German Propaganda Justifying Invasion of Poland

Authors

Object ID

2014.1.439

Object Name

Leaflet

Date

12-1-1939

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Brown leaflet titled, "Das Totenfeld der Volksdeutschen in Polen."

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

An imprint by the German authorities justifying the invasion of Poland. The leaflet, in German, reports on the alleged systematic massacre of the of ethnic Germans and claims that the Poles had killed 58,000 innocent civilians since the end of World War I. In small part "... Even by 1931, one million Germans had been displaced from their homes by the Poles. The German-Polish pact of January 1934 did not even bring the expected changes, but instead... more Polish rabble-rousing and terror in connection with their chauvinistic organizations and their Polish rape-and-torture administrations. The German-Polish contract was just a cloak for the Polish Government to continue their oppression of Germans... We have already informed the world press, that this Polish blood orgy happened against unarmed German men, women and children. The Bromberg night was just the beginning of a campaign of terror and murder against every single German in Poland..." The Bromberg incident, dubbed by German propagandists as "Bloody Sunday," involved the alleged massacre of ethnic Germans in the city of Bromberg (Bydogoszcz), which the Nazis used to further inflame public opinion against the Poles. The German government claimed "our special investigation group already found hundreds of mass graves. We could open just a few of them, because of the winter weather. We already identified 12,857 bodies. In the spring we will be able to open all those graves and identify those killed. The Chief of civil administration founded an administration for finding and rescuing ethnic Germans, which has been ordered to investigate how many Germans were killed since the outbreak of the war... The total number of people murdered by Poles is actually 58,000. These victims of Polish terror were not just found at Bromberg. The field of dead extends to the Silesian and mid Polish sector. Even in these areas, thousands of Germans have been displaced as cattle and had been shot by the Polish Army with machine guns. The German nation paid a large amount of blood for this, the Polish nation will be burdened forever..." Sadly, such German propaganda is still cited by some today as "proof" of Polish atrocities toward ethnic Germans living there.

Dimensions

11 1/2 x 8 1/4"

Keywords

propoganda, Germany, invasion of Poland

Subcollection

Bullets, Polenaktion, Propaganda

Recommended Citation

"German Propaganda Justifying Invasion of Poland" (1939). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2014.1.439.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1376