The Nazi occupation was a tragic period for Łazienki. In 1939 it was closed to Poles and the historic buildings were taken over by the German military. Towards the end of December 1944, before evacuating the palace, the Nazis drenched its walls with petrol and set the complex on fire. In the building's blackened walls they drilled some one thousand holes to place the dynamite in order to blow it up the way they had Warsaw's Royal Castle but ultimately they were unable to do so.