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{{short description|Massacre in Poland during the 1939 invasion by Nazi Germany}}
{{POV|This article is terribly inaccurate}}
]
'''Bloody Sunday''' ({{lang-de|Bromberger Blutsonntag}}; {{lang-pl|Krwawa Niedziela}}) is the term used to describe an incident that took place at the beginning of ]. On ], ], two days after the ], a highly controversial ] occurred in and around the town of ] ({{lang-de|Bromberg}}) in the ] ]. The number of casualties, as well as the extent of involvement by the German agents and the ] (which might have been deliberately aiming to produce German civilian casualties to fuel German propaganda) involved is disputed by historians.
'''Bloody Sunday''' ({{langx|de|Bromberger Blutsonntag}}; {{langx|pl|Krwawa niedziela}}) was a sequence of violent events that took place in ] ({{langx|de|Bromberg}}), a ] city with a sizable ], between 3 and 4 September 1939, during the ].

Standing in the path of the German army's advance during the early days of the invasion, tensions quickly escalated in Bydgoszcz between the city's sizable ] and its Polish majority.<ref name=":1" /> On 3 September, as the ] was preparing to assault the city, members of the German minority working in conjunction with the German intelligence agency (]) attacked the Polish ].<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2" /> Polish soldiers and civilians reacted with violent reprisals against ethnic Germans, who in turn reacted with more violence. A Polish investigation concluded in 2004 that approximately 40–50 Poles and between 100 and 300 Germans were killed.<ref name="Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939" />

The term "Bloody Sunday" was applied to the events by ] officials, who highlighted and exaggerated German casualties.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kershaw |first=Ian |title=Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis |date=25 October 2001 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-14-192581-3 |page=242}}</ref> An instruction issued to the press said, "... must show news on the barbarism of Poles against Germans in Bromberg. The expression 'Bloody Sunday' must enter as a permanent term in the dictionary and circumnavigate the globe. For that reason, this term must be continuously underlined."<ref name="Kunert" />

Approximately 200&ndash;400 Polish hostages were shot in a ] in the aftermath of the fall of the city on 5 September.<ref name="ChristBrown29" /> Additionally, fifty Polish prisoners of war from Bydgoszcz were accused by Nazi summary courts of taking part in "Bloody Sunday" and shot. The reprisals compounded violence stemming from the German attempts to pacify the city, and the premeditated murder of notable Poles as part of ]. As part of the latter, the Germans murdered 1,200&ndash;3,000 Polish civilians in Bydgoszcz, in a part of the city that became known as the ].


==Background== ==Background==
] (Bromberg) was part of the ] until 1772, when it was annexed by the ] during the ]. As a part of Prussia, the city was affected by the unification of Germany in 1871 and became part of the ]. It would remain a part of the German Empire until the end of ]. In February 1920, the ] awarded the city and the surrounding region to the ] (the administrative region of ]). This resulted in a number of ethnic Germans leaving the region for Germany. Over the ], the German population decreased even further.
====Status of Bromberg, after WW I Bydgoszcz ====


The emergence of the ] in Germany had an important impact on the city. ] revitalized the ], making an appeal to the German minority living outside of Germany's post-World War I borders and recruiting its members for Nazi intelligence.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Higgins |first=David R. |title=Behind Soviet Lines: Hitler's Brandenburgers capture the Maikop Oilfields 1942 |publisher=Bloobsbury |year=2014 |isbn=978-1782005995 |pages=9}}</ref> It was Hitler's explicit goal to create a ] by annexing territories of other countries inhabited by German minorities. By March 1939, these ambitions, charges of atrocities on both sides of the ], distrust, and rising nationalist sentiment in Nazi Germany led to the complete deterioration of ]. Hitler's demands for the Polish inhabited ] and Polish resistance to Nazi annexation fueled ethnic tensions. For months prior to the 1939 ], German newspapers and politicians like ] had carried out a national and international ] campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ] of ]s living in Poland.
As part of the ], the region was annexed in 1772 by the ] in the ]. It belonged to the ] from 1871 till the end of ]. In February 1920, the ] awarded the region to the ]. The city maintained a German majority (in contrast to the cities of ] and ] that had always retained a clear ethnic Polish majority). The German government began to encourage German professionals such as doctors and lawyers, to leave the region, believing that it would result in the "]" and lead to instability in Poland. Other ethnic Germans left the Polish state because they did not want to serve in the Polish army. This resulted in a number of ethnic Germans leaving the region for Germany.


After armed conflict erupted on 1 September 1939, ethnic Germans living in Poland were in many places subjected to attacks, and the Polish government arrested ten to fifteen thousand on suspicion of being loyal to Germany, marching them toward the east of the country.<ref name=":3" /> Eventually, around 2000 ethnic Germans died in such actions.<ref name=":3" /> Nazi propagandists used these incidents to claim that the invasion was justified, and the events in Bydgoszcz became emblematic of this.<ref>Kershaw 2001, p. 242</ref>
====German and Polish relations====
During the ], minority rights in both the Second Republic of Poland and ] were to be based on amicable relations between the two countries. However, while the rights of ethnic minorities were legally protected in Poland, the Polish minority in Germany did not enjoy such protection. Poland recognized the appendix of the Treaty of Versailles concerning minority rights until 1934, the same year that the ] joined the ]. In addition, Poland's fragile economic position proved fertile grounds for ethnic divisions to subsist at the expense of national solidarity. This was not only in regards to the Polish Germans; other minorities vocalized their sentiments, whether they were in support of an independent "greater ]", a separate ], or even an autonomous ]ish entity.<ref> {{cite book | first = Tadeusz | last = Piotrowski | title = "Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947" | location = London | publisher = McFarland & Company | year = 1998 | pages = 5-10, 38 }}.</ref> The result was a rise in Polish patriotism and identity politics and the German minority of western Poland was increasingly unwelcomed as a ]. The rise of the ] only complicated matters. ] revitalized the ], making an appeal to the Germans living outside of Germany's post-World War I borders. Also, it was Hitler's explicit goal to reverse the work of the Treaty of Versailles and create a ]. By March 1939, these ambitions, charges of atrocities on both sides of the border, distrust, and rising nationalist sentiment led to the complete deterioration of Polish-German relations.


== Bloody Sunday == ==The incident==
]Beginning with the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1 September, fighting broke out in Bydgoszcz between Polish troops and ethnic Germans in the city, many of whom were later revealed to belonged to clandestine groups organized by the Nazi party.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Rossino |first=Alexander B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MAhnAAAAMAAJ |title=Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity |publisher=University Press of Kansas |year=2003 |isbn=9780700612345 |pages=62 |quote=Conditions in Bydgoszcz had steadily deteriorated in the days immediately after the beginning of the German invasion. Situated squarely between Pomerania and East Prussia, Bydgoszcz was home to a considerable number of ethnic Germans, many of whom belonged to underground political groups organized by Nazi sympathizers. Armed clashes between Polish troops and members of the Volksdeutsche underground broke out in the days between the beginning of the German offensive and the Wehrmacht's occupation on 5 September.}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> As the Wehrmacht's Fourth Army prepared to storm the city of Bydgoszcz on 3 September, the violence intensified, resulting in the deaths of up to 300 ethnic Germans and 40 to 50 Poles.<ref name=":3">{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Richard |title=The Third Reich at War |date=2008 |publisher=Pengin Press |isbn=978-0143116714 |edition=1st |location=New York |page=8–9 |quote=Some 300 were killed in Bromberg (Bydgoszcz), where local ethnic Germans had staged an armed uprising against the town's garrison in the belief that the war was virtually over, and had been killed by the enraged Poles. These events were cynically exploited by Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry to win maximum support in Germany for the invasion.}}</ref><ref name="Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939" /> Sources differ on the circumstances of the killings, but it is apparent that at least some were killed in an anti-German pogrom.<ref>{{cite book|first=Ian|last=Kershaw|title=Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis|date=25 October 2001|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-192581-3|page=242}}</ref>
=== Prelude ===


