Szczecin

Szczecin

Szczecin is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. In the vicinity of the Baltic Sea, it is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland. As of June 2011 the population was 407,811.

Szczecin is located on the Oder River, south of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Bay of Pomerania. The city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river.

The city's first recorded name is "Stetin", in the early 12th century. The German version "Stettin", and the Polish version, "Szczecin" as well as the names of the town's neighbourhoods and oldest districts are of Pomeranian language origins (West Slavic language group); however, the exact words upon which they are based on is subject of ongoing research. 

The history of Szczecin, began in the 8th century, when West Slavs settled Pomerania and erected a new stronghold on the site of the modern castle. Since the 9th century, the stronghold was fortified and expanded toward the Oder bank. Mieszko I of Poland took control of part of Pomerania between the 960s and 1005 and annexed the city of Szczecin to Poland in 967 Subsequent Polish rulers, the Holy Roman Empire and the Liutician federation aimed at control of the territory.

After the decline of neighboring regional centre Wolin in the 12th century, the city became one of the more important and powerful seaports of the Baltic Sea south coasts.

In a campaign in the winter of 1121–1122, Bolesław III Wrymouth, the Duke of Poland, gained control of the region as well the city of Szczecin and its stronghold. The inhabitants were converted to Christianity by two missions of bishop Otto of Bamberg in 1124 and 1128. At this time, the first Christian church of St. Peter and Paul was erected. Polish minted coins were commonly used in trade in this period. The population of the city at that time is estimated to be at around 5,000-9,000 people.

Polish rule ended with Boleslaw's death in 1138. During the Wendish Crusade in 1147, a contingent led by the German margrave Albert the Bear, an enemy of Slavic presence in the region, papal legat, bishop Anselm of Havelberg and Konrad of Meißen besieged the town. There, a Polish contingent supplied by Mieszko III the Old joined the crusaders. However the citizens had placed crosses around the fortifications, indicating they already had been Christianized. Ratibor I, Duke of Pomerania, negotiated the disbandement of the crusading forces.

Stettin was part of the federation of Wendish towns, a predecessor of the Hanseatic League, in 1283. The city prospered due to the participation in the Baltic Sea trade, primarily with herrings, grain and timber; also craftmenship prospered and more than forty guilds were established in the city. The far-reaching autonomy from the House of Pomerania was in part reduced when the dukes reclaimed Stettin as their main residence in the late 15th century. The anti-Slavic policies of German merchants and craftsmen intensified in this period, resulting in bans on people of Slavic descent joining craft guilds, doubling customs tax for Slavic merchants, or bans against public usage of their native language. More prosperous Slavic citizens were forcefully stripped of their possessions which were awarded to Germans. In 1514, the guild of the tailors added a Wendenparagraph to its statutes, banning Slavs.

While not as heavily affected by medieval witchhunts as other regions of the empire, there are reports of the burning of three women and one man convicted of witchcraft in 1538.

In 1570, during the reign of Pomeranian duke Johann Friedrich, a congress was held at Stettin ending the Northern Seven Years' War. During the war, Stettin had tended to side with Denmark, while Stralsund tended toward Sweden - as a whole, the Duchy of Pomerania however tried to maintain neutrality. Nevertheless, a Landtag that had met in Stettin in 1563 introduced a sixfold rise of real estate taxes to finance the raising of a mercenary army for the duchy's defense. Johann Friedrich also succeeded in elevating Stettin to one of only three places allowed to coin money in the Upper Saxon Circle of the Holy Roman Empire, the other two places were Leipzig and Berlin. Bogislaw XIV, who resided in Stettin since 1620, became the sole, and Griffin duke when Philipp Julius died in 1625. Before the Thirty Years' War reached Pomerania, the city as all of the duchy declined economically due to the sinking importance of the Hanseatic League and a conflict between Stettin and Frankfurt (Oder).

Bismarck Tower

Following the Treaty of Stettin of 1630, the town (along with most of Pomerania) was allied to and occupied by the Swedish Empire, which managed to keep the western parts of Pomerania after the death of Bogislaw XIV in 1637 and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 – despite the protests of Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg, who had a legal claim to inherit all of Pomerania. The exact partition of Pomerania between Sweden and Brandenburg was settled in Stettin in 1653. 

