Between September and December 1939, Nazi German occupiers in Poland instigated a series of mass executions against the civilian population of Bydgoszcz, targeting those of Polish and Jewish origin.
Mass arrests and executions of Bydgoszcz residents, carried out primarily by Wehrmacht soldiers and Einsatzgruppen officers, initially took place in an atmosphere of chaos and were a retaliation for the events of the so-called "Bloody Sunday" in Bydgoszcz (3–4 September 1939) and for the resistance offered by the local Civic Guard to the advancing Wehrmacht units. The ad hoc reprisals later turned into an organized extermination campaign, aimed at the liquidation of the Polish political and intellectual elite in Bydgoszcz, with the main executor being the paramilitary Selbstschutz. During the first four months of the occupation, the Germans murdered up to 5000 residents of Bydgoszcz and the Bydgoszcz County in secret or public executions, of which probably between 1500 and 1900 victims were from Bydgoszcz itself.
Origins
In the first months of the German occupation, Pomerania was the region of Poland where Nazi terror took the most brutal form. Polish historians estimate that between September 1939 and spring 1940, the occupiers murdered between 36,000 and 50,000 Poles and Jews in Pomerania. Meanwhile, German historian Dieter Schenk calculated that between 1939 and 1945, the Nazis murdered between 52,794 and 60,750 people in direct executions in these areas. With the exception of a few hundred, almost all of these individuals lost their lives in the first months after the German troops entered. Even against this backdrop, German retribution against the people of Bydgoszcz took on exceptional proportions, making the city one of the symbols of German atrocities committed in occupied Poland. The human losses suffered by the population of Bydgoszcz during World War II are currently estimated at 10,000.
Several reasons can be distinguished for why German terror took such a brutal form in Bydgoszcz. The Nazis found their propagandistic justification for dealing with the people of Bydgoszcz primarily in the events of the so-called "Bloody Sunday" in Bydgoszcz () on 3–4 September 1939. In Polish historiography, these events are described as the bloody suppression by the Polish military of a German diversionary action in the city, while in German historiography, they are portrayed as a pogrom against local Volksdeutsche. Goebbels' propaganda made great efforts to portray the events in Bydgoszcz in a stirring manner and to provide a propagandistic justification for the German policy of extermination conducted in Polish territories (especially in Pomerania).
In the first days of the occupation, German reprisals were also provoked by the resistance offered by the local Civic Guard to the advancing Wehrmacht units, which the Germans, in violation of international humanitarian law, regarded as a guerrilla formation. Later, both of these events became a pretext for the occupiers to carry out the extermination of the Polish political and intellectual elite in Bydgoszcz, as well as to deal with the Jewish population. The reprisals in Bydgoszcz were part of a broader extermination campaign carried out throughout Pomerania as part of the so-called Intelligenzaktion.
In German repression policy aimed at the population of Bydgoszcz, Professor Włodzimierz Jastrzębski distinguished three phases:
From September 5 to 12, 1939 – reprisals were carried out by Wehrmacht soldiers and Einsatzgruppen officers to pacify the city and suppress the alleged "Polish uprising in Bydgoszcz". Many executions were carried out in public places. Until the end of November 1939 – Sicherheitspolizei and Selbstschutz organized secret mass executions in remote locations near Bydgoszcz. From December 1939 – a kind of "normalization" occurred. Mass killings were abandoned, and Poles were subjected to terror organized by the Nazi police and judicial system.
Crimes committed in the first days of the occupation
The Wehrmacht units entered Bydgoszcz on Tuesday, 5 September 1939. On the same day, a detachment of the Schutzstaffel (Einsatzkommando 1/IV) led by SS-Sturmbannführer Helmut Bischoff also appeared in the city. Bischoff's unit was part of Einsatzgruppe IV (commanded by SS-Brigadeführer Lothar Beutel) – a special operational group (Einsatzgruppen) of the security police and Sicherheitsdienst, following in the wake of the units of the German 4th Army.
At that time, the regular Polish army soldiers had already withdrawn from Bydgoszcz. However, the Germans encountered fierce resistance from members of the Bydgoszcz Civic Guard. Particularly intense fighting broke out in the working-class district of Szwederowo, where railway workers belonging to the Railway Military Training under the command of Franciszek Marchlewski were active. Two German soldiers were killed in the fighting, and a major officer was captured. The Bydgoszcz Civic Guard only surrendered their weapons after receiving assurance from General Eccard von Gablenz (commander of the "Netze" battle group) that their rights, as due to regular troops, would be respected.According to the Fourth Hague Convention, members of irregular troops wearing distinctive insignia and using weapons openly are considered members of regular troops and are subject to the protection of the convention. However, the Germans did not keep their promises. The captured members of the Civic Guard were handed over to the officers of Einsatzgruppe IV. Some prisoners (about 40 in number) were beaten to death with metal rods by Schutzstaffel men.Helmut Bischoff later recorded in his account: "These criminals had already been beaten severely by our extremely bitter soldiers and police officials, in part, on the way when escorting them to the city hall. After all, they deserved nothing else" (). The rest, including both leaders of the Civic Guard – Konrad Fiedler and Marian Maczuga – were shot on the Bielawki hills in Bydgoszcz.
