[Poland]-Two photos per post

[Urbanista1]

I don't know where you get these pictures, but I really enjoy them. I'm learning so much about this unique country. Thanks again.

[DocentX]

Szczecin



Szczecin (German: Stettin); Latin: Stetinum) - is the capital city of West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of the 2005 census the city had a total population of 420,638. In 2007 its population was 407,811.

Szczecin is located on the Oder River, south of the Lagoon of Szczecin and the Bay of Pomerania. The city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of Oder and on several large islands between western and eastern branch of the river. Szczecin borders with town of Police, seat of the Police County, situated at an estuary of the Oder River.

The city evolved from an early medieval Pomeranian stronghold, which in 1243 was merged with two adjacent German settlements, creating the present-day Old Town. At the site of the former stronghold, a castle was built as a residence of the Griffin dukes, who ruled the Duchy of Pomerania until 1637. In addition to the castle, the Brick Gothic churches were built in the medieval era. These landmarks still dominate the skyline and can be assessed via the European Route of Brick Gothic. Three important treaties were concluded in the town, the Treaty of Stettin (1570) ending the Northern Seven Years' War, the Treaty of Stettin (1630) settling the conditions of Swedish occupation of the Duchy of Pomerania during the Thirty Years' War, and the Treaty of Stettin (1653) settling the border between Brandenburg-Prussian and Swedish Pomerania after the war.

Stettin remained with Sweden until the Treaty of Stockholm (1720), when it was integrated into the Brandenburg-Prussian part of Pomerania. From 1815 to 1945, the city was the capital of both the reorganized Prussian Province of Pomerania and of its central government region. Stettin became the largest and most industrial city of the province, and the surrounding towns and villages were subsequently amalgamated. After the Second World War, the city was annexed by Poland, and its inhabitants fled or were forcibly expelled. Subsequently, the devastated town was rebuilt by Polish settlers. Szczecin became the capital of the Szczecin Voivodeship, which in 1999 was merged into the West Pomeranian Voivodeship.

The name of Szczecin, its neighbourhood locations and oldest districts is considered to be of Slavic origins.

The history of Szczecin began in the 8th century, when West Slavs settled Pomerania and erected a 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 and Piast rulers took control of parts of Pomerania between the 960s and 1005, but not of the lower Oder region. Subsequent Polish rulers, the Holy Roman Empire and the Liutician federation aimed at control of the territory.

After the decline of neighboring regional center Wolin in the 12th century, the settlement 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 and the 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.

Polish superiority 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 Anselm of Havelberg and bishop Konrad of Meißen sieged 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.

After the Battle of Verchen in 1164, Stettin duke Bogislaw I became a vassal of the Saxony's Henry the Lion. In 1173, Stettin castellan Wartislaw II could not resist a Danish attack and became vassal of Denmark. In 1181, duke Bogislaw I of Stettin became a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1185, the dukes were again vassals of Denmark. The burgh was manned with a Danish force and reconstructed in 1190. The empire restored her superiority in the Battle of Bornhöved in 1227.

In the second half of the 12th century, a group of German tradesmen ("multus populus Teutonicorum" from various parts of the Holy Roman Empire) settled in the city around St. Jacob's Church, which was donated in 1180 by Beringer, a trader from Bamberg, and consecrated in 1187. Hohenkrug (now in Szczecin-Struga) was the first village in the Duchy of Pomerania clearly recorded as German (villa teutonicorum) in 1173. German settlement (Ostsiedlung) accelerated in Pomerania during the 13th century. Duke Barnim of Pomerania granted a local government charter to this community in 1237, separating the German settlement from the Slavic community settled around the St. Nicholas Church in the neighborhood of Kessin (Polish: Chyzin). In the charter, the Slavs were put under German jurisdiction.

When Barnim granted Stettin Magdeburg Law in 1243, the old Slavic settlement with its burgh was included within the city limits, which is exceptional for Pomeranian towns usually not comprising former Slavic settlements or burghs, though sometimes founded in close proximity. The former Slavic settlement was dissolved when, after the town was placed under German town law, the duke had to promise to level the burgh in 1249. Most Slavic inhabitants were resettled to two new suburbia (German: Wieken) north and south of the town. Last records of Slavs in Stettin are from the 14th century, when a Slavic bath (1350) and bakery are recorded, and within the walls, Slavs lived in a street named Schulzenstrasse. By the end of the century, the remaining Slavs had been assimilated.

In 1249, Barnim granted town law also the town of Damm (also Altdamm) on the eastern bank of the Oder, which only on 15 October 1939 was merged to neighboring Stettin and is now the Szczecin-Dąbie neighborhood. This town had been built on the site of a former Pomeranian burg, "Vadam" or "Dambe", which Boleslaw had destroyed during his 1121 campaign.

Stettin joined the Hanseatic League in 1278. The anti-Slavic policies of German merchants and craftsmen intensified in this period, resulting in bans on people of Slavic descent joining craft guilds, or even bans against public usage of native Slavic language. In Szczecin, richer Slavic citizens were forcefully stripped of their possessions which were awarded to Germans.

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.

The early deaths of several Pomeranian dukes in the beginning 17th century gave rise to superstitions, resulting in the witch trial and conviction of 72-year old noble Sidonia von Borcke in 1620. She was decapitated and her body burned in Stettin, outside the mill gate. Bogislaw XIV, who resided in Stettin since 1620, became the sole, and last Griffin duke when Philipp Julius died in 1625. Before the Thirty Years' War reached Pomerania, Stettin as all of the duchy declined economically due to the sinking importance of the Hanseatic League and a conflict between Stettin and Frankfurt (Oder).

