Wola massacre The Wola massacre ( ) was the systematic killing of around 40 , 000 - 50 , 000 people by Nazi German troops during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 . Between 5 – 12 August 1944 , tens of thousands of Polish civilians along with captured resistance fighters were indiscriminately shot or killed in organised mass executions throughout the Wola district of the Polish capital Warsaw . The action was designed to crush the Poles ' will to fight and put the uprising to an end without having to commit to heavy city fighting . However the Germans soon found that the atrocities in Wola only stiffened Polish resistance . German authority across the city was only achieved after more than two months of heavy fighting and the total destruction of Warsaw . Massacre . Two days after the start of the fighting on 2 August , " SS " General Erich von dem Bach - Zelewski was placed in command of all German forces in Warsaw . By then several parts of the city were now held by units from the Polish Home Army . Following direct orders from " SS - Reichfuhrer " Heinrich Himmler to show no mercy , his strategy was to use terror tactics against all inhabitants of Warsaw to decisively end the uprising and crush the fighting spirit of the Poles . No distinction would be made between Polish insurgents and civilians . Prof . Timothy Snyder , from Yale University , wrote " the massacres in Wola had nothing in common with combat " as " the ratio of civilian to military dead was more than a thousand to one , even if military casualties on both sides are counted " . On 5 August , three battle groups started their advance westward along Wolska and Górczewska streets toward Aleje Jerozolimskie , the principal East - West road through the city center . The German forces comprised units from the " Wehrmacht " and SS Police Battalions , as well as the " S . S . Sturmbrigade R . O . N . A . " and the " SS - Dirlewanger Brigade " , an infamous " Waffen SS " penal unit led by Oskar Dirlewanger . British historian Martin Windrow described them as a " terrifying rabble " of " cut - throats , renegades , sadistic morons , and cashiered rejects from other units " . Shortly after the advance had started towards the centre of Warsaw , the two lead battle groups of " Kampfgruppe " " Rohr " ( led by Generalmajor Günter Rohr ) and " Reinefarth " were halted by heavy fire from Polish resistance fighters . Unable to proceed forward , some of the German troops began to go from house - to - house carrying out their orders to shoot all inhabitants . Many civilians were shot on the spot but some were killed after torture and sexual assault . Estimates vary , but it is believed that up to 10 , 000 civilians were killed in the Wola district on 5 August alone , the first day of the operation to crush the uprising in Warsaw . Most of the victims were the elderly , women and children . Most of these atrocities were committed by troops under the command of " SS - Oberführer " Oskar Dirlewanger and " SS - Brigadeführer " Bronislav Kaminski . Research historian Martin Gilbert , from the University of Oxford , wrote : " More than fifteen thousand Polish civilians had been murdered by German troops in Warsaw . At 5 : 30 that evening [ August 5 ] , General Erich von dem Bach gave the order for the execution of women and children to stop . But the killing continued of all Polish men who were captured , without anyone bothering to find out whether they were insurgents or not . Nor did either the Cossacks or the criminals in the Kaminsky and Dirlewanger brigades pay any attention to von dem Bach Zelewski ' s order : by rape , murder , torture and fire , they made their way through the suburbs of Wola and Ochota , killing in three days of slaughter a further thirty thousand civilians , including hundreds of patients in each of the hospitals in their path . " The next day , the Polish resistance , comprising " Batalion Zośka " and two captured Panther tank s belonging to a unit commanded by Wacław Micuta , managed to capture the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Warsaw concentration camp . The area became one of the main communication links between the Polish fighters holding Wola and those defending the Warsaw Old Town . On 7 August 1944 , the German ground forces were strengthened with tanks . To enhance their effectiveness , the Nazis forced civilian women onto the armoured vehicles as human shield s . Within two days , these tactics had helped the Germans fight their way to the Plac Bankowy and cut the Wola district in half . Nazi units also burned down two local hospitals with some of the patients still inside . Hundreds of other patients and personnel were killed indiscriminate gunfire and grenades , or selected and led away for executions . A large share of killings took place at the railway embankment in the area of Górczewska Street as well as in the two factories along Wolska Street ( a filia of Ursus Factory at Wolska 55 and Franaszka Factory at Wolska 41 / 45 ) and in the Pfeiffer Factory at Okopowa 57 / 59 . At each of these four locations , thousands of people were systematically executed in mass shootings , having been previously rounded - up in other places and taken there in groups . On 12 August , the order was given to stop all indiscriminate killing of Polish civilians . SS general von dem Bach - Zelewski issued a new directive that stated captured civilians were to be sent to concentration camps or to " Arbeitslager " . Some Polish civilians were formed into " Verbrennungskommando " ( " burning detachment " ) by the SS and forced to hide evidence of the massacre by burning victims ' bodies and their homes . The men put to work in such groups were later executed . Aftermath . Up until mid September , the Nazis were shooting all captured insurgents on the spot . After " SS - Obergruppenführer " Erich von dem Bach arrived in Warsaw ( 7 August 1944 ) , it became clear that atrocities only stiffened the resistance and that some political solution should be found , considering the limited forces at the disposal of the German commander . The aim was to gain a significant victory to show the Polish Home Army the futility of further fighting and make them surrender . This did not immediately succeed , but from the end of September on , some of the captured Polish fighters were treated as prisoners of war and civilians were spared , and in the end the districts of Warsaw still held by insurgents capitulated on 3 October 1944 . No one belonging to the German forces who took part in the atrocities committed during the Warsaw uprising was ever prosecuted after the end of the war . The main perpetrators of the Wola and Ochota massacre s were Heinz Reinefarth and Oskar Dirlewanger . Dirlewanger , who presided over the worst acts of violence , was arrested on 1 June 1945 by the French occupation troops while hiding under a false name near the town of Altshausen in Upper Swabia . He died on 7 June 1945 in a French prison camp at Altshausen , probably as a result of ill - treatment by his Polish guards . In 1945 , Reinefarth was taken into custody by the British and American authorities but was never prosecuted for his actions in Warsaw despite Polish requests for his extradition . 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 of Schleswig - Holstein . The West German government also gave the former SS - " Obergruppenführer " a general ' s pension . He died in 1979 . A list of several former " SS Dirlewanger " members still alive in May 2008 was made available by the Warsaw Uprising Museum in May 2008 .