1939 War Myths Bydgoszcz Polish Killers Serwanski

Dywersja Niemiecka i Zbrodnie Hitlerowskie w Bydgoszczy…, by Edward Serwanski. 1984

German Fifth Column at Work: September 3, 1939: BLUT SONNTAG (Bloody Sunday) Myth of Polish Massacres of German Civilians. Wehrmacht Murder of 10,000 Poles

Title: THE GERMAN FEINT AND HITLERITE CRIMES AT BYDGOSZCZ IN THE LIGHT OF THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 3, 1939.

This work has enduring value. Consistent with revisionist attempts to convert Germans from aggressors into victims, the existence of a German fifth column is commonly denied. (p. 10, 50). [Also by Alfred Maurice de Zayas]. Goebbels’ lie about 60,000 German civilians massacred by Poles is still sometimes repeated.

THE VICTIMIZATION OF POLAND’ S PRE-WWII GERMAN MINORITY

Consistent with the Germans-as-victims myth, accusations were and are being made of the prewar German minority suffering oppression under Polish rule. Just the opposite. Having retained many of the privileges of previous Prussian rule, many Germans were wealthy, and possessed better churches, homes, and schools than the Poles. Far from being repressed, the Germans became bolder and more arrogant in response to Polish forbearance. Many refused to learn to speak Polish, and engaged in openly provocative activities, including marches that became openly pro-Nazi. (p. 61-62, 75, 93-94,193-194, Photo 2).

Another aspect of Germans-as-victims whining is the complaint of preventative arrests of Germans by Poles on the first day of the war an act done by all warring nations. Actually, this amounted to a pittance a few hundred Bydgoszcz Germans, most of whom were released shortly thereafter. (p. 102).

GERMAN FIFTH COLUMN ACTIVITIES AT BYDGOSZCZ IN THE 1939 WAR

An obviously-organized wave of shootings, directed at Polish soldiers and indiscriminately against Polish civilians (p. 117), suddenly began at 10 AM on Sept. 3, 1939 at Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), days ahead of the arrival of the German Army. The silly notion that Polish forces imagined 5th column activities, or mistook friendly fire for the same, is refuted by the many armed Germans that were captured (mentioned by too many eyewitnesses to list). Also, the fact that the snipers at Bydgoszcz were not only German commandos from elsewhere, but local Germans engaged in 5th-column activities, is proved by eyewitness accounts of specifically-recognized local Germans among the snipers and captured or dead armed men and women. (p. 139, 187, 202, 271, 320, 349). One of them, for example, was a known HAKATA member. (p. 139). During the later German occupation, some local Germans acknowledged, in conversations with the Poles, their involvement in the fifth-column activities. (p. 335). Among prominent Germans, von Hassel admitted the existence of a German fifth column. (p. 13).

THE ATTACKED POLES FIGHT BACK

Numerous Poles recount the shooting directed at them from properties owned by Germans, and especially from the towers of several Lutheran Churches. Polish forces torched the one at Leszczynski Street to destroy the nest of snipers. (Photo 23, p. 268, 348-349). Another one, at Szweder Street (219, 288), included eyewitness accounts of the explosions of stored ammunition as it burned. (p. 181). Later, German propaganda twisted these events into indiscriminate Polish arson of German properties.

THE GHASTLY GERMAN REPRISAL FOR POLES DEFENDING THEMSELVES

The local hospital had wounded Poles and Germans. (239). A knowledgeable eyewitness estimated that no more than 300 German irregulars died during the combat, or execution upon capture. (p. 261; see also pp. 57-58). No killings of uninvolved Germans were seen. (p. 84, 97)(also confirmed by eyewitness Stefan Marcinkowski, whom I knew from childhood, and with whom my adult self had endless discussions about the war). The Poles even spared and freed captured German fifth-columnists. (p. 299, 320). These (e. g., p. 374, many specifically-named individuals) returned the favor by helping the German occupants murder an eventual 10,000 Bydgoszcz Poles (p. 261), along with many Jews. (p. 359, 372, 376).

NAZI PROPAGANDA ABOUT THE POLISH VILLAIN GOES INTO OVERDRIVE

To facilitate the propaganda about 60,000 innocent German civilians slaughtered by Poles, German photographers took photos of the bodies of Poles killed in the fighting (p. 119), supplemented by the bodies of Poles recently shot by the German Army, and misrepresented them as Germans. (p. 87). To add to the effect, the Germans desecrated the bodies as proof of Polish cruelty .

Ironic to all this, early-1940 German records indicate a total of 4,830 German civilian AND soldier deaths in the entire region of west Prussia (” Wartheland’ ), of which only 379 occurred in Bydgoszcz. (pp. 10-11). The figures by serious postwar German scholars are widely contradictory, the lower of which overlap the quoted value. [e. g., Hesse, at 4,809 (p. 13); Aurich at 5,000 (p. 17)]. This is trivial compared with the 4-5 million Poles murdered by the Germans during WWII.