The killings were incited by ] attacks by ethnic German partisans against the Polish garrison.<ref name=":3" /> According to historian ], recently unearthed German documents confirm that the violence was sparked when Polish soldiers were attacked by agents of the Nazi intelligence organization ] recruited from among the city's German minority.<ref name=":2" />
Before and shortly after armed conflict erupted on ], ], both sides reported a number of atrocities. The Nazi ] claimed that the worst persecutions of ethnic Germans took place between ] and ]. However, the most influential event, shrouded in controversy, was that which occurred on ], in Bydgoszcz.
]
Beginning in early September, the Abwehr reported in documents prepared by general ] that German armed ] conducting operations behind the ] in Bydgoszcz suffered heavy losses.<ref name="Tomasz Chińciński page 181">"Niemiecka dywersja w Polsce w 1939 r. w świetle dokumentów policyjnych i wojskowych II Rzeczpospolitej oraz służb specjalnych III Rzeszy" Tomasz Chińciński, page 181 Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość 4/2 (8), 159-195. 2005</ref><ref name="W" /><ref name="meldunki" /> Their operations coordinated by ] residents in Bydgoszcz-Grischner are documented in operational reports and plans in Abwehr archives. Among the tasks allocated to armed saboteur groups documented in German archives were: blowing up the main office of the German organization ], the passport office Deutsche
Paßstelle, the German private school, and setting fire to the German theater and offices of the ].<ref name="Tomasz Chińciński page 181" /> These operations are documented as coordinated and organized by Schutzstaffel SS.<ref name="Tomasz Chińciński page 181" />
Additionally a special Abwehr sabotage group was located in Bydgoszcz according to German records from Abwehr Breslau department, called Sabotage-Organisationen Gruppe 12 whose task was to disable a local power-plant and cut phone communications between ] and ].<ref name="Tomasz Chińciński page 180">"Niemiecka dywersja w Polsce w 1939 r. w świetle dokumentów policyjnych i wojskowych II Rzeczpospolitej oraz służb specjalnych III Rzeszy" Tomasz Chińciński, page 180 Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość 4/2 (8), 159-195. 2005</ref>


Besides these sabotage groups in Bydgoszcz, the Abwehr also recorded in its documents paramilitary groups that were formed in the city. According to German records stored in Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in ] they counted 150 members in Kampf-Organisation under leadership of a local German named Kleiss and were part of a larger military formation coordinated from ] which altogether had 2,077 members. In addition to this group a 10-member combat unit under command of a German named Otto Meister was also formed in Bydgoszcz and received orders from ] local office of Abwehr.<ref name="Tomasz Chińciński page 180"/> By the end of August just before the invasion took place Polish police conducted several arrests during which they found explosives, armbands and guns.<ref>Der "Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz" in Polen 1939/1940 Christian Jansen, Arno Weckbecker page 26-27, page 2010</ref>
A number of Polish witnesses testified that early in the day, as a contingent of the ] from ] was withdrawing through Bydgoszcz, it was attacked by Germans from within the area, reported to be shooting at soldiers and civilians from rooftops and church towers.


During the night between 2 and 3 September a number of German saboteurs dressed up in Polish uniforms woke up inhabitants of two districts in Bydgoszcz telling them to run as Poland has been defeated, and as a result a significant number of civilians panicked and started fleeing the city. The chaotic flight disrupted and restricted movements of the Polish military on the roads.<ref name="www2.um.bydgoszcz.pl">Historia Bydgoszczy, Tom II, część druga 1939-1945, pod redakcją naukową Mariana Biskupa, Bydgoszcz 2004 Wydarzenia 3 i 4 września 1939 r. w Bydgoszczy - "Blutsonntag" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909185923/http://www2.um.bydgoszcz.pl/binary/Wydarzenia%203%20i%204%20wrze%C5%9Bnia%20w%20Bydgoszczy_tcm29-22266.pdf|date=2017-09-09}}</ref>
A German amateur historian, Hugo Rasmus, denies this and attributes the situation to confusion and the disorganized state of the Polish paramilitary forces in the city. A common argument for the lack of German provocation against the Polish army is the contention that no Germans in Poland had been allowed to possess weapons for years. There are no known instructions for the German population in Bydgoszcz to contribute to the German military campaign in such a manner, and no ethnic Germans - even after the Wehrmacht passed through the town - spoke of participation in the event.<ref name=Blanke580-582>Richard Blanke, ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 97, No. 2. Apr., 1992, pp. 580-582. See also: Włodzimierz Jastrzębski,''Der Bromberger Blutsonntag: Legende und Wirklichkeit.'' and Andrzej Brożek, ''Niemcy zagraniczni w polityce kolonizacji pruskich prowincji wschodnich (1886-1918)''</ref> This would suggest that the Polish troops were being targeted by the German Wehrmacht or other Polish soldiers, as it is possible that the shots were fired in the confusion of the mass withdrawal.<ref name=Blanke580-582/> While the German documents confirming the saboteur actions of armed German Poles in other cities contradict the argument of the ban on weapon possession, no such documents are preserved in case of Bydgoszcz, though there is the possibility that German agents and the ] were operating in the area.


By the morning of 3 September a certain few Germans who were in good relationship with their Polish neighbors started warning them to hide as "something bad will happen in the city", offering them shelter under the condition that they must hide by 10 AM, but stated they could not disclose details on what would take place.<ref name="www2.um.bydgoszcz.pl"/>


As a contingent of the ] (]'s ], ], and ]) was withdrawing through Bydgoszcz<ref name="meldunki"/> it was attacked by German ]s from within the city. According to a British witness, a retreating Polish artillery unit was shot at by Germans from within a house; the Poles returned fire and were subsequently shot at from a ] church.<ref name="ismaning"/> In the ensuing fight both sides suffered some casualties; captured German nonuniformed armed insurgents were ] and some ] was also reported.<ref name="meldunki"/><ref name="ND"/><ref name="Blanke580-582"/> A Polish investigation concluded in 2004 that Polish troops had been shot at by members of the German minority and German military intelligence (]) agents; around 40–50 Poles and between 100 and 300 Germans were killed.<ref name="Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939"/>
=== German response ===
In what was presented by the Nazi propaganda as an act of retaliation, 2,000 Polish civilians were picked at random and executed by ], with further reprisals soon to follow. According to the book ''Masters of Death'' (published by Richard Rhodes in the ]: ), some of these victims
<blockquote>''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. That week the murders continued. Thirty-four of the leading tradespeople and merchants of the town were shot, and many other leading citizens. The square was surrounded by troops with machine-guns.''</blockquote>


The German forces which entered the city also encountered resistance from members of the paramilitary Citizen Watch (''Straż Obywatelska''), particularly in the ] neighborhood, which was predominantly inhabited by working-class individuals.<ref>{{cite book |last=Biskup |first=Marian |title=Historia Bydgoszczy |date=2004 |publisher=Bydgoskie Towarzystwo Naukowe |isbn=83-921454-0-2 |volume=II |location=Bydgoszcz |page=63 |language=pl |trans-title=History of Bydgoszcz}}</ref> The Citizen Watch in Bydgoszcz relinquished its weapons after receiving assurances from General Eccard von Gablenz, commander of the ''Kampgruppe "Netze"'', that its members would be treated in accordance with international law as POWs.<ref name=":4">{{cite book |last1=Gumkowski |first1=Janusz |title=Zbrodnie hitlerowskie – Bydgoszcz 1939 |last2=Kuczma |first2=Rajmund |date=1967 |publisher=Wydawnictwo "Polonia" |location=Warszawa |page=17 |language=pl |trans-title=German war crimes – Bydgoszcz 1939}}</ref>
The troops then attacked the ], looting and ransacking the church. The priests were taken to a barn, where the local Jewish population was already imprisoned, and were all subjected to abuse.


==German propaganda==
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:<ref>''Nuremberg Trial Proceedings.'' Vol. 9, day 88, Friday, ] ].</ref>
]'' on 6 September 1942 quotes ] on the event: "If the light clashes with darkness there is no making of agreements, there is only a fight of life and death until the one or the other part is destroyed."]]
] heavily exploited the events to try to gain support in Germany for the invasion. As British historian ] wrote:
{{quote|For German propaganda, the attacks on ethnic Germans were exploited as an apparent justification for a policy of 'ethnic cleansing' that had surpassed in its first days anything that could be regarded as retaliation. The Germans claimed in November 1939 5,400 had been killed in the 'September Murders' (including what they dubbed the 'Bromberg Bloody Sunday'). Then, in February 1940, on Hitler's own instructions (it was later claimed) this was simply multiplied by around ten-fold and a figure of 58,000 German dead invented. The most reliable estimates put the total number of ethnic Germans killed in outrages, forced marches, bombing and shelling at around 4,000. Terrible though these atrocities were, they were more or less spontaneous outbursts of hatred that took place in the context of panic and fear following the German invasion. They did not remotely compare with, let alone provide any justification for, the calculated savagery of the treatment meted out by the German masters, directed at wiping out anything other than a slave existence for the Polish people.<ref>{{cite book|first=Ian|last=Kershaw|title=Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis|date=25 October 2001|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-192581-3|page=242}}</ref>}}


Hitler's secret decree of 4 October 1939 stated that all crimes committed by the Germans between 1 September 1939 and 4 October 1939 were not to be prosecuted.<ref name=":0">Diemut Majer, Non-Germans Under The Third Reich, p.424</ref>
:''On ] 1939, at 1015 in the morning, German Fifth Columnists attacked Polish units withdrawing from Bydgoszcz. During the fighting, 238 Polish soldiers and 223 German Fifth Columnists were killed. As a consequence of the entry of German troops into the town, mass executions, arrests, and deportations of Polish citizens to ] took place, which were carried out by German authorities, the ] and ]. 10,500 were murdered, and a further 13,000 died in the camps.''


