Der Bromberger Blutsonntag

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Well, would you consider this information by nobody less than Gauleiter Greiser "fifth hand" (from the files of the Bundesarchiv, R57/824a)?

It is fifth-hand not because of its origin but because it is a note which says about words of Greiser from some meeting, in which he allegedly said that he was told an information, which said about the number.

So we do not really know what was that original information, which allegedly contained that number. That "info" could be another man who told Greiser, and someone told that man before, that someone saw something, etc...

So this information is at least fifth-hand. Maybe even more.

BTW:

The number of just 400 women among 13000 missing in total (women = just 3%) seems also dubious.

ho knows how complete this card index really is and if there was nothing "rearranged" after the war

Who knows if information allegedly given to Greiser (which he lated allegedly quoted in a meeting, which was quoted in a note about that alleged meeting, about which the note says) was not "rearranged" during the war?

[thom]

Domen could you perhaps explain why you never mentioned that your beloved Graeberzentrale list was compiled in Poland after the war? Do you perhaps know how this compilation was arranged, how many "hands" worked on this? Five hands, more? As far as I understood you did some research on this list.

[David Thompson]

thom -- You wrote:

Domen could you perhaps explain why you never mentioned that your beloved Graeberzentrale list was compiled in Poland after the war?

Please avoid "chummy" personal asides like "beloved" when posting. We don't permit them here for obvious reasons. They are no credit to the forum or to the posters who use them. If you have information discrediting the Graeberzentrale list, please post it and leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusions.

[michael mills]

It is simply nonsense to suggest that in the months before the outreak of thew Polish-German war thousands of ethnic Germans living in Poland could have been recruited and trained as agents and saboteurs without the Polish security authorities discovering and neutralising them.

In the period from end April onward, an extreme war psychosis raged in Poland, with the ethnic German minority, particularly in the west of the country, being the object of paranoid suspicion and intense scrutinn, both by the Polish security forces and by the Polish civilan population. Thousands of ethnic Germans, in particular the leaders of the community, were arrested and interned merely on the slightest suspicion of potential disloyalty to the Polish state.

In the prevailing atmosphere of hysteria and paranoia, it would have been quite impossible for ethnic Germans to have done any sort of organising whatever without being noticed and denounced by suspicious neighbours. The evidence from ethnic Germans themselves indicates that far from dioing any sort of planning, they were so afraid of the war psychosis raging around them that they just kept their heads down and tried not to be noticed.

It is also nonsense to suggest that thousands of ethnic Germans could have slipped across the border tol receive training and then slipped back again. In the atmosphere of heightened vigilance at that time, any ethnic Germans trying to cross the border in either direction would have been caught by the border guards.

Remember that Hitler did not give the order to begin contingency planning for a full-scale invasion of Poland until the beginning of April 1939, and it was not until some time later that he approved the plan prepared by the Wehrmacht High Command and ordered a start to implementing it.

Therefore, it is contrary to historical truth to suggest that the Abwehr was training saboteurs for action in Poland in the Spring of 1939. It could not have started such training until Hitler had given the go-ahead to begin implementing the invasion plan, "Fall Weiss". (I cannot remember exactly when that was, but it was certainly not before summer 1939).

So the German armed forces simply did not have enough time to recruit a huge army of agents inside Poland. All they had were their existing special forces.

Furthermore, I get the impression that the purvewyors of Polish chauvinist history have a rather paranoid conception of the German Abwehr as some sort of omnipotent and omniscient entity of superhuman efficiency.

In fact, anyone who knows anything at all about the Abwehr knows that it was rather inefficient as an intelligence organisation, certainly nowhere near as efficient and effective as the British and Soviet secret intelligence organisations. It was never able to organise effective networks of agents in enemy territory, and those agents it thought it possessed nearly always tirned out to be double agents working for the Allies.

Thus it is hardly likely that the Abwehr really did succeed in organising a huge army of agents inside Poland. Researchers such as Chencinski are possibly mistaking Abwehr self-deception for reality.

Remember that the Abwehr thought it had agents in Britain who were feeding it vital information. In fact, those "agents" were mostly mythical, constructs devised by British Intelligence for the purpose of feeding false information to the Germans.

