Bydgoski Stary Rynek w planach niemieckich okupantów

Abstrakt

The beginning of the German occupation was an exceptionally tragic time for Bydgoszcz. On the main square the inhabitants were executed. The occupation authorities decided that the existing Bydgoszcz City Hall will be expanded to create a new representative seat for the magistrate at the cost of demolition of the former Jesuit church, City Museum and tenement house complex. The project also envisaged breaking through wide avenues in order to arrange military marches. The preserved detailed descriptions of the demolitions and today’s fragmented collection of the plans for new land development allow the analysis of the links between architecture and Nazi ideology, characteristic of many Polish cities occupied by the Germans. The planned rebuilding of the city hall at the cost of demolition of objects which were symbolic for Bydgoszcz still has its consequences – the undeveloped area on the western frontage continues to return as an unresolved problem: to reconstruct it, to propose contemporary solutions or to leave this place in the shape to which the inhabitants of the post-war generation have already got used to.