Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) was part of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1772, when it was annexed by the
Kingdom of Prussia during the
First Partition of Poland. As a part of Prussia, the city was affected by the unification of Germany in 1871 and became part of the
German Empire. It would remain a part of the German Empire until the end of
World War I. In February 1920, the
Treaty of Versailles awarded the city and the surrounding region to the
Second Polish Republic (the administrative region of
Pomeranian Voivodeship). This resulted in a number of ethnic Germans leaving the region for Germany. Over the
interwar period, the German population decreased even further. The emergence of the
Nazi Party in Germany had an important impact on the city.
Adolf Hitler revitalized the
Völkisch movement, making an appeal to the German minority living outside of Germany's post-World War I borders and recruiting its members for Nazi intelligence. It was Hitler's explicit goal to create a
Greater German State by annexing territories of other countries inhabited by German minorities. By March 1939, these ambitions, charges of atrocities on both sides of the
German-Polish border, distrust, and rising nationalist sentiment in Nazi Germany led to the complete deterioration of
Polish-German relations. Hitler's demands for the Polish inhabited
Polish Corridor and Polish resistance to Nazi annexation fueled ethnic tensions. For months prior to the 1939
German invasion of Poland, German newspapers and politicians like
Adolf Hitler had carried out a national and international
propaganda campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent
ethnic cleansing of
ethnic Germans living in Poland. After Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, ethnic Germans living in Poland were in many places subjected to attacks, and the Polish government arrested ten to fifteen thousand on suspicion of being loyal to Germany, marching them toward the east of the country. ==The incident==