] investigation in 1939–1940 claimed that the events were a result of panic and confusion among the Polish troops.<ref name="wehrmachtuntersuchungsstelle"/> The ] investigation included the interrogation of captive Polish soldiers, ethnic Germans from Bydgoszcz and surrounding villages, and Polish civilians. The bodies of the victims were exhumed and the cause of death and the possible involvement of military rifles was assessed.<ref name="gerichtsmedizin"/>
The updated version of Polish claims is to be confirmed by the ].<ref>''Dywersja czy masakra ?'' Włodzimierz Jastrzębski, Gdańsk 1988.</ref>

==German reprisals and atrocities==
{{Main|German retribution against people of Bydgoszcz}}
{{multiple image
| align = right
| image1 = Polish Priest as a German Hostage 1939.jpg
| width1 = 225
| alt1 =
| caption1 = Polish hostages in Bydgoszcz. September 1939

| image2 = Bydgoszcz-rozstrzelanie zakładników 9.09.1939.jpg
| width2 = 225
| alt2 =
| caption2 = Poles shot by Germans in Bydgoszcz, 9 September 1939
|
| image3 = Dolina_smierci_Bydgoszcz.jpg
| width3 = 210
| alt3 =
| caption3 = Polish teachers from Bydgoszcz are led for execution in Death Valley, November 1, 1939
}}
The events were followed by German reprisals and mass executions of Polish civilians.<ref name="ChristFren"/><ref name="ND"/> In an act of retaliation for Bloody Sunday, a number of Polish civilians were executed by German military units of the ], ], and ].<ref name="ChristBrown29"/> According to German historian Christian Raitz von Frentz, 876 Poles were tried by German tribunal for involvement in the events of Bloody Sunday before the end of 1939. 87 men and 13 women were sentenced without the right to appeal.<ref name="ChristFren"/> Polish historian ] notes 120 executions in relation to Bloody Sunday, and the execution of 20 hostages after a German soldier was allegedly attacked by a Polish sniper.<ref name="ChristFren"/><ref name="ChristBrown32"/>

The assurances issued to the Citizen Watch which surrendered after being promised that they were to be treated in accordance with international law as POWs were not upheld by the Germans. The captured Citizen Watch members were handed over by the Wehrmacht to members of ] IV. Approximately 40 prisoners were subjected to fatal beatings by SS men using metal rods.<ref name=":4" /> The remaining POWs, which included the leaders of the Citizen Watch, ] and Marian Maczuga, were executed by gunfire in the Bielawki neighborhood of Bydgoszcz.<ref>{{cite book |last=Biskup |first=Marian |title=Historia Bydgoszczy |date=2004 |publisher=Bydgoskie Towarzystwo Naukowe |isbn=83-921454-0-2 |volume=II |location=Bydgoszcz |page=84 |language=pl |trans-title=History of Bydgoszcz}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Böhler |first=Jochen |title=Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu w Polsce |date=2009 |publisher=Wydawnictwo "Znak" |isbn=978-83-240-1225-1 |location=Kraków |page=147 |language=pl |trans-title=Wehrmacht war crimes in Poland}}</ref>

Additionally, in the {{ill|Boryszew massacre|pl|Zbrodnia w Boryszewie}} fifty Polish prisoners of war from Bydgoszcz were accused by Nazi summary courts for taking part in "Bloody Sunday" and shot.<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal |last=Sudoł |first=Tomasz |date=2011 |title=Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach polskich we wrześniu 1939 roku |trans-title=Wehrmacht crimes against Polish prisoners of war in September 1939 |url=http://www.polska1918-89.pl/pdf/zbrodnie-wehrmachtu-na-jencach-polskich-we-wrzesniu-1939-roku,2028.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej |volume=8–9 (129–130) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211228235927/https://www.polska1918-89.pl/pdf/zbrodnie-wehrmachtu-na-jencach-polskich-we-wrzesniu-1939-roku,2028.pdf |archive-date=28 December 2021 |access-date=1 June 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Datner |first=Szymon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BQ0uAQAAIAAJ&q=Zbrodnie+Wehrmachtu+na+je%C5%84cach+wojennych+w+II+wojnie+%C5%9Bwiatowej. |title=Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach wojennych armii regularnych w II wojnie światowej |date=1964 |publisher=Wydawn. Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej |pages=59–60 |language=pl}}</ref>

According to a German version, Polish snipers attacked German troops in Bydgoszcz for several days (Polish sources and witnesses do not confirm this).<ref name="google"/> The German governor, General ], (the commander of the rear army area), ordered the execution of 80 Polish hostages over the next few days.<ref name="ChristFren" /> By September 8, between 200 and 400 Polish civilians had been killed.<ref name="ChristBrown29" /> According to ], a number of Boy Scouts were set up in the marketplace against a wall and shot; a devoted priest who rushed to administer the ] was shot too, receiving five wounds. Murders continued all week; 34 of the leading tradespeople and merchants of the town were shot, as well as many other leading citizens.<ref name="nytimes" />

Many Poles, particularly members of the intelligentsia and the Jews, were singled out for deportation, or killed outright.<ref name="ChristBrown32"/> By December 1939 the Germans killed 5,000 Polish civilians from the ] (about a third from Bydgoszcz itself). These victims included the mayor of Bydgoszcz, {{ill|Leon Barciszewski|pl|Leon Barciszewski}} Many of those killings took place in a part of the city that became known as the ]. More broadly, they were also related to the wider ], a large scale ] extermination actions.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Schenk |first1=Dieter |title=Albert Forster - gdański namiestnik Hitlera: zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Gdańsku i Prusach Zachodnich |last2=Kulesza |first2=Witold |last3=Tycner |first3=Janusz |last4=Tycner |first4=Wanda |date=2002 |work=Polnord - Oskar |isbn=978-83-86181-83-4 |location=Gdańsk |pages=243}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rossino |first=Alexander B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iL-uEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Operation+Tannenberg%22+%22Bloody+Sunday%22&pg=PA73 |title=Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity |date=2003-05-01 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=978-0-7006-1392-2 |pages=73 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Historia Bydgoszczy. T. 2 cz. 2: 1939-1945 |date=2004 |publisher=BTN |isbn=978-83-921454-0-0 |editor-last=Biskup |editor-first=Marian |location=Bydgoszcz |pages=123, 226}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Baxter |first=Ian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sLs1EAAAQBAJ&dq=Valley+of+Death+%28Bydgoszcz%29&pg=PT32 |title=Himmler's Death Squad: Einsatzgruppen in Action, 1939–1944 |date=2021-08-26 |publisher=Pen and Sword Military |isbn=978-1-5267-7857-4 |pages=32 |language=en}}</ref> More than 20,000 Polish citizens of Bydgoszcz (14% of the population) were either shot or died in concentration camps during the occupation.<ref name="republika"/>


==The debate in scholarship== ==The debate in scholarship==
The exact number of victims of Bloody Sunday is disputed. Peter Aurich (a pseudonym of the German journalist Peter Nasarski)<ref name="schubert89-46"/> put the number of German civilian deaths in Bydgoszcz at 366,<ref name="Blanke580" /> while Hugo Rasmus estimates it as at least 415.<ref name="ChristFren" /> Two Polish historians, ] and ], estimate ethnic German deaths at 103 (Jastrzębski), and about 300 (150 on September 3, the rest in the days after).<ref name="ChristBrown"/> The Polish historians point out that since these losses occurred during actual combat, most of the civilian losses should be attributed to accidents common in urban combat conditions; they argue that civilian losses might have occurred when the town was attacked by the German air force (]).<ref name="ChristFren" /> Strafing of civilians in the town by the ] is confirmed by German witnesses.<ref name="wydarzeniach"/> Nazi propaganda reinforced Polish perceptions of the German minority as hostile, and during the invasion reported that the German minority was aiding the forces. This contributed to Polish misconceptions, as the Poles were expecting the German minority to be actively hostile.<ref name="HarryGordon"/>
Nazi records announced a death toll of approximately 58,000 as a result of anti-German violence. Hitler personally raised that number to over 60,000.<ref name=Blanke580-582/> In the 1960s, ] effectively challenged this figure, dropping the estimate to as low as 2,000.<ref name=Blanke580-582/> The research was sponsored by the ], a publisher considered by some to have an anti-German bias.<ref name=Blanke580-582/> Since then, further studies have been conducted. Controversial author ] estimates that 5,000 ethnic Germans in Poland were killed in non-combat circumstances. ] gives a range of 4,000 to 5,000 German civilian deaths, including 366 deaths in Bydgoszcz.<ref name=Blanke580-582/>


