Bernard Stanisław Śliwiński (1883-1941) was a Polish doctor of law, insurgent during the Greater Poland uprising, lieutenant colonel in the Polish Armed Forces infantry, district commander of the state police, Mayor of Bydgoszcz and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari.

[1] He was a member of the Tomasz Zan Society, a youth independence organization and secret student association fighting against Germanization and censorship of Polish culture.

In the course of his studies, from 1907 to 1908, Śliwiński performed his compulsory military service in the Imperial German Army: he completed it as a sergeant and was promoted in 1912 to the rank of Second lieutenant.

[2] He ordered the announcement of a mass action in powiat and organized a battalion to defend Poniec, threatened by German troops in Rawicz.

On January 20, 1920, Bernard Śliwiński entered Bydgoszcz at the head of the regiment, hence formally welcoming the city back to the Polish territory.

As part of the Polish–Soviet War, Śliwiński set off with his regiment to Brody in Eastern Małopolska (today in western Ukraine) on March 8, 1920.

At the end of the conflict (October 1920), Bernard Śliwiński commanded the "6th Greater Poland Rifle Regiment" and then "19th Infantry Brigade" in Inowrocław.

[5] In the 1920s, a project of canal to bring coal from Silesia to Danzig was considered and Śliwiński lobbied with the Chamber of Industry and Commerce to have it integrated with the existing local network.

From these actions, one can mention the following achievements:[2] Under his tenure, the municipality also organized work for the unemployed and fought the rising prices consequent to the Great Depression.

Together with engineer Ludwik Regamey, Śliwiński supported the construction of the power plant in Jachcice district, at the time a rural area in the north-west part of the city.

As far as education and culture are concerned, the city offered land for the construction of a polytechnic university, allocating the missing funds.

From 1925 to 1927, he was a member of the "construction committee of the Monument to Henryk Sienkiewicz", which was unveiled in July 1927, under the auspices of the president Ignacy Mościcki.

In January 1938, he was elected to the Main Board of the "Association of Greater Poland Insurgents" (Polish: Związek Powstańców Wielkopolskich), gathering ancient fighters of this period.

Between 1930 and 1939, he also published many valuable articles and memoirs about Greater Poland uprising, mainly in the pages of local magazine "Kronika Gostyńska".