The historical fact is that where the Germans won a campaign, in was not by sabotage or other work "behind the lines", but by the brute force of frontal attack in overwhelming force. In none of Germany's campaigns did it make use of any sort of Fifth Column, any sort of network of agents, despite the paranoia in Britain in 1940 about German agents being parachuted in disguised as nuns.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You wrote:

It is simply nonsense to suggest that in the months before the outreak of thew Polish-German war thousands of ethnic Germans living in Poland could have been recruited and trained as agents and saboteurs without the Polish security authorities discovering and neutralising them.

As far as I can see, no one has suggested that this happened "in the months before the outreak of thew Polish-German war". There is evidence that the German Abwehr and the NS-Ausland section did recruit agents years before the war in other countries (Austria, Czechoslovakia (http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14407), at least one of the Baltic republics (http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=61404) and the US), so there's no reason to be surprised if it also happened in Poland, and no reason to think it was a last-minute operation either.

[michael mills]

Have a look at this book:

http://books.google.com/books?id=80r6Mb ... ag&f=false

Richard Blanke: "Orphans of Versailles; The Germans in Western Poland 1918-1939" (University Press of Kentucky, 1993)

(I doubt very much that University Press of Kentucky is a purveyor of Nazi apologetic literature).

Page 225 onward deals with the accusation of an ethnic German fifth column in Poland in 1939.

See in particular page 228, where it is stated that Germasn military planners specifically did not want to use Polish Germans for intelligence or other military-related purposes because they would be exposed to danger thereby. Most importantly, it states that the Abwehr issued a blanket prohibition against using the German minority for espionage, something that has been recognised even by Polish historians.

Domen may well complain that this book by Blanke is almost 20 years old and hence outdated. However, I say that an impartial work of history, published by an impartial academic press some 20 years ago, is more reliable than a Polish chauvinist work published only last week.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Domen,

Thanks for the reply.

I see from Zaloga and Madej that Ukrainian conscripts were usually posted to units in western Poland.

Do you know if German conscripts were similarly usually posted to units in Eastern Poland?

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Page 225 onward deals with the accusation of an ethnic German fifth column in Poland in 1939.

Footnotes from these pages are missing in this Google Book so I can't see what sources they used.

Pages 291 - 321 of this Google Book - where footnotes from pages 225 onward should be - are missing.

If you have the paper version of this book please write what sources are listed in these footnotes.

is more reliable than a Polish chauvinist work published only last week.

???

But I do not base my posts on any "chauvinist Polish works".

In the period from end April onward, an extreme war psychosis raged in Poland

No.

The problem is that you base your conclusions on false assumptions, which makes conclusions also false.

could have slipped across the border tol receive training and then slipped back again.

They didn't need to go across the border to receive training. They could receive it in Poland.

Secondly - most of them didn't have to receive any training or nobody bothered to train them.

Thirdly - they didn't have to slip anywhere, they could cross the border legally.

In the atmosphere of heightened vigilance at that time, any ethnic Germans trying to cross the border in either direction would have been caught by the border guards.

Rubbish. Transport of goods & people across the border was working normally until 1 September.

Germans even attempted to exploit this fact in their attacks against Tczew and Chojnice, when they used normal transit trains to hide their soldiers inside and attempted a surprise attack using those transit trains.

I already described that operation in another thread on this forum (see the link):

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... g#p1507492

Both transit trains were followed by armoured trains.

Therefore, it is contrary to historical truth to suggest that the Abwehr was training saboteurs for action in Poland in the Spring of 1939. It could not have started such training until Hitler had given the go-ahead to begin implementing the invasion plan, "Fall Weiss". (I cannot remember exactly when that was, but it was certainly not before summer 1939).

Let me refresh your memory.

Hitler had given the go-ahead to begin implementing the "Fall Weiss" plan in March of 1939. March of 1939 seems to be before the Summer (but who knows - maybe in Australia u only have 2 seasons, Winter & Summer).

So the German armed forces simply did not have enough time to recruit a huge army of agents inside Poland.

Depends what you call a huge army.

They managed to recruit many thousands - this is a fact.