An even bigger debate in the scholarship concerned the question whether—as the Polish ] suggests—there were indeed any members of a German ] in the city who opened fire on the Polish troops (and if so, whether they were composed of members of the Bydgoszcz German minority or not), or whether—as critics among the German historiography argue—Polish troops (or panicking civilians) overreacted in the confusion and targeted innocent German civilians.<ref>Konrad Piasecki September 1, 2003</ref> This debate has been resolved by investigation of German archives, which confirmed existence of several diversion and saboteur groups in Bydgoszcz overseen by intelligence organizations by Nazi Germany.<ref>Niemiecka dywersja w Polsce w 1939 r. w świetle dokumentów policyjnych i wojskowych II Rzeczpospolitej oraz służb specjalnych III Rzeszy" Tomasz Chińciński, Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość 4/2 (8), 159-195. 2005</ref> Among the Germans killed in the fighting historians identified Otto Niefeldt who was an Abwehr agent from ].<ref name="www2.um.bydgoszcz.pl"/>
It is hard to say how many Germans died exclusively during marches; a few German historians claim the number as high as 1,700 and attribute it mainly to Polish atrocities, but the Polish argument points out that since these German Poles were marching during actual combat, 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.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Overall, German and Polish historians continue to argue with one another over the validity of their claims.
The account of Peter Nasarski alias Aurich has been called by Harry Gordon<ref name="HarryGordon" /> one of the most thorough German accounts; his work is however generally rejected in Poland,<ref name="schubert89-46"/> perhaps because he indiscriminately used witness statements collected by Nazi officials.<ref name="kees-p40"/> According to Nasarski, after police forces retreated from Bydgoszcz, agitated Polish civilians accused many Germans of assaulting Polish soldiers and executed them and any Poles who stood up in their defence.<ref name="HarryGordon" /> Rasmus attributes the situation to confusion and the disorganised state of the Polish forces in the city.<ref name="Blanke580" />


Von Frentz wrote that "In Bydgoszcz, the event was probably caused by confusion among the rapidly retreating soldiers, a general breakdown in public order and panic among the Polish majority after two German air raids and the discovery of a small reconnaissance group of the German Army on the previous day."<ref name="ChristFren" /> He quotes Nazi German reports about the civilian victims and atrocities, later corroborated by a ] commission that the Nazis invited to the scene.<ref name="ChristFren" /> Von Frentz also noted that eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed against the German population are as unreliable as Polish accounts of the fifth columnists.<ref name="ChristFren" /> While authors like Blanke write that no ethnic Germans are known to have spoken of participation in that event, by 2007 Nazi documents were uncovered confirming that assistance, supplies and aid were given to both German saboteurs and their families.<ref name="Blanke580"/><ref name="bydgoszcz.wyborcza.pl"> Historycy wytropili dywersantów
==Notes==
Jacek Gałęzewski 03 September 2007 Gazeta Wyborcza</ref> In the post-war collaboration trials, no ethnic German was charged in relation to Bloody Sunday.<ref name="ChristFren" /><ref name="HarryGordon" /> Another counterargument that was made to the fifth column theory is that Polish troops were being targeted by advance units of the German regular army (]), or that the shots were fired by Polish soldiers in the confusion of the mass withdrawal.<ref name="Blanke580" /> Von Frentz claims that Polish troops and civilians massacred German civilians due to confusion.<ref name="ChristFren"/>
<div class="references-small" style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">

{{reflist}}
Polish historians, such as Madajczyk, Jastrzębski, ] and Ryszard Wojan claim that the killings were triggered when the ethnic Germans, dressed as civilians, opened fire on the Polish troops (Jastrzebski later changed his views after starting to work with German expellee organizations<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rp.pl/artykul/61991,355527_Krwawiaca_pamiec.html|title=Krwawiąca pamięć|date=August 29, 2009|publisher=Rzeczpospolita|language=pl|access-date=July 16, 2015|archive-date=July 17, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150717000112/http://www.rp.pl/artykul/61991,355527_Krwawiaca_pamiec.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>). The Poles retaliated, killing many and executing prisoners afterwards.<ref name="Blanke580" /><ref name="ChristBrown" /><ref name="ChristBrown2"/> Polish historians Pospieszalski and Janusz Kutta point to a Nazi top secret ] ] (which took place on August 31&nbsp;– September 1) and was designed to create an illusion of Polish aggression against Germany.<ref name="WirtzGordon"/><ref name="Lightbody"/> Thus it is argued that actions like the ] and events in Bydgoszcz were all part of a larger Nazi plan to discredit the Poles.<ref name="JK"/> Pospieszalski and Wojan argue that the German fifth column agents (or their higher-ups) might have been deliberately aiming to produce a situation likely to result in German civilian casualties as a way to fuel Nazi propaganda.<ref name="W" /><ref name="pospieszalskim"/><ref name="wydawnictwo"/> This argument has been criticized: Harry Gordon questions whether the Germans were willing to sacrifice their citizens for propaganda gains.<ref name="HarryGordon" />
</div>

==Recent discussion==
The modern consensus among Polish historians is that the events constituted an attack on the Polish population and military by German militia.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150717000112/http://www.rp.pl/artykul/61991,355527_Krwawiaca_pamiec.html|date=2015-07-17}} ''Krwiawiaca Pamiec'' Rzeczpospolita 28.09.09</ref>

In 2004, historian Tomasz Chinciński in a publication of ] (IPN) summarized recent research related to Bloody Sunday, confirming that the majority of historians agree that an "insurrection" by agents who had arrived from the Third Reich as well as some German inhabitants of Bydgoszcz took place.<ref name="ceeol"/> He has published a work detailing new evidence of German diversionary activity in September 1939 in Poland.<ref name="ipn"/> There are numerous Polish eyewitness accounts of action of a German ] which included members of local minority; Pospieszalski cited multiple witnesses for at least 46 cases of German civilians opening fire on Polish troops.<ref name="HarryGordon" /> There are numerous Polish Army reports<ref name="meldunki" /> and German documents confirming the saboteur actions of armed German Poles in other cities.<ref name="meldunki"/> According to German historians, any members of the fifth column, if present in the city, were infiltrators from Germany, not natives of Bydgoszcz.<ref name="ChristFren"/> Eyewitness accounts have been criticised by Richard Blanke.<ref name="ChristFren" /> In 2004, Chinciński discussed previously unpublished reports of Polish Army Pomorze, which reported "a large scale diversion" in Bydgoszcz on September 3 and numerous smaller incidents in surrounding area around that time.<ref name="meldunki" />

A number of Polish and German historians discussed the problem on September 4, 2006, at the German Historical Institute in ].<ref name="panel"/> Chinciński discussed newly discovered documents of the ] that show that there were indeed plans for fifth column and diversion activities in Bydgoszcz; several paramilitary groups were organized by Germany in the city, he discussed the bias of the ] historiography, which minimized cases of Polish mob lynching of ethnic Germans, which did occur in Bydgoszcz.<ref name="panel" /> German historian ] noted problems with German historiography, outlining some of the unreliability inherent in early post-war studies, which were still significantly affected by the Nazi era, and that the Bydgoszcz events were and still are used for political purposes.<ref name="panel" /> By 2007 after several years of studying German archives, documents were uncovered in which General Erwin Lahousen praised action of German saboteurs in Bydgoszcz and organized delivery of supplies and medical help to them.<ref name="bydgoszcz.wyborcza.pl"/> German historian ], in his publication about the invasion of Poland, published in 2006, wrote that new documents uncovered from the German archives proved that Polish soldiers were attacked by Abwehr agents and members of the German minority.<ref name=":2">Jochen Böhler: Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939; Frankfurt: Fischer TB, 2006; S. 136, Anm. 577; {{ISBN|3-596-16307-2}}. Neue Dokumente und Archivquellen sollen belegen, dass polnische Truppen von Abwehr-Agenten und Angehörigen der deutschen Minderheit beschossen wurden</ref>

==See also==
*]
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==References== ==References==
{{reflist|2|refs=
* {{pl icon}} {{cite book | last = Wojan | first = Ryszard | title = "Bydgoszcz Niedziela 3 września 1939" | publisher = Wydawnictwo Poznańskie | location = Poznań | year = 1959 }}
* {{pl icon}} {{cite book | last = Jastrzębski | first = Włodzimierz | title = "Dywersja czy masakra. Cywilna obrona Bydgoszczy we wrześniu 1939 r." | publisher = KAW | location = Gdańsk | year = 1988 | id = ISBN 83-03-02193-1 }} <ref name="Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939">{{cite book | first = Jochen | last = Böhler | title = Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 | publisher = Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag | location = Frankfurt | year = 2006 | isbn =3-596-16307-2 | language = de| page =144}}</ref>

* {{de icon}} {{cite book | last = Schubert | first = Günter | title ="Das Unternehmen „Bromberger Blutsonntag" | publisher = Bund-Vlg |location = Köln | year =1989 }}
<ref name="Blanke580">Richard Blanke, ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 97, No. 2. Apr., 1992, pp. 580–582. Review of: Włodzimierz Jastrzębski,''Der Bromberger Blutsonntag: Legende und Wirklichkeit.'' and Andrzej Brożek, ''Niemcy zagraniczni w polityce kolonizacji pruskich prowincji wschodnich (1886–1918)''</ref>

