Szczytno
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| Szczytno | |||
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  Szczytno
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| Coordinates: | |||
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| Country |  Poland |
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| Voivodeship | Warmian-Masurian | ||
| County | Szczytno County | ||
| Gmina | Szczytno (urban gmina) | ||
| Established | 1359 | ||
| Town rights | 1720 | ||
| Government | |||
| - Mayor | Danuta Górska | ||
| Area | |||
| - Total | 9.96 km² (3.8 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2007) | |||
| - Total | 27,013 | ||
| - Density | 2,712.1/km² (7,024.4/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| - Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| Postal code | 12-100 to 12-102 | ||
| Area code(s) | +48 89 | ||
| Car plates | NSZ | ||
| Website: http://www.e-szczytno.eu | |||
Szczytno [ˈʂt͡ʂɨtnɔ] (German: Ortelsburg (help·info)) is a town in north-eastern Poland with 27,970 inhabitants (2004). Previously part of the Olsztyn Voivodeship from 1975-1998, Szczytno was assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in 1999. 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.
Ortelsburg suffered from plundering and occupation during the Napoleonic Wars. It became the seat of Landkreis Ortelsburg in 1818 after Prussian administrative reforms. The town became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the unification of Germany.
Ortelsburg began to quickly expand economically after the opening of a railway line in 1888. According to the German census of 1900, Lutheran Masurians constituted 74.5% of Ortelsburg's population. The town 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.[citation needed]
To determine if Ortelsburg would remain in Germany or join the Second Polish Republic, the East Prussian plebiscite was held in the town on 11 July 1920. In Ortelsburg 5.336 votes were given to remain in Germany, 15 votes for Poland. Poles organized Samopomoc Mazurską ('Masurian Self-Help'), an organisation for the protection of Polish people under German rule.
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 according to the Potsdam Agreement and officially renamed to its traditional Polish name Szczytno, after a nearby lake with the Old Prussian name Skiten.
The nearby Szczytno-Szymany International Airport, as well as Stare Kiejkuty, a military intelligence training base, came under scrutiny in late 2005 as possible black sites, or secret prisons (or transfer stations) used in the CIA's program of so-called extraordinary rendition of suspected terrorists. The existence of the nearby training base and the record of CIA-registered affiliated aircraft having landing at Szczyton-Szymany have been unequivocally confirmed, but the Polish government has repeatedly denied any involvement of these facilities in extraordinary renditions.
[edit] Notable residents
- Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996), author; his autobiographical film evoking a lost rural idyll, Es war einmal in Masuren, was set here.
- Horst Kopkow (1910-1966), spy
[edit] External links
- Municipal website
- History of the city and district of Ortelsburg (German)
- Human Rights Watch statement about the prison
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