But if many thousands (over a dozen thousands) is a huge army? Rather not.

any ethnic Germans trying to cross the border in either direction would have been caught by the border guards.

If a citizen of Poland in 1939 had a passport, nobody could forbid him to cross the border without any reason.

BTW:

We can say that any illegal immigrants, smugglers or terrorists trying to cross the border would also be caught.

But we would have to be very naive to say this, because any reasonable person knows how reality looks like.

How many illegal immigrants, smugglers and terrorists there are in Europe and America.

In fact, anyone who knows anything at all about the Abwehr knows that it was rather inefficient as an intelligence organisation,

It was later in the war. Wehrmacht also became "rather inefficient" as an army in 1944 and 1945.

Researchers such as Chencinski are possibly mistaking Abwehr self-deception for reality.

Ah - so from now on every German document that you don't like will become "self-deception"? Nice!

The historical fact is that where the Germans won a campaign, in was not by sabotage or other work "behind the lines", but by the brute force of frontal attack in overwhelming force. In none of Germany's campaigns did it make use of any sort of Fifth Column, any sort of network of agents, despite the paranoia in Britain in 1940 about German agents being parachuted in disguised as nuns.

So you claim that one can successfully conduct modern war without having intelligence service.

Nice fairy tale.

BTW - David Thompson just wrote something about recruiting agents in other countries.

and those agents it thought it possessed nearly always tirned out to be double agents working for the Allies.

Oh, poor Germans. But what does it have to do with Poland 1939?

without the Polish security authorities discovering and neutralising them.

I already told you, that Poles actually managed to discover and neutralise some part of them.

You call this: "repressions of ethnic German minority" - if I recall correctly.

in particular the leaders of the community, were arrested and interned

The leaders of organizations which were involved in anti-Polish activities & preparing sabotage network.

Those German organizations (such as JDP) had been legally existing in Poland during entire Inter-War era.

In 1939 they turned out to be involved in smuggling weapons to Poland and other activities.

As David Thompson pointed out, Germans did not "start from zero" in March of 1939.

They already had a strong basis to develop their sabotage-espionage network in Poland.

One of elements of that strong basis were German organizations, which legally existed in Poland (they were not persecuted, or anything like that, by Polish authorities) - and Abwehr fully exploited this fact.

Also many (for sure hundreds) of German spies and agents were in Poland and inside the Polish army already long before March of 1939. Every country has its spies in other countries. Even in modern times.

Poland also had spies in Germany which gathered information - particularly about Wehrmacht.

something that has been recognised even by Polish historians.

By whom?

==========================================

As for the rest - I will reply to that tomorrow.

[michael mills]

Hitler had given the go-ahead to begin implementing the "Fall Weiss" plan in March of 1939.

That is mistaken.

In March 1939, "Fall Weiss" did not exist.

It was only at the beginning of April that Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht High Command to begin preparing a plan for an invasion of Poland, under the code-name "Fall Weiss".

The only plan that was in existence at that time was for an occupation of Danzig only. Hitler had ordered the preparation of that plan at the end of November 1939, in response to the reaffirmation of the Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact.

In his order issued at the beginning of April 1939, Hitler stated that the new "Fall Weiss" plan should not replace the plan for the occupation of Danzig, but that both plans should be prepared as alternatives to each other, depending on how the political situation turned out.

Once Hitler had ordered work to begin on "Fall Weiss", it took some time for the plan to be ready in its final form, and then Hitler had to give the order for it to be implemented, that is, for the various actions laid down in that plan to actually start rather than just thought about.

Footnotes from these pages are missing in this Google Book so I can't see what sources they used.

Pages 291 - 321 of this Google Book - where footnotes from pages 225 onward should be - are missing.

If you have the paper version of this book please write what sources are listed in these footnotes.

There is a copy of the book by Blanke in the National Library of Australia. I will go and check it out when I have some time.

The classic work on the German Fifth Column in Europe by the Dutch Jew Louis de Jong, referred to by Blanke as having assessed the stories of a German Fifth Column in Poland in 1939 as largely imaginary, is also in the National Library. I will check that book out too.

They didn't need to go across the border to receive training. They could receive it in Poland.