<ref name="Blanke580-582">Richard Blanke, ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 97, No. 2. Apr., 1992, p.580-582. Review of: Włodzimierz Jastrzębski,''Der Bromberger Blutsonntag: Legende und Wirklichkeit.'' and Andrzej Brożek, ''Niemcy zagraniczni w polityce kolonizacji pruskich prowincji wschodnich (1886–1918)''</ref>

<ref name="ChristBrown">Christopher R. Browning, ''The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy'', University of Nebraska Press, , footnotes 68 and 69</ref>

<!--<ref name="ChristBrown17">], ''The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy'', University of Nebraska Press, </ref>-->

<ref name="ChristBrown2">Christopher R. Browning, ''The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy'', University of Nebraska Press, </ref>

<ref name="ChristBrown29">Christopher Browning, ''The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy'', University of Nebraska Press, </ref>

<ref name="ChristBrown32">Christopher R. Browning, , University of Nebraska Press, p. 32-33</ref>

<ref name="ChristFren">Christian Raitz von Frentz, ''A Lesson Forgotten: Minority Protection Under the League of Nations'', LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, </ref>

<!--<ref name="German Editor">Nazi Conspiracy And Aggression, Volume VI. Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality. United States Government Printing Office: Washington, 1946, </ref>-->

<!--<ref name="German Editor-2">{{cite web|url=http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/imt/nca/ftp.py?imt/nca/nca-06/nca-06-3469-ps-04|title=Shofar FTP Archive File: imt/nca/nca-06/nca-06-3469-ps-04|access-date=January 1, 2011}}</ref>-->

<ref name="HarryGordon">{{cite book | last = Blanke | first = Richard | title = Orphans of Versailles: the Germans in Western Poland, 1918–1939 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=80r6Mbnxf8IC&q=Bromberger+blutsonntag&pg=PA230 | page = 230 | isbn = 978-0-8131-1803-1 | year = 1993 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky }}</ref>

<!--<ref name="Hitler">; retrieved from the archives of the Avalon Project at the Yale Law School.</ref>-->

<ref name="JK"> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303175454/http://ofiaromwojny.republika.pl/teksty/0001.htm |date=2016-03-03 }} "Pomorska" pyta, odpowiada dr. Janusz Kutta, dyrektor Archiwum Państwowego w Bydgoszczy, Gazeta Pomorska, 20 VII 2003</ref>

<ref name="Kunert">A. K. Kunert, Z. Walkowski, ''Kronika kampanii wrześniowej 1939'', Wydawnictwo Edipresse Polska, Warszawa 2005, {{ISBN|83-60160-99-6}}, p. 35.</ref>

<ref name="Lightbody">Bradley Lightbody, ''The Second World War: Ambitions to Nemesis'', Routledge, 2004, {{ISBN|0-415-22405-5}}, </ref>

<ref name="ND">Norman Davies, ''God's Playground'', Oxford University Press, 2005, {{ISBN|0-19-925340-4}}, </ref>

<ref name="W">Perry Biddiscombe, Alexander Perry, ''Werwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946'', University of TorontoPress, 1998, {{ISBN|0-8020-0862-3}}, </ref>

<ref name="WirtzGordon">James J. Wirtz, ], ''Strategic Denial and Deception: The Twenty-First Century Challenge'', Transaction Publishers, 2002, {{ISBN|0-7658-0898-6}}, </ref>

<ref name="ceeol">{{in lang|pl}} Tomasz Chinciński, (The End of the Myth of the Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) Bloody Sunday), Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance (Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej), issue: 121/ 20032004, pages: 2427</ref>

<ref name="gerichtsmedizin">Friedrich Herber: ''Gerichtsmedizin unterm Hakenkreuz, Militzke Verlag'', Leipzig 2002, p.300.</ref>

<ref name="google"></ref>

<!-- <ref name="historiografia">{{cite book| first = Włodzimierz | last = Jastrzębski | title = Historiografia niemiecka wobec wydarzeń bydgoskich z pierwszych dni września 1939 roku | publisher = IPN | language = pl | page = 232 | year = 2008 | location = Warsaw}}</ref> -->

<ref name="internationale">Bundesarchiv description: {{langx|de|Polen.- Deutsche Soldaten und internationale Journalisten vor Leichen getöteter Volksdeutscher (Opfer des "Bromberger Blutsonntag"}}<br>{{langx|en|Poland.- German soldiers and international journalists in front of the bodies of killed Volksdeutsche (victims of the "Bromberg Bloody Sunday").}}</ref>

<ref name="ipn">{{in lang|pl}} Tomasz Chinciński, '' {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190512063601/http://ipn.gov.pl/pl?dzial=&id=3740 |date=2019-05-12 }}''. Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość. nr 2 (8)/2005</ref>

<ref name="ismaning">Erich Kuby: Als Polen deutsch war. 1939–1945; Ismaning bei München: Hueber, 1986; {{ISBN|3-19-005503-3}}; p.64–65</ref>

<ref name="kees-p40">{{cite book | first = Thomas | last = Kees | title = "Polnische Greuel". Der Propagandafeldzug des Dritten Reiches gegen Polen. (Magisterarbeit) | location = Saarbrücken, Germany | publisher = Saarland University | url = http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bsz:291-scidok-952 | language = de | year = 1994 | page = 40 }}</ref>

<ref name="meldunki">{{in lang|pl}} Tomasz Chiciński, '''', Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, nr 8-9/2004</ref>

<ref name="nytimes">], , '']''</ref>

<ref name="panel">{{in lang|pl}} {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611211622/http://www.ipn.gov.pl/wai.php?serwis=pl&dzial=2&id=3824&search=7 |date=June 11, 2011 }}</ref>

<ref name="pospieszalskim"> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080405152937/http://www.1939.pl/epizody/bydg02.htm |date=April 5, 2008 }} Rozmowa z prof. dr. hab. Karolem Marianem Pospieszalskim z Poznania, prawnikiem i historykiem, badaczem dziejów dywersji niemieckiej w Polsce, Express Bydgoski</ref>

<ref name="propagandistic">] (image source) also cites the original caption, which is written in a propagandistic style: {{langx|de|Herr Chamberlein! Sie haben Polen die Blanko-Vollmacht für diese Schandtaten erteilt! Auf Ihr Haupt kommt das Blut dieser Opfer! Wenn Sie noch einen Funken Gefühl für Menschlichkeit, Wahrheitsliebe und Fairneß im Leibe hätten, müßte Sie das Grausen packen beim Anblick der Bilddokumente über die Bromberger Blutopfer. UBz: Ausländische Journalisten überzeugen sich an Ort und Stelle von den furchtbaren Mordtaten der Polen in Bromberg.}}<br> {{langx|en|Bromberg, corpses of slain ethnic Germans. Mr. Chamberlain! You gave Poland a blank cheque for this atrocity! On your head the blood of these victims comes! If you had any spark of feeling left, for humanity, truthfulness and fairness, you would have been filled with horror at the sight of the visual evidence of the Bromberg blood victims. For example: foreign journalists bear witness at the scene of Poland's terrible acts of murder in Bromberg.}} 9.9.39 photo Weltbild Fremke 212-39</ref>

<ref name="republika">Katarzyna Staszak, Guenter Schubert, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151224052617/http://www.ofiaromwojny.republika.pl/teksty/0021.htm |date=2015-12-24 }}, '']'', 25-09-2003</ref>

<ref name="schubert89-46">Günter Schubert (1989), p. 46</ref>

<ref name="wehrmachtuntersuchungsstelle">Alfred M. de Zayas: ''Die Wehrmachtuntersuchungsstelle. 6. erweiterte Auflage'', Universitas 1998</ref>

<ref name="wydarzeniach">Włodzimierz Jastrzębski, Relacje bydgoskich Niemców o wydarzeniach z września 1939 roku zebrane w latach 1958–1961 i wcześniej w Republice Federalnej Niemiec</ref>

<ref name="wydawnictwo">{{cite book | last = Wojan | first = Ryszard | title = Bydgoszcz Niedziela 3 września 1939 | publisher = Wydawnictwo Poznańskie | location = Poznań | year = 1959 |language=pl}}</ref>

