The Barbarka massacre was a series of mass executions carried out by German occupiers in the autumn of 1939 in the Barbarka forest near Toruń, Poland.
The mass executions in Barbarka were part of the so-called Intelligenzaktion, and they were carried out by SS officers and members of the paramilitary Selbstschutz. Polish historians estimate that at least 600 people were murdered in Barbarka. The victims were prisoners of the internment camp set up by the Germans in the casemates of Fort VII of the Toruń Fortress. Among them were many representatives of the Polish social elite and intelligentsia from Toruń and surrounding areas.
Beginning of German occupation First repressions On 7 September 1939, Wehrmacht units entered Toruń. Over the next two days, the military, along with the Security Police, conducted preventive arrests in Toruń, detaining dozens of people as hostages. The occupier's terror also affected other towns in the Toruń County. On September 14, in Czarnowo and Rubinkowo, the Wehrmacht and gendarmerie, with the assistance of local Volksdeutsche, respectively executed six and five Poles. Individual executions also took place in three other villages.
Arrests and executions were accompanied by other actions aimed at the non-German population. Already on September 9, the deputy of the head of the civil administration of the German 4th Army established in Toruń the office of a trustee for Jewish estates and the office of a trustee for the estates belonging to Polish refugees who had not managed to return to the city. From mid-September, properties and businesses belonging to remaining Poles were also confiscated. On September 10, the occupiers dissolved all Polish organizations, including all scientific societies and institutions. They also began to liquidate Polish theaters and press. Museums, archives, and libraries were seized (the Copernicus Municipal Library was taken over on September 9), preventing the non-German population from using their collections.
On October 27, the police director in Toruń issued an order, which, among other things, imposed on the Polish population the obligation to yield the way to representatives of the German authorities and to bow to them by removing head coverings. It introduced the principle that in shops and marketplaces, German citizens would always have the privilege of being served out of turn, and also threatened that Polish women who were "harassing or attacking Germans" would be taken to brothels. In the same document, it was stated that "the streets belong to the victors, not to the vanquished", and "Poles who have not yet realized that they are the vanquished [...] and who will resist the above regulations will be subject to the severest punishment".
Organization of the apparatus of terror On 26 October 1939, the military administration was officially abolished in the occupied territories. Toruń, along with its county, was incorporated into the Reich as part of the Bydgoszcz District of the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia division. Earlier, structures of German police, state, and party authorities had already been installed in the city and county. Due to rivalry between various factions within the Nazi elite, this process had a somewhat chaotic course. On September 9, Horst Zachrau, a civil servant from East Prussia, was appointed as the provisional mayor of Toruń. After a few days, he was replaced by Nieckau, who also was quickly removed from office. Around the same time, an unsuccessful attempt to subordinate the civilian administration of Toruń was made by Wilhelm Heymanns. Finally, on September 18, Walter Kiessling, the former lord mayor of Erfurt, who was brought to Toruń by the head of the civil administration of the 4th Army, assumed the office of the city commissioner. However, this last appointment met with opposition from the Nazi leader of the Free City of Danzig, Albert Forster, who had been appointed by Hitler to assume the position of Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter of the Nazi Party in the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia division. At the end of October, Forster succeeded in removing Kiessling and replaced him with his protege, Franz Jakob (former lord mayor of Fürth). Jakob served as the lord mayor of Toruń until the final days of the occupation. From October 1939 to February 1941, he also held the position of district leader of the Nazi Party (kreisleiter).
From mid-September to 27 November 1939, the position of Landrat of Toruń County was held by Dr. Kipke, later replaced by Böse. The commandant of Toruń Fortress was Major General Eduard Klutmann, while the military commandant of the city, existing until 25 November 1939, was led by Captain Wolff. The position of police director was held in the first months of the occupation successively by SA-Oberführer Schulz-Sembten (from September 16 to early October 1939) and SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Weberstedt (from 12 October 1939, to February 1940).
