Zielona Góra (; ; ) is the largest city in Lubusz Voivodeship, located in western Poland, with 140,403 inhabitants (). The region is closely associated with vineyards and holds an annual Wine Fest. Zielona Góra is one of the two capital cities of Lubusz Voivodeship, hosting the province's elected assembly, while the seat of the centrally appointed governor is in the city of Gorzów Wielkopolski.
In 1222 Duke Henry the Bearded from the Piast dynasty brought the first settlers to the area. In 1323 Zielona Góra was granted town privileges. The town was incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1506 and became part of the Habsburg Empire in 1526. It experienced a wave of witch trials in the 17th century. As a result of the First Silesian War, the city became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1742. It then was part of the North German Confederation and the German Reich until the end of World War II in 1945, when it became part of Poland.
Toponymy In the Silesian language, the city is called (in Steuer's Silesian alphabet) or ; using the Silesian primer alphabet: or ; in Silesian German, the city was called .
In the 16th century, pseudo-historical Latin names appeared for the city, such as Prasia Elysiorum and Thalloris.Tomasz Kamusella, The Dynamics of the Policies of Ethnic Cleansing in Silesia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Budapest. Open Society Institute. 1999. p. 70.
History Middle Ages
The first settlement in the area of Zielona Góra was built in the valley near the Złota Łącza stream during the reign of the Polish ruler Mieszko I. The oldest settlement was agricultural. It later developed into a trading point along routes from Poznań to Żagań and further to Lusatia. The written records of the Slavic settlement date to 1222 and an increase of its population by Henry the Bearded. Other documents date the settlement to 1302.Weczerka, p. 164
The region received an influx of German burghers in the second half of the 13th century during the medieval Ostsiedlung.Westermann, p. 74 In 1323, the settlement became a city with Crossener Recht, a variation of Magdeburg rights. The earliest mention of the town's coat of arms is from 1421, although it is believed to have been arranged since the beginning of the 14th century.Hupp, p. 154 A document in the town archive of Thorn (Toruń) dating from before 1400 used a sigil with the name GRVNINBERG, an early form of the German name Grünberg.
In 1294, Duke Henryk III of the Duchy of Głogów, founded a church in honour of Saint Hedwig, the High Duchess consort of Poland and patron saint of Silesia. Now designated a co-cathedral, it is the oldest building in the city. A wooden castle near the city, built ca. 1272, was the residence of Duke John of Ścinawa from 1358 to 1365. Janusz had ceded his lands to Duke Henry V of Iron.Weczerka, p. 165 In 1477 the town defeated a 5,000-strong army from neighbouring Brandenburg which attempted to seize it during the succession war to the Duchy of Głogów. In 1488, Duke John II of Żagań, destroyed the castle to prevent his enemies from using it.
The deposition of Duke John II of Żagań in 1488 marked the end of the long rule of the Piast dynasty in the Duchy of Głogów and the city of Zielona Góra. Later on, the duchy was ruled by the future Kings of Poland John I Albert and Sigismund I the Old. It was integrated with the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1506, although Polish king Sigismund I the Old still claimed his rights to the city in 1508.
Early modern period The city flourished during the reign of Sigismund I the Old. In 1505 Sigismund issued a privilege allowing the sale of cloth products from Zielona Góra throughout Poland.Stanisław J. Kozłowski, Zielona Góra. Baza ekonomiczna i powiązania zewnętrzne, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wrocław, 1977, p. 13 In 1641, King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland confirmed these rights. Another important branch of the city's economy at this time was winemaking.Stanisław J. Kozłowski, Zielona Góra. Baza ekonomiczna i powiązania zewnętrzne, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wrocław, 1977, p. 14
The city converted to Lutheranism during the Protestant Reformation through the efforts of Paul Lemberg, Abbot of Sagan.Weczerka, p. 166 The city declined during the 17th century, especially during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and following decades. Grünberg endured plundering, debts, emigration of burghers, and fires. In 1651 during the Counter Reformation, the Habsburg monarchy of Austria reintroduced Roman Catholicism and suppressed Protestantism.
The city was subjected to heavy Germanisation and German craftsmen banned Poles from attending any practice allowing them to work as members of guilds. A rebellion caused by conscription ended with many Poles being imprisoned. From 1640, witch trials took place, the number of which increased significantly in 1663–1665. As a result, in 1669 the local court was deprived of the right to impose the death penalty on women accused of witchcraft.
The city was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia by the 1742 Treaty of Breslau which ended the First Silesian War. The Prussians introduced religious toleration, leading to the construction of the Protestant parish church Zum Garten Christ from 1746 to 1747. Catholic Poles were later discriminated against, however. In 1758, during the Seven Years' War, POWs brought the plague to the city.
Late modern period The city's textile industry was booming by the end of the 1700s. By 1800, large parts of the city walls had been dismantled to allow the city to expand. The textile industry suffered during the 1820s while adjusting to the Industrial Revolution and an import ban by the Russian Empire. The city's economy began to recover after many clothiers emigrated to Congress Poland. English industrialists were among the 19th-century economic reformers of Grünberg.
