The Rudzki Most massacre was a series of mass executions carried out by the German occupiers between 24 October and 11 November 1939 in the Rudzki Most wilderness near Tuchola.
On 21 October 1939, a fire broke out at the farm of Hugo Fritz – a Volksdeutscher from Piastoszyn, appointed by the occupation authorities to the position of commissioner in the Raciąż district – destroying part of the farm buildings. That same night, the farmer suffered a fatal heart attack. Despite the lack of any evidence, the Germans accused local Poles of setting fire to the farm and causing Fritz's death. This incident served as a pretext for the mass arrest of people who were considered to be part of the so-called Polish leadership, as well as farmers from nearby villages. The prisoners were systematically shot in the Rudzki Most wilderness area near Tuchola. Mass executions took place there on 24 October, 27 October, 30 October, 2 November, 6 November (probably), and 10–11 November 1939. The perpetrators were the victims' neighbours – members of the paramilitary Selbstschutz commanded by SS officers.
After the war, six mass graves containing 237 bodies were found in Rudzki Most. However, according to some sources, the number of victims was higher and could have reached 250, 335, or even 560 people.
Beginning of the occupation Wehrmacht units entered Tuchola on the evening of 2 September 1939. German police, state, and party authorities were very quickly established in the town and county. As early as 4 September, government councillor Marbach from Piła was appointed provisional starosta of the counties of Sępólno, , and Tuchola (with his seat in Sępólno Krajeńskie). His representative in Tuchola was Willi Loer.He is described in some sources as the "acting county head" of Tuchola (). On 5 September, a local Volksdeutscher, Bruno Marten (Marszewski), was appointed provisional mayor of Tuchola.
These officials held their positions for a very short time, as the Danzig Gauleiter of the NSDAP, Albert Forster, who on 5 September 1939 assumed the position of head of the civil administration of the German 4th Army, soon made a number of changes in the municipal and county authorities. Already in the first ten days of September, Otto Hess, who had arrived from the Free City of Danzig, took over the position of starosta of the Tuchola County. At the same time, he became the head of the county structures of the NSDAP (Kreisleiter), while a person named Wichmann took over the position of mayor of Tuchola. On 25 October 1939, military administration was abolished in the occupied areas, and Tuchola and the county were incorporated into the Reich as part of the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia's Bydgoszcz District.
A Gestapo post was established in the building at 53 Świecka Street in Tuchola. According to Włodzimierz Jastrzębski, its staff initially consisted mainly of young Nazis – students of the Technical University of the Free City of Danzig – who arrived in Tuchola with Otto Hess. German reports indicate that between 24 and 26 September, Einsatzkommando 16 post was organized in Tuchola – a special operational group of the SD and Security Police formed in Gdańsk. At the end of October, the Gdańsk Gestapo officers were replaced by functionaries sent from various cities of the Reich, commanded by Riefen from Königsberg. Posts of the Order Police and Gendarmerie were also established in Tuchola, whose officers served in the city and in the rural areas of the county, respectively.
On 4 September 1939, Selbstschutz structures were established in the Tuchola County. Their founder and first commander was a local German, Kurt Merten-Feddeler. The Selbstschutz was a paramilitary police force composed of Germans who were citizens of pre-war Poland. In terms of organization, the Tuchola Selbstschutz was subordinated to the 4th Selbstschutz inspectorate, based in Chojnice. This inspectorate covered three counties – Chojnice, Sępólno, and Tuchola – and was headed by SS-Standartenführer Heinrich Mocek. The Selbstschutz militias from the counties of Sępólno and Tuchola soon received a single county commander (Kreisführer), SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Richardt, based in Sępólno Krajeńskie. This solution, unusual for the Selbstschutz's organizational structure, was probably adopted due to the fact that the German population in the Tuchola County was very small (only 7.7% of the inhabitants).
Several local Selbstschutz centers operated simultaneously in the Tuchola County. Włodzimierz Jastrzębski states that several dozen fighters served in their ranks. According to Wacław Kozłowski, the Selbstschutz structures in the county had about 220 members. One of the largest and most active was the center in Bagienica, commanded by Kurt GehrtSome sources spell his name as "Gerth" (). – a farm owner and active member of the Jungdeutsche Partei. The county Selbstschutz headquarters (Dienststelle Selbstschutz) was located at 53 Świecka Street, in the same building that housed the Gestapo post.
From the first days of the occupation, Germanization policy was ruthlessly implemented in the city and county. All Polish cultural and educational institutions, including schools, libraries, and the regional museum, were closed down. Polish organizations and associations were also dissolved, and the publication of Polish-language newspapers and other printed materials was prohibited. All street names were Germanized, and the population was forbidden to use the Polish language in public places and workplaces. Polish-owned businesses, workshops, real estate, and farms were confiscated.
