History of Wrocław

Wrocław ( _de. Breslau) has long been the largest and culturally dominant city in Silesia, and is today the capital of Poland's Lower Silesia Voivodeship (Dolnośląskie).

The history of Wrocław starts at a crossroads in Lower Silesia. It was one of the centers of the Duchy and than Kingdom of Poland, and briefly, in the first half of the XIII century, the center of half of the divided Kingdom of Poland. German settlers arrived in increasing numbers after the 1241 Mongol invasion, and Wrocław eventually became part of Bohemia. After the War of Austrian Succession, the city and region were added to Prussia, and 130 years later participated in German Unification. After World War II Wrocław and most of Silesia were transferred to Poland.

Origin

The city of Wrocław originated as a Bohemian stronghold situated at the intersection of two long-existing trading routes, the Via Regia and the Amber Road. The city was first recorded in the 10th century as "Vratislavia", possibly derived from the name of the Bohemian duke Vratislav I who died in 921. At that time the city bears the name of Vratislavia and is limited to district of Ostrów Tumski (the Cathedral Island).

Poland and Piast duchy

river. Around 1000 the town had approximately 1000 inhabitants [Weczerka, p. 39] . After a uprising in 1037/38 against the church and probably also against the new rulers the bishop and the representative of the Polish king were expelled. [Weczerka, p. 40] In 1038 Bohemia captured the city and owned her until 1054, when Poland regained control.

Between 1079 and 1102 Silesia and Wrocław became temporarily independent. [Weczerka, p. 40] In 1163 it became the capital of the duchy of Silesia, which slowly detached from Poland. [Weczerka, p. 40] By 1139 two more settlements were built. One belonged to Governor Piotr Włostowic (a.k.a Piotr Włast Dunin, Piotr Włost or Peter Wlast; ca. 1080–1153) and was situated near his residence on the Olbina by the St. Vincent's Benedictine Abbey. The other settlement was founded on the left bank of the Oder River, near the present seat of the university. It was located on the Via Regia that lead from Leipzig and Legnica) and followed through Opole, and Kraków to Kievan Rus'. Polish, Bohemian, Jewish, Walloons [Norman Davies "Mikrokosmos" page 110-115] and German communities [Weczerka, p. 41] existed in the city.

In the first half of the XIII century Silesian duke Henry I the Bearded, managed to reunite much of the divided Polish kingdom. He became the duke of Kraków (Polonia Minor) in 1232, which gave him the title of the senior duke of Poland (see Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty). Henry tried to achieve the Polish crown but he didn't manage to succeed. [prof. Benedykt Zientara, Henryk Brodaty i jego czasy, Warszawa 1997, s. 317-320.] His activity in this field was continued by his son and successor Henry II the Pious whose work towards this goal was halted by his sudden death in the 1241 (Battle of Legnica). Polish territories acquired by the Silesian dukes in this period are called "The monarchy of the Silesian Henries". Wrocław was the center of the divided Kingdom of Poland.

Mongol Invasion and Germanization

The city was devastated in 1241 during the Mongol invasion of Europe. The inhabitants burned down their own city in order to force the Mongols to a quick withdrawal. Like many Polish cities of that age the city was expanded by adopting a German town law, though the planning had begun already in 1226. This place became the new center of the town. The expanded town was around 60 hectares in size and the new Main Market Square (Rynek), which was covered with timber framed houses, became the new center of the town. The original foundation, Ostrów Tumski, was now the religious center.The invasion according to Norman Davies led the German historiography to portray the Mongol attack as an event which eradicated Polish community. However in face of historic research this is doubtful, as many Polish settlements remained, and Polish names appear on regular basis, including among Wrocław's ruling elite [Norman Davies "Mikrokosmos" page 114]

Georg Thum writes that the decimated population was replenished by many Germans [Thum, p. 316] who settled there and quickly became the dominant ethnic group. A different thesis is presented by Norman Davies who writes that it is wrong to portray people of that time as Germans as their identities were those of Saxons and Bavarians. Despite the Germanisation the city remained multi-ethnic [Norman Davies "Mikrokosmos" page 110] . However, Breslau, the Germanised name of the city appeared for the first time in written records, and the city council from the beginning used only the Latin and German. [Thum, p. 316] The new and rebuilt town adopted Magdeburg rights in 1262 and, at the end of the 13th century joined the Hanseatic League. The Polish Piast dynasty Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN Warsaw 1975 vol. III page 505 ] remained in control of the region, however their influence declined continuously as the self-administration rights of the city council increased.

In 1289–1292 the Přemyslid King of Bohemia, Wenceslaus II, became Duke of Silesia, then also King of Poland. With John of Luxemburg and his son, Emperor Charles IV (and king of Bohemia), Silesia was united with Bohemia, but retained its separate "Ius indigenatus".

