Editing Royal Castle, Warsaw (section)

=== During World War II ===
{{multiple image | direction = vertical | width = 160
|align    = right
|image1   = The Royal Castle in Warsaw - burning 17.09.1939.jpg
|caption1 = Royal Castle in flames following German bombardment, 17 September 1939.
|image2   = Castle Warsaw 1941.JPG
|caption2 = Royal Castle in 1941 without roofs, deliberately removed by the Germans to accelerate the devastation process.
}}

On 17 September 1939, the castle was shelled by German artillery. The roof and the turrets were destroyed by fire (they were partly restored by the castle's staff, but later deliberately removed by the Germans).<ref name="destruction">{{cite web |author = Peter K. Gessner |url = http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/Zamek/zamek.html |title = Warsaw's Royal Castle and its destruction during the Second World War |work = info-poland.buffalo.edu |access-date = 23 July 2008 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080510151546/http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/Zamek/zamek.html |archive-date = 10 May 2008 |df = dmy-all }}</ref> The ceiling of the Ballroom collapsed, resulting in the destruction of [[Marcello Bacciarelli]]'s ceiling [[fresco]] ''The Creation of the World'' and other rooms were slightly damaged. But immediately after the seizure of Warsaw by the Germans, their occupation troops set to demolish the castle. The more valuable objects, even including the central heating and ventilation installations, were dismantled and taken away to Germany.

[[File:Royal Castle Warsaw 1945.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Ruins of the castle in 1945.]]

On 4 October 1939 in Berlin, [[Adolf Hitler]] issued the order to blow up the Royal Castle. On 10 October 1939, special German units, under the supervision of history and art experts (Dr. [[Dagobert Frey]], an art historian at the [[University of Wrocław|University of Breslau]]; Gustaw Barth, the director of museums in Breslau, and Dr. Joseph Mühlmann, an art historian from Vienna) started to demount floors, marbles, sculptures, and stone elements such as fireplaces or moulds. The artefacts were taken to Germany or stored in [[Kraków]]'s warehouses. Many of them were also seized by various [[Nazi Germany|Nazi]] dignitaries who resided in Warsaw. The castle was totally emptied. Disobeying German orders, despite the danger of being shot, Polish museum staff and experts in [[art restoration]] managed to save many of the works of art from the castle, as well as fragments of the [[stucco]]-work, the parquet floors, the wood panelling, and more which were later used in the reconstruction. The great service done to Poland by Professor [[Stanisław Lorentz]], in leading this campaign to save the castle's treasures, is well known. [[Wehrmacht]] sappers then bored tens of thousands of holes for dynamite charges in the stripped walls.

In 1944, after the collapse of the [[Warsaw Uprising]], when hostilities had already ceased, the Germans blew up the castle's demolished walls.<ref name="destruction" /> Leveling the Royal Castle was only a part of a larger plan – the Pabst Plan – the goal of which was to build a monumental Community Hall (ger. ''Volkshalle'') or an equally sizable Congress Hall of NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party – ger. ''Parteivolkshalle'') in the Royal Castle's place and to replace [[Sigismund's Column]] with the Germania Monument.

A pile of rubble, surmounted by only two fragments of walls, was all that was left of the six-hundred-year-old edifice. On one of these fragments part of the stucco decoration remained, this was a cartouche with the royal version of the motto of the [[Order of the White Eagle (Poland)|Order of the White Eagle]] — "[[Pro Fide, Lege et Rege|PRO FIDE, LEGE ET REGE]]" (for Faith, Law, and King).