Early history and first settlements In
ancient times, there was a development of settlements related to lively trade contacts with the
Roman Empire, as
Askaukalis a convenient location of today's Bydgoszcz laid on the
Amber Road heading northwest to the
Baltic coastline avoiding crossing the Vistula river. During the
early Slavic period a fishing settlement called
Bydgoszcza ("Bydgostia" in Latin) became a stronghold on the Vistula
trade routes. The
gród of Bydgoszcz was built between 1037 and 1053 during the reign of
Casimir I the Restorer. In the 13th century it was the site of a
castellany, mentioned in 1238, probably founded in the early 12th century during the reign of
Bolesław III Wrymouth. In the 13th century, the church of
Saint Giles was built as the first church of Bydgoszcz. The Germans later demolished it in the late 19th century. Briefly regained by Poland, it was occupied by the Teutonic Knights from 1331 to 1337 and annexed to their
monastic state as
Bromberg. In 1337, it was recaptured by Poland and was relinquished by the Knights in 1343 at their signing of the
Treaty of Kalisz along with
Dobrzyń and the remainder of
Kuyavia.
Royal city of Poland King
Casimir III of Poland granted Bydgoszcz
city rights (charter) on 19 April 1346. The king granted a number of privileges, regarding river trade on the
Brda and
Vistula and the right to mint coins, and ordered the construction of the castle, which became the seat of the castellan. Bydgoszcz was an important
royal city of Poland located in the
Inowrocław Voivodeship. The city increasingly saw an influx of
Jews after that date. In 1555, however, due to pressure from the clergy, the Jews were expelled and returned only with their annexation to
Prussia in 1772. After 1370, Bydgoszcz castle was the favourite residence of the grandson of the king and his would-be successor Duke
Casimir IV, who died there in 1377. In 1522, after a decision taken by the Polish king, a
salt depot was established in Bydgoszcz, the second in the region after
Toruń. The town was conquered a second and third time by Sweden in 1656 and 1657 during the
Second Northern War. On the latter occasion, the castle was destroyed completely and has since remained a ruin. After the war only 94 houses were inhabited, 103 stood empty and 35 had burned down. The suburbs had also been considerably damaged. The
Treaty of Bromberg, agreed in 1657 by King
John II Casimir Vasa of
Poland and Elector
Frederick William II of
Brandenburg-Prussia, created a military alliance between Poland and Prussia while marking the withdrawal of Prussia from its alliance with Sweden. After the
Convocation Sejm of 1764, Bydgoszcz became one of three seats of the
Crown Tribunal for the
Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown alongside
Poznań and
Piotrków Trybunalski.
Late modern period . In 1772, in the
First Partition of Poland, the town was acquired by the
Kingdom of Prussia as Bromberg and incorporated into the
Netze District in the newly established province of
West Prussia. At the time, the town was seriously depressed and semi-derelict. Under
Frederick the Great the town revived, notably with the construction of a canal from Bromberg to
Nakel (Nakło) which connected the north-flowing Vistula River via the Brda to the west-flowing
Noteć, which in turn flowed to the
Oder via the
Warta. From this period until the end of the German Empire, a large majority of the city's inhabitants spoke German as their main language, and the city would later acquire the nickname "little Berlin" from its similar architectural appearance to the prewar image of the German capital and the work of shared architects such as
Friedrich Adler,
Ferdinand Lepcke,
Heinrich Seeling, or
Henry Gross. After the fall of the uprising, one of the main escape routes for surviving insurgents and civilian insurgent authorities from partitioned Poland to the
Great Emigration led through the city. In 1871 the Province of Posen, along with the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia, became part of the newly formed
German Empire. During German rule, the oldest church of the city (church of Saint Giles), the remains of the castle,
Interbellum Saint Vincent de Paul Basilica was dedicated to the return of the city to the Poles. After the war, Bydgoszcz was assigned to the
recreated Polish state by the 1919
Versailles Treaty. Now officially Bydgoszcz again, the city belonged to the
Poznań Voivodeship. The local populace was required to acquire Polish citizenship or leave the country. This led to a drastic decline in ethnically
German residents, whose number within the town decreased from over 40.000 in 1910 to 11,016 in 1926. A Nazi German youth organization was subsequently founded, which distributed
Nazi propaganda books from Germany among the German minority. The city's boundaries were greatly expanded in 1920 to include the surrounding suburbs of Okole, Szwederowo, Bartodzieje, Kapuściska, Wilczak, Jachcice and more, which made Bydgoszcz the third largest city in the
Second Polish Republic in terms of area. In 1938, the city was made part of the Polish
Greater Pomerania.
