OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed?

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OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/5/2015 12:42:35 PM

jwolf

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This is not directly related to the game but I thought I would get good info from the crowd here. My wife and I just returned from a short vacation (1 week) in Poland. We visited Warsaw and Krakow and some nearby places. In Warsaw we were told, as I had known generally, that Warsaw was nearly totally destroyed in the war (variously, we were told figures of 90-95% destruction). Particularly after the uprising in late 1944, when Hitler ordered the demolition of the entire city. In contrast, Krakow suffered only rather minor damage -- at least, minor in comparison to the fate of Warsaw.

Now the question is, why not? I would have thought that even a modest amount of aerial bombing or artillery shelling would result in serious damage to the city of Krakow. Was there just no fighting there?

BTW the most fascinating thing I learned is that Poland has a desert (!!) and in fact that is where Rommel's Afrika Korps trained!

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/5/2015 12:50:57 PM

Oberst_Klink

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jwolf

This is not directly related to the game but I thought I would get good info from the crowd here. My wife and I just returned from a short vacation (1 week) in Poland. We visited Warsaw and Krakow and some nearby places. In Warsaw we were told, as I had known generally, that Warsaw was nearly totally destroyed in the war (variously, we were told figures of 90-95% destruction). Particularly after the uprising in late 1944, when Hitler ordered the demolition of the entire city. In contrast, Krakow suffered only rather minor damage -- at least, minor in comparison to the fate of Warsaw.

Now the question is, why not? I would have thought that even a modest amount of aerial bombing or artillery shelling would result in serious damage to the city of Krakow. Was there just no fighting there?

BTW the most fascinating thing I learned is that Poland has a desert (!!) and in fact that is where Rommel's Afrika Korps trained!

As per the almighty Wiki and my humble knowledge of the Armija Krajova -

'The Home Army considered an armed insurrection in the city of Krak�w, but this plan was abandoned...'

'Reasons for the uprising's cancellation

According to professor Andrzej Chwalba from Krak�w�s Jagiellonian University, AK planners wanted to start the uprising most probably on October 10, 1944 (earlier dates had also been considered). This never happened, due to several reasons:

The Home Army District of Krak�w was very numerous, with soldiers wanting to start an insurrection, but lacking weapons. It has been estimated that only some 10 to 15 percent of Krak�w�s AK units were armed.

Krak�w was the capital of the General Government, and the Wehrmacht garrison was 30,000 strong, or twice as numerous as in three-times bigger Warsaw. Also, some 10,000 German officials, all of them armed, were stationed in Krak�w.

In the summer of 1944, the Red Army stopped its offensive, after reaching the Vistula river line. This gave the edge to the Germans in Krak�w, who started to muster their troops.

On August 6, 1944, the Gestapo, fearing of another uprising, ordered a round-up of all able-bodied young men in Krak�w.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha, the most respected Polish official who stayed in Krak�w, strongly opposed the idea of the uprising. It is known that Sapieha asked General Josef Harpe of the German Army to proclaim Krak�w an �open city�, which would help save both the population and historic buildings. On August 7, 1944 Harpe answered stating that Krak�w would be defended, but promised that the Wehrmacht would try to spare the civilians. However, the General warned that in case of an uprising, the whole city would be destroyed.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w_Uprising_%281944%29

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/5/2015 1:07:44 PM

morvael

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And once the January '45 Soviet offensive started Germans fled relatively quickly and there was no hard-fought battle for the city, thus it was spared.

By the way, have you seen this, jwolf?
http://www.platige.com/en/page/80-City_Of_Ruins
Full movie can be seen in museum in Warsaw, so YouTube offers only some pirate copies, but it's worth watching.

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/5/2015 1:54:03 PM

Oberst_Klink

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quote:

ORIGINAL: morvael

And once the January '45 Soviet offensive started Germans fled relatively quickly and there was no hard-fought battle for the city, thus it was spared.

By the way, have you seen this, jwolf?
http://www.platige.com/en/page/80-City_Of_Ruins
Full movie can be seen in museum in Warsaw, so YouTube offers only some pirate copies, but it's worth watching.

Would love to explore the WW1 sites in Galicia -> Gorlice-Tarnow with you in Poland.

Klink, Oberst

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/5/2015 2:07:35 PM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: morvael

And once the January '45 Soviet offensive started Germans fled relatively quickly and there was no hard-fought battle for the city, thus it was spared.

By the way, have you seen this, jwolf?
http://www.platige.com/en/page/80-City_Of_Ruins
Full movie can be seen in museum in Warsaw, so YouTube offers only some pirate copies, but it's worth watching.

Morvael - that is a truely stunning and sobering bit of film.

more generally, since the Soviets didn't do strategic bombing oddly their advance was marked by pockets of near complete destruction and of areas largely spared. Their model of city fighting was the application of extreme violence where there was resistanc.

So where the Germans made a stand (or were trapped) such as Budapest or Koenigsberg were near totally destroyed but other cities were only mildly damaged in the sectors where there had been sustained fighting. I think Lvov/Lemburg is a good eg of this partial destruction.

Think overall our ready impression of city battles is too influenced by Stalingrad or Berlin - and most of the damage in Berlin was from allied bombing - as an image of the aftermath.

