The Night German High Command Learned the Warsaw Uprising Had Begun

Five days into his new command, General Rainer Stahel sat inside the Saxon Palace in Warsaw as gunfire reports came in from across the city. Then the communication lines went dead, and the commander of 11,000 German troops couldn't reach a single one of them. This is the story of August 1st, 1944, from the first shots fired hours before the Polish Home Army's planned W-hour, through the total collapse of German command inside Warsaw, to the decisions made at Hitler's Wolf's Lair that handed the city's fate to the SS and the most brutal units in the German military. What those units did in the districts of Wola and Ochota within the first week is one of the least discussed chapters of the entire war.