}}

==Literature==
* MacAlister Brown, 'The Third Reich's Mobilization of the German Fifth Column in Eastern Europe', The Journal for Central European Affairs 19/2 (Jul. 1959)
* {{cite book | last = Wojan | first = Ryszard | title = Bydgoszcz Niedziela 3 września 1939 | publisher = Wydawnictwo Poznańskie | location = Poznań | year = 1959 |language=pl}}
* {{cite book | last = Jastrzębski | first = Włodzimierz | title = Dywersja czy masakra. Cywilna obrona Bydgoszczy we wrześniu 1939 r. | publisher = KAW | location = Gdańsk | year = 1988 | isbn = 83-03-02193-1 |language=pl}}
* {{cite book | last = Schubert | first = Günter | title =Das Unternehmen "Bromberger Blutsonntag" | publisher = Bund-Vlg |location = Köln | year =1989 |language=de}}
* {{in lang|pl}} T. Esman, W. Jastrzębski, ''Pierwsze miesiące okupacji hitlerowskiej w Bydgoszczy w źródeł dokumentów niemieckich'', Bydgoszcz, 1967
* {{in lang|pl}} Włodzimierz Jastrzębski, ''Tzw. Bydgoska Krwawa Niedziela w Świetle Zachodnioniemieckiej Literatury Historycznej'', 1983
* {{in lang|pl}} Szymon Datner, ''Z dziejow dywersji niemieckiej w czasie kampanii wrześniowej'', Wojskowy Przeglad Historyczny 4/1959
* {{in lang|pl}} Marian Wojciechowski, ''Geneza dywersji hitlerowskiej w Bydgoszczy w świetle historiografii i publicystyki polskiej,'', Bygdoskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, Prace Komisji Historii, 1967
* {{in lang|fr}} Edmund Zarzycki, ''La Diversion Allemande le 3 Septembre 1939 a Bydgoszcz à la Lumiere des Actes du Tribunal Special Hitlerien de la Ville'', 279–94 in Polish Western Affairs/La Pologne et les Affaires Occidentales 22/2(1981)
* {{in lang|fr}} Tadeusz Jasowski, 'La Diversion Hitlerienne le 3 Septembre 1939 a Bydgoszcz,' 295–308, in Polish Western Affairs/La Pologne et les Affaires Occidentales 22/2(1981)
* {{cite book | title = Bydgoszcz 3–4 września 1939 | editor1-first = Tomasz | editor2-first = Paweł |editor1-last = Chinciński | editor2-last = Machcewicz| publisher = IPN | language = pl | year = 2008 | location= Warszawa| isbn = 978-83-60464-76-2 }}
* {{cite book | first = Jochen | last = Böhler | title = Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 | publisher = Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag | location = Frankfurt | year = 2006 | isbn =3-596-16307-2 | language = de}}
* {{cite book | editor1-first= Tomasz |editor1-last= Chinciński | editor2-first= Paweł |editor2-last= Machcewicz | title = Bydgoszcz 3–4 września 1939 | publisher = ] | location = Warszawa | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-83-60464-76-2 | language = pl}}


==External links== ==External links==
{{Commons category|Bydgoszcz Bloody Sunday of 1939}}
*
* {{in lang|de}}
* (same material as above)
* {{in lang|pl}} Witold Kulesza, , Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance, issue: 121 / 2003/2004
* {{de icon}}
* {{in lang|pl}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721065408/http://www.bydgoszcz.pl/binary/Wydarzenia%203%20i%204%20wrze%C5%9Bnia%20w%20Bydgoszczy_tcm29-22266.pdf |date=2011-07-21 }}, reproduction of text from Historia Bydgoszczy, Tom II, część druga 1939–1945, Marian Biskup (ed.), Bydgoszcz 2004
* {{in lang|pl}} Katarzyna Staszak, Bogusław Kunach,
* {{in lang|pl}} Selection of Polish articles (regional press) on Bloody Sunday: {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303175454/http://ofiaromwojny.republika.pl/teksty/0001.htm |date=2016-03-03 }}, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516054146/http://www.ofiaromwojny.republika.pl/teksty/0010.htm |date=2008-05-16 }}

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Latest revision as of 08:58, 26 December 2024

Massacre in Poland during the 1939 invasion by Nazi Germany
An ethnic German identifying a Pole as an alleged participant in anti-German violence in Bydgoszcz during "Bloody Sunday". Poles denounced in this way were usually shot on the spot.

Bloody Sunday (German: Bromberger Blutsonntag; Polish: Krwawa niedziela) was a sequence of violent events that took place in Bydgoszcz (German: Bromberg), a Polish city with a sizable German minority, between 3 and 4 September 1939, during the German invasion of Poland.

Standing in the path of the German army's advance during the early days of the invasion, tensions quickly escalated in Bydgoszcz between the city's sizable German-speaking minority and its Polish majority. On 3 September, as the Wehrmacht was preparing to assault the city, members of the German minority working in conjunction with the German intelligence agency (Abwehr) attacked the Polish garrison. Polish soldiers and civilians reacted with violent reprisals against ethnic Germans, who in turn reacted with more violence. A Polish investigation concluded in 2004 that approximately 40–50 Poles and between 100 and 300 Germans were killed.

The term "Bloody Sunday" was applied to the events by Nazi propaganda officials, who highlighted and exaggerated German casualties. An instruction issued to the press said, "... must show news on the barbarism of Poles against Germans in Bromberg. The expression 'Bloody Sunday' must enter as a permanent term in the dictionary and circumnavigate the globe. For that reason, this term must be continuously underlined."

Approximately 200–400 Polish hostages were shot in a mass execution in the aftermath of the fall of the city on 5 September. Additionally, fifty Polish prisoners of war from Bydgoszcz were accused by Nazi summary courts of taking part in "Bloody Sunday" and shot. The reprisals compounded violence stemming from the German attempts to pacify the city, and the premeditated murder of notable Poles as part of Operation Tannenberg. As part of the latter, the Germans murdered 1,200–3,000 Polish civilians in Bydgoszcz, in a part of the city that became known as the Valley of Death.

Background

Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1772, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia during the First Partition of Poland. As a part of Prussia, the city was affected by the unification of Germany in 1871 and became part of the German Empire. It would remain a part of the German Empire until the end of World War I. In February 1920, the Treaty of Versailles awarded the city and the surrounding region to the Second Polish Republic (the administrative region of Pomeranian Voivodeship). This resulted in a number of ethnic Germans leaving the region for Germany. Over the interwar period, the German population decreased even further.

The emergence of the Nazi Party in Germany had an important impact on the city. Adolf Hitler revitalized the Völkisch movement, making an appeal to the German minority living outside of Germany's post-World War I borders and recruiting its members for Nazi intelligence. It was Hitler's explicit goal to create a Greater German State by annexing territories of other countries inhabited by German minorities. By March 1939, these ambitions, charges of atrocities on both sides of the German-Polish border, distrust, and rising nationalist sentiment in Nazi Germany led to the complete deterioration of Polish-German relations. Hitler's demands for the Polish inhabited Polish Corridor and Polish resistance to Nazi annexation fueled ethnic tensions. For months prior to the 1939 German invasion of Poland, German newspapers and politicians like Adolf Hitler had carried out a national and international propaganda campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Germans living in Poland.

After armed conflict erupted on 1 September 1939, ethnic Germans living in Poland were in many places subjected to attacks, and the Polish government arrested ten to fifteen thousand on suspicion of being loyal to Germany, marching them toward the east of the country. Eventually, around 2000 ethnic Germans died in such actions. Nazi propagandists used these incidents to claim that the invasion was justified, and the events in Bydgoszcz became emblematic of this.

The incident

Wehrmacht soldiers and journalists with German victims of Bloody Sunday. The photo was used by the Nazi press and bears the editor's cropping marks, showing the portion of the image that was intended to be used for publication.

Beginning with the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1 September, fighting broke out in Bydgoszcz between Polish troops and ethnic Germans in the city, many of whom were later revealed to belonged to clandestine groups organized by the Nazi party. As the Wehrmacht's Fourth Army prepared to storm the city of Bydgoszcz on 3 September, the violence intensified, resulting in the deaths of up to 300 ethnic Germans and 40 to 50 Poles. Sources differ on the circumstances of the killings, but it is apparent that at least some were killed in an anti-German pogrom.

The killings were incited by fifth column attacks by ethnic German partisans against the Polish garrison. According to historian Jochen Böhler, recently unearthed German documents confirm that the violence was sparked when Polish soldiers were attacked by agents of the Nazi intelligence organization Abwehr recruited from among the city's German minority.

Corpses of ethnic Germans at Bydgoszcz

Beginning in early September, the Abwehr reported in documents prepared by general Erwin von Lahousen that German armed saboteurs conducting operations behind the front line in Bydgoszcz suffered heavy losses. Their operations coordinated by Abwehr residents in Bydgoszcz-Grischner are documented in operational reports and plans in Abwehr archives. Among the tasks allocated to armed saboteur groups documented in German archives were: blowing up the main office of the German organization Deutsche Vereinigung, the passport office Deutsche Paßstelle, the German private school, and setting fire to the German theater and offices of the Jungdeutsche Partei. These operations are documented as coordinated and organized by Schutzstaffel SS. Additionally a special Abwehr sabotage group was located in Bydgoszcz according to German records from Abwehr Breslau department, called Sabotage-Organisationen Gruppe 12 whose task was to disable a local power-plant and cut phone communications between Inowrocław and Toruń.