During much of the Middle Ages Wrocław was ruled by its dukes of the Silesian Piast dynasty. Although the city was not part of the Duchy's principality, its bishop was known as the prince-bishop ever since Bishop Preczlaus of Pogarell (1341–1376) bought the Duchy of Grodków (Grottkau) from Duke Boleslaw of Brzeg (Brieg) and added it to the episcopal territory of Nysa (Neisse), after which the Bishops of Wrocław had the titles of Prince of Neisse and Dukes of Grottkau, taking precedence over the other Silesian rulers.

Bohemia

In 1335, the city was incorporated with almost the entirety of Silesia into the Kingdom of Bohemia, and a "Landeshauptmann" (Provincial governor) was appointed to administrate the country. Between 1342 and 1344 two fires destroyed large parts of the city. Four years later Casimir III of Poland renounced all dynastic rights in Silesia in the treaty of Namslau/Namysłów and Charles IV, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, visited the town. His successors Wenceslaus and Sigismund became involved in a long lasting feud with the city and its magistrate, culminating in the revolt of the guilds in 1418 when local craftsmen killed seven councillors. In a tribunal two years later, when Sigismund was in town, 27 ringleaders were executed. He also called up for a Reichstag in the same year, which discussed the earlier happenings in the city.

When George of Poděbrady became king of Bohemia the city opposed the Hussite and instead sided with his Catholic rival Matthias Corvinus. After Breslau fought alongside Corvinus against Bohemia in 1466 the Silesian classes rendered homage to the king on May 31 1469 in the city, where the king also met the daughter of mayor Krebs, Barbara, which he took as his mistress. In 1474 Matthias Corvinus incorporated Breslau and Silesia in his dominion, which returned to Bohemia when he died. 1475 marks the beginning of movable type printing in the city, when Kasper Elyan opened his printing shop. The first illustration of the city was published in the "Nuremberg Chronicle" in 1493. Documents of that time referred to the town by many variants of the name including "Wratislaw", "Bresslau" and "Presslau".

Reformation and Counter-Reformation

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation reached Breslau already in 1518, and in 1519 the writings of Luther, Eck and the opening of the Leipzig Disputation by Mosellanus were published by local printer Adam Dyon. In 1523 the town council unanimously, appointed Johann Heß as the new pastor of St. Maria Magdalena and thus introduced the Reformation in Breslau. In 1524 the town council issued a decree that obliged all clerics to the Protestant sermon and in 1525 by another decree banned a number of Catholic customs. Breslau had become Protestant.

After the death of Louis II in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria inherited Bohemia, Silesia and the city of Breslau. In 1530 Ferdinand I awarded Breslau its current coat of arms. On October 11 1609 German emperor Rudolf II granted the Letter of Majesty, which ensured free exercise of church services for all Bohemian and Silesian Protestants. After the election of the staunch Catholic Ferdinand II as king of Bohemia Breslau supported the Bohemian revolt as it feared the rights granted in the letter of majesty would be revoked. In the following Thirty Years' War the city suffered badly, was occupied by Saxon and Swedish troops and lost 18,000 of its 40,000 residents to plague.

The Counter-Reformation had started with Rudolf II and Martin Gerstmann, bishop of Breslau. One of his successors, bishop Charles of Austria, did not accept the letter of majesty on his territory. At the same time the emperor encouraged several Catholic orders to settle in Breslau. The Minorites came back in 1610, the Jesuits arrived in 1638, the Capuchins in 1669, the Franciscans in 1684 and the Ursulines in 1687. These orders undertook an unequaled amount of construction which shaped the appearance of the city until 1945. The Jesuits were the main representatives of the Counter-Reformation in Breslau and Silesia. Much more feared were the Liechtensteiner dragoons, which converted people by force and expelled those who refused. At the end of the Thirty Years' War, Breslau was only one of a few Silesian cities which stayed Protestant, and after the Treaty of Altranstädt of 1707 four churches were given back to the local Protestants.

During the Counter-Reformation the intellectual life of the city, which was shaped by Protestantism and Humanism, flourished, as the Protestant bourgeoisie of the city lost its role as the patron of the arts to the Catholic orders. Breslau and Silesia, which possessed 6 of the 12 leading grammar schools in Germany, became the center of German Baroque literature. Poets such as Martin Opitz, Andreas Gryphius, Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau, Daniel Casper von Lohenstein and Angelus Silesius formed the so called First and Second Silesian school of poets which shaped the German literature of that time.

In 1702 the Jesuit academy was founded by Leopold I and named after himself, the Leopoldine Academy.

