Konitz district
The Konitz district was a Prussian district that existed in different delimitations between 1772 and 1920. It was located in the part of West Prussia that fell to Poland after the First World War through the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 . Its county seat was Konitz . From 1939 to 1945 the district was re-established in occupied Poland under the name Landkreis Konitz as part of the newly established Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia . Today the former district area is in the Polish Pomeranian Voivodeship .
Administrative history
The area of the Konitz district became part of Prussia after the first division of Poland in 1772 . Until 1818 the district comprised the entire southern part of Pomerania . The Prussian provincial authorities ordinance of April 30, 1815 and its implementing provisions made the area part of the new administrative district of Marienwerder of the new province of West Prussia . As part of a comprehensive district reform in the Marienwerder administrative district, three districts were formed from the area of the old Konitz district on April 1, 1818, the Schlochau district , the Schwetz district and the now much smaller Konitz district. This now comprised the cities of Konitz and Tuchel , the Amt Tuchel, part of the Amt Friedrichsbruch and 159 noble estates. The seat of the district office was the city of Konitz.
From December 3, 1829 to April 1, 1878, West Prussia and East Prussia were united to form the Province of Prussia , which had belonged to the North German Confederation since July 1, 1867 and to the German Empire since January 1, 1871 . Due to the steady increase in the population in the 19th century, several districts in West Prussia turned out to be too large and a reduction in size appeared necessary. Against this background, the new Tuchel district was created in 1875 from parts of the Konitz district . On April 1, 1882, the rural communities Gotthelp and Pustki were reclassified from the Preußisch Stargard district to the Konitz district.
Due to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty , the district had to be ceded to Poland on January 10, 1920 for the purpose of establishing the Polish Corridor . In the German Reich only two small exclaves of the Konitz district with the manor districts of Klein Jenznick, Mankau and Platendienst remained, which were reclassified to the Schlochau district on December 1, 1919. In Poland, the district continued as Powiat Chojnicki ( Konitzer Kreis ).
After the German invasion of Poland and the annexation of the territory by the German Reich, the district was assigned to the administrative district of Danzig in the newly formed Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia on November 26, 1939 as the district of Konitz . After the occupation by the Red Army in the spring of 1945 , the Konitz district reverted to Poland.
politics
District administrators
- 1772–1774 Werner Ernst von Lettow (1738–1789)
- 1774–1787 Carl Christoph Ludwig von Weiher (~ 1750–1787)
- 1787–1792 Dionysius von Dorpowski (? -?)
- 1793–1820 Joseph von Wollschlaeger (1756–?)
- 1822–1828 Johann Eduard von Schleinitz (1798–1869)
- 1828–1829 Fast
- 1829–1832 Hyacinth by Kossokowski
- 1832–1837 Wilhelm Johann Albert von Tettau (1801–1894)
- 1837–1838 von Burow ( representative )
- 1838–1849 Adolf von Gerhardt (1803–1879)
- 1848 Hermann von Schmidt (1811–1873) ( acting )
- 1849–1851 Hermann von Schmidt ( provisional )
- 1851–1852 Ottomar Runge ( acting )
- 1852–1873 Otto vom Besser
- 1873–1879 Oskar Wehr (1837–1901) ( acting )
- 1879–1882 Ernst Otto Boldt
- 1882–1887 Victor von Koerber (1851–1918)
- 1887–1890 Conrad von Rosenstiel (1851–1910)
- 1890–1894 Georg Kautz
- 1894–1897 Konrad Finck von Finckenstein (1860–1916)
- 1897–1901 Heinrich von Zedlitz and Neukirch (1863–1943)
- 1901–1916 Ernst Kreidel (1863–1916)
- 1917–1919 Werner Fuhrmann (* 1879)
Local constitution
Before it was ceded to Poland, the Konitz district was divided into the city of Konitz, into rural communities and independent manor districts .
elections
In the German Reich, the Konitz district together with the Tuchel district formed the Reichstag constituency of Marienwerder 6 . This constituency was won by candidates from the Polish parliamentary group in all Reichstag elections between 1871 and 1912 :
- 1871 Albert Ludwig von Haza-Radlitz
- 1874 Anton von Donimirski
- 1877 Leon von Czarlinski
- 1878 Leon von Czarlinski
- 1881 Leon von Czarlinski
- 1884 Wladislaus von Wolszlegier
- 1887 Adam by Janta Polczynski
- 1890 Wladislaus von Wolszlegier
- 1893 Wladislaus von Wolszlegier
- 1898 Wladislaus von Wolszlegier
- 1903 Viktor Kulerski
- 1907 Viktor Kulerski
- 1912 Leon von Czarlinski
population
Overview according to official statistics
The following is an overview with official information on the number of inhabitants, denominations and language groups. It should be noted that the circle was reduced in size in 1875 and the figures cannot be compared over this point in time.
year | 1821 | 1831 | 1852 | 1861 | 1871 | / | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 |
Residents | 26,433 | 35,050 | 54,334 | 62,083 | 70,817 | / | 52,483 | 57,952 | 63,723 |
Evangelical Catholics Jews |
5,640 20,191 602 |
6,913 27,224 913 |
12,182 40,255 1,897 |
13,999 45,902 2,182 |
15,601 53,021 2,193 |
/ / / |
10,547 40,974 953 |
11,213 46,080