Back Tal des Todes (Bydgoszcz) German Κοιλάδα του Θανάτου (Μπίντγκοστς) Greek Valle de la Muerte (Polonia) Spanish دره مرگ (بیدگوشچ) Persian Vallée de la mort (Bydgoszcz) French Valle della Morte di Bydgoszcz Italian Dolina Śmierci NN Dolina Śmierci NB Dolina Śmierci (Bydgoszcz) Polish Dolina Śmierci Swedish

Valley of Death (Bydgoszcz)

Valley of Death
Part of Intelligenzaktion Pommern
Polish teachers from Bydgoszcz led by members of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz to their execution site
LocationGerman occupied Poland
Coordinates53°9′23″N 18°8′5″E / 53.15639°N 18.13472°E / 53.15639; 18.13472
DateOctober and November 1939
TargetPolish intelligentsia
Victims1,200 – 1,400
PerpetratorsGestapo, Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz
MotiveAnti-Polish sentiment, antisemitism
Commanders of the new Selbstschutz battalions of German executioners in Bydgoszcz. From the left: SS-Standartenführer Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben, chief of the Selbstschutz inspectorate in Płutowo. SS-Obersturmbannführer Erich Spaarmann, chief of the Selbstschutz inspectorate in Bydgoszcz (till November 1939). SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans Kölzow, chief of the Selbstschutz inspectorate in Inowrocław. SS-Sturmbannführer Christian Schnug, chief of the Selbstschutz inspectorate in Bydgoszcz as of December 1939.

Valley of Death (Polish: Dolina Śmierci) in Fordon, Bydgoszcz, northern Poland, is a site of Nazi German mass murder committed at the beginning of World War II and a mass grave of 1,200–1,400 Poles and Jews murdered in October and November 1939 by the local German Selbstschutz and the Gestapo.[1][2] The murders were a part of Intelligenzaktion in Pomerania, a Nazi action aimed at the elimination of the Polish intelligentsia in Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, which included the former Pomeranian Voivodeship ("Polish Corridor"). It was part of a larger genocidal action that took place in all German occupied Poland, code-named Operation Tannenberg.[3]

  1. ^ Encyklopedia PWN, Intelligenzaktion. September–November 1939. Archived 2011-06-07 at the Wayback Machine (in Polish)
  2. ^ Piąta kolumna (Jungdeutsche Partei, Deutsche Vereinigung, Deutscher Volksbund, Deutscher Volksverbarid). Kampania Wrześniowa 1939.pl (2006). Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  3. ^ Saul Friedländer, Das dritte Reich und die Juden, C.H. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54966-7.

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