Members of the Einsatzgruppen, i.e., special operational groups of the SD and Security Police, actively operated in the city and county, following the Wehrmacht divisions with the task of "combating all hostile elements to the Reich and Germans behind the fighting troops" and "apprehending politically uncertain persons". Initially, Toruń was in the operational zone of Einsatzgruppe IV. When this unit moved to central Poland, another operational group, Einsatzkommando 16 (EK 16), was introduced to the Gdańsk Pomerania. At the end of September 1939, one of the three units of EK 16 was stationed in Toruń, commanded by SS-Hauptsturmführer and criminal commissioner Hans-Joachim Leyer, who thereby became the first head of the Toruń Gestapo. The city also housed an independent SD office under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Werner Böhm. Additionally, until 26 October 1939, a special police commission investigating cases of crimes against Volksdeutsche allegedly committed by Poles operated in Toruń.In the occupation lists of the German authorities, this commission is referred to as the "Special Commission of the Reich Criminal Police Office" (). They also state that the commissioner Dr. Ochs was at its helm. However, in a letter dated 26 October 1939, signed by SS-Obersturmführer and criminal commissioner Wilhelm Rehtfeldt, addressed to the commissioner of the city of Toruń, notifying the completion of the commission's work, the sender is listed as the "Special Commission of the Chief of the Security Police" (Sonderkommission des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei). It has not been established whether two separate commissions with the same tasks were operating in Toruń at that time, or whether preserved German documents use different names for the same body (). In Polish sources, the commission usually appears under the second of the aforementioned names, and Rehtfeldt is indicated as its chairman. Tadeusz Jaszowski and Czesław Sobecki also state that Rehtfeldt, due to his hatred towards Catholic clergy, was known as the "Bloody Vicar" (Blutvikar). , , .
In 1939, Toruń was inhabited by 2,568 people of German nationality, which constituted 3.2% of the city's population. Toruń played an important role in the life of the German minority in Pomerania, hosting, among others, one of the branches of the Nazi Party in Poland (Landesgruppe NSDAP – Polen). In the autumn of 1939, many local Volksdeutsche actively engaged in establishing the occupational order. Already on September 8, the day after the city was occupied by the Wehrmacht, an auxiliary police force composed of local Germans (Hilfspolizei) was organized. In the second half of September, its members joined the ranks of the Selbstschutz, a police-like formation composed of Volksdeutsche, which Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ordered to organize in the occupied Polish territories. The position of leader of the Selbstschutz for the city of Toruń and Toruń County (Kreisführer) was assumed by SS-Sturmbannführer Helmut Kurt Zaporowicz,Zaporowicz, the son of a Prussian official, was born in Toruń. During the interwar period, he lived in the Free City of Danzig. In December 1939, he adopted his mother's maiden name – Görz. (, ) while the structures of the "Self-Defense" in Toruń itself were led by Stadtführer Rudolf Preuss (a local German, industrialist). Organizational-wise, the Toruń Selbstschutz was subordinated to the II Inspectorate of Selbstschutz, headquartered in Płutowo, covering the counties of Chełmno, Grudziądz, Lipno, Toruń, and Wąbrzeźno in terms of its operations. The position of inspectorate chief was held by SS-Standartenführer Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben.Privately, he was the nephew of the commander of the Pomeranian Selbstschutz, SS-Oberführer Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben. ()
From the letter that Preuss addressed to Mayor Jakob, it appears that the personnel of the Toruń Selbstschutz as of 20 October 1939, amounted to 256 members, including 158 full-time (paid) members. Members of the Selbstschutz were particularly dangerous to Poles due to their excellent knowledge of the terrain and local social relations. Acting within the ranks of this formation, local Germans had the opportunity to settle long-standing neighborhood disputes and scores. They often also took advantage of the opportunity to seize the property of arrested and murdered Poles.
Intelligenzaktion in Toruń and Toruń County Origins
German terror intensified sharply after the end of the September Campaign. It was primarily directed against representatives of the Polish intelligentsia, whom Hitler and the Nazis blamed for the policy of Polonization conducted in the Western Borderlands during the interwar period and regarded as the most serious obstacle to the rapid and complete Germanization of those territories. In accordance with the racist stereotype of the Pole prevailing in Nazi Germany, Nazi leaders believed that only the Polish intelligentsia possessed national consciousness, while the common people were concerned only with their daily lives and were indifferent to the fate of the state. For this reason, it was assumed that the extermination of the elites would allow the destruction of Polish national identity and transform Polish society into a passive, amorphous mass, serving at best as unskilled labour power for Nazi Germany. However, the Germans counted among the doomed intelligentsia not only individuals belonging to a certain social class due to their education but also all those active in social life and enjoying authority among their compatriots. Nazi decision-makers used the term "Polish leadership class" (Führungsschicht) to refer to this group of people. Its representatives were primarily considered to be: Catholic clergy, teachers, doctors, dentists, veterinarians, retired officers, officials, merchants, entrepreneurs, landowners, lawyers, writers, journalists, uniformed service personnel, graduates of higher and secondary schools, as well as members of organizations and associations promoting Polish identity – primarily the Polish Western Union, the Maritime and Colonial League, the Rifle Brotherhood, the Society of Insurgents and Soldiers, the Riflemen's Association Strzelec, and the Sokół movement.