| Grudziądz | |||
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| Panorama of Grudziądz Old Town district | |||
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| Motto: Grudziądz - miasto na szczęście (Grudziądz - city of good luck) |
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Grudziądz
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | Poland | ||
| Voivodeship | Kuyavian-Pomeranian | ||
| County | city county | ||
| Established | 11th century | ||
| Town rights | 1291 | ||
| Government | |||
| • Mayor | Robert Malinowski | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 57.76 km2 (22.3 sq mi) | ||
| Elevation | 50 m (164 ft) | ||
| Population (2010[1]) | |||
| • Total | 96,042 | ||
| • Density | 1,662.8/km2 (4,306.6/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| Postal code | 86-300 to 86-311 | ||
| Area code(s) | +48 056 | ||
| Car plates | CG | ||
| Website | http://www.grudziadz.pl | ||
Grudziądz [ˈɡrud͡ʑɔnt͡s] ( listen) (German: Graudenz, Latin: Graudensis) is a city in northern Poland on the Vistula River, with 96 042 inhabitants (2010). Situated in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (since 1999), the city was previously in the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–1998).
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Initially a defensive gród founded by Polish ruler Bolesław Chrobry,[2] the settlement adopted Kulm law in 1291 while under the rule of monastic state of the Teutonic Knights becoming a city. In 1440, the city joined the Prussian Confederation, and between 1466 and 1772, the city belonged to Polish province of Royal Prussia.
Following the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the city was annexed by the German Kingdom of Prussia and became part of the unified German Empire in 1871.
The city was place of a military prison for Polish activists-those released formed Gromada Grudziądz in Portsmouth on 1835, as part of Great Emigration movement[3]
After the construction of a railroad bridge across the Vistula in 1878, Graudenz became a rapidly growing industrialized city as well as a district centre in 1900.
A light cruiser of the German Imperial Navy, built in 1912-1914, was named after the city.
In the 18th and 19th century the city was part of areas of the Prussian Partition of Poland, where Germanisation was enforced beginning with 1772. Frederick had previously regarded the Polish government as the worst government in Europe, apart from Turkey, scorning the aristocratic anarchy there[4] Guided by the interests of the state but not believing in the importance of race, he preferred to introduce German or Frisian workers and peasants, who in his opinion were more suitable for building up a new civilization than the “physically and morally ruined serfs of the Polish nobility”.[5][6] Frederick settled around 300,000 colonists in the eastern provinces of Prussia. Using funds for colonization, German craftsmen were placed in Polish cities[7] A second colonization attempt aimed at Germanisation was pursued by Prussia after 1832.[8] Laws were passed in Prussia aimed at Germanisation of the Polish inhabited areas and 154,000 colonists were settled by the Prussian Settlement Commission before World War I. Professor Martin Kitchen writes that in areas where Polish population lived along with Germans a virtual apartheid existed,with bans on Polish language and religious discrimination, besides attempts to colonize the areas with Germans[9]
To resist Germanisation,[10] Polish activists in 1894 started to publish the newspaper "Gazeta Grudziądzka", the newspaper advocated social and economical emancipation of the rural society and opposed Germanization, publishing articles critical of Germany; German attempts to repress the newspaper's editor Wiktor Kulerski only helped to raise its popularity further.[11]
From 1898 to 1901, there was a secret society of Polish students in the city, seeking the restoration of Polish independence, until the activists were tried by German courts in 1901, frustrating their efforts.[12]
In Grudziądz German soldiers were stationed in the local fortress as part of Germanization measures, and authorities placed soldiers with chauvinistic attitude towards Poles there[13] German government introduced stationed military, merchants and state officials to influence population figures,[14] and in census of 1910 84% of the population of the town and 58% of the county declared to be German[15] Census numbers published by the German Empire have been criticised as unreliable and Polish historians believe they have a high degree of falsfification; potential pressure from census takers(predominatly schoolteachers) takes couldn't be excluded, additionally a bilingual category was created further complicating the results.[16] Some analysts asserted that all people registering as bilingual have been classified as Germans[17]
Estimates of Polish population in this heavily Germanised city are around 12 to 15% during this period, Polish population rose steadily before First World War[18][19]