Infobox World Heritage Site
WHS = Centennial Hall in Wrocław


State Party = POL
Type = Cultural
Criteria = i, ii, iv
ID = 1165
Region = Europe and North America
Year = 2006
Session = 30th
Link = http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1165

Prussia

During the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s, most of Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia's claims were derived from the agreement, rejected by the Habsburgs, between the Silesian Piast rulers of the duchy and the Hohenzollerns who secured the Prussian succession after the extinction of the Piasts. The Protestant citizenry didn't fight against the armies of Protestant Prussia and Frederick II of Prussia captured the city without a struggle in January 1741. In November 1741 the Silesian classesclarifyme rendered homage to Frederick. In the following years Prussian armies often stayed in the city during the winter month. After three wars Empress Maria Theresa renounced Silesia and Breslau in the Treaty of Hubertusburg in 1763.

The Protestants of the city could now express their faith without limitation, and the new Prussian authorities also allowed the establishment of a Jewish community.

After the demise of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 Breslau was occupied by an army of the Confederation of the Rhine between 1807 and 1808, and the Continental System disrupted trade almost completely. The fortifications of the city were leveled and almost every monastery and cloister secularized. The Protestant Viadrina university of Frankfurt (Oder) was relocated to Breslau in 1811, united with the local Catholic university of the Jesuits and formed the new Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität (Wrocław University).

In 1813 King Frederick William III of Prussia gave a speech in Breslau signalling Prussia's intent to join the Russian Empire against Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars. He also donated the Iron Cross and issued the proclamation "An mein Volk" (to my people), summoning the Prussian people to war against the French. The city became the center of the Liberation movement against Napoleon Bonaparte as volunteers from all over Germany gathered in Breslau, among them Theodor Körner, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow, who set up his Lützow Free Corps in the city.

The Prussian reforms of Stein and Hardenberg led to a sustainable increase in prosperity in Silesia and Breslau. Due to the leveled fortifications the city could grow beyond her old borders. Breslau became an important railway hub and a major industrial centre, notably of linen and cotton manufacture and metal industry. Thanks to the unification of the Viadrina and Jesuit university the city also became the biggest Prussian center of sciences after Berlin, and the secularization laid the base for a rich museum landscape.

In 1854 the Jewish Theological Seminary was created, one of the first modern rabbi seminars in Europe. His first director, Zecharias Frankel, was the principal founder of Conservative Judaism. The first Jewish students' fraternity in the German lands, the Viadrina, was created in 1886 in Breslau. Polish student associations were banned [Norman Davies Microcosm page 334, 336] .

German Unification and the Weimar Republic

When the Prussian-led German Empire was created in 1871 during the process of Germany's unification, Breslau became the empire's sixth-largest city, its population more than tripled to over half a million between 1860 and 1910. The Prussian census from 1905 lists 470,904 residents, thereof 20,536 Jews, 6,020 Poles and 3,752 others. Breslau possessed the third largest Jewish community in Germany. [United States Holocaust Memorial Museum "Jews in Prewar Germany, 1933" http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/jger33.htm] [Reference map with Jewish population at 1993 in other German cities by USHMM: http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/ger77170.htm]

In 1919, Breslau became the capital of the newly created Province of Lower Silesia, its first head of government (German: Oberpräsident) was social democrat Felix Philipp. The Social democrats also won the Lower Silesian elections of 1921 with 51.19%, followed by the Catholic center with 20.2%, DVP 11.9%, DDP 9.5% and the Communists with 3.6%. Due to increased ethnic tensions, in August 1920 during the pro-Polish Silesian Uprising in neighbouring Upper Silesia, the local Polish school and the Polish library were devastated. After the reconstitution of Poland the number of Poles in Breslau dropped from 2 percent before World War I to 0.5 percent during the interwar years. [Harasimowicz, p. 466f] In 1923 the city was a scene of antisemitic riots.Davies, Moorhouse, p. 396; van Rahden, Juden, p. 323-26] After the incorporation of 54 communes between 1925 and 1930 the city expanded to 175 km² and housed 600.000 people. In 1929 the Werkbund opened "WuWa" (German: Wohnungs- und Werkraumausstellung) in Breslau-Scheitnig, a international showcase of modern architecture by architects of the Silesian branch of the Werkbund. Between 26. and 29. of June 1930 Breslau hosted the "Deutsche Kampfspiele", a sporting event for German athletes after Germany was excluded from the Olympic Games after World War I.