Besides these sabotage groups in Bydgoszcz, the Abwehr also recorded in its documents paramilitary groups that were formed in the city. According to German records stored in Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg they counted 150 members in Kampf-Organisation under leadership of a local German named Kleiss and were part of a larger military formation coordinated from Poznan which altogether had 2,077 members. In addition to this group a 10-member combat unit under command of a German named Otto Meister was also formed in Bydgoszcz and received orders from Wroclaw local office of Abwehr. By the end of August just before the invasion took place Polish police conducted several arrests during which they found explosives, armbands and guns.

During the night between 2 and 3 September a number of German saboteurs dressed up in Polish uniforms woke up inhabitants of two districts in Bydgoszcz telling them to run as Poland has been defeated, and as a result a significant number of civilians panicked and started fleeing the city. The chaotic flight disrupted and restricted movements of the Polish military on the roads.

By the morning of 3 September a certain few Germans who were in good relationship with their Polish neighbors started warning them to hide as "something bad will happen in the city", offering them shelter under the condition that they must hide by 10 AM, but stated they could not disclose details on what would take place.

As a contingent of the Polish Army (Army Pomorze's 9th, 15th, and 27th Infantry Division) was withdrawing through Bydgoszcz it was attacked by German irregulars from within the city. According to a British witness, a retreating Polish artillery unit was shot at by Germans from within a house; the Poles returned fire and were subsequently shot at from a Jesuit church. In the ensuing fight both sides suffered some casualties; captured German nonuniformed armed insurgents were executed on the spot and some mob lynching was also reported. A Polish investigation concluded in 2004 that Polish troops had been shot at by members of the German minority and German military intelligence (Abwehr) agents; around 40–50 Poles and between 100 and 300 Germans were killed.

The German forces which entered the city also encountered resistance from members of the paramilitary Citizen Watch (Straż Obywatelska), particularly in the Szwederowo neighborhood, which was predominantly inhabited by working-class individuals. The Citizen Watch in Bydgoszcz relinquished its weapons after receiving assurances from General Eccard von Gablenz, commander of the Kampgruppe "Netze", that its members would be treated in accordance with international law as POWs.

German propaganda

Wochenspruch der NSDAP on 6 September 1942 quotes Dietrich Eckart on the event: "If the light clashes with darkness there is no making of agreements, there is only a fight of life and death until the one or the other part is destroyed."

Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry heavily exploited the events to try to gain support in Germany for the invasion. As British historian Ian Kershaw wrote:

For German propaganda, the attacks on ethnic Germans were exploited as an apparent justification for a policy of 'ethnic cleansing' that had surpassed in its first days anything that could be regarded as retaliation. The Germans claimed in November 1939 5,400 had been killed in the 'September Murders' (including what they dubbed the 'Bromberg Bloody Sunday'). Then, in February 1940, on Hitler's own instructions (it was later claimed) this was simply multiplied by around ten-fold and a figure of 58,000 German dead invented. The most reliable estimates put the total number of ethnic Germans killed in outrages, forced marches, bombing and shelling at around 4,000. Terrible though these atrocities were, they were more or less spontaneous outbursts of hatred that took place in the context of panic and fear following the German invasion. They did not remotely compare with, let alone provide any justification for, the calculated savagery of the treatment meted out by the German masters, directed at wiping out anything other than a slave existence for the Polish people.

Hitler's secret decree of 4 October 1939 stated that all crimes committed by the Germans between 1 September 1939 and 4 October 1939 were not to be prosecuted.

The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau investigation in 1939–1940 claimed that the events were a result of panic and confusion among the Polish troops. The Wehrmacht investigation included the interrogation of captive Polish soldiers, ethnic Germans from Bydgoszcz and surrounding villages, and Polish civilians. The bodies of the victims were exhumed and the cause of death and the possible involvement of military rifles was assessed.

German reprisals and atrocities

Main article: German retribution against people of Bydgoszcz Polish hostages in Bydgoszcz. September 1939Poles shot by Germans in Bydgoszcz, 9 September 1939Polish teachers from Bydgoszcz are led for execution in Death Valley, November 1, 1939

The events were followed by German reprisals and mass executions of Polish civilians. In an act of retaliation for Bloody Sunday, a number of Polish civilians were executed by German military units of the Einsatzgruppen, Waffen SS, and Wehrmacht. According to German historian Christian Raitz von Frentz, 876 Poles were tried by German tribunal for involvement in the events of Bloody Sunday before the end of 1939. 87 men and 13 women were sentenced without the right to appeal. Polish historian Czesław Madajczyk notes 120 executions in relation to Bloody Sunday, and the execution of 20 hostages after a German soldier was allegedly attacked by a Polish sniper.

The assurances issued to the Citizen Watch which surrendered after being promised that they were to be treated in accordance with international law as POWs were not upheld by the Germans. The captured Citizen Watch members were handed over by the Wehrmacht to members of Einsatzgruppe IV. Approximately 40 prisoners were subjected to fatal beatings by SS men using metal rods. The remaining POWs, which included the leaders of the Citizen Watch, Konrad Fiedler and Marian Maczuga, were executed by gunfire in the Bielawki neighborhood of Bydgoszcz.

Additionally, in the Boryszew massacre [pl] fifty Polish prisoners of war from Bydgoszcz were accused by Nazi summary courts for taking part in "Bloody Sunday" and shot.

According to a German version, Polish snipers attacked German troops in Bydgoszcz for several days (Polish sources and witnesses do not confirm this). The German governor, General Walter Braemer, (the commander of the rear army area), ordered the execution of 80 Polish hostages over the next few days. By September 8, between 200 and 400 Polish civilians had been killed. According to Richard Rhodes, a number of Boy Scouts were set up in the marketplace against a wall and shot; a devoted priest who rushed to administer the last sacrament was shot too, receiving five wounds. Murders continued all week; 34 of the leading tradespeople and merchants of the town were shot, as well as many other leading citizens.

Many Poles, particularly members of the intelligentsia and the Jews, were singled out for deportation, or killed outright. By December 1939 the Germans killed 5,000 Polish civilians from the Bydgoszcz County (about a third from Bydgoszcz itself). These victims included the mayor of Bydgoszcz, Leon Barciszewski [pl] Many of those killings took place in a part of the city that became known as the Valley of Death. More broadly, they were also related to the wider Operation Tannenberg, a large scale anti-Polish extermination actions. More than 20,000 Polish citizens of Bydgoszcz (14% of the population) were either shot or died in concentration camps during the occupation.

The debate in scholarship

The exact number of victims of Bloody Sunday is disputed. Peter Aurich (a pseudonym of the German journalist Peter Nasarski) put the number of German civilian deaths in Bydgoszcz at 366, while Hugo Rasmus estimates it as at least 415. Two Polish historians, Włodzimierz Jastrzębski and Czesław Madajczyk, estimate ethnic German deaths at 103 (Jastrzębski), and about 300 (150 on September 3, the rest in the days after). The Polish historians point out that since these losses occurred during actual combat, most of the civilian losses should be attributed to accidents common in urban combat conditions; they argue that civilian losses might have occurred when the town was attacked by the German air force (Luftwaffe). Strafing of civilians in the town by the Luftwaffe is confirmed by German witnesses. Nazi propaganda reinforced Polish perceptions of the German minority as hostile, and during the invasion reported that the German minority was aiding the forces. This contributed to Polish misconceptions, as the Poles were expecting the German minority to be actively hostile.

An even bigger debate in the scholarship concerned the question whether—as the Polish historiography suggests—there were indeed any members of a German fifth column in the city who opened fire on the Polish troops (and if so, whether they were composed of members of the Bydgoszcz German minority or not), or whether—as critics among the German historiography argue—Polish troops (or panicking civilians) overreacted in the confusion and targeted innocent German civilians. This debate has been resolved by investigation of German archives, which confirmed existence of several diversion and saboteur groups in Bydgoszcz overseen by intelligence organizations by Nazi Germany. Among the Germans killed in the fighting historians identified Otto Niefeldt who was an Abwehr agent from Szczecin. The account of Peter Nasarski alias Aurich has been called by Harry Gordon one of the most thorough German accounts; his work is however generally rejected in Poland, perhaps because he indiscriminately used witness statements collected by Nazi officials. According to Nasarski, after police forces retreated from Bydgoszcz, agitated Polish civilians accused many Germans of assaulting Polish soldiers and executed them and any Poles who stood up in their defence. Rasmus attributes the situation to confusion and the disorganised state of the Polish forces in the city.

Von Frentz wrote that "In Bydgoszcz, the event was probably caused by confusion among the rapidly retreating soldiers, a general breakdown in public order and panic among the Polish majority after two German air raids and the discovery of a small reconnaissance group of the German Army on the previous day." He quotes Nazi German reports about the civilian victims and atrocities, later corroborated by a Red Cross commission that the Nazis invited to the scene. Von Frentz also noted that eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed against the German population are as unreliable as Polish accounts of the fifth columnists. While authors like Blanke write that no ethnic Germans are known to have spoken of participation in that event, by 2007 Nazi documents were uncovered confirming that assistance, supplies and aid were given to both German saboteurs and their families. In the post-war collaboration trials, no ethnic German was charged in relation to Bloody Sunday. Another counterargument that was made to the fifth column theory is that Polish troops were being targeted by advance units of the German regular army (Heer), or that the shots were fired by Polish soldiers in the confusion of the mass withdrawal. Von Frentz claims that Polish troops and civilians massacred German civilians due to confusion.