In the 1912 Reichstag elections, the National Liberal Party of Germany received 53% of all votes, whilst Polish candidates won 21% of votes. In 1912 Wiktor Kulerski founded Polish Catholic Peasant Party in the city, which aimed at protecting local Polish population[20]
In 1913 the Polish Gazeta Grudziądzka reached the circulation of 128,000, rendering this at the time the third largest Polish newspaper in the whole world.[11]
On January 23, 1920, in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, Grudziądz became part of the Polish state. At that time Josef Włodek, the newly appointed Polish mayor, described his impression of the town as "modern but unfortunately completely German"[21]
Between 1926 and 1934 the number of Germans (34,194 in 1910) rose from 3,542 in 1926 to 3,875 in 1934.[22] Some Polish authors emphasize a wider emigration pattern motivated chiefly by economic conditions and unwillingess of the German minority to live in Polish state.[23]
The German author Christian Raitz von Frentz writes that after First World War ended, the Polish government tried to reverse the systematic Germanization from the past decades[24]
Prejudices, stereotypes and conflicts dating back to the German rule influenced the Polish minority policies in the now independent Polish state.[25]
Polish authorities, supported by the public (e.g. the “explicitly anti-German” Związek Obrony Kresów Zachodnich), initiated a number of measures to further Polonization.[26] Local press was also hostile towards the Germans.
Fearful of a re-Germanization of the city, the Polish paper Słowo Pomorskie (23.19.1923) criticized the authorities of Grudziądz for tolerating the local German amateur theatre "Deutsche Bühne". The theatre was funded by money coming from Berlin[27] Created before the war, its actors came mostly from German officers stationed in local garrison [28] The mayor responded by pointing out that the theatre was being monitored because of suspected “anti-state activities”. According to Kotowski, this episode indicates that even the most minor activities of the German minority were closely scrutinized by the Polish authorities beginning with the earliest phase of Polish minority policy towards Germans[29] The German theatre was re-opened by Nazis in 1943,[30] while the last director of the Polish theatre in the city in the years 22-24 was murdered by them[31]
In the 20 years between the world wars, Grudziądz served as an important centre of culture and education with one of the biggest Polish military garrisons and several military schools located both within the confines of the city and around it. A large economic potential, and the existence of important institutions like the Pomeranian Tax Office and the Pomeranian Chamber of Industry and Trade, helped Grudziądz become the economic capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship in the interwar period. Grudziądz's economic potential was featured at the First Pomeranian Exhibition of Agriculture and Industry in 1925, officially opened by Stanisław Wojciechowski, the President of the Second Polish Republic.
The 64th and 65th Infantry Regiments and the 16th Light Artillery Regiment of the Polish Army were stationed in Grudziądz during the 19 years of interwar period. They were part of the 16th Infantry Division, which had its headquarters in the city, as did the cavalry's famous 18th Pomeranian Uhlans Regiment. The Grudziądz Centre of Cavalry Training educated many notable army commanders. Military education in Grudziądz was also provided by the Centre of the Gendarmerie, the Air School of Shooting and Bombarding, and the N.C.O. Professional School, which offered courses for infantry reserve officer cadets.
Historical population
of Grudziądz
| 1880 | 17,321 | |
| 1905 | 35,958 | |
| 1980 | 90,000 | |
| 1990 | 102,300 | |
| 1995 | 102,900 | |
| 1999 | 102,434 | |
| 2000 | 100,787 | |
| 2006 | 99 578 | |
| 2007 | 99 090 | |
| 2010 | 96 042 |
In 1920 a German-language school was founded.[32] In 1931 the Polish government decreed to reduce the number of German classes in the school and requested lists of catholic children and those pupils with Polish-sounding names which they viewed as victims of Germanization, from the German school. Although the list was not prepered, some of the children were transferred, which led to a school-strike.[33] The German school followed ideas and customs as those in Nazi Reich.[34] It was headed by a Nazi sympathiser Hilgendorf who praised Nazi ideology[35] The Polish authorities were alarmed when a notebook of one female student was discovered by them, and which contained nationalistic German song Horst Wessel Lied and revisionistic text. The discovery caused outrage and calls to dismiss Hilgendorf due to his irrendistic beliefs[36] In November 1933 two German craftsmen were killed by a Polish mob in the context of a local election campaign.[32]
On September 3, 1939 military troops of Nazi Germany entered Grudziądz and, as Graudenz, annexed the city into the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, starting a five-year long occupation lasting till the end of World War II.
