Giszowiec

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Elegant house in Giszowiec

Giszowiec ( German : Gieschewald ) is one of the eastern districts of Katowice in the Silesian Voivodeship in Poland . The colony, founded in 1907, has around 18,600 inhabitants and an area of ​​12 km².

location

Giszowiec in the Katowice city area

Giszowiec is 7 km south-east of downtown Katowice and has the geographical coordinates of 50 ° 14 '  N , 19 ° 4'  O coordinates: 50 ° 14 '  N , 19 ° 4'  O . The district is enclosed in the north by the A4 motorway and in the west by the E75 expressway, and the nearby city limits to Mysłowice form a border in the south and east . The settlement is a bit apart from the other parts of the city and is surrounded by green spaces and forest. The closest districts are Murcki 3 km southwest, Janów and Nikiszowiec in the north, but they are all on the other side of the expressways.

history

Colony residential buildings
Street in Giszowiec

Emergence

The Gieschewald colony does not have a long history. The Georg von Giesches Erben concern , which owned many mines in Upper Silesia, planned a separate settlement for its workers and employees in the works of the neighboring communities. The company name referred to Georg von Giesche , who had already secured various mining rights in Upper Silesia in the 18th century and thus founded the Giesche Group. As early as 1899, the group had acquired the Gieschewald estate from Count von Tiele-Winkler . The "Colonie Gieschewald" was founded in 1907, the year of the company's 200th anniversary.

Building the colony

The construction of the new settlement planned on the drawing board began in the open field . The managing director was Anton Uthemann, who took care of the development and prosperity of the new settlement. According to his ideas, the architectural office Georg and Emil Zillmann from Berlin-Charlottenburg supplied the draft of the settlement, which was based on local villages and English garden cities (the miners' settlement in Nickischschacht / Nikiszowiec was also designed by them). 960,000 m² were available on an area 800 m wide and 1.2 km long, which should provide enough space for houses of 600 families. The ground plan was thus a rectangle with a street running along the edges and surrounding the whole place, from there four main streets led in an x-shape to the market square; the spaces in between were interspersed with side streets. In order for Gieschewald to exist independently, Gieschewald had to have its own institutions and the supply of the population had to be ensured. The market square (today: Plac pod Lipami ) formed the center of the community and was planted with linden trees, which have been preserved to this day. In addition to the administration, an inn and department stores were built here, as well as a chief forester's office for the surrounding wooded areas and an own school. To the north of the market square, sleeping houses were built that offered space for 300 miners who lived here without a family. In order to guarantee the hygiene of the place, a washing and bathing establishment was built nearby, which, like the whole colony, was supplied with drinking water from the water tower . It was and is at the southwest exit of the town, on the road to Emanuelssegen . From there the Kattowitzer Chaussee (today: ul. Pszczynska), on which Uthemann's villa was built, led to the northern local border, where there was a customs house. Within the "rectangle" stood apartment buildings with a comparatively high social standard. However, they were not all of the same design, but differed in their different roof shapes. There were apartments for workers (up to 45 m²), civil servants and teachers were allowed larger living space (up to 120 m²). A garden with farm buildings was adjacent to each house. The unique colony was completed over the course of three years by 1910. The majority of the population worked in the Giesche mine (today: Wieczorek) in Janów and in zinc and lead works in the area. The total costs of the Gieschewald colony are estimated at 5 million marks . Gieschewald was connected to Janów in 1914 by a narrow-gauge railway. The colony was an independent community all the time.

Silesian uprisings

Numerous residents of Gieschewald took part in the Silesian uprisings and fought with German soldiers and volunteers, in which a total of 12 insurgents were killed. They succeeded in taking and holding the entire colony on August 20, 1920. In the referendum, the population of the "occupied" Gieschewald voted with over 70% for the annexation of Upper Silesia to Poland and thus gave significantly more votes for Poland than the rest of the voting area, which voted for Germany.

Gieschewald in Poland

On June 20, 1922 Gieschewald became part of the new Silesian Voivodeship as Giszowiec and has been part of Poland ever since. In the following years numerous Polish associations were founded, including a choral society . Giszowiec lost its independence in 1924 when it was incorporated into the new Janów Commune. Ecclesiastically it had been connected to Janów since 1912, as it belonged to the local parish, before it had belonged to the Myslowitz parish . The Giesches Erben group was taken over by American investors in 1926. The Annenkirche was consecrated on October 27, 1927 .

German troops occupied the settlement on September 4, 1939 and it was reintegrated into the German Reich . During this affiliation, attempts were made to destroy much that was reminiscent of the Polish interwar period , for example the monument to the Silesian uprisings was demolished. Giszowiec was occupied by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945. After the Second World War , Giszowiec was incorporated into the Szopienice district (1947). The new Stanislaus Church was completed in 1948 , and nine years later a parish of its own was founded in Giszowiec (May 28, 1957). In 1960 the urban district of Szopienice, to which Giszowiec had belonged since 1951, was dissolved and the place became, like the district town itself, a district of Katowice.

Over time, the appearance of the colony changed more and more. In 1964, the colony after was in the field of coal finds the Staszic coal mine built. New residential areas were designated to accommodate the influx of new workers. It was decided that the colony would be demolished and a new ten-story apartment block settlement should be built in the area. The Stanisław Staszic housing estate was built in 1969, and it grew closer and closer to the old colony over the next few decades. In the western and eastern parts, new prefabricated buildings replaced the old brick houses, and the colony began to lose its old character of a factory settlement. Fortunately, the colony was saved with the decisions of the responsible conservator in 1978 and 1987 to put the old buildings under monument protection . In the nineties, the historic settlement began to be maintained and also restored. Nevertheless, only a third of the old buildings remained. In 1984 the construction of the Barbarapfarrkirche in the Staszic settlement began.

Giszowiec is still surrounded by forest today and, due to its relatively large distance from the urban narrowness, is a popular local recreation area for the residents of the whole city and, since it is the only garden city in Poland, it is a popular place to visit and live. The colony's houses were transferred to the city of Katowice in 1999, and the houses have been sold to private individuals ever since.

Population development

View of Giszowiec
year Residents
1909 ¹ 1,349
1910 4,358
1935 5,000
1936 5,463
1997 19,800
2003 18,600

¹ before completion of the settlement

education

In the old colony there is a primary school (Szkoła podstawowa nr. 51) with around 1000 students. The school building was put into operation in 1993, making it the newest in Giszowiec. The two middle schools are significantly older. In the seventies the Konopnicka-Gymnasium (Gimnazjum nr. 16 im. Marii Konopnickiej) was built, but the school chronicles go back to 1908, the beginnings of the Gieschewald school history. There are 400 students here. There is also a second grammar school (Gimnazjum nr. 15) with 374 students.

Worth seeing

  • Gieschewald colony with preserved street layout and company houses (1907–1910)
  • Water tower from the time the colony was built
  • Wooded areas in the area

literature

  • B. Reuffurth: Gieschewald a new Upper Silesian mining village . Katowice 1910.
  • Lech Szaraniec: Osady i Osiedla Katowic. Katowice 1996. (Book about the city of Katowice and its districts with a German summary)
  • Leszek Jabłoński, Maria Kaźmierczak: Na trasie Balkan Ekspresu Giszowiec Nikiszowiec Szopienice Przewodnik po dzielnicach Katowic. CRUX, Katowice undated , ISBN 83-918152-1-8 (Guide to the districts of Giszowiec, Nikiszowiec and Szopienice with an English summary)

Web links

Commons : Giszowiec  - album with pictures, videos and audio files