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Bromberg Bloody Sunday (German: "Bromberger Blutsonntag") is an event that is said to have taken place on September 3, 1939 during the German invasion, in and around the town of Bydgoszcz (German: Bromberg) in Polish Pomeranian Voivodship. Image File history File links Stop_hand. ... September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Combatants Poland Germany, Slovakia Soviet Union Commanders Edward Rydz-ÅšmigÅ‚y Fedor von Bock (Army Group North) Gerd von Rundstedt (Army Group South) Strength 39 divisions, 16 brigades 1 million soldiers[3] 4,300 guns 880 tanks 400 aircraft 56 divisions, 4 brigades 1. ... Bydgoszcz (in Polish pronounce: [:bidgɔʃʧ], German: Bromberg, Latin: Bydgostia) is a city in northern Poland, on Brda and Vistula rivers, with a population of 369,151 (2004). ... The Pomeranian Voivodship (in Polish województwo pomorskie) is an administrative region or voivodship in northern Poland within the historic region of Eastern Pomerania. ...

This territory was part of Poland until 1772 (the First Partition of Poland) and was returned to Poland in February 1920 after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Many Poles of German ethnicity, had already left the formerly German provinces that fell to Poland after WWI, in part due to German propaganda which asserted that without educated German professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.) Poland would become unstable. The minority rights appendix of the Treaty of Versailles was fully recognized by Poland until the admission of Soviet Union into the League of Nations, when Poland withdrew its recognition of the minority rights appendix of the treaty. However, the rights of minorities in both Germany and Poland were to be based on a good relationship between the two countries. In March 1939 Polish-German relations deteriorated. 1772 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The Partitions of Poland (Polish Rozbiór or Rozbiory Polski) happened in the 18th century and ended the existence of a sovereign state of Poland (or more correctly the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January January 7 - Forces of Russian White admiral Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. ... The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was the peace treaty which officially ended World War I between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany. ... WWI may be an acronym for: World War I World Wrestling Industry This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The League of Nations was an international organization founded after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. ... Look up March in Wiktionary, the free dictionary March is the third month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ...

The German minority of western Poland felt unwelcome, because Poland saw Germany as wanting to wipe it off the map and the ethnic Germans as members of the fifth column. Fifth Column is an all-girl experimental post punk band from Toronto, which came about during the early 1980s. ...

Claims of Polish atrocities against Germans

The most controversial of the cases was that of Bydgoszcz on September 3, 1939. Polish witnesses testified that early that day as the Polish Army was withdrawing through Bydgoszcz, it was attacked by members of the German fifth column. Shooting at soldiers and civilians from roofs and church towers was claimed by these Polish witnesses. The German historian Hugo Rasmus disagrees, however, and attributes this claim to the confusion and the disorganized state of the Polish paramilitary forces present. September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Fifth Column is an all-girl experimental post punk band from Toronto, which came about during the early 1980s. ...

Polish soldiers assumed that German saboteurs were shooting at them and searched the houses. In the next few hours a (disputed) number of local ethnic Germans were executed, most of them probably innocent of any involvement. But the scale of the event is controversial. De Zayas estimates it as 2,000. Hugo Rasmus compared Bydgoszcz address books and data for the 1939 with Nazi lists of supposed victims and found 358 identifiable people who died that day in Bydgoszcz. Most of them were women and children. Włodzimierz Jastrzębski, a Polish historian who initially doubted this estimated scale of the event, later backed the Hugo Rasmus' number, believing that local Polish administration was unable to control the mob and only later sanctioned what was in fact a lynch. Jastrzębski himself, however, had a poor reputation among other Polish historians, as a communist propaganda supporter, which undermined his credibility. This article is about Sabotage sabotage can also refer to: an early Black Sabbath album (Sabotage), the Alfred Hitchcock films (Sabotage or Saboteur), a Beastie Boys song, or a type of shock site. ... Lynching is violence, usually murder, conceived by its perpetrators as extra-legal execution, or used as a terrorist method of enforcing social domination. ...

The Nazis initially claimed that 5,000 ethnic Germans died in Poland in September 1939. They later inflated that number in 1940 to 58,000, and Hitler personally raised that number to over 60,000. De Zayas now conservatively estimates the number to be 5,000. Although many of those killed were obviously victims of the war conditions (cities were bombed by Luftwaffe and artillery, civilians on the roads were strafed, etc.), there is no doubt that some ethnic Germans were victims of local acts of violence, of which Bydgoszcz was the best known example.

In an immediate act of retaliation, 2,000 Polish civilians picked at random were executed by the Nazis. More reprisals soon to followed. A British witness described the beginning of the massacre as follows:

The first victims of the campaign were a number of Boy Scouts from twelve to sixteen years of age, who were set up in the marketplace against a wall and shot. No reason was given. A devoted priest who rushed to administer the Last Sacrament was shot too. He received five wounds. A Pole said afterwards that the sight of those children lying dead was the most piteous of all the horrors he saw.