Nazi period and World War II

The city became one of the largest support bases of NSDAP movement, and in 1932 elections the Nazi party received in it 43,5 % of votes, achieving the third biggest victory in Weimar Germany [Norman Davies "Mikrokosmos" page 369]

In 1933 the Gestapo began actions against Polish and Jewish studentsDavies, Moorhouse, p. 395] who were issued special segregationist ID documents like those of Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other people deemed threats to the state. Notably, people were even arrested and beaten for using Polish in public.Kulak, p. 252] In 1938 the Polish cultural centre (the Polish House) in Breslau was destroyed by the police,Davies, Moorhouse, p. 395] and many of the city's 10,000 Jews were deported to pre-war concentration camps; those who remained were killed during the Nazi genocide of World War II. Most of the Polish elites also left during 1920s and 1930s while Polish leaders who remained were sent to concentration campsDavies, Moorhouse, p. 395] . During the war, 363 Czech and 293 Polish prisoners, as well as resistance members from Western Europe, were executed by guillotine in the city's prison [http://www.sw.gov.pl/index.php/jednostki/14/288] . In total, the German regime killed 896 in this way.

In addition, a network of concentration camps and forced labour camps, or Arbeitslager, was established in the district around Breslau, to serve the city's growing industrial concerns, including FAMO, Junkers and Krupp. The total number of prisoners held at such camps exceeded many tens of thousands. [http://www.rogermoorhouse.com/article1.html]

Throughout most of World War II Breslau was not close to the fighting. The city became haven for refugees, swelling in population to nearly one million [ [http://www.wroclaw.pl/m6852/ History of Wrocław ] ] .

In February 1945 the Soviet Red Army approached the city. Gauleiter Karl Hanke declared the city a "Festung" (fortress), i.e. a stronghold to be held at all costs. Concentration camp prisoners were forced to help build new fortifications (see Arbeitseinsatz). In one area, the workers were ordered to construct a military airfield intended for use in resupplying the fortress, while the entire residential district along the Kaiserstraße (now Plac Grunwaldzki) was razed. The authorities threatened to shoot anyone who refused to do their assigned labour. Eyewitnesses estimated that some 13,000 died under enemy fire on the airfield alone. In the end, one of the few planes that ever used it was that of the fleeing Gauleiter Hanke.Davies, Moorhouse, p. 31]

Hanke finally lifted a ban on the evacuation of women and children, when it was almost too late. During his poorly organised evacuation in early March 1945, around 18,000 people froze to death, mostly children and babies, in icy snowstorms and -20°C weather. Some 200,000 civilians, less than a third of the pre-war population, remained in the city, because the railway connections to the west were damaged or overloaded.

By the end of the Siege of Breslau, 50% of the old town, 90% of the western and southern and 10-30% of the northern and northeastern quarters of the city had been destroyed. 40,000 inhabitants, including forced labourers, lay dead in the ruins of homes and factories. After a siege of nearly three months, "Fortress Breslau" surrendered on May 7 1945. It was one of the last major cities in Germany to fall. [ [http://www.wratislavia.net/festung.htm Festung Breslau (Wrocław Fortress) siege by the Soviet Army - photo gallery] ]

Poland

Along with almost all of Lower Silesia, post-war Wrocław became part of Poland under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. It became the biggest city of the, so called, "Recovered Territories". Most remaining German inhabitants fled or were expelled to one of the two post-war German states between 1945 and 1949. However, as was the case with other Lower Silesian cities, a considerable German presence remained in Wrocław until the late 1950s; the city's last German school closed in 1963.

The population of Wrocław was soon increased by resettlement of Poles forming part of postwar repatriation of Poles (1944–1946) (75%) as well as the forced deportations from Polish lands annexed by the Soviet Union in the east (25%) including from cities such as Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), Stanisławów (now Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine), Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania), and Grodno (now Hrodna, Belarus).

After the destruction during the Siege of Breslau the city was further destroyed by vandalism, fire, and the raising and dismantling of factories, and material assets by the Soviet Union. The economic potential of the city was decreased to 40% of the prewar situation. [Thum, p.183] Wroclaw was further weakened by the so called "Szaber", which transferred goods to Central Poland, and the campaign “bricks for Warsaw” by the Polish government ten years later, which provided reconstruction material for the leveled Old Town of the Polish capital. This loss of historic structures was irreversible and the consequences are still visible today. [Thum, p.200]

The rebuilding of the town was characterized by a mix of polonization and degermanization, which led to reconstruction and destruction. Gothic architecture was painstakingly restored, while testimonies of later eras were often neglected or destroyed. The process of degermanization also included the removal and destruction of all German monuments, [Thum, p.382] and the elimination of inscriptions, even centuries-old on epitaphs and in churches. [Thum, p.377] Between 1970 and 1972 all German cemeteries were destroyed. [Thum, p.390]

In July 1997, the city was heavily affected by a flood of the Oder River, the worst flooding in post-war Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Around one third of the city's area stood under water. [ [http://miasta.gazeta.pl/wroclaw/5,44548,1501462.html 1997 great flood of Oder River - photo gallery] ] An earlier equally devastating flood of the river took place in 1903. [ [http://www.breslau-wroclaw.de/de/breslau/postcard/projektor/print.php?showId=1000 1903 great flood of the Oder river - photo gallery] ]

Historical populations

References