German terror against the population of Tuchola County In the early days of the occupation, a "people's tribunal" (Volkstribunal) was organized in Tuchola. It was headed by an unknown Gestapo officer and consisted of local Germans and officials of the occupying authorities, including County Administrator Hess and the later mayor Paul Lange. The tasks of the "tribunal" included searching for and sentencing to death people who were considered "enemies of Germany" and "fanatical Poles."
Mass arrests in the town and county began as early as 7 September 1939. Initially, the detained Poles were placed in the court prison in Tuchola, located at the corner of Świecka and Dworcowa streets. By the end of September, around 150 people had passed through its cells. The prison quickly became overcrowded, so the detainees were also placed in the gymnasium on Karasiewicz Street and in the barracks on Nowodworski Street. In addition, before 5 September, the Wehrmacht established an internment camp on one of the farms in the village of Drożdzienica, where Poles and Jews were imprisoned.
However, the most important place of detention for people arrested in the Tuchola County was the internment camp in Radzim near Kamień Krajeński. It was organized by the Selbstschutz in mid-September, on the estate belonging to Stefania Seyda. At the turn of September and October, Polish prisoners who had previously been held in Tuchola began to be transported there. In mid-October, prisoners from the liquidated camp in Drożdzienica were transferred there as well. Internierungslager Resmin mainly held residents of the Sępólno and Tuchola counties. In some cases, prisoners also included residents of the Chojnice, Wyrzysk, Bydgoszcz, and Kościerzyna counties. Among the imprisoned were mostly representatives of the Polish intelligentsia, political and social activists, uniformed services personnel, soldiers returning from the September Campaign, farmers – especially settlers from eastern and central Poland – as well as people denounced by local Germans due to neighborhood feuds and misunderstandings. On average, there were about a thousand prisoners in the camp.
The camp in Radzim was, in fact, an extermination center. Living and sanitary conditions there were extremely harsh, and prisoners were forced to perform hard labor, often humiliating and meaningless. Guards constantly abused detainees. Mass and individual executions took place on the camp grounds. In 1947, nine mass graves were discovered there, containing the remains of 113 people. Among the identified victims of the camp in Radzim and its sub-camp in Komierowo were 16 residents of the Tuchola County.
In the autumn of 1939, mass and individual executions also took place in the Tuchola County. Among others, two Poles were shot in the prison in Tuchola (on 28 September and 4 October). In October, the Selbstschutz murdered 17 prisoners from the camp in Radzim in a forest near the village of Krajenki. Another four Poles and Jews were shot in two executions that took place in a forest near Lińsk. Executions also occurred in a suburban forest near Polna Street in Tuchola (27 September, two victims), in a swamp on the border between Żalno and Siciny (September, two victims), on a forest road from Brzeźno to Osieczna (September, two victims), and in other places.
In September, members of the Tuchola Selbstschutz murdered all Jews living in the town, including women and children. The number of victims reached 47 people. Most were murdered in a mass execution that took place near the present-day Sępoleńska Street, on a field belonging to Kurt Merten-Feddeler.
Arrests intensified rapidly in mid-October. The Germans intended to eliminate the Polish intelligentsia, whom Adolf Hitler and the Nazis blamed for the Polonization policy pursued in the Western Borderlands in the interwar period, and whom they treated as the most serious obstacle to the quick and complete Germanization of the conquered territories. However, the group of the "Polish leadership" (Führungsschicht) designated for liquidation did not include only educated people or those belonging to the upper social classes, but all individuals active in social life and enjoying authority among the Polish population. In addition to teachers, Catholic clergy, civil servants, entrepreneurs, landowners, lawyers, journalists, retired officers, and uniformed services personnel, the victims included members of organizations and associations promoting Polishness, such as the , the Maritime and Colonial League, the , the Association of Insurgents and Veterans, the Riflemen's Association, and the Sokół Gymnastic Society. Many merchants, farmers, and craftsmen were also among the victims, as the Volksdeutsche serving in the ranks of the Selbstschutz took advantage of the opportunity to settle long-standing neighborhood disputes and scores, as well as to seize the property belonging to the arrested and murdered Poles.
In the Tuchola County, the "ethnic cleansing of the advance area" was initiated with the imprisonment of a large group of Polish teachers. They were arrested on 13 or 14 October, when they appeared in Tuchola at the request of the German authorities to take part in an alleged "teaching conference." Kurt Gehrt, the Selbstschutz leader from Bagienica, played an important role in the arrest of the teachers.
Fire at Hugo Fritz's farm Shortly after the occupation began, the German authorities appointed Hugo Fritz, the owner of a large farm in Piastoszyn, to the position of commissioner of the administrative district in Raciąż. At the same time, he became the local "peasant leader" (Ortsbauernführer). Fritz used his official positions to confiscate livestock from Polish farmers, which he then distributed to German farmers.