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/8/2015 5:20:49 PM

morvael

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

Would love to explore the WW1 sites in Galicia -> Gorlice-Tarnow with you in Poland.

Klink, Oberst

Never been there myself. Looks nice though: http://podroze.onet.pl/gdzie-na-weekend/beskid-niski-poplatane-drogi-i-szlaki-wioski-widma-puste-cerkwie/t2h6ye

Two years ago I was in one of the Przemyśl Fortress forts, number XII "Werner".

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/8/2015 5:24:36 PM

morvael

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quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100
Morvael - that is a truely stunning and sobering bit of film.

more generally, since the Soviets didn't do strategic bombing oddly their advance was marked by pockets of near complete destruction and of areas largely spared. Their model of city fighting was the application of extreme violence where there was resistanc.

So where the Germans made a stand (or were trapped) such as Budapest or Koenigsberg were near totally destroyed but other cities were only mildly damaged in the sectors where there had been sustained fighting. I think Lvov/Lemburg is a good eg of this partial destruction.

Think overall our ready impression of city battles is too influenced by Stalingrad or Berlin - and most of the damage in Berlin was from allied bombing - as an image of the aftermath.

There is also a film showing Warsaw 10 years earlier, but it's of worse quality, though it offers a glimpse into the eradicated world: http://youtu.be/J5ea_396LPo

You are right, places not contested were spared wholesale destruction, but the same cannot be said about people living there, which had to be "cleaned" of elements hostile to Soviet Union.

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/9/2015 12:35:34 PM

Yaab

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Also Poznań was destroyed. Germans used the old Prussian fortifications as a force multiplier there.

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/9/2015 12:49:16 PM

morvael

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Yeah, there was heavy combat damage, but it wasn't demolished on purpose block by block like Warsaw was after failed uprising (because it remained in German hands for three months).

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/12/2015 7:05:26 PM

Sensei.Tokugawa

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Alright, my 5 cents - from what I have learnt Krakow was never destroyed since Red Army Marshal Konev saved it by means of manoeuvre warfare - instead on pressing on towards the town it was rendered impossible to be kept by the Germans through disruption through mobility so they had to withdraw not to be cut off - unlike in Wroclaw which was turned into Festung Breslau - Fortress Wroclaw - the difference between the towns and the German approach towards their defences being perhaps that the latter was in German hands before the war.

Now, during the times of Poland as the People's Republic Konev was regarded the saviour of Krakow, but it was at least partially the pro- Soviet propaganda in support of the Polish - Soviet friendship. As far as I know Konev wanted to avoid bloody and prolonged street fighting in heavily urbanized areas - not all of the Soviet field commanders were blood thirsty imbeciles and drunkards with no regard for human life - unfortunately that is the large - if not the only part - of the anti- Soviet and anti -Russian discourse in Poland being forced upon the public opinion and - what's even worse - on the official history through means of the so - called "historical policy". That largely falsifies our history and suppresses huge parts of well - documented facts into politically motivated oblivion.

I really don't know what the Home Army would have to do here. It's an absurd as shocking as the Home Army's field commanders belief they would succeed in the Warsaw Uprising or demand and await help from the exhausted Red Army on the Vistula line whereas the uprising was directed against Stalin's design.

Marshall Konev had monuments in Krakov. After 1989 rightist extremists were lobbying and scheming in favour of dismantling them and finally they succeeded to an extent - the most important ones were transferred to local Soviet war cemeteries.

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/13/2015 6:47:29 PM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: burroughs

Alright, my 5 cents - from what I have learnt Krakow was never destroyed since Red Army Marshal Konev saved it by means of manoeuvre warfare - instead on pressing on towards the town it was rendered impossible to be kept by the Germans through disruption through mobility so they had to withdraw not to be cut off - unlike in Wroclaw which was turned into Festung Breslau - Fortress Wroclaw - the difference between the towns and the German approach towards their defences being perhaps that the latter was in German hands before the war.

....

@morvael, agree, the deliberate elimination of groups of people was as much Stalinist policy as Nazi (just the chosen target varied)

..

I recall from Erickson that Stalin explicitly ordered Koniev to not fight in Silesia if he could avoid (both Polish and [then] German sections) it as intact they were, in Stalin's words 'gold'. So there may have been a large part of planning for a post-war world in Soviet military planning by the time the frontlines arrived in this section.

I'd also suspect, but this is a guess, that the Soviets weren't averse to pre-planning some post war looting. By this stage they were well into their plans for Hungary and Romania to pay massive reparations, which effectively took the form of massive relocation of industrial plant to the USSR.

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/26/2015 11:08:08 AM

lowtech

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RE: OT: why wasn't Krakow destroyed? - 6/29/2015 2:30:32 PM

shermanny

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The map also helps to explain why Krakow escaped the kind of severe damage that other Polish cities suffered: the city nestles up against the mountains separating the North German plain from the plains of Hungary and Bohemia. These mountains were enough of a military obstacle that attacking across them made little sense. Thus, Krakow was effectively "on the edge of the board". In war as in chess, it is better strategy to concentrate forces more toward the middle of the arena. The Russians bypassed it. The Germans withdrew rather than leaving forces stranded in a backwater.

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