Unlikely. throughout the summer of 1939 the ethnic German minority was subject to extreme scrutiny and pressure, by both the Polish security forces and Polish civilians. Leaders of the ethnic German community were rounded up and imprisoned. Under those conditions, it is difficult to see how thousands of ethnic German men could have been organised and trained as saboteurs and guerilla fighters.

If a citizen of Poland in 1939 had a passport, nobody could forbid him to cross the border without any reason.

Only if they "had no reason". Suspicion that a person trying to cross a border may be engaged in illegal activities is a reason for forbidding passage, and even for arresting that person.

In the summer of 1939, all ethnic German citizens of Poland were suspected of disloyalty and of conspiracy. If the Polish border guards suspected that an ethnic German wanting to cross the border was going to engage in activities hostile to Poland, they obviously had reason to stop him.

At that time, ethnic Germans were being arrested purely on suspicion, even though nothing could be proved against them. Obviously the Polish border guards would stop ethnic Germans crossing the border illegally, particularly if they were young males of military age.

Illegal border crossing was a possibility, but the border was patrolled and guarded, so it is extremely unlikely that thousands of ethnic German men could have crossed the border illegally, received training, and then crossed back again without being detected.

In 1939 they turned out to be involved in smuggling weapons to Poland and other activities.

Do any sources other than Polish chauvinist ones make this claim?

One of elements of that strong basis were German organizations, which legally existed in Poland (they were not persecuted, or anything like that, by Polish authorities) - and Abwehr fully exploited this fact.

According to Blanke, an unbiassed American source, the Abwehr did not "exploit" the ethnic German organisations. In fact it issued a blanket prohibition against using the ethnic German community for espionage.

Blanke names Osinski as a Polish historian who recognises and quotes the blanket prohibition by the Abwehr. That is the answer to this query by Domen:

By whom?

[jola]

According to Blanke, an unbiassed American source, the Abwehr did not "exploit" the ethnic German organisations. In fact it issued a blanket prohibition against using the ethnic German community for espionage.

In Einsatzgruppen in Polen. Darstellung und Dokumentation(2008), Jochen Böhler, Jürgen Matthäus, and Klaus-Michael Mallmann, write(my translation):

During the preparations for the September campaign, the Main Office of the SD not only participated in creating the Einsatzgruppen, it also concerned itself
with two specific fields. Firstly, it intensified its intelligence contacts with the Volksdeutsche in Poland, so in the case of invasion they could be used as a 5th column.
A following promotion request from 1941: "Kortas, during Polish times, was actively engaged in working for Germany. He was the training leader in Jungdeutsche Partei in Poland in six districts, and with his personal engagement he kept up the comraderie of Germans in Poland. At the same time, Kortas worked continuous for SD intelligence and is worthy of being inducted into a leadership role in the SS."47

And the first report from Operation Tannengerg praised an evangelical pastor in a Silesian town of Kepno: " He, along with fifteen other Volksdeutsche, have been gathering intelligence information for a long time."48

The five Einsatzgruppen, ready to enter Poland in August 1939, greatly benefited from such "innocent Germans" gathering intelligence information. The EG entered with ready made lists, just like the NKVD, and proceeded with the real Bromberger Blutsonntag.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

That is mistaken.

In March 1939, "Fall Weiss" did not exist.

You didn't ask when preparing the "Fall Weiss" plan in details was completed.

You asked when Hitler gave the go-ahead to begin implementing the plan of the invasion of Poland.

And that was yet in March of 1939:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... s#p1592303

Yet in March 1939 Hitler issued verbal outlines to his generals saying that Poland must be invaded by the end of August. In early April Hitler also ordered preparation of the "Fall Weiss" plan. Keitel's directive designating the date of the invasion of Poland as "no later than 01.09.1939" was issued yet on 03.04.1939.

This Keitlel's directive was later signatured by Hitler on 11.04.1939. It can be found in documents used during the Nuremberg Trials ("Weisung fur die einheitliche Kriegsvorbereitung der Wehrmacht", Nuremberg 1949).

On 15.06.1939 the German operational plan of the invasion ("Fall Weiss") was already fully finished.

