Gdynia
Gdynia is a city in northern Poland and a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. With a population of ca. 239,000, it is the 12th-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in the Pomeranian Voivodeship after Gdańsk. Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the Tricity with around one million inhabitants.
Historically and culturally part of Kashubia and Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia for centuries remained a small fishing village. By the 20th-century it attracted visitors as a seaside resort town. In 1926, Gdynia was granted city rights after which it enjoyed demographic and urban development, with a modernist cityscape. It became a major seaport city of Poland. In 1970, protests in and around Gdynia contributed to the rise of the Solidarity movement in nearby Gdańsk.
The port of Gdynia is a regular stopover on the cruising itinerary of luxury passenger ships and ferries travelling to Scandinavia. Gdynia's downtown, designated a historical monument of Poland in 2015, is an example of building an integrated European community and includes Functionalist architectural forms. It is also a candidate for the UNESCO World Heritage List. Its axis is based around 10 Lutego Street and connects the main train station with the Southern Pier. The city is also known for holding the annual Gdynia Film Festival. In 2013, Gdynia was ranked by readers of The News as Poland's best city to live in, and topped the national rankings in the category of "general quality of life". In 2021, the city entered the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and was named UNESCO City of Film.
History
Early history
The area of the later city of Gdynia shared its history with Pomerelia. In prehistoric times, it was the center of Oksywie culture; it was later populated by Lechites with minor Baltic Prussian influences. In the late 10th century, the region was united with the emerging state of Poland by its first historic ruler Mieszko I. During the reign of Bolesław II, the region seceded from Poland and became independent, to be reunited with Poland in 1116/1121 by Bolesław III. In 1209, the present-day district of Oksywie was first mentioned. Following the fragmentation of Poland, the region became part of the Duchy of Pomerania, which became separate from Poland in 1227, to be reunited in 1282. The first known mention of the name "Gdynia", as a Pomeranian fishing village dates back to 1253. The first church on this part of the Baltic Sea coast was built there. In 1309–1310, the Teutonic Order invaded and annexed the region from Poland. In 1380, the owner of the village which became Gdynia, Peter from Rusocin, gave the village to the Cistercian Order. In 1382, Gdynia became property of the Cistercian abbey in Oliwa. In 1454, King Casimir IV Jagiellon signed the act of reincorporation of the region to the Kingdom of Poland, and the Thirteen Years' War, the longest of all Polish-Teutonic wars, started. It ended in 1466, when the Teutonic Knights recognized the region as part of Poland. Administratively, Gdynia was located in the Pomeranian Voivodeship in the province of Royal Prussia in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland and later of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The present-day neighbourhood of Kolibki was the location of the Kolibki estate, purchased by King John III Sobieski in 1685.In 1772, Gdynia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the First Partition of Poland. Gdynia, under the Germanized name Gdingen, was included within the newly formed province of West Prussia and was expropriated from the Cistercian Order. In 1789, there were only 21 houses in Gdynia. Around that time Gdynia was so small that it was not marked on many maps of the period: it was about halfway from Oksywie and Mały Kack, now districts of Gdynia. In 1871, the village became part of the German Empire. In the early 20th century Gdynia was not a poor fishing village as it is sometimes described; it had become a popular tourist spot with several guest houses, restaurants, cafés, several brick houses and a small harbour with a pier for small trading ships. The first Kashubian mayor was Jan Radtke. It is estimated that around 1910 the population of Gdynia was 895 people.
Following World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence, and following the Treaty of Versailles, in 1920, Gdynia was re-integrated with the reborn Polish state. Simultaneously, the nearby city of Gdańsk and surrounding area was declared a free city and put under the League of Nations, though Poland was given economic liberties and requisitioned for matters of foreign representation.
Construction of the seaport
The decision to build a major seaport at Gdynia village was made by the Polish government in winter 1920, in the midst of the Polish–Soviet War. The authorities and seaport workers of the Free City of Danzig felt Poland's economic rights in the city were being misappropriated to help fight the war. German dockworkers went on strike, refusing to unload shipments of military supplies sent from the West to aid the Polish army, and Poland realized the need for a port city it was in complete control of, economically and politically.Construction of Gdynia seaport started in 1921 but, because of financial difficulties, it was conducted slowly and with interruptions. It was accelerated after the Sejm passed the Gdynia Seaport Construction Act on 23 September 1922. By 1923 a 550-metre pier, of a wooden tide breaker, and a small harbour had been constructed. Ceremonial inauguration of Gdynia as a temporary military port and fishers' shelter took place on 23 April 1923. The first major seagoing ship, the French Line steamer Kentucky, arrived on 13 August 1923 after being diverted because of a strike at Gdansk.
To speed up the construction works, the Polish government in November 1924 signed a contract with the French-Polish Consortium for Gdynia Seaport Construction. By the end of 1925, they had built a small seven-metre-deep harbour, the south pier, part of the north pier, a railway, and had ordered the trans-shipment equipment. The works were going more slowly than expected, however. They accelerated only after May 1926, because of an increase in Polish exports by sea, economic prosperity, the outbreak of the German–Polish trade war which reverted most Polish international trade to sea routes, and thanks to the personal engagement of Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, Polish Minister of Industry and Trade. By the end of 1930 docks, piers, breakwaters, and many auxiliary and industrial installations were constructed or started.
Trans-shipments rose from 10,000 tons to 2,923,000 tons. At this time Gdynia was the only transit and special seaport designed for coal exports.
