On September 17 and 18, two rifle divisions from the 70th and the 47th Armies resumed attacks in the vicinity of Nieporęt, Rembelszczyzna and Wiśniewo, without, however, committing a combat force bigger than a regiment. Both Soviet armies at this point were thoroughly exhausted by the fighting which had taken place, and the entirely too little pause in operations before the storming of Praga. The condition of the soldiers among the independent rifle divisions had worsened in an alarming way. The 8th Guards Tank Corps was impaired by heavy losses in armoured equipment. SS-Gruppenführer Gille took advantage of the weakening offensive against his corps’ position and on September 17, with support from the 19th Panzer-Division, started new counterattacks in motion along the banks of the Wisła. During these battles, which raged on for two days, and was a mixture of localized clashes and counterattacks from both sides, the Germans once again succeeded in retaking Tarchomin, occupying Wiśniewo and even advanced as far as Żerań. On September19, the front along the Żerań — Piekiełko — Tomaszów — Rembelszczyzna — Nieporęt line was finally secured. Fatigue was now spreading among the troops on both sides: On the Soviet side, Marshal Rokossovskij sanctioned this exhaustion by issuing, on September 20, an order to the effect that, for the time being, a defensive war posture should be adopted at the positions already taken. One day later, an order arrived from the front that directed the exhausted 8th Guards Tank Corps to withdraw, in order to reorganise and consolidate anew. It became clear that the 47th Army, the 70th army and the 8th Guards Tank corps as a result of the strong opposition mounted by the IV SS-Panzer-Corps were not capable of implementing Zjukov’s or Rokossovskij’s order with respect to eliminating all enemy forces in the area of the Wisła and Narew’s join. Although the entire area east of the river had been brought under Soviet control (until 1951 the administrative boundary went through Annopol), the same could not be said of Legionowo or Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki. The commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, on the other hand, had not abandoned his goal of seizing them. He simply pushed this objective forward until his armies had recovered their fighting capabilities. The resumption of operations was planned to take place on October 10.
For the while then, the Polish 2nd Infantry Division remained at the front near Annopol; the 175th Rifle Division close by Białołeka; the 143rd Rifle Division outside Szamocin; and the 328th Rifle Division, south of Rembelszczyzna. The rest of the 47th Army, including the 77th Rifle Corps with the 8th Guards Tank Corps, occupied positions in the vicinity of Zielonka and Ząbki. The zone that separated the 47th Army from the 70thArmy now ran through Rembelszczyzna. From the latter, three rifle divisions were transferred to the reserve troops at the end of September. The 160th Rifle Division from the 114th Rifle Corps remained positioned at Rembelszczyzna, while the 1st Rifle Division as well as the 38th Guards Rifle Division from the 96th Rifle Corps remained outside Aleksandrów and Nieporęt.
The loss of Praga provoked strong reactions in the German ranks. By September 15 or 16, Colonel Hans von Necker’s (as of September 24, commander over the entire Fallschirm-Panzer-Division “Hermann Göring”) Fallschirm-Pz.Gren. Rgt.2 from “Hermann Göring” had already been sent to Warsaw via rail. The disembarkation took place in the western suburb of Włochy, and on September 18, once the reserve troops had been relieved, they made their way to the other side of the Wisła with the mission of preventing contact between the insurgents and the regular Polish army, which had been identified in Praga. Although Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 25 and Panzer-Pionier-Abteilung 87, a part of a Kampfgruppe from the 25th Panzer-Division, had already arrived from the north on September 14, they were not sent into the fighting in Praga but to Zoliborz on the other side of the river and immediately began operations against the insurgents.
The new German forces that disembarked in western Warsaw were formally under SS-Obergruppenführer von dem Bach’s command. But he lacked the competency to lead frontline troops and Heeresgruppe “Mitte’s” staff therefore made the decision that General von Lüttwitz and his XXXXVI Panzer-Corps would take over the defence of the Wisła line in this sector. In the vicinity of Pultisk, confused officers in the panzer-corps learned that the Kampfgruppe they had been called in to lead at this time was not even to be formed. Lüttwitz returned to the 9th Army and, on September 18, took over command of the area between Młociny and Góra Kalwaria. Von dem Bach’s group-corps would now, as quickly as possible, set down the Uprising while the XXXXVI Panzer-Corps would defend Wisła’s western bank against Soviet and Polish forces. Under his command were the 25th Panzer-Division, Fallschirm-Pz.Gren. Rgt. 2 “Hermann Göring,” Sickenius’ Hungarian units, and in addition General Rohr’s and Colonel Schmidt’s Kampfgruppe (isolated detached sub-units with engineer soldiers, police, and volunteer units from the east, almost all of whom were of low combat value and carried with them the “rumour” of having murdered civilian residents of Warsaw).
Simultaneous with von Lüttwitz taking over command, von Vormann sent an alarming message to Heeresgruppe “Mittes” staff about the situation facing his army, stressing how adverse the conditions had become for all divisions under his command. He wrote: “Only Division ‘Hermann Göring’ can be said to be fully adequate with regard to combat strength and battle-competence. The hard tested SS-divisions ‘Totenkopf’ and ‘Wiking’ — as well as the 9th Army — have, during the past several weeks of combat, become so decimated that at this present juncture they are only equivalent to a very mediocre fighting force.” The entire 9th Army just then had in its three infantries, two grenadier, one cavalry and four armoured divisions; only 30,335 combat soldiers at the frontline, supported by 341 functioning tanks or assault-guns, and 148 artillery batteries equipped with 602 guns. Of these, there were 10,078 soldiers, 268 tanks and 327 guns positioned along the front between Góra Kalwaria and Serock (with the exception of the troops which were in use against the insurgents fighting in Warsaw). The opposition’s fighting strength in the same sector, as calculated by the commander of the 9th Army, stood at 66,600 soldiers, 360 armoured vehicles and 920 guns. General Reinhardt was sympathetic to these troublesome observations, but after having read at the end of the report about how “the uprising had so quickly taken hold in Warsaw,” and about the “…hopeless situation of the army,” he deemed von Vormann as incapable of fulfilling his duties as a commander. Reinhardt was strengthened in his judgement of the general’s unstable character during a subsequent telephone conversation with him. That very day he asked Hitler to sack von Vormann. On September 20, an astonished Lüttwitz was informed that he was to hand over command of the XXXXVI Panzer-Corps to General Walter Fries, as he had now been ordered to take over command of the entire 9th Army. From a personal perspective, the new commander took over this post at a fortuitous point in time: The Soviet offensive had weakened considerably and the Warsaw Uprising held on by only a frail thread.
