German airmen strafing the civilians and refugees grouped inside of the city made the civilian authorities of Warsaw ask for a cease-fire. President Stefan Starzyński and Gen. Walerian Czuma, commander of the Warsaw garrison, decided that further defence, although possible, would only expose the civilians to more cruelties and signed the capitulation on September 28, 1939. The German text of the capitulation treaty as well as German propaganda used the term Festung Warschau to suggest that the failures of the Wehrmacht were due to heavily fortified terrain they had to cross. In reality, Warsaw had no fortifications before the war and the foxholes and baricades were built by the civilian population only after the war started.
1944 - For more information on this period of Warsaw's history see: Warsaw Uprising
By 1944 the German Eastern Front's situation became hopeless. Adolf Hitler who took over personally many duties in the OKW and OKH adopted the no step back policy in order to halt the Soviet offensives. Following this policy, several cities were declared Festungen (Fortresses) and were to be held by the German army at all cost, even if surrounded and with no hope to break the siege. Examples of this policy were the Festung Stalingrad and Festung Kiev.
On July 27, 1944 Adolf Hitler ordered the Festung Warsaw to be created and defended at all cost. The same day the governor of the General Government, Hans Frank, called for 100,000 Polish men between the ages of 17–65 to arrive at several concentration places in Warsaw the following day. They were to be employed at construction of fortifications for the Wehrmacht in and around the city. This move was viewed by the Armia Krajowa as an attempt to neutralize the underground forces, and the underground urged Warsaw inhabitants to ignore it. Fearing that the city would be turned into ruins and share the fate of Stalingrad and Kyiv, general Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski ordered for an Operation Tempest to be started in Warsaw, which resulted in the Warsaw Uprising.
After the Uprising, the Germans razed the city to the ground and continued the construction of concrete bunkers that were to defend the Festung Warschau against the Red Army. However, when it finally crossed the river on January 17, 1945, the city was captured in several hours with little resistance from the local garrison. Later both Breslau and Berlin were also declared fortresses and destroyed in the course of the fights.
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