Kołobrzeg
Kołobrzeg is a port and spa city in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in north-western Poland, with about 47,000 inhabitants. Kołobrzeg is located on the Parsęta River on the south coast of the Baltic Sea. It is the capital of Kołobrzeg County.
During the Early Middle Ages, the Pomeranian tribes established a settlement at the site of modern-day Budzistowo. In 1000, when the city was part of Poland, it became the seat of the Diocese of Kołobrzeg, one of five oldest Polish dioceses. During the High Middle Ages, the town was expanded with an additional settlement inhabited by German settlers a few kilometers north of the stronghold and chartered with Lübeck law, which settlement eventually superseded the original Pomeranian settlement. The city later joined the Hanseatic League. Within the Duchy of Pomerania the town was the urban center of the secular reign of the prince-bishops of Kamień and their residence throughout the High and Late Middle Ages. In the modern age, it passed to Brandenburg and Prussia, and withstood a Polish-French siege in 1807. In the late 19th century it became a popular spa town at the Baltic Sea. In 1945, Polish and Soviet troops captured the town. Kołobrzeg, now part of post-war Poland and devastated in the preceding battle, was rebuilt, but lost its status as the regional center to the nearby city of Koszalin.
Etymology
"Kołobrzeg" translates as 'by the shore'; koło means 'by', and brzeg means 'shore'. Its original name, Cholberg, was taken by Polish and Kashubian linguists in the 19th and 20th centuries to reconstruct the name. After German settlement, "Cholberg" evolved into "Kolberg".History
Pomeranian stronghold at modern Budzistowo
According to Piskorski and Kempke, Slavic and Lechitic immigration reached Farther Pomerania in the 7th century. First Slavic settlements in the vicinity of Kołobrzeg were centered around nearby deposits of salt and date to 6th and 7th century.In the late 9th century, the Pomeranian tribes erected a fortified settlement at the site of modern part of Kołobrzeg county called Budzistowo near modern Kołobrzeg, replacing nearby Bardy-Świelubie, a multi-ethnic emporium, as the center of the region. The Parseta valley, where both the emporium and the stronghold were located, was one of the Pomeranians' core settlement areas. The stronghold consisted of a fortified burgh with a suburbium.
The Pomeranians mined salt in salt pans located in two downstream hills. They also engaged in fishing, and used the salt to conserve foodstuffs, primarily herring, for trade. Other important occupations were metallurgy and smithery, based on local iron ore reserves, other crafts like the production of combs from horn, and in the surrounding areas, agriculture. Important sites in the settlement were a place for periodical markets and a tavern, mentioned as forum et taberna in 1140.
In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Budzistowo stronghold was the largest of several smaller ones in the Persante area, and as such is thought to have functioned as the center of the local Pomeranian subtribe. By the turn from the 10th to the 11th century, the smaller burghs in the Parseta area were given up. With the area coming under the control of the Polish Duke Mieszko I, only two strongholds remained and underwent an enlargement, the one at Budzistowo and a predecessor of later Białogard. These developments were most likely associated with the establishment of Polish power over this part of the Baltic coast. In the 10th century, the trade of salt and fish led to the development of the settlement into a town.
Piast Poland and conversion
During Polish rule of the area in the late 10th century, the chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg mentions salsa Cholbergiensis as the see of the Bishopric of Kołobrzeg, set up during the Congress of Gniezno in 1000 and placed under the Archdiocese of Gniezno. The congress was organized by Polish duke Bolesław Chrobry and Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, and also led to the establishment of bishoprics in Kraków and Wrocław, connecting the territories of the Polish state. It was an important event not only in religious, but also political dimension in the history of the early Polish state, as it unified and organized medieval Polish territories.The missionary efforts of bishop Reinbern were not successful, the Pomeranians revolted in 1005 and regained political and spiritual independence. In 1013 Bolesław Chrobry removed his troops from Pomerania in face of war with Holy Roman Emperor Henry III. The Polish–German war ended with Polish victory, which was confirmed by the 1018 Peace of Bautzen.
During his campaigns in the early 12th century, Bolesław III Wrymouth reacquired Pomerania for Poland, and made the local Griffin dynasty his vassals. The stronghold was captured by the Polish army in the winter of 1107/08, when the inhabitants including a duke surrendered without resistance. A previous Polish siege of the burgh had been unsuccessful; although the duke had fled the burgh, the Polish army was unable to break through the fortifications and the two gates. The army had however looted and burned the suburbium, which was not or only lightly fortified. The descriptions given by the contemporary chroniclers make it possible that a second, purely militarily used castle existed near the settlement, yet neither is this certain nor have archaeological efforts been able to locate traces thereof. In the 12th-century Polish chronicle Gesta principum Polonorum Kołobrzeg was named a significant and famous city.
During the subsequent Christianization of the area by Otto of Bamberg at the behest of Bolesław, a St. Mary's church was built. This marked the first beginnings of German influence in the area. After Bolesław's death, as a result of the fragmentation of Poland, the Duchy of Pomerania became independent, before the dukes became vassals of Denmark in 1185 and the Holy Roman Empire in 1227.
Besides St. Mary's, a St. John's church and a St. Petri's chapel were built.
A painting of the town of Kołobrzeg from the 13th century is located in the Museum of Polish Arms in the city.