Poles and Jews were classified by German state as untermenschen and subject to repressions and murder, with their ultimate fate to be slavery and extermination;Grudziądz was the location of the German concentration camp Graudenz, a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp.
In early September, 25 Polish citizens were detained as hostages-priests, teachers and other members that enjoyed the respect of local society, they were threatened with execution if any harm would come to Volksdeutsche from the city that were detained and held by Polish authorities during Nazi invasion of Poland, after initial release when the German minority members returned, they were arrested again and most shot[37] On 9 September further 85 people were imprisoned by Germans [38] The German authorities destroyed the Polish monuments to independence in the city[39] and banned Polish priests from speaking Polish language during church masses[40]
On 4 September the Einsatzgruppe V demanded a name list of all members of 600 Jewish community within 14 hours, as well as list of all of their possessions. They were also fined with 20.000 zlotych [41]
On 6 September the whole city was covered by posters demanding that Jews and "mixed races" of category I and IInd degree(so called mischlinge) gather in headquarters of Einsatzgruppe V(established in local school). Around 100 people responded to the demand, and were immediately arrested, and robbed. After this they were transported into unknown direction and disappeared-it is believed that most likely they were executed by Germans in Mniszek-Grupa forests.[42][43]
On 19 October occupied Grudziądz was visited by Albert Forster-the gauleiter of NSDAP, during a public speech to volksdeutsche, he declared that the area will become "one hundred percent" German, and Poles "have nothing to do here, and should be evicted"[44]
Alongside military and Einsatgruppen administration, the first structures of Selbstschutz were established - a paramilitary formation made from German minority in the region. The head of Selbstschutz in Grudziądz was doctor Joachim Gramse.[45][46] Selbstschutz created in October 1939 an interment camp for Poles, whose commandant was a local German Kurt Gotze.[47]
Teachers, officials, social workers, doctors, merchants, members of patriotic organisations, lawyers, policemen, farmers and 150 Polish priests were held in this camp. It is estimated that around 4000 to 5000 people went through it.[48] Other arrested Poles were held in cellars of Grudziądz fortress.[49] The local Germans who ran the camp established their own "court" which decided the fate of those imprisoned. The "court" was composed of: Kurt Gotze, Helmut Domke, Horst Kriedte, Hans Abromeit (owner of a drugstore), Paul Neuman(barber).[50] Based on their decisions part of the prisoners were sent to concentration camps, 300 were mass murdered; only a few were released[48][51] Those sentenced to death were mostly executed through shooting by the Selbstschutz in Księże Góry near Grudziądz; in October and November 1939 several hundred people were murdered there and their bodies buried in five mass graves.[52] The victims were usually shot at the edges of already dig out graves[53]
Further executions were carried out in desolate areas of Grudziądz: on 11 November 1939 near Grudziądz Fortress, Selbstschutz executed 10 Polish teachers, 4 Polish priests and 4 women.[54] Additionally, 37 people were murdered in Grudziądz city park.[55] On 29 October 1939 a unit of Selbstschut mass murdered 10 Polish hostages as revenge for posters that appeared in the city, calling for resistance against Nazi rule.[56]
As the result of heavy fighting in 1945, over 60% of the city was destroyed. Soviet Major Lev Kopelev covered those battles and the final surrender of the German garrison in his book "To Be Preserved Forever". For example, he also describes joint psychological warfare of March 1945 in the city by the Red Army and members of the NKFD. As the war ended, the German-speaking population of the city fled or was expelled to Germany,[32] the city also became home to Poles moved from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union.
Media related to Grudziądz at Wikimedia Commons
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