Editing Bloody Sunday (1939) (section)

==The debate in scholarship==
The exact number of victims of Bloody Sunday is disputed. Peter Aurich (a pseudonym of the German journalist Peter Nasarski)<ref name="schubert89-46"/> put the number of German civilian deaths in Bydgoszcz at 366,<ref name="Blanke580" /> while Hugo Rasmus estimates it as at least 415.<ref name="ChristFren" /> Two Polish historians, [[Włodzimierz Jastrzębski]] and [[Czesław Madajczyk]], estimate ethnic German deaths at 103 (Jastrzębski), and about 300 (150 on September 3, the rest in the days after).<ref name="ChristBrown"/> The Polish historians point out that since these losses occurred during actual combat, most of the civilian losses should be attributed to accidents common in urban combat conditions;  they argue that civilian losses might have occurred when the town was attacked by the German air force ([[Luftwaffe]]).<ref name="ChristFren" /> Strafing of civilians in the town by the [[Luftwaffe]] is confirmed by German witnesses.<ref name="wydarzeniach"/> Nazi propaganda reinforced Polish perceptions of the German minority as hostile, and during the invasion reported that the German minority was aiding the forces. This contributed to Polish misconceptions, as the Poles were expecting the German minority to be actively hostile.<ref name="HarryGordon"/>

An even bigger debate in the scholarship concerned the question whether—as the Polish [[historiography]] suggests—there were indeed any members of a German [[fifth column]] in the city who opened fire on the Polish troops (and if so, whether they were composed of members of the Bydgoszcz German minority or not), or whether—as critics among the German historiography argue—Polish troops (or panicking civilians) overreacted in the confusion and targeted innocent German civilians.<ref>Konrad Piasecki [http://www.rmf24.pl/tylko-w-rmf24/wywiady/news-wlodzimierz-jastrzebski-to-co-sie-zdarzylo-w-bydgoszczy-mial,nId,138894 "Włodzimierz Jastrzębski: To co się zdarzyło w Bydgoszczy miało podłoże emocjonalne."] September 1, 2003</ref> This debate has been resolved by investigation of German archives, which confirmed existence of several diversion and saboteur groups in Bydgoszcz overseen by intelligence organizations by Nazi Germany.<ref>Niemiecka dywersja w Polsce w 1939 r. w świetle dokumentów policyjnych i wojskowych II Rzeczpospolitej oraz służb specjalnych III Rzeszy" Tomasz Chińciński, Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość 4/2 (8), 159-195. 2005</ref> Among the Germans killed in the fighting historians identified Otto Niefeldt who was an Abwehr agent from [[Szczecin]].<ref name="www2.um.bydgoszcz.pl"/>
The account of Peter Nasarski alias Aurich has been called by Harry Gordon<ref name="HarryGordon" /> one of the most thorough German accounts; his work is however generally rejected in Poland,<ref name="schubert89-46"/> perhaps because he indiscriminately used witness statements collected by Nazi officials.<ref name="kees-p40"/> According to Nasarski, after police forces retreated from Bydgoszcz, agitated Polish civilians accused many Germans of assaulting Polish soldiers and executed them and any Poles who stood up in their defence.<ref name="HarryGordon" /> Rasmus attributes the situation to confusion and the disorganised state of the Polish forces in the city.<ref name="Blanke580" />

Von Frentz wrote that "In Bydgoszcz, the event was probably caused by confusion among the rapidly retreating soldiers, a general breakdown in public order and panic among the Polish majority after two German air raids and the discovery of a small reconnaissance group of the German Army on the previous day."<ref name="ChristFren" /> He quotes Nazi German reports about the civilian victims and atrocities, later corroborated by a [[Red Cross]] commission that the Nazis invited to the scene.<ref name="ChristFren" /> Von Frentz also noted that eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed against the German population are as unreliable as Polish accounts of the fifth columnists.<ref name="ChristFren" /> While authors like Blanke write that no ethnic Germans are known to have spoken of participation in that event, by 2007 Nazi documents were uncovered confirming that assistance, supplies and aid were given to both German saboteurs and their families.<ref name="Blanke580"/><ref name="bydgoszcz.wyborcza.pl">[http://bydgoszcz.wyborcza.pl/bydgoszcz/1,35590,4456828.html] Historycy wytropili dywersantów
Jacek Gałęzewski 03 September 2007 Gazeta Wyborcza</ref> In the post-war collaboration trials, no ethnic German was charged in relation to Bloody Sunday.<ref name="ChristFren" /><ref name="HarryGordon" /> Another counterargument that was made to the fifth column theory is that Polish troops were being targeted by advance units of the German regular army ([[German Army (Wehrmacht)|Heer]]), or that the shots were fired by Polish soldiers in the confusion of the mass withdrawal.<ref name="Blanke580" /> Von Frentz claims that Polish troops and civilians massacred German civilians due to confusion.<ref name="ChristFren"/>

Polish historians, such as Madajczyk, Jastrzębski, [[Karol Marian Pospieszalski]] and Ryszard Wojan claim that the killings were triggered when the ethnic Germans, dressed as civilians, opened fire on the Polish troops (Jastrzebski later changed his views after starting to work with German expellee organizations<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rp.pl/artykul/61991,355527_Krwawiaca_pamiec.html|title=Krwawiąca pamięć|date=August 29, 2009|publisher=Rzeczpospolita|language=pl|access-date=July 16, 2015|archive-date=July 17, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150717000112/http://www.rp.pl/artykul/61991,355527_Krwawiaca_pamiec.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>). The Poles retaliated, killing many and executing prisoners afterwards.<ref name="Blanke580" /><ref name="ChristBrown" /><ref name="ChristBrown2"/> Polish historians Pospieszalski and Janusz Kutta point to a Nazi top secret [[false flag]] [[Operation Himmler]] (which took place on August 31&nbsp;– September 1) and was designed to create an illusion of Polish aggression against Germany.<ref name="WirtzGordon"/><ref name="Lightbody"/> Thus it is argued that actions like the [[Gleiwitz incident]] and events in Bydgoszcz were all part of a larger Nazi plan to discredit the Poles.<ref name="JK"/> Pospieszalski and Wojan argue that the German fifth column agents (or their higher-ups) might have been deliberately aiming to produce a situation likely to result in German civilian casualties as a way to fuel Nazi propaganda.<ref name="W" /><ref name="pospieszalskim"/><ref name="wydawnictwo"/> This argument has been criticized: Harry Gordon questions whether the Germans were willing to sacrifice their citizens for propaganda gains.<ref name="HarryGordon" />