History of Bydgoszcz

part of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Poznań (the Province of Posen after 1848) and the capital of the Bromberg region. After 1871 the city was part of the German Empire. After World War I and the Great Poland Uprising, Bromberg was assigned to Poland in 1919. In 1938 it was made part of the Pomeranian Voivodeship.

From 1939-45 during World War II, Bydgoszcz was retaken by Nazi Germany, in the Invasion of Poland and annexed to the Reichsgau Wartheland. On September 3, 1939, shortly after the war started, the Bromberg Bloody Sunday incident occurred in which numerous Germans and Poles were killed; the incident was used in Nazi propaganda and reprisals against the Poles followed after Bromberg was occupied by the Wehrmacht on September 9. The city's Jewish citizens were repressed and thousands of people were sent to concentration camps and/or executed.

In 1945 Bromberg was overrun by the Soviet army. After the Yalta Agreement, it was assigned to Poland, which later became a soviet satellite in the Warsaw Pact