First guidelines concerning the prospective invasion of Poland were issued yet in 1938:

"(...) In previous military-historical literature, following the German historiography, a common opinion was accepted, that "Fall Weiss" directives were issued on 3 and 11 April 1939. However, recent studies, especially of operational documents of Luftwaffe and General Staff of the OKH, confirm our previous hypothesis regarding this.

In the primary operational document of OKL codenamed "Planstudie 1939" and dated 7 February 1939, there is a plan of using Luftwaffe as part of the "Fall Weiss", which clearly indicates, that general guidelines of this plan existed already before and that codename "Fall Weiss" was already in circulation [2]. Thus it can be assumed with large degree of probability, that "Fall Weiss" was compiled yet in 1938 (...).

In the light of above mentioned facts, there are grounds to state, that Hitler's verbal outlines from the end of March of 1939 directed to the commanders in chief of the three branches of armed forces regarding preparation of the operational plan against Poland, were only precising the tasks accordingly to current political conditions and mobilization capacities of the Wehrmacht and were setting the time of readiness to start the invasion as the end of August 1939 [6]. (...)

[2] Elaboration of Department I of the General Staff of OKL from 7 II 1939, titled "Planstudie 1939", (...)
[6] Official chronicler of the Wehrmacht writes that this ordinance was issued by Hitler between 27 and 31 III 1939"

Source: "Wojna Obronna Polski 1939", pages 230 - 231.

=============================

Do any sources other than Polish chauvinist ones make this claim?

Yes - German sources also say that Volksdeutsche were massively escaping from Poland during the months preceeding WW2. Polish sources confirm massive illegal crossings of the border - I even quoted numbers.

The only difference is that neo-Nazi sources mention different reasons of these escapes than Polish sources.

Ethnic German reservists & active service soldiers of the Polish army were deserting and crossing the border.

Such ethnic German deserters already underwent military training in the Polish army and didn't need training.

So your claims that crossing the border was impossible or that there was any Polish scrutiny are false.

The classic work on the German Fifth Column in Europe by the Dutch Jew Louis de Jong, referred to by Blanke as having assessed the stories of a German Fifth Column in Poland in 1939 as largely imaginary, is also in the National Library. I will check that book out too.

Tomasz Chincinski refers to book by Louis de Jong in the 1st chapter of his work from 2005:

Excerpt from chapter "Condition of research: journalism and historiography" of Chincinski's work:

"(...) Deserves attention also the already quoted book of Dutch historian Louis de Jong "The German Fifth Column in the Second World War", in which a dozen or so pages were devoted to Poland. This book is an effect of research on the German fifth column, conducted at the turn of 1940s and 1950s in the State Institute for War Documentation at Amsterdam. The author had studied materials from the Nuremberg Trials as well as German documents published after the end of WW2. This book is the first critical monograph devoted to the problem of German fifth column. Earlier books on this topic published in Europe and America were written "on the beat", without critical approach to sources. Although the Dutch historian performed a reliable criticism of source material and his work was managed according to caution and skepticism towards facts not confirmed by German sources, he did not avoid mistakes in his research. Author placed too much confidence in German sources and did not confront them with documents of other provenance, therefore repeatedly recognizing as objective truth what was written about successes of German sabotage groups in logs of Abwehr. On the other hand, he did not utilize archives of police and military counter-intelligence services of states, on territory of which the German fifth column was operating. Louis de Jong in his work defined the German fifth column as foreign emanation of national socialism. But he rejected many of the activities assigned previously to the German fifth column, which did not find confirmation in German sources. He concluded that it was not a "gigantic conspiracy guided by leaders of the III Reich according to strictly defined plan". But for him there is no doubt, that Volksdeutsche residing outside the III Reich had been subordinated to goals of imperial policy of Adolf Hitler and were secretly instructed from Berlin. However, it was taking place without agreed action plan, and institutions of the III Reich directing the sabotage activities, competed with each other and in many cases were not discussing their doings with each other. Despite these deficiencies political activity of German fifth column in such states like Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania led to accession of these countries to Hitlerite coalition. Whereas in Poland and Yugoslavia during military operations conducted in these countries the activities of fifth column changed their character from political to military. But de Jong recognizes as real only these sabotage activities of Germans in Poland, which found confirmation in German sources. (...)"

