Bromberg

Polish: Bydgoszcz

Bidgostia

The name of this Polish town, which was first mentioned as early as the 13th century, means ‘the castle of Bydgost’. The name ‘Bromberg’ is of more recent origin and is derived from the German name of the river Brahe (Brda).

Bromberg is situated at 53° 07' north latitude and 18° 00' east longitude, approximately 160 km south-west of Danzig/Gdańsk and 45 km north-west of Thorn/Toruń.

Bromberg is situated in the western part of the Bromberg-Toruń Lowlands (part of the Toruń-Eberswalde glacial valley). The River Brahe flows through the town; in the western part of the town it joins the Bromberg Canal (Kanał Bydgoski), thus forming a link to the RiverNoteć, and in the eastern part of the town it flows into the River Vistula (Wisła).

Kuyavia (Kujawy), on the border with Pomerelia

Republic of Poland. The district town of Bromberg is, alongside Toruń, one of the two capitals of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (Województwo kujawsko-pomorskie) and, as such, the seat of the voivode and of several voivodeship offices. Bromberg is home to honorary consulates of the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The coat of arms depicts, on a silver background, a red city wall with three towers topped with blue helmets, the central one of which is crowned with a golden weather vane pointing to the right. In the wall there is a double-winged blue gate with golden fittings; in the open right-hand wing, a raised golden grille is visible (a symbol of the hospitality and openness of the people of Bromberg). The town’s flag features the coat of arms on three horizontal stripes of equal width in the colours red, blue and white (from the bottom).

The settlement of Bromberg, which was originally situated on an island in the Brahe River that no longer exists, was founded around 1030 at the river crossing on the trade route from Silesia to Gdańsk. After several years of occupation by the German Order, the settlement was handed over in 1337 to the Polish King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz III Wielki, 1310–1370), who, on 19 April 1346, granted Magdeburg city rights to a newly founded town (Kunigesburg) situated to the west of the settlement. However, the name Kunigesburg did not catch on; the new town initially took the name Braheburg and later that of the older settlement: Bromberg. Casimir the Great had a fortified castle built in place of the settlement, which had been destroyed by war. Following these construction works, the town developed within the castle walls alongside the castle, as well as the Kujawian, Danzig, Poznań and Okollo (Okole) suburbs.

The long period of peace following the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), concluded with the German Order, allowed Bromberg to grow into one of the largest cities in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; this came to an end with the outbreak of the Polish–Swedish War (known as the ‘Potop’ [= Deluge]) in 1655. The signing of the Treaty of Bromberg (1657), which was significant in terms of Polish–Prussian relations, had no major impact on the town’s history. Bromberg’s decline was sealed by the Great Northern War (1700–1721). Hopes for an economic revival of the town arose from 1766 onwards, when the Commission for the Republic’s Treasury presented the project for a Bromberg Canal. This investment, which was of great importance to the local economy, could not be realised until 1772, following the First Partition of Poland, as a result of which Bromberg was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia as part of the Netzedistrict (1772–1807).

In the first half of the 19th century, alongside the construction of the canal, the town’s designation as an administrative centre was significant for its development. The War and Domains Chamber had been based here since 1775; it administered the Netzedistrict and, during the period when the town belonged to the Duchy of Warsaw (1807–1815), was replaced by the Prefecture of the Bromberg Department. Following the Congress of Vienna, Bromberg became part of the Grand Duchy of Posen (from 1848, the Province of Posen) and, in 1815, became the capital of the Bromberg administrative district.

