THE GENOCIDE OF THE GERMANS IN POLAND – 1939. The Bromberg massacre of the German minority in Poland

 THE GENOCIDE OF THE GERMANS IN POLAND – 1939. The Bromberg massacre of the German minority in Poland

THE GENOCIDE OF THE GERMANS IN POLAND – 1939. The Bromberg massacre of the German minority in 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.[1] 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

THE GENOCIDE OF THE GERMANS IN POLAND – 1939

This shows how the genocide of the Germans in Poland such as the Danzig and Broomberg Bloody Sunday played a role in causing the Second World War. It critically analyzes this dark episode of history prior to the Holocaust that was censored by many historians. It debates on the reasons that pushed Adolf Hitler (of Jewish descent) to trigger the Second World War by invading Poland. It also shows that Winston Churchill (of Jewish descent) was as dangerous as Adolf Hitler and could have prevented the Second World War and eventually the Holocaust. This paper also delves into the historical hypothesis: ‘Could Adolf Hitler have been different?’

This article offers a new perspective on a central source of legitimization of Nazi violence against Polish civilians. Focusing on so-called “Polish cruelties,” it reconstructs a specific German Feindbild, according to which a specific Polish affinity to violence constantly endangered Germans of both sexes and all ages. This German self-victimization turned German violence against Poles into a defensive reaction, thus providing a strategy of legitimizing violence that was declared both justified and necessary. The article argues that the persistence and potency of this specific Feindbild were based on the mutual interlocking of three levels: Firstly, the memory of specific elements of German-Polish history; secondly, the mobilization strategies of German propaganda with the expectation of future conflicts; and thirdly, the updating of Feindbilder through concrete experiences of violence and powerlessness in the context of the German occupation.