The Wehrmacht troops began rounding up schoolboys in the street, who were executed in a similar fashion. The witness continues: Lily emblem of the ZHP Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego (Polish Scouting and Guiding Association, ZHP) is the Polish Scouting organization recognized by the World Organization of the Scout Movement. ... Wehrmacht ▶ (help· info) was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. ...

Thirty-four of the leading tradespeople and merchants of the town were shot, and many other leading citizens.

The troops then attacked the Jesuits, looting and ransacking the church. The priests were taken to a barn, where the local Jewish population was already imprisoned, and they were all subjected to abuse. The Society of Jesus (Societas Iesu/Jesu (S.J.) in Latin) is a Christian religious order of the Roman Catholic Church in direct service to the Pope. ... Jews (Hebrew: יהודים translit. ...

Reasoning

A common argument for the lack of provocation by Germans of Polish soldiers, is the contention that no Germans in Poland had been allowed to possess weapons for years. It would not be realistic to believe that all weapons had been removed, surely some had hidden their guns, rather than turning them in, if only for economic reasons.In addition German Reich prepared an organised guerilla force from ethnic Germans with Polish citizenship before the war called Selbstschutz. It is also known that German saboteurs acting in other cities were provided weapons from outside and similar cases might have occured in Bydgoszcz. While there are German documents confirming the actions of saboteurs in other cities, no such documents are preserved in case of Bydgoszcz; still, it would be unlikely that the German secret service was not active in Bydgoszcz. Selbstschutz ( A paramilitary organisation created out of ethnic Germans. ... This article is about Sabotage sabotage can also refer to: an early Black Sabbath album (Sabotage), the Alfred Hitchcock films (Sabotage or Saboteur), a Beastie Boys song, or a type of shock site. ...

The early Polish claims of German atrocities against Poles in Bydgoszcz were cited as evidence given to the War Crimes Tribunals. A document produced by the Polish authorities reads:

On September 3, 1939, at 1015 in the morning, German Fifth Columnists attacked Polish troop units retreating from Bydgoszcz. During the fighting 238 Polish soldiers and 223 German Fifth Columnists were killed. As a consequence of the events after the entrance of the German troops into the town, they began mass executions, arrests, and deportations of Polish citizens to concentration camps, which were performed by the German authorities, the SS, and the Gestapo. There were 10,500 murdered, and further 13,000 exterminated in the camps.

The updated version of Polish claims is to be confirmed by Institute of National Remembrance. September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... A concentration camp is a large detention centre created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ... SS or ss or Ss may be: The Schutzstaffel, a Nazi paramilitary force Steamship (SS) (ship prefix) The United States Secret Service A submarine not powered by nuclear energy (SS) (United States Navy designator), see SSN A Soviet/Russian surface-to-surface missile, as listed by NATO reporting name Shortstop... The Deaths Head emblem similar to Skull and crossbones, often used as the insignia of the Gestapo The ▶ (help· info) (acronym of Geheime Staatspolizei; secret state police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... Institute of National Remembrance (IPN, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej) is a Polish institution created by the IPN Act in 18 December 1998. ...

Source: Nuremberg Trial Proceedings. Vol. 9, day 88, Friday, 22 March 1946 March 22 is the 81st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (82nd in Leap years). ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

Literature: Dywersja czy masakra ? Włodzimierz Jastrzębski, Gdańsk 1988.

Other German claims

After the German invasion of Poland, an unknown number of ethnic Germans were forcibly concentrated by the Polish authorities in several cities and then sent on marches eastward. Some German sources claim that many of these were murdered including many pastors, precisely because they were now the 'official link' remaining to the ethnic Germans. It is hard to say how many ethnic Germans died during such marches; a few German historians claim the number as high as 1700 and attribute it mainly to Polish atrocities, but the Polish argument points out that since these German Poles were marching during the actual war, most of the losses should be attributed to combat conditions, especially since many German witnesses confirm that columns were sometimes attacked by the Luftwaffe (which strafed many civilians on the roads) and artillery.

According to Nazi propaganda:

In addition to the events in Bromberg, throughout western Poland a portion of the German residents were rounded up, jailed, marched eastward, shot and buried in nearby woods. This all occurred in the confusion of the military retreat. When advancing German forces neared the prisoner marches, they were some times executed as a spies, but more frequently released.

German and Polish historians continue to argue about the validity of these claims.

See also

• Selbstschutz

Selbstschutz ( A paramilitary organisation created out of ethnic Germans. ...

External links

• Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, question to Göring (Nitzkor)
• Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, question to Göring (Yale) (same material as above)
• A documentary about Bromberg/Bydgoszcz from a Polish/German cooperation (German)
• Text of German claims published in 1940