Polish historians, such as Madajczyk, Jastrzębski, Karol Marian Pospieszalski and Ryszard Wojan claim that the killings were triggered when the ethnic Germans, dressed as civilians, opened fire on the Polish troops (Jastrzebski later changed his views after starting to work with German expellee organizations). The Poles retaliated, killing many and executing prisoners afterwards. Polish historians Pospieszalski and Janusz Kutta point to a Nazi top secret false flag Operation Himmler (which took place on August 31 – September 1) and was designed to create an illusion of Polish aggression against Germany. Thus it is argued that actions like the Gleiwitz incident and events in Bydgoszcz were all part of a larger Nazi plan to discredit the Poles. Pospieszalski and Wojan argue that the German fifth column agents (or their higher-ups) might have been deliberately aiming to produce a situation likely to result in German civilian casualties as a way to fuel Nazi propaganda. This argument has been criticized: Harry Gordon questions whether the Germans were willing to sacrifice their citizens for propaganda gains.

Recent discussion

The modern consensus among Polish historians is that the events constituted an attack on the Polish population and military by German militia.

In 2004, historian Tomasz Chinciński in a publication of Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) summarized recent research related to Bloody Sunday, confirming that the majority of historians agree that an "insurrection" by agents who had arrived from the Third Reich as well as some German inhabitants of Bydgoszcz took place. He has published a work detailing new evidence of German diversionary activity in September 1939 in Poland. There are numerous Polish eyewitness accounts of action of a German fifth column which included members of local minority; Pospieszalski cited multiple witnesses for at least 46 cases of German civilians opening fire on Polish troops. There are numerous Polish Army reports and German documents confirming the saboteur actions of armed German Poles in other cities. According to German historians, any members of the fifth column, if present in the city, were infiltrators from Germany, not natives of Bydgoszcz. Eyewitness accounts have been criticised by Richard Blanke. In 2004, Chinciński discussed previously unpublished reports of Polish Army Pomorze, which reported "a large scale diversion" in Bydgoszcz on September 3 and numerous smaller incidents in surrounding area around that time.

A number of Polish and German historians discussed the problem on September 4, 2006, at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. Chinciński discussed newly discovered documents of the Abwehr that show that there were indeed plans for fifth column and diversion activities in Bydgoszcz; several paramilitary groups were organized by Germany in the city, he discussed the bias of the Polish communist era historiography, which minimized cases of Polish mob lynching of ethnic Germans, which did occur in Bydgoszcz. German historian Hans-Erich Volkmann noted problems with German historiography, outlining some of the unreliability inherent in early post-war studies, which were still significantly affected by the Nazi era, and that the Bydgoszcz events were and still are used for political purposes. By 2007 after several years of studying German archives, documents were uncovered in which General Erwin Lahousen praised action of German saboteurs in Bydgoszcz and organized delivery of supplies and medical help to them. German historian Jochen Böhler, in his publication about the invasion of Poland, published in 2006, wrote that new documents uncovered from the German archives proved that Polish soldiers were attacked by Abwehr agents and members of the German minority.

See also

References

  1. ^ Rossino, Alexander B. (2003). Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity. University Press of Kansas. p. 62. ISBN 9780700612345. Conditions in Bydgoszcz had steadily deteriorated in the days immediately after the beginning of the German invasion. Situated squarely between Pomerania and East Prussia, Bydgoszcz was home to a considerable number of ethnic Germans, many of whom belonged to underground political groups organized by Nazi sympathizers. Armed clashes between Polish troops and members of the Volksdeutsche underground broke out in the days between the beginning of the German offensive and the Wehrmacht's occupation on 5 September.
  2. ^ Evans, Richard (2008). The Third Reich at War (1st ed.). New York: Pengin Press. p. 8–9. ISBN 978-0143116714. Some 300 were killed in Bromberg (Bydgoszcz), where local ethnic Germans had staged an armed uprising against the town's garrison in the belief that the war was virtually over, and had been killed by the enraged Poles. These events were cynically exploited by Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry to win maximum support in Germany for the invasion.
  3. ^ Jochen Böhler: Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939; Frankfurt: Fischer TB, 2006; S. 136, Anm. 577; ISBN 3-596-16307-2. Neue Dokumente und Archivquellen sollen belegen, dass polnische Truppen von Abwehr-Agenten und Angehörigen der deutschen Minderheit beschossen wurden
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  10. Bundesarchiv description: German: Polen.- Deutsche Soldaten und internationale Journalisten vor Leichen getöteter Volksdeutscher (Opfer des "Bromberger Blutsonntag"
    English: Poland.- German soldiers and international journalists in front of the bodies of killed Volksdeutsche (victims of the "Bromberg Bloody Sunday").
  11. Bundesarchiv (image source) also cites the original caption, which is written in a propagandistic style: German: Herr Chamberlein! Sie haben Polen die Blanko-Vollmacht für diese Schandtaten erteilt! Auf Ihr Haupt kommt das Blut dieser Opfer! Wenn Sie noch einen Funken Gefühl für Menschlichkeit, Wahrheitsliebe und Fairneß im Leibe hätten, müßte Sie das Grausen packen beim Anblick der Bilddokumente über die Bromberger Blutopfer. UBz: Ausländische Journalisten überzeugen sich an Ort und Stelle von den furchtbaren Mordtaten der Polen in Bromberg.
    English: Bromberg, corpses of slain ethnic Germans. Mr. Chamberlain! You gave Poland a blank cheque for this atrocity! On your head the blood of these victims comes! If you had any spark of feeling left, for humanity, truthfulness and fairness, you would have been filled with horror at the sight of the visual evidence of the Bromberg blood victims. For example: foreign journalists bear witness at the scene of Poland's terrible acts of murder in Bromberg. 9.9.39 photo Weltbild Fremke 212-39
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  60. ^ (in Polish) Dyskusja panelowa "Wydarzenia bydgoskie z 3 i 4 września 1939 r." – Warszawa, 4 września 2006 r. Archived June 11, 2011, at the Wayback Machine

Literature

  • MacAlister Brown, 'The Third Reich's Mobilization of the German Fifth Column in Eastern Europe', The Journal for Central European Affairs 19/2 (Jul. 1959)
  • Wojan, Ryszard (1959). Bydgoszcz Niedziela 3 września 1939 (in Polish). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.
  • Jastrzębski, Włodzimierz (1988). Dywersja czy masakra. Cywilna obrona Bydgoszczy we wrześniu 1939 r. (in Polish). Gdańsk: KAW. ISBN 83-03-02193-1.
  • Schubert, Günter (1989). Das Unternehmen "Bromberger Blutsonntag" (in German). Köln: Bund-Vlg.
  • (in Polish) T. Esman, W. Jastrzębski, Pierwsze miesiące okupacji hitlerowskiej w Bydgoszczy w źródeł dokumentów niemieckich, Bydgoszcz, 1967
  • (in Polish) Włodzimierz Jastrzębski, Tzw. Bydgoska Krwawa Niedziela w Świetle Zachodnioniemieckiej Literatury Historycznej, 1983
  • (in Polish) Szymon Datner, Z dziejow dywersji niemieckiej w czasie kampanii wrześniowej, Wojskowy Przeglad Historyczny 4/1959
  • (in Polish) Marian Wojciechowski, Geneza dywersji hitlerowskiej w Bydgoszczy w świetle historiografii i publicystyki polskiej,, Bygdoskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, Prace Komisji Historii, 1967
  • (in French) Edmund Zarzycki, La Diversion Allemande le 3 Septembre 1939 a Bydgoszcz à la Lumiere des Actes du Tribunal Special Hitlerien de la Ville, 279–94 in Polish Western Affairs/La Pologne et les Affaires Occidentales 22/2(1981)
  • (in French) Tadeusz Jasowski, 'La Diversion Hitlerienne le 3 Septembre 1939 a Bydgoszcz,' 295–308, in Polish Western Affairs/La Pologne et les Affaires Occidentales 22/2(1981)
  • Chinciński, Tomasz; Machcewicz, Paweł, eds. (2008). Bydgoszcz 3–4 września 1939 (in Polish). Warszawa: IPN. ISBN 978-83-60464-76-2.
  • Böhler, Jochen (2006). Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 (in German). Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. ISBN 3-596-16307-2.
  • Chinciński, Tomasz; Machcewicz, Paweł, eds. (2008). Bydgoszcz 3–4 września 1939 (in Polish). Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. ISBN 978-83-60464-76-2.

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