From the late Middle Ages to the Thirty Years' War
During the Ostsiedlung, a settlement was founded by German settlers some kilometres off the site of the Slavic/Lechitic one. It was located within the boundaries of today's downtown of Kołobrzeg and some of the inhabitants of the Polish town moved to the new settlement. On 23 May 1255 it was chartered under Lübeck law by Duke Wartislaw III of Pomerania, and more settlers arrived, attracted by the duke. Hermann von Gleichen, German bishop of Kammin also supported the German colonisation of the region. The settlers received several privileges such as exemption from certain taxes and several benefits, making it difficult for the indigenous Pomeranian population to compete with Germans.Henceforth, the nearby former stronghold was turned into a village and renamed "Old Town", first documented in 1277 and used until 1945 when it was renamed "Budzistowo". A new St. Mary's church was built within the new town before the 1260s, while St. Mary's in the former Pomeranian stronghold was turned into a nuns' abbey. In 1277 St. Benedict's monastery for nuns was founded, which in the framework of the Pomeranian Reformation in 1545 was then changed into an educational institution for noble Protestant ladies.
Already in 1248, the Kammin bishops and the Pomeranian dukes had interchanged the terrae Stargard and Kolberg, leaving the bishops in charge of the latter. When in 1276 they became the sovereign of the town also, they moved their residence there, while the administration of the diocese was done from nearby Köslin. In 1345, the bishops became Imperial immediate dukes in their secular reign.
In 1361, the city joined the Hanseatic League. In 1446 it fought a battle against the nearby rival city of Koszalin.
When the property of the Bishopric of Kammin was secularized during the Protestant Reformation in 1534, their secular reign including the Kolberg area became intermediately ruled by a Lutheran titular bishop, before it was turned into a Sekundogenitur of the House of Pomerania.
In the 15th century the city traded with Scotland, Amsterdam and Scandinavia. Beer, salt, honey, wool and flour were exported, while merchants imported textiles from England, southern fruits, and cod liver oil. In the 16th century, the city reached 5,000 inhabitants. The indigenous Slavs in the city were discriminated, and their rights in trade and crafts were limited, with bans on performing certain types of professions and taking certain positions in the city, for instance in 1564 it was forbidden to admit native Slavs to the blacksmiths' guild.
During the Thirty Years' War, Kolberg was occupied by imperial forces from 1627 to 1630, and thereafter by Swedish forces.
Modern era: In Prussia
Kolberg, with most of Farther Pomerania, was granted to Brandenburg-Prussia in 1648 by the Treaty of Westphalia and, after the signing of the Treaty of Stettin, and in accordance with the Treaty of Grimnitz, was part of the Province of Pomerania. In the 1690s, French Huguenot immigrants and merchants from the Netherlands settled in the city, however, due to the bankruptcy of the merchants, the hired French preacher left for Warsaw in 1700, and several merchants went back to the Netherlands. It became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. In the 18th century, trade with Poland declined, while the production of textiles was developed. In 1761, during the Seven Years' War, the town was captured after three subsequent sieges by the Russian commander Peter Rumyantsev. At the end of the war, however, Kolberg was returned to Prussia.In the Napoleonic Wars, during Napoleon's invasion of Prussia during the War of the Fourth Coalition, the town was besieged from mid-March to 2 July 1807 by the Grande Armée and by insurgents from Poland against Prussian rule. As a result of forced conscription, some Poles were also among Prussian soldiers during the battle. The city's defense, led by then Lieutenant-Colonel August von Gneisenau, held out until the war was ended by the Treaty of Tilsit. Kolberg was returned to the Prussian province of Pomerania in 1815, after the final defeat of Napoleon; until 1872, it was administered within the Fürstenthum District, then it was within Landkreis Kolberg-Körlin.
Marcin Dunin, Archbishop of Poznań and Gniezno and Roman Catholic primate of Poland, was imprisoned for sedition by the Prussian authorities for ten months in 1839–1840 in the city and after his release, he tried to organise a chaplaincy for the many Polish soldiers stationed in Kolberg.
In the 19th century the city had a small but active Polish population that increased during the century to account for 1.5% of the population by 1905. The Polish community funded a Catholic school and the Church of Saint Marcin where masses were held in Polish. Dating back to 1261 Kolberg's Jewish population amounted to 528 people in 1887, rising to 580 two years later, and although many moved to Berlin after that date they numbered around 500 by the end of the Nineteenth century.
Between 1924 and 1935, the American-German painter Lyonel Feininger, a tutor at the Staatliches Bauhaus, visited Kolberg repeatedly and painted the cathedral and environs of the town.
In the May elections of 1933, the Nazi Party received by far the most votes, 9,842 out of 19,607 cast votes.
When the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, the Jewish community in Kolberg comprised 200 people, and the antisemitic repression by Germany's ruling party led several of them to flee the country. A Nazi newspaper, the Kolberger Beobachter, listed Jewish shops and business that were to be boycotted. Nazis also engaged in hate propaganda against Jewish lawyers, doctors, and craftsmen. At the end of 1935, Jews were banned from working in the city's health spas. During Kristallnacht, the Jewish synagogue and homes were destroyed, and in 1938 the local Jewish cemetery was vandalised, while a cemetery shrine was turned to stable by German soldiers. In 1938, all Jews in Kolberg, as all over Germany, were renamed in official German documents as "Israel" or "Sarah". In the beginning of 1939, Jews were banned from attending German schools and the entire adult population had its driving licenses revoked. After years of discrimination and harassment, local Jews were deported by the German authorities to concentration camps in 1940.