Since the Treaty of Stettin of 1630, the town along with most of Pomerania was allied to and occupied by the Swedish Empire, who 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. In 1720, after the Great Northern War, the Swedes were forced to cede the city to King Frederick William I of Prussia. Stettin developed into a major Prussian city and became part of the Prussian-led German Empire in 1871.

The Polish population numbered 3,000 people, including a few wealthy industrialists and merchants, before World War I. Among them was Kazimierz Pruszak, director of industrial works Gollnow, and a Polish patriot who predicted eventual return of Szczecin to Poland.

In 1935 the German Wehrmacht made Stettin the headquarters for Wehrkreis II, which controlled the military units in all of Mecklenburg and Pomerania. It was also the Area Headquarters for units stationed at Stettin I and II; Swinemünde; Greifswald; and Stralsund.

In 1939 Stettin had about 400,000 inhabitants, the surrounding villages were included into "Groß-Stettin". It was Germany's third-biggest seaport (after Hamburg and Bremen) and was of great importance for the supply and trade of Berlin. Cars of the Stoewer automobile company were produced in Stettin from 1899 - 1945.

In the interwar period the Polish presence fell from 3,000 people to 2,000 people. Nevertheless the Polish minority remained active despite repressions. A number of Poles were members of Union of Poles in Germany, a Polish scouts team was established. Additionally a Polish school was created where Polish language was taught. Repressions, intensified especially after Adolf Hitler came to power led to closing of the school. Members of Polish community who took part in cultural and political activities were persecuted and even murdered. In 1938 the head of Szczecin’s Union of Poles unit Stanisław Borkowski was imprisoned in Oranienburg. In 1939 all Polish organisations in Szczecin were disbanded by German authorities and during the war teachers from Polish school, Golisz and Omieczyński murdered.

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.

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 synthetic silk factory near Szczecin. Next wave of slave workers was brought in 1940 in addition to PoWs who were used to work in agricultural industry. According to German police reports from 1940 the Polish population in the city reached 15,000 people, while 25,000 foreigners were registered in general.

In February 1940, the Jews of Stettin were deported to the Lublin reservation. International press reports emerged writing how the Nazis forced Jews regardless of age, condition and gender to sign away all property-including wedding rings-and loaded on trains escorted by SA and SS. Due to publicity of the event, German institutions ordered such actions in the future to be made in a way not arousing public notice.

During the war 135 work camps for slave workers were established in the city. Most of the slave workers were Poles, besides them Czechs, Italians, Frenchmen and Belgians as well Dutch were served in the camps.

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, seaport and industries. In April 1945 the authorities of the city issued an order of evacuation and most of the city’s German population fled.

The Soviet Red Army captured the city on 26 April 1945. Many of the city's inhabitants fled before its capture, and Stettin was virtually deserted when it fell, with only 6,000 Germans in the city when Polish authorities took control. In the following month the Polish administration was forced to leave again two times, finally the permanent handover occurred on 5 July 1945. In the meantime part of the German population had returned, believing it might become part of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany and the Soviet authorities had already appointed the German Communists Erich Spiegel and Erich Wiesner as mayors. Stettin is located mostly west of the Oder river, which was considered to become Poland's new border. Because of the returnees, the German population of the town swelled to 84,000 again. The mortality rate was at 20%, primarily due to starvation. However, Stettin and the mouth of the Oder River (German: Stettiner Zipfel), also became Polish as already stated in Treaty signed on 26 VII 1944 between Soviet Union and PKWN and confirmed during Potsdam Conference. On 4 October 1945, the decisive land border of Poland was laid out west of the 1945 line, but excluded the Police (Pölitz) area, the Oder river itself and the Szczecin port, which remained under Soviet administration. The Oder river was handed over to Polish administration in September 1946, and the port was subsequently handed over between February 1946 and May 1954.

In 1945 the Polish community in Stettin consisted of forced labourers from the General government. Contemporary to the expulsion of the German population, Stettin was resettled with Poles. Additional Poles were moved to the city from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. This settlement process was coordinated by the city of Poznań, and Stettin's name was restored to the Polish name Szczecin. In 1947, after Operation Vistula, a significant number of Ukrainians came to Szczecin, having been forced by the Communist government to leave eastern Poland.

The new citizens of Szczecin rebuilt and extended the city's industry and industrial areas, as well as its cultural heritage, although efforts were hampered by the authorities of Communist Poland. Szczecin became a major Polish industrial centre and an important seaport (particularly for Silesian coal) for both Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. The city witnessed anti-communist revolts in 1970 and 1980 and participated in the growth of the Solidarity movement during the 1980s. Since 1999 Szczecin has been the capital of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship.

Szczecin's architectural style is mainly influenced by those of the last half of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century: Academic art and Art Nouveau. In many areas built after 1945, especially in the city centre, which had been destroyed due to Allied bombing, social realism is prevalent.

Urban planning of Szczecin is unusual. The first thing observed by a newcomer is abundance of green areas: parks and avenues – wide streets with trees planted in the island separating opposite traffic (where often tram tracks are laid); and roundabouts. Thus, Szczecin's city plan resembles that of Paris. This is because Szczecin was rebuilt in the 1880s according to a design by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who had redesigned Paris under Napoléon III.

This course of designing streets in Szczecin is still used, as many recently built (or modified) city areas include roundabouts and avenues.

Within Szczecin's boundaries is part of the protected area called Szczecin Landscape Park in the forest of Puszcza Bukowa.

[DocentX]

Szczecin

[shinzen]

Thanks DocentX, great pictures!

[Spellshock]

post more pictures and less info copied from Wikipedia that no one reads

[DocentX]

Szczecin