During industrialisation, many Germans from the countryside moved to large industrial cities and a large number of Poles came to German cities to work as well. The Polish population was pushed by Germanisation to rural villages, although some remained in the town contributed to the economic revival of the city. A Polish church remained functional until 1809 and the Polish Craftsmen Association (Towarzystwo Polskich Rzemieślników) was established by Kazimierz Lisowski in 1898;Znani zielonogórzanie, Verbum, Zielona Góra, 1996, p. 124 it existed till 1935 when Lisowski was murdered by the Gestapo. In 1923 a branch of the Union of Poles in Germany was established. In 1932 the German authorities did not allow the establishment of a Polish school.
Since 1816 after the Napoleonic Wars, Grünberg was administered within the district Landkreis Grünberg in the Province of Silesia. In 1871 it became part of the German Empire during the unification of Germany. English industrialists purchased some of the city's textile factories during the 1870s and 1880s. By 1885, most of Grünberg's population of 14,396 were Protestants.Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 1885 The city was first connected to the Glogau (Głogów)-Grünberg-Guben railway line in 1871, followed by connections to Christianstadt (Nowogród Bobrzański) in 1904, Wollstein (Wolsztyn) in 1905, and a local line to Sprottau (Szprotawa) in 1911. In 1919, Grünberg became part of the Province of Lower Silesia within Weimar Germany. On 1 April 1922 it became a district-free city. This status was revoked on 1 October 1933 while part of Nazi Germany. During the Kristallnacht in 1938, the Germans destroyed the synagogue.
World War II
During World War II the German Nazi government operated 42 forced labour camps in armaments production in the city, intended initially for Polish men and women, and later also Russians, Ukrainians, Britons, French and Italians. There were also three subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp within the modern city limits for Jewish men and women. In January 1945, a German-perpetrated death march of Jewish women from Sława reached the city, and the remaining prisoners were also sent on death marches westwards.
On 11 February 1945, the authorities of Grünberg received a report about Russians in the vicinity of Neusalz. Wehrmacht soldiers and civilians organizing defense in cities were threatened with being cut off from the south-west. In this situation, the preparations of Grünberg for defense by regular troops were interrupted. On 11 February the Yalta Conference ended and it was not known exactly what would happen to Grünberg. On 12 February the most important German offices and management boards of larger enterprises were evacuated beyond the Lusatian Neisse.
On 13 February other residents were encouraged to leave the city through megaphones. The last train left in the evening. One of the previously sent transports was hit by an English air attack in Dresden and, according to some, about 900 inhabitants of Grünberg died at the local railway station. On 14 February. Hitler's ardent supporters called on the Hitler Youth to defend themselves. Previously, the so-called Sonderkommando, which from the morning started blowing up strategic objects and immobilizing various technical devices, e.g. power plants, gas plants and waterworks.
The defenders set up two machine guns on the Branibor Hill. Having heard about the imminent threat from Neusalz, they withdrew to the city center. On the other hand, the supporters of a quick surrender, including the worker Alfred Kuntzel, the Nazi Friedrich Brucks and the communist Karl Laube formed a surrender committee. The Soviet Red Army occupied Grünberg with little fighting on 14 February 1945, during World War II.
The Red Army headed by the Third Army began artillery fire at 13:00 from cannons positioned on the hills south of Lawaldau (Racula). After reaching the northern border of this village, the reconnaissance units moved towards the city. Some of them, following an arc, ended up in Lawaldau, others in Altkessel (Stary Kisielin) and even in Jany, and still others took over Heinersdorf (). The main unit entered the city along Breslauerstraße (today Wrocławska Street). Soon, small groups of Red Army soldiers began to appear from the side of Freystädter Chaussee (Kożuchowska Street). The 3rd Army established their headquarters in the Poviat Office building.
In that period, about 500 people committed suicide. The following month, according to the post-war Potsdam Agreement, the town was placed under Polish administration under territorial compensation for the territories of former Eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. The remaining German inhabitants who had not fled their homes from the Eastern Front were expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement.
The town was partly resettled with Poles transferred from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. The city was briefly renamed Zielonogóra in 1945, before the Commission for the Determination of Place Names officially adopted Zielona Góra, a name first attested in a Polish-language schoolbook published in 1847. The 18th-century Protestant church was reconsecrated as a Catholic church (Kościół Matki Boskiej Częstochowskiej). The city's first post-war mayor was Tomasz Sobkowiak, a former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp during the German occupation of Poland. He is remembered as an efficient administrator, with a friendly attitude towards Germans.Znani zielonogórzanie, Verbum, Zielona Góra, 1996, p. 183–185
Recent history
From 1950 to 1998 Zielona Góra was the capital of the Zielona Góra Voivodeship. The city's population rebounded quickly after the war. By 1950 it had more inhabitants than at any point in its history.
The University of Zielona Góra was opened in 2001. The city is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Zielona Góra-Gorzów.
Geography