Bloody Sunday (1939)

Bromberger Blutsonntag or Bloody Sunday is an event, that took place in the summer months of 1939 in territory referred to as Polish Corridor.

This territory was formerly a part of Germany and was in 1921 'given' to Poland with the Versailles Treaty. The German inhabitants of the now Poland were exposed to severe meassures of persecution , all with the aim to rid the 'New Poland' of its one third minorities.

Many former German citizens, now only ethnic Germans, had already been forced to leave their homeland in the Polish Corridor. After the death of the moderate leader of Poland Joseph Pilsudski, Polish nationalism, supported by the Catholic church, flared and the Polish leader Eduard Ridz-Smigly mobilized for war in March 1939 at which time he also had a portrait painted of himself taking a victory ride through Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

A number of ethnic Germans were collected by the Polish authorities according to already established lists from of a number of cities and towns and send on a death march, herded from town to town. Many of them were murdered including many pastors, precicely, because they were now the 'official link' remaining to the ethnic Germans.

The ethnic German survivors refer to this bloodbath as Bromberger Blutsonntag or Bloody Sunday.

Outside link with partial list of names and towns of murdered pastors [[1]].