Stettin was turned into a major Swedish fortress, which was repeatedly besieged in subsequent wars. It was on the path of Polish forces led by Stefan Czarniecki moving from Denmark; Czarniecki's sea based route which led his forces to the city is today mentioned in Polish anthem and numerous locations in the city honour his name. Wars inhibited the city's economical prosperity, which had undergone a deep crisis during the devastations of the Thirty Years' War and was further impeded by the new Swedish-Brandenburg-Prussian frontier, cutting Stettin off its traditional Farther Pomeranian hinterland. Due to the Black Death during the Great Northern War, the city's population dropped from 6,000 people in 1709 to 4,000 inhabitants in 1711. In 1720, after the Great Northern War, Sweden was forced to cede the city to King Frederick William I of Prussia. Stettin was made the capital city of the Brandenburg-Prussian Pomeranian province, since 1815 reorganized as Province of Pomerania. In 1816, the city had 26,000 inhabitants.

The Prussian administration deprived Stettin of her administrative autonomy rights, abolished guild privileges as well as its status as a staple town, and subsidized manufacturers. Also, colonists were settled in the city, primarily Hugenots

Stettin developed into a major Prussian port and became part of the German Empire in 1871. While most of the province retained an agrarian character, Stettin was industrialized and its population rose from 27,000 in 1813 to 210,000 in 1900 and 255,500 in 1925. Major industries prospering in Stettin since 1840 were shipbuilding, chemical and food industries and machinery construction. Starting in 1843, Stettin became connected to the major German and Pomeranian cities by railways, and the water connection to the Bay of Pomerania was enhanced by the construction of the Kaiserfahrt (now Piast) canal. On 20 October 1890, some of the city's Poles created the Towarzystwo Robotników Polsko Katolickich (Society of Polish-Catholic Workers) in the city, one of the first Polish organisations. In 1914, before World War I, the Polish community in the city numbered over 3,000 people. These were primarily industrial workers and their families who came from the Poznań (Posen) area and a few local wealthy industrialists and merchants. Among them was Kazimierz Pruszak, director of the Gollnow industrial works and a Polish patriot, who predicted the eventual return of Szczecin to Poland. 

During the 1939 invasion of Poland, which started World War II in Europe, Stettin was the base for the German 2nd Motorized Infantry Division, which cut across the Polish Corridor and was later used in 1940 as an embarkation point for Operation Weserübung, Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway.

On 15 October 1939, neighbouring municipalities were amalgamated into Stettin, creating Groß-Stettin with about 380,000 inhabitants in 1940. The city had become the third-largest German city by area, after Berlin and Hamburg.

As the war started, the number of non-Germans in the city increased as slave workers were brought in. The first transports came in 1939 from Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Łódż. They were mainly used in a synthetic silk factory near Szczecin. The next wave of slave workers was brought in 1940, in addition to PoWs who were used for work in the agricultural industry. According to German police reports from 1940, 15,000 Polish slave workers lived within the city.

During the war, 135 forced labour camps for slave workers were established in the city. Most of the 25,000 slave workers were Poles, but Czechs, Italians, Frenchmen and Belgians, as well as Dutch citizens, were also enslaved in the camps.

In February 1940, the Jews of Stettin were deported to the Lublin reservation. International press reports emerged, describing how the Nazis forced Jews, regardless of age, condition and gender, to sign away all property and loaded them on to trains headed to the camp, escorted by members of the SA and SS. Due to publicity given to the event, German institutions ordered such future actions to be made in a way unlikely to attract public notice.

Allied air raids in 1944 and heavy fighting between the German and Soviet armies destroyed 65% of Stettin's buildings and almost all of the city centre, the seaport and local industries. Polish Home Army intelligence assisted in pinpointing targets for Allied bombing in the area of Stettin. The city itself was covered by Home Army's structure "Bałtyk" and Polish resistance infiltrated Stettin's naval yards.  Other activities of the resistance consisted of smuggling people to Sweden.

Monument to the workers 

killed during the 1970 anti-communist 
protests, known as  the 
"Angel of Freedom"

After World War II the city was transferred to Poland. Szczecin, as it was now called, was also demographically transformed from a German into a Polish city. At the same time as the flight and expulsion of the German population, Poles moved in. Settlers from Central Poland made up about 70% of Szczecin's new population. Additionally Poles and Ukrainians from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. settled there. In 1945 and 1946 the city was the starting point of the northern route used by the Jewish underground organization Brichah to channel Jewish DPs from Eastern Europe to the American occupation zone.

Szczecin was rebuilt and the city's industry was expanded. At the same time, Szczecin became a major Polish industrial centre and an important seaport (particularly for Silesian coal) for Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. Cultural expansion was accompanied by a campaign resulting in the "removal of all German traces."  In 1946 Winston Churchill prominently mentioned Szczecin in his Iron Curtain speech: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent".

