| Valley of Death | |
|---|---|
| Part ofIntelligenzaktion Pommern | |
 Polish teachers fromBydgoszcz led by members of theVolksdeutscher Selbstschutz to their execution site | |
 | |
| Location | 53°9′23″N18°8′5″E / 53.15639°N 18.13472°E /53.15639; 18.13472 German occupied Poland |
| Date | October and November 1939 |
| Target | Polish intelligentsia |
| Victims | 1,200 – 1,400 |
| Perpetrators | Gestapo,Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz |
| Motive | Anti-Polish sentiment,antisemitism |
Valley of Death (Polish:Dolina Śmierci) inFordon,Bydgoszcz, northernPoland, is a site ofNazi Germanmass murder committed at the beginning ofWorld War II and amass grave of 1,200–1,400Poles andJewsmurdered in October and November 1939 by the local GermanSelbstschutz and theGestapo.[1][2] The murders were a part ofIntelligenzaktion in Pomerania, aNazi action aimed at the elimination of thePolish intelligentsia inReichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, which included the formerPomeranian Voivodeship ("Polish Corridor"). It was part of a largergenocidal action that took place in allGerman occupied Poland, code-namedOperation Tannenberg.[3]
Victims, mainly Polishintelligentsia:teachers,priests,office workers, were listed on so calledSonderfahndungsbuch Polen (a list of people destined to be executed, made byThird Reich officials beforeWorld War II) and another list made by Gestapo during the war.
The perpetrators were mainly from the newSelbstschutz battalions called theVolksdeutscher Selbstschutz, a paramilitary formation of civilian shooters composed of men from the German minority of pre-war Poland, as well as theEinsatzkommando 16 ofSSEinsatzgruppen under command ofSS-SturmbannführerRudolf Tröger.[4] Between September 1939 and April 1940 Selbstschutz - together with other Nazi-German formations - murdered tens of thousands of Poles in Pomerania.[citation needed]
Established investigations point toLudolf von Alvensleben andJakub Löllgen, as the main organizers of the mass murder. Other Germans involved in the crime were:SturmbannführersErich Spaarmann, Meier, Schnugg,SS-Sturmbannführer dr Rudolf Tröger,SS man Baks, and a number ofVolksdeutsche including Wilhelm Neumann, Herbert Beitsch, Otto Erlichmann (Nazimayor ofFordon), and Walter Gassmann.
Other Nazi German mass murder sites in Bydgoszcz area are the villages ofTryszczyn andBorówno.
Media related toValley of Death at Wikimedia Commons Media related toBydgoszcz during World War II at Wikimedia Commons
from German:Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939,ISBN 3596163072.