Before the First World War, Bromberg had a well-developed infrastructure, a strong industrial sector and a rich cultural life. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, the town became part of the Republic of Poland in 1920. The loss of administrative functions and the Great Depression slowed the town’s development. During the Second World War, Bromberg was annexed to the German Reich as part of the Reichsgau Danzig-Westprussia and served as the seat of the administrative authorities of the Bromberg administrative district. In order to pre-emptively crush resistance activities and to take revenge for the so-called ‘Bromberg Bloody Sunday’ (see Discourses/Controversies), Nazi units shot approximately 1,900 Poles in the autumn of 1939, in particular representatives of the local economic and political elite, as well as members of the intelligentsia and the clergy. In 1944, the Bromberg-Ost and Bromberg-Brahnau camps were established as satellite camps of the Stutthof concentration camp.

On 24 January 1945, the Red Army reached Bromberg. A new municipal administration was established as early as February. A satellite camp of the Potulitz/Potulice Central Labour Camp was set up in the buildings of the former Bromberg-Brahnau concentration camp satellite camp, where around 1,500 Germans were interned until June 1945.

After the end of the war, Bromberg developed into an industrial centre and became the seat of the provincial authorities.

Population trends and ethnic composition

*in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship

The changing political affiliations during the first half of the 20th century led on several occasions to shifts in the ethnic composition of Bromberg’s population. By the 1920s, due to increasing emigration of Germans, Poles eventually formed the majority of the population. However, in the wake of flight and expulsion before and after the end of the Second World War, as well as deaths resulting from internment in the camps at Kaltwasser (Zimne Wody) and Potulitz (Potulice), the proportion of the German population fell sharply once again. At the same time, Polish displaced persons from the former Polish eastern territories were resettled in Bromberg.

In the Middle Ages and the early modern period, the majority of the town’s inhabitants made their living from trade – including the rafting of goods – owing to the town’s proximity to major transport routes.

In 1851, the railway line between Bromberg and Berlin was opened. The second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century were characterised by economic growth. In the wake of industrialisation, numerous companies in the mechanical engineering and metalworking sectors set up in the town, producing goods for agriculture and the railway industry (factories belonging to Eberhardt, Wulff, Fiebrandt and Ostbahn Werkstätte). Other important industrial sectors included wood processing (sawmills and furniture factories) and the production of building materials.

Between 1942 and 1945, Dynamit Nobel AG (DAG) produced explosives and ammunition in Bromberg. Prisoners at the Bromberg-Brahnau satellite camp of the concentration camp, primarily prisoners of war and women, were forced to carry out this work. After 1945, the plant was converted into ‘Zachem-Organika’.

The Leon Wyczółkowski Regional Museum (originally the City Museum; Muzeum Okręgowe im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego w Bydgoszczy) has been based in Bromberg since 1923. It houses a collection of modern Polish art and regional archaeological and historical exhibits. Since 2011, the buildings of the former DAG factory have housed an ‘Exploseum’ with an exhibition on the production of ammunition and explosives, which also addresses the issue of forced labour during the Second World War.

Since 1945, the Polish Theatre (Teatr Polski) in the city has continued Bydgoszcz’s theatrical tradition, the origins of which date back to the 17th century.

In 1647, the Jesuit College was opened; its work was continued in the 19th century by the Königsgymnasium. Around 1900, further schools were established, including the Royal Prussian School of Crafts and Applied Arts. In 1906, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Agriculture began its work. Bromberg currently has four state universities: the Casimir the Great University (Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego w Bydgoszczy), the University of Technology and Life Sciences (Uniwersytet Technologiczno-Przyrodniczy im. Jana i Jędrzeja Śniadeckich in Bydgoszcz), the Academy of Music (Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz) and the Collegium Medicum of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu).

