On 3 and 4 September 1939 a hunt for “saboteurs” went on in Bydgoszcz, through which the Pomorze Army was retreating. Between three hundred and over four hundred people were killed, most of them local Germans, many of them innocent; Polish soldiers and civilians died too. Who started the shooting remains disputed. Goebbels's propaganda called it “Bloody Sunday”, and in the weeks that followed the Germans murdered several times as many people in the city and its surroundings.
1939
- 1 September 1939EventOperation TannenbergOn 1 September 1939 Security Police and SD Einsatzgruppen followed the Wehrmacht into Poland, carrying lists of names to “neutralise” Poland’s leading strata.
- 3 September 1939EventBloody Sunday in BydgoszczOn 3 September 1939 shooting broke out in Bydgoszcz amid retreating troops. Several hundred Germans died, and propaganda turned it into “Bloody Sunday”.
- 4 September 1939EventGermany cuts the Polish CorridorAfter the fighting in the Tuchola Forest the German 4th Army reached the Vistula and met the 3rd Army from East Prussia. The Pomorze Army lost two divisions.