Świebodzin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Świebodzin (German: Schwiebus) is a town in western Poland with 22,700 inhabitants (1995). It is located seventy kilometers from the German border, 130 kilometers from Berlin, 195 kilometers from Wrocław, 110 kilometers from Poznań, and 39 kilometers from Zielona Góra, one of the capitals of the Lubusz Voivodeship.

Since the Local Government Reorganization Act of 1998, Świebodzin has been situated in the Lubusz Voivodeship. From 1975-1998, it was part of the Zielona Góra Voivodeship.

Świebodzin's town hall

[edit] History

The earliest historical records mentioning Świebodzin (Swebosin) date from the beginning of the fourteenth century. The town sprang up at the intersection of the old trade routes linking Silesia with Pomerania and a branch of the route running from Lusatia to Greater Poland. In the beginning, the town was probably a defensive fortification, built on the western banks of Lake Zamecko at a slight elevation. The town wall was ringed by settlements, which were much later incorporated into the city itself.

Thanks to the town's location at an important crossroads, it developed economically, particularly in the areas of commerce and craft production. In the fifteenth and particularly in the sixteenth century, Świebodzin was known for manufacturing beer and exporting cloth. It also developed various urban handicrafts, manufacturing goods for local purposes (the weekly market), as well as the salt, wool, grain, horse, and beef trades.

In these early years of its existence, Świebodzin was ruled by the Dukes of Żagań, but it passed to the Habsburg Monarchy, with Silesia, in the sixteenth century. Representatives of well-known Silesian families, including the von Knobbelsdorffs, among others, held authority and power in the town as district starosts and castle commanders on behalf of the Hapsburgs.

The town's population was most likely of mixed Polish and German ethnicity at this time, but the ethnic Germans became dominant in the early modern period. During the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, the town expanded economically, spatially, and demographically, in spite of local conflicts and the turbulent period of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.

After the victory of Frederick the Great of Prussia in the Silesian campaign of the War of Austrian Succession(1740-1742), Świebodzin came under Prussian administration. By this time it was better known by its German name, Schwiebus. Its territory was merged with the Züllichau (Sulechów) region to its south to form the Züllichau-Schwiebus District in 1817. Schwiebus remained in this territorial form until 1945.

Annexation by Prussia brought about a sharp economic crisis, as the tradesmen of Schwiebus were cut off from many of their traditional markets and outlets. The Prussian authorities also increased local taxes while limiting the town's autonomy. The period of revolutions and Napoleonic wars brought about a depression in the cloth trade and limited the economic prospects of the town.

The town's extended stagnation ended with the Stein-Hardenberg economic reforms and the beginning of the industrial revolution in the mid-nineteenth century. As a medium-sized town and hub of the local market, lying at the intersection of several routes of communication, including the new Frankfurt (Oder)-Poznań railway line, Schwiebus became a center of local industry (textile, machinery, and agricultural food processing). The town was modernized at this time with improved traffic arteries, renovation of the town hall, reconstruction of the church of St. Michael, and the construction of several new public service buildings (law courts, high school, gas works, and post office). Schwiebus contributed to and benefitted from the economic expansion of Imperial Germany in the years before 1914.

A new period of economic stagnation began after Germany's defeat in World War I because of territorial changes in central Europe. In the interwar period, Schwiebus found itself in the eastern outskirts of Germany, just twenty kilometers west of the new German-Polish border. During the 1920s, Germany experienced two major economic crises. First came the hyperinflation of the early 1920s and then the Great Depression beginning in 1929. The citizens of Schwiebus suffered severe economic hardship during this time. As was the case elsewhere in Germany, many of the town's citizens were dissatisfied with their lot and turned to political extremism.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler of the National Socialist German Workers' Party came to power in Germany. Hitler quickly moved to consolidate and expand his power, adopting severe repressive measures against his political opposition and the German Jewish minority. However, Hitler remained popular with the public because he oversaw the German economic recovery of the 1930s. The new government sponsored many public works programs and a massive rearmament campaign which included the construction of an extensive fortified line of bunkers, the "Międzyrzecz Fortified Region", twenty kilometers north of Schwiebus.

The rearmament campaign was a necessary precondition for the wars Hitler planned to establish German dominance in Europe. World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. The war initially went very well for Germany, but after the defeat of the German Wehrmacht by the Soviet Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad, the tides began to turn. The war brought first hardship to Schwiebus and then disaster. In early January 1945, the Red Army began its final advance through western Poland towards Germany, reaching Schwiebus before the end of the month. By this time, many of its inhabitants had already fled, fearing the Soviet revenge for the atrocities perpetrated by the German occupation forces against the civilian population of the Soviet Union. The town was largely spared from destruction during the fighting, as the bulk of the Soviet forces passed to the north and south on their way to Berlin.

However, at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the leaders of the Allies, represented by Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union quietly decided that most German territory east of the Oder River would be transferred to Poland as compensation for the annexation of eastern Polish lands by the Soviet Union. At the mid-summer Potsdam Conference, taking place shortly after Germany's defeat, the leaders of the Allied Powers officially designated the Oder-Neisse line as the new border between Germany and Poland and consented to the expulsion of the German populations east of these two rivers.

With the transfer of sovereignty from Germany to Poland, German Schwiebus became Polish Świebodzin. From 1945 to 1947, the German population of the town was expelled, often by force. Thousands of Poles, including expellees from Poland's eastern territories which had been annexed by the Soviet Union, liberated slave laborers from Germany, and refugees from Poland's ruined cities, settled in Świebodzin. These early postwar years were difficult ones for the inhabitants of Świebodzin. Many of the Polish newcomers were poorly educated refugees from rural areas and lacked familiarity with the mercantile and industrial activities which had previously provided the town's economic foundation. Many of the surrounding towns and villages had been more severely damaged during the war and it took some years before the flow of trade recovered. Furthermore, the new Polish government adopted the communist economic system and enacted disruptive, sweeping social, economic, and political reforms. Świebodzin's economic recovery had also been hampered by the Soviet policy of dismantling industrial facilities in conquered areas, and shipping components back to the Soviet Union. In this way, Świebodzin lost some of its prewar industries, particularly its breweries.

Slowly the economic situation improved and the new Polish settlers adapted to postwar circumstances. Świebodzin expanded in the period under communist rule, and its population doubled. New neighborhoods were built to the south of the railway line, composed largely of pre-fabricated apartment buildings. The Communist Economic Planning Commissions chose to develop the electromechanical, furniture, and timber industries in Świebodzin. Products were exported throughout Poland and to the other states in the Soviet Bloc.

However, with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the communist system in 1989, Świebodzin once again experienced economic upheaval. With some difficulties, the local economy was adapted to the international market economy. New industries and businesses were established, but others were unable to compete in the new environment and went bankrupt. Many more goods became available in local shops, but at prices that many inhabitants could not afford. In recent years, a few foreign-owned discount supermarkets, pizzerias, hotels, and other businesses have been established in the town, taking advantage of the proximity of Poland's main east-west motorway. With the economic changes there have also been political changes. A series of non-communist local governments have been elected since 1989.

Świebodzin's immediate future is unclear. Poland's membership in the European Union has brought the country many benefits but has brought difficulties in some economic sectors. Because of Poland's high unemployment rate, many young people from Świebodzin have emigrated to Great Britain, Ireland, and Sweden, where they can work legally and earn much more money than is possible in Poland. This trend may be the beginning of a brain-drain that small towns in Poland, such as Świebodzin, can ill-afford.