World War II During the
invasion of Poland, at the beginning of
World War II, on September 1, 1939, Germany carried out air raids on the city. The Polish
15th Infantry Division, which was stationed in Bydgoszcz, fought off German attacks on September 2, but on September 3 was forced to retreat. During the withdrawal of Poles, as part of the diversion planned by Germany, local Germans opened fire on Polish soldiers and civilians. Polish soldiers and civilians were forced into a defensive battle in which several hundred people were killed on both sides. The event, referred to as the
Bloody Sunday by the
propaganda of Nazi Germany, which exaggerated the number of victims to 5,000 "defenceless" Germans, was used as an excuse to carry out dozens of
mass executions of Polish residents in the Old Market Square and in the
Valley of Death. The Germans established several camps and prisons for Poles. As of September 30, 1939, over 3,000 individuals were imprisoned there, and in October and November, the Germans carried out further mass arrests of over 7,200 people. Many of those people were then murdered. Poles from Bydgoszcz were massacred at various locations in the city, at the Valley of Death and in the nearby village of
Tryszczyn. The victims were both men and women, including activists, school principals, teachers, priests, local officials, merchants, lawyers, and also boy and girl scouts, gymnasium students and children as young as 12. The executions were presented as punishment for supposedly "murdering Germans" and "destroying peace", and were used by Nazi propaganda to show the world that it was alleged "Polish terror" that forced
Hitler to start the war. On the
Polish National Independence Day, November 11, 1939, the Germans symbolically publicly executed Leon Barciszewski, the mayor of Bydgoszcz. On November 17, 1939, the commander of the local
SD-
EK unit declared there was no more Polish
intelligentsia capable of resistance in the city. The city was annexed to the newly formed province of
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia as the
seat of the district or county (
kreis) of Bromberg. However, the annexation was not recognised in international law. Extermination of the inhabitants continued throughout the war, and in total, around 10,000 inhabitants, mostly
Poles, but also
Polish Jews, were killed. and many of whom spoke German, were sent to
extermination camps or murdered in the town itself. The city renamed
Bromberg was the site of
Bromberg-Ost, a women's subcamp of the
Stutthof concentration camp. A deportation camp was situated in Smukała village, now part of Bydgoszcz. On February 4, 1941, the first mass transport of 524 Poles came to the
Potulice concentration camp from Bydgoszcz. The local train station was one of the locations, where Polish children aged 12 and over were sent from the Potulice concentration camp to slave labor. The children reloaded freight trains. In 1943, local Poles managed to save some
kidnapped Polish children from the
Zamość region, by buying them from the Germans at the local train station. The Polish resistance was active in Bydgoszcz. Activities included distribution of underground Polish press, sabotage actions, stealing German ammunition to aid Polish partisans, espionage of German activity and providing shelter for British POWs who escaped from the Stalag XX-A POW camp. The
Gestapo cracked down on the Polish resistance several times. In spring 1945, Bydgoszcz was occupied by the advancing
Red Army. Those German residents who had survived
fled or were expelled and the city was returned to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the 1980s. The Polish resistance remained active in Bydgoszcz.
Post-war period with
Mill Island,
Opera Nova, and
Nordic Haven in the background. In the same year 1945, the city was made the seat of the
Pomeranian Voivodship, the northern part of which was soon separated to form
Gdańsk Voivodship. The remaining part of the Pomeranian Voivodship was renamed
Bydgoszcz Voivodeship in 1950. In 1951 and 1969,
Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology and
Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz were founded respectively. In 1973, the former town of
Fordon, located on the left bank of the Vistula, was included in the city limits == Main sights ==