15. The Germans and Poles negotiated an end to the uprising during September
As the violence in Warsaw continued into September the Germans recognized that the heavy fighting was adversely affecting morale and depleting already insufficient supplies needed to face the Red Army when it finally did move. The policy of reprisals against civilians was lifted, at least on paper, and negotiations between the German officers and the individual pockets of Polish resistance began. By September 10, 20,000 civilians were released from the areas of fighting and escorted to safety. That same day German commanders agreed to treat captured Home Army fighters as prisoners of war. The following day the Polish 1st Army arrived on the scene, boosting the morale of the resistance, and the Poles suspended further talks with the Germans.
Continuous pleas for aid from the Soviets went out as the Germans drove the Polish 1st Army units back across the Vistula, and the areas held by the Home Army diminished one city block at a time, in heavy, bloody, and costly combat. Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov was by that time on the Vistula front personally, and after receiving reports of the fighting and the situation in Warsaw, he recommended to Stalin that the Red Army continue to wait, though resupplying the resistance fighters would further weaken the Germans. During the last two weeks of September Stalin authorized supplies airdropped to the Home Army, in order to carry on the fighting in Warsaw between what he saw as two forces hostile to him, for as long as possible.
