Szczytno

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Szczytno

(Flag)

Country	Poland
Voivodeship	Warmian-Masurian
Mayor	Paweł Bielinowicz
Area	9,96 km²
Population - city - urban - density	27 970 (2004) 2607,4/km²
City rights	1720
Latitude Longitude	53°34’N 20°59'E
Area code	+48 89
Car plates	NSZ
Municipal Website

Szczytno (former German: Ortelsburg (help·info)) is a town in north-eastern Poland with 27,970 inhabitants (2004). Szczytno was assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in 1999, and to the Olsztyn Voivodeship from 1975-1998. It is the seat of Szczytno County.

Szczytno-Szymany International Airport is the most important airport of the Masurian region.

[edit] History

Ca. 1350 the town was founded as a castle on the site of an Old Prussian settlement by Ortolf von Trier, a knight of the Teutonic Order and the Komtur of Elbing (1349-1371). The first mentioning of the castle as Ortulfsburg was in 1360, after Ortolf invited Masovian colonists to help develop the town as beekeepers after its conquest by the knights. The first custodian of the settlement was Heinrich Murer. The name Ortulfsburg was gradually corrupted into Ortelsburg. The town grew in size owing to its location on a trade route from Warsaw to Königsberg. It received town privileges in 1616 and had them reaffirmed in 1723.

The town suffered from plundering and occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, but became the seat of Landkreis Ortelsburg in 1818.

The town began to quickly expand economically after the opening of a railway line in 1888. According to the German census of 1900, Lutheran Masurs constituted 74.5% of Ortelsburg's population. The city was almost completely destroyed at the beginning of World War I by troops of the Russian Empire, but its recovery was aided by Berlin and Vienna. Poles and Polish associations were persecuted by Germans after the war.

To determine if it would remain in Germany or join the reborn Polish state, a plebiscite was held in the town on 11 July 1920 amid the backdrop of the Bolshevik offensive against Warsaw. 97.9% of the people voted for remaining part of Germany (48,204 votes for Germany, 511 for Poland). Poles organized Masurian Selfhelp, an organisation devoted to the protection of Polish people under German rule. The struggle for Polish-language schools in the region led to the death of the Polish activist Jerzy Lanc (1901-32).

Most of Ortelsburg's population fled before the Red Army at the end of World War II. The city was given to Poland in 1945 and officially renamed to its traditional Polish name Szczytno, after a nearby lake with the Old Prussian name Skiten.

Human Rights Watch alleged in 2005, that close to the airport exists a jail for prisoners of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The Polish government disclaimed those rumours, while HRW has failed to present any proof or evidence supporting their accusations.

Ortelsburg/Szczytno was the birthplace in 1906 of the German writer Wolfgang Koeppen; his autobiographical film evoking a lost rural idyll Es war einmal in Masurien was set here.