In the first few days after the Germans occupied the city, chaos prevailed in Bydgoszcz. Concurrently with taking control of various districts of Bydgoszcz, the occupiers carried out mass arrests of civilians. The victims were primarily workers, railway employees, small craftsmen, lower-ranking officials, and high school students – as members of the Civic Guard mainly came from these social groups. In the ad hoc executions carried out by Einsatzgruppe IV and the Wehrmacht (especially soldiers from the 1st Signal Regiment), hundreds of residents of the city were killed. General Walter Braemer estimated that between September 5 and 8, at least 400 people were shot in Bydgoszcz. Meanwhile, Werner Kampe calculated the number of killed residents of the city during this time to be between 200 and 300 people. The first executions were quite spontaneous and chaotic. Polish civilians were shot at various locations in the city during this time: in the barracks of the 16th Greater Poland Uhlan Regiment on Szubińska Street, in the barracks of the 15th Greater Poland Light Artillery Regiment on Gdańska Street, at the city stadium on Mościckiego Avenue (now Sportowa Street), at the airport on Jagiellońska Street, near the wall of the prison on Wały Jagiellońskie Street, and in the vicinity of the municipal hospital on Bielawki. The brutality of the Germans was fueled by the belief that Bydgoszcz was engulfed in a "Polish uprising". This was evidenced by the occasional shots fired by "partisans" in the city. However, it is difficult to assess how many times German soldiers were actually attacked by Poles and how many times these incidents were simply the result of uncontrolled gunfire, caused by inexperienced and "partisan psychosis"-ridden German recruits.
On 8 September 1939, Major General Walter Braemer (commander of the 580th rear area army) was appointed as the military commander of Bydgoszcz. However, just two days later, actual power in the city was taken over by Werner Kampe – the head of the local Nazi Party cell (later, from the end of September, the Lord Mayor of Bydgoszcz). In the city and surrounding areas, the first structures of SelbstschutzBydgoszcz's Selbstschutz reached a membership of 1,500. – a paramilitary formation composed of representatives of the German national minority inhabiting the pre-war territory of the Second Polish Republic – began to be formed. Due to the chaos in the city and the alleged threat from "ubiquitous" Polish partisans, the command of the German 4th Army ordered Braemer (a pre-war active member of the Schutzstaffel) to conduct a more organized "cleansing operation".German historians have written that Braemer "was operating with Bischoff on the same wavelength" ().
The general crackdown on the residents of Bydgoszcz began on September 8. Braemer issued an order on that day for the cleansing of the city from "criminal Polish elements". German soldiers and police officers cordoned off Polish-inhabited districts and systematically searched house by house, apartment by apartment. In case of finding weapons (which could include commemorative sabers, hunting rifles, or police batons), male occupants were shot on the spot. The remaining "suspects" were directed to a makeshift prison organized in the barracks of the 15th Light Artillery Regiment. By the morning of September 9, around 400–500 people were imprisoned, and by September 10, the number of detainees increased to 1,400. The purges primarily affected districts considered by the occupiers as the most dangerous, such as Szwederowo.Szwederowo was pacified by the Germans twice – on September 7 and 10. On September 8 a large roundup was organized in Śródmieście. Smaller roundups also took place in other districts of the city – in Jachcice and near Kujawska Street. On September 10, the command of the 580th rear area army evaluated in the war diary that: [...] in the vilest district inhabited by the commies, about 120 people were shot, and another 900 were arrested. Excesses must have occurred during the "cleansing operation" because Braemer felt compelled to issue an order specifying that every person found with a weapon should be brought before the Sondergericht, rather than immediately shot. Bischoff's orders went in a completely different direction; he ordered to shoot all persons who in any way seem suspicious, declaring at the same time to his Schutzstaffel men that in this action, everyone can prove themselves a true man.
On September 9, the first public execution took place in the Old Market Square in Bydgoszcz, where 20 people were killed. The Poles gathered in the square before the execution were beaten with rifle butts, forced to fall and rise, and stand for hours with their hands raised. When a German soldier was shot on the night of September 9 to 10, Braemer ordered that the next day, another 20 hostages be shot in the Bydgoszcz market square. On September 10, five other civilians were shot in the square – allegedly while attempting to escape. It was not uncommon for local Volksdeutsche to pass among the rows of detained Poles and Jews, pointing out supposed participants of the Bydgoszcz "Bloody Sunday" to the escort. These people were then separated from the rest of the prisoners, marked with a cross sign using white paint, and shot. In this way, among others, 20 Poles detained on Saperów Street perished.
In total, during Braemer's tenure (September 8–11, 1939), around 370 Poles were murdered in Bydgoszcz. Out of this group, about 120–150 people were ordered by SS-Brigadeführer Beutel (in agreement with Braemer) to be shot by Einsatzgruppe IV officers in the forests near Bydgoszcz.