On 3 September 1939, two days before the city was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, Bromberg experienced what became known as ‘Bromberg’s Bloody Sunday’ (a term coined by Nazi propaganda). During these riots, 365^[3]–379^[4] residents of Bromberg lost their lives; most of them were of German descent. The causes of these events remain a subject of debate in research to this day: the majority of Polish historians put forward the theory that agents of German military intelligence and members of the German minority in Bromberg launched an attack on retreating units of the Polish Army. The heavy losses on the German side are attributed to the suppression of the attack, which also claimed the lives of numerous uninvolved civilians, including women and children. The Polish historian Włodzimierz Jastrzębski and many of his German colleagues reject the theory of a German act of sabotage on the grounds that – unlike in the case of other provocations by military intelligence – no documents have been found that would prove the planning of such an operation. These researchers interpret the events as an ‘act of revenge’ by Polish townspeople belonging to an armed vigilante group against members of the German minority. It is assumed that the riots were triggered by a general state of panic following news of the Polish Army’s defeat and the imminent entry of the German Wehrmacht into the town. Nazi propaganda used the events of 3 September 1939 as a pretext for continuing the German attack on Poland (as a country in which the German minority was being persecuted) and as a justification for brutal action against the Polish population.

• Historical Atlas of Polish Cities. Vol. 1: Antoni Czacharowski (ed.): Kujawy [Kujawy], Part 1: Emanuel Okoń, Janusz Tandecki, Zenon Kozieł (eds.): Bydgoszcz [Bromberg]. Toruń 1997.
• Marian Biskup (ed.): Historia Bydgoszczy [History of Bydgoszcz]. 2 vols. Bydgoszcz 1984–2004.
• Tomasz Chinciński, Paweł Machcewicz (eds.): Bydgoszcz 3–4 September 1939. Studies and Documents [Bromberg 3–4 September 1939. Studies and Documents]. Warsaw 2008.
• Iwona Jastrzębska-Puzowska: From a Small Town to a Metropolis. The Architectural and Urban Development of Bydgoszcz, 1850–1920 [From a Small Town to a Metropolis. The Architectural and Urban Development of Bromberg, 1850–1920]. Toruń 2005.
• Włodzimierz Jastrzębski: The German Minority in Poland in September 1939. Münster 2012 (Sources and Accounts on the History of West Prussia 35), Chapter IV, p. 85–146.
• Elżbieta Nowikiewicz: Bromberg in the works of German-speaking writers. Autobiographical reflections on the city. In: Convivium. German Studies Yearbook: Poland 2008. Bonn 2008, pp. 119–141.

• Bromberg. Journal of the Bidegast Association e.V., Wilhelmshaven.
• Materiały do dziejów kultury i sztuki Bydgoszczy i regionu [Materials on the cultural and artistic history of Bydgoszcz and the surrounding region]. Bydgoszcz 1996–2011.

• www.bydgoszcz.pl/ (the city’s official multilingual website)
• www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q41252 (Images of Bromberg/Bydgoszcz from the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)

[1] Sources: Henryk Biskup (ed.): *Historia Bydgoszczy* [History of Bydgoszcz]. Vol. 1. Bydgoszcz 1984, pp. 156–164, 379–385, 464–468, 506–518; Henryk Biskup (ed.): *Historia Bydgoszczy* [History of Bromberg]. Vol. 2, Part 2. Bydgoszcz 2004, p. 169; Włodzimierz Jastrzębski (ed.): Encyklopedia Bydgoszczy [Encyclopaedia of Bydgoszcz]. Part 1. Bydgoszcz 2011, pp. 283ff.; Stanisław Michalski (ed.): Bydgoszcz wczoraj i dziś 1945–1980 [Bromberg Yesterday and Today 1945–1980]. Warsaw, Poznań 1988, p. 29; Statistical Yearbook of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. Bydgoszcz 2012, p. 116.

[2] Biskup (ed.): *History of Bydgoszcz* (note 1), p. 513.

[3] Tomasz Chinciński, Paweł Machcewicz (eds.): Bydgoszcz 3–4 September 1939. Studies and Documents. Warsaw 2008.

[4] Włodzimierz Jastrzębski: The German Minority in Poland in September 1939. Münster 2012 (Sources and Accounts on the History of West Prussia 35). Chapter IV, p. 165.

Iwona Jastrzębska-Puzowska: Bromberg/Bydgoszcz. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2014. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32353 (as at 30 July 2021).