Source: pages 165 - 166 of this PDF document: http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/pl/236/374 ... 00_zl.html

But de Jong had studied only documents which had been published between 1945 and 1950s. He had no access to other documents. Many other documents remained in German archives unpublished until further years. Tomasz Chincinski and other researchers had found many new documents in BA-MA even relatively recently. Thanks to these documents more of events described by Polish sources find confirmation also in these German sources.

Blanke names Osinski

Osinski is his surname. What is his name? Who is he?

He is not mentioned in "Condition of research: journalism and historiography" chapter of Chincinski's work among Polish researchers who support the "pro-German" version (Jastrzebski, Matelski and Krasuski).

[Marcus]

Please get back to discussing the Bromberger Blutsonntag, there are other threads for discussing the German pre-invasion policy against Poland, volksdeutsche in pre-war Poland etc.

/Marcus

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

But these issues are related to events in Bydgoszcz, Marcus.

[michael mills]

I refer readers back to this material posted by Roberto on page one of this thread:

On 3 September 1939, two days after the beginning of the German attack on Poland, units of the Polish army were retreating through Bromberg, together with Polish civilians fleeing from the war. The rumor spread that German troops were on the verge of entering the city. When it turned out that this rumor was not accurate, smaller groups of retreating soldiers acting on their own attacked houses and people mainly belonging to the German minority. In the evening the Polish commander, major Albrycht, withdrew his troops, after creating and arming a civil defense force to maintain order. This was like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank, for the civil defense force, together with newly arriving soldiers, started rounding up alleged "diversionists" and shooting whoever they considered suspicious. Houses were sacked and a church was set on fire.

On 8 September 1939 the Deutsche Rundschau coined the term "Bromberger Blutsonntag" for these events. According to a study released by the German diplomatic service in November 1939, a total of
5,437 ethnic Germans had been massacred throughout Poland during the German invasion. In February 1940, Nazi propaganda blew up the death toll to 58,000 (more than ten times the actual number of victims). The Reich Ministry of the Interior decreed on 7 February 1940 that only this figure was henceforth to be used in speeches, communiqués, etc.

The source of this information are passages from Wolfgang Benz' book Legenden, Lügen, Vorurteile, quoted under the following link:

http://www.h-ref.de/dk/krieg/polen/bromb/brmb.shtml

The aim of the book from which Roberto sourced the information posted by him was to refute the wartime German propaganda claim that 58,000 ethnic Germans had been massacred by Poles during the German invasion. It showed that that propagandistic figure was a 10-fold exaggeration of the real number of victims, which had been established through investigations by the Wehrmacht.

Accordingly, the book is in no way an attempt to promote a German chauvinist version of history, and as such its version of the events in Bydgoszcz can be accepted as impartial.

Thus, we have two competing versions of the events in Bydgoszcz on 3-4 September 1939.

One is a self-serving, apologetic Polish account, designed to perpetuate the claim originally made by the Polish Government-in-Exile in 1940 that the entire ethnic German population of Poland was guilty of treason, and that any ethnic Germans killed by Poles were saboteurs who deserved death.

The other is an unbiassed German account, designed to refute wartime German propaganda claims of huge Polish atrocities against the ethnic German minority. That account states that the few hundred ethnic Germans killed by Poles in Bydgoszcz were innocent civilian victims of a lynch mob driven by fear and hysteria.

It is clear that an impartial German account that is critical of its own side is to be preferred to a biassed and apologetic Polish account that is designed to exculpate its own side.

The material posted by Roberto also gives the lie to the claim made by Polish chauvinists that the "Bromberger Blutsonntag" is entirely a falsification by wartime German propaganda, that has since been totally refuted. The fact is that there was indeed falsification by German propaganda, but the falsification lay in the massive exaggeration of the number of victims of the massacre of ethnic German civilians in and around Bydgoszcz, not in the fact that there was indeed a massacre of some hundreds of innocent civilians.

[Marcus]

Uncivil posts from michael mills and Domen121 were removed.

/Marcus