The 1962 Szczecin military parade led to a road traffic accident in which a tank of the Polish People's Army crushed bystanders, killing seven children and injuring many more. The resultant panic in the crowd led to further injuries in the rush to escape. The incident was covered up for many years by the Polish communist authorities.

The city witnessed anti-communist revolts in 1970. In 1980, one of the four agreements, known as the August Agreements, which led to the first legalization of Solidarity, was signed in Szczecin. Pope John Paul II visited the city on 11 June 1987. The introduction of martial law in December 1981 met with a strike by the dockworkers of Szczecin shipyard, joined by other factories and workplaces in a general strike. All these were suppressed by the authorities. Another wave of strikes in Szczecin broke out in 1988 and 1989, which eventually led to the Round Table Agreement and first semi free elections in Poland.

Since 1999 Szczecin has been the capital of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship.

                                                       Szczecin’s Top 5:

   
1. The Cathedral Basilica of St. James the Apostle,  was built by the citizens of the city and modeled after the Church of St. Mary in Lübeck. It is the largest church in Pomerania and for many years after the reformation was part of the Pomeranian Evangelical Church. The church was established in 1187 and the Romanesque-style building was completed in the 14th century. One of its two towers collapsed during a storm in 1456 and destroyed part of the church. Reconstruction lasted until 1503 and the entire church was remodeled based on a single-tower hall church design.  Air raids on the night of 16 August 1944 during World War II resulted in collapse of the spire added in 1901 and extensive damage to other parts of the building. The north wall, all altars and artworks inside were destroyed by the bombs and ensuing fire. Following the war, government officials were reluctant to allow reconstruction of the church however, a heritage conservator pointed out that demolition of the remaining structure would be more costly than rebuilding it. In 1971, work began on the church and continued for three years. The north wall was reconstructed in a modern style which did not harmonize with the rest of the building and the tower was stabilized, but the spire was not rebuilt. Instead, the tower was capped with a short hip roof or pyramid roof resulting in a height of 60 meters (196 feet).  In 2006, another renovation commenced which saw new heating systems and flooring installed. Organs, to replace those removed before the World War II bombing and never recovered, were constructed and the tower was strengthened so it could support a redesigned spire. In 2010, a new, neo-baroque Flèche has been constructed. 
2. Old City Town Hall  the present day shingle-roofed Town Hall in the Old City district was built for the municipal government in the 15th century. At the time, it was considered the new Town Hall, erected at the site of the one built in the previous century. In 1968, the building was brought back to its original look. With care and skill were restored, among others, Gothic ornaments of the interior walls. A sumptuously adorned elevation was to raise the prestige of the city officials. Since 1869, the building houses a popular restaurant and tavern.
3. National Museum, Szczecin  established on 1 August 1945. The main part of an exhibition is placed in Landed Gentry House (Pałac Sejmu Stanów Pomorskich, Landeshaus), Staromłyńska 27 Street. The four other parts are:
   The Main Building of Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie, Wały Chrobrego 3 Street
   The Szczecin's History Museum, Old City Town Hall in Szczecin, Księcia Mściwoja II Street
   The Old Art Galery of Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie, Staromłyńska 27 Street
   The Museum of Contemporary Art, Staromłyńska 1 Street
   The Narrow Gauge Railway Exhibition in Gryfice
4. Szczecin Bismarck tower  construction began relatively late, in 1913, and it was only finished in 1921. The total construction cost of the 25-metre-tall tower was approximately 200,000 German Papiermarks. The tower is located on top of a small hill and is surrounded by a small wood, although the surrounding area is now generally industrial. It is approximately 6 km from the city centre, close to a tram terminus. Although one can visit the tower, the main entry way is fully sealed off, as are all windows, making entry impossible. It is also in need of restoration.
5. The Ducal Castle  was the seat of the dukes of Pomerania-Stettin of the House of Pomerania (Griffins), who ruled the Duchy of Pomerania from 1121 to 1637. Barnim the Great of Pomerania-Stettin erected the castle within Szczecin's walls against the will of the burghers in 1346. An older Pomeranian burgh had been leveled in 1249. In 1490 the castle was partially reconstructed for Bogusław X's wedding with Anna Jagiellonka (daughter of king Casimir IV Jagiellon). Between 1573−1582 the castle was rebuilt again, this time in the mannerist style for duke John Frederick by Italian stonemasons according to design by Wilhelm Zachariasz Italus. Two new wings were added to close the courtyard before the medieval southern and eastern wings. The main gate was adorned with ducal crest, the eastern wing was enhanced and the northern wing was intended for chapel.