In the years 1931–1939 Gdynia harbour was further extended to become a universal seaport. In 1938 Gdynia was the largest and most modern seaport on the Baltic Sea, as well as the tenth biggest in Europe. The trans-shipments rose to 8.7 million tons, which was 46% of Polish foreign trade. In 1938 the Gdynia shipyard started to build its first full-sea ship, the Olza.
Construction of the city
The city was constructed later than the seaport. In 1925 a special committee was inaugurated to build the city; city expansion plans were designed and city rights were granted in 1926, and tax privileges were granted for investors in 1927. The city started to grow significantly after 1928.A new railway station and the Post Office were completed. The State railways extended their lines, built bridges and also constructed a group of houses for their employees. Within a few years houses were built along some of road leading northward from the Free City of Danzig to Gdynia and beyond. Public institutions and private employers helped their staff to build houses.
In 1933 a plan of development providing for a population of 250,000 was worked out by a special commission appointed by a government committee, in collaboration with the municipal authorities. By 1939 the population had grown to over 120,000.
Gdynia during World War II (1939–1945)
During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, Gdynia was the site of fierce Polish defense. On 13 September 1939, the Germans carried out first arrests of local Poles in the southern part of the city, while the Polish defense was still ongoing in the northern part. On 14 September 1939, the Germans captured the entire city, and then occupied it until 1945. On 15–16 September, the Germans carried out further mass arrests of 7,000 Poles, while Polish soldiers still fought in nearby Kępa Oksywska. The German police surrounded the city and carried out mass searches of weapons. Arrested Poles were held and interrogated in churches, cinemas and halls, and then around 3,000 people were released until 18 September. The occupiers established several prisons and camps for Polish people, who were afterwards either deported to concentration camps or executed. Some Poles from Gdynia were executed by the Germans near Starogard Gdański in September 1939. In October and November 1939, the Germans carried out public executions of 52 Poles, including activists, bank directors and priests, in various parts of the city. In November 1939, the occupiers also murdered hundreds of Poles from Gdynia during the massacres in Piaśnica committed nearby as part of the Intelligenzaktion. Among the victims were policemen, officials, civil defenders of Gdynia, judges, court employees, the director and employees of the National Bank of Poland, merchants, priests, school principals, teachers, and students of local high schools. On the night of 10–11 November, the German security police carried out mass arrests of over 1,500 Poles in the Obłuże district, and then murdered 23 young men aged 16–20, in retaliation for breaking windows at the headquarters of the German security police. On 11 November, a German gendarme shot and killed two Polish boys who were collecting Polish books from the street, which were thrown out of the windows by new German settlers in the Oksywie district. The Germans renamed the city to Gotenhafen after the Goths, an ancient Germanic tribe, who had lived in the area. 10 Poles from Gdynia were also murdered by the Russians in the large Katyn massacre in April–May 1940.Some 50,000 Polish citizens were expelled to the General Government to make space for new German settlers in accordance with the Lebensraum policy. Local Kashubians who were suspected to support the Polish cause, particularly those with higher education, were also arrested and executed. The German gauleiter Albert Forster considered Kashubians of "low value" and did not support any attempts to create a Kashubian nationality. Despite such circumstances, local Poles, including Kashubians, organized Polish resistance groups, Kashubian Griffin, the exiled "Związek Pomorski" in the United Kingdom, and local units of the Home Army, Service for Poland's Victory and Gray Ranks. Activities included distribution of underground Polish press, smuggling data on German persecution of Poles and Jews to Western Europe, sabotage actions, espionage of the local German industry, and facilitating escapes of endangered Polish resistance members and British and French prisoners of war who fled from German POW camps via the city's port to neutral Sweden. The Gestapo cracked down on the Polish resistance several times, with the Poles either killed or deported to the Stutthof and Ravensbrück concentration camps. In 1943, local Poles managed to save some kidnapped Polish children from the Zamość region, by buying them from the Germans at the local train station.
File:ORP Błyskawica w nowym kamuflażu - 02-01-2012.jpg|thumb|ORP Błyskawica, Polish destroyer which served in World War II, now a museum ship
The harbour was transformed into a German naval base. The shipyard was expanded in 1940 and became a branch of the Kiel shipyard. The city became an important base, due to its being relatively distant from the war theater, and many German large ships—battleships and heavy cruisers—were anchored there. During 1942, Dr Joseph Goebbels authorized relocation of to Gotenhafen Harbour as a stand-in for during filming of the German-produced movie Titanic, directed by Herbert Selpin.
The Germans set up an Einsatzgruppen-operated penal camp in the Grabówek district, a transit camp for Allied marine POWs, a forced labour subcamp of the Stalag XX-B POW camp for several hundred Allied POWs at the shipyard, and two subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp, the first located in the Orłowo district in 1941–1942, the second, named Gotenhafen, located at the shipyard in 1944–1945.
The seaport and the shipyard both witnessed several air raids by the Allies from 1943 onwards, but suffered little damage. Gdynia was used during winter 1944–45 to evacuate German troops and refugees trapped by the Red Army. Some of the ships were hit by torpedoes from Soviet submarines in the Baltic Sea on the route west. The ship sank, taking about 9,400 people with her – the worst loss of life in a single sinking in maritime history. The seaport area was largely destroyed by withdrawing German troops and millions of encircled refugees in 1945 being bombarded by the Soviet military and the harbour entrance was blocked by the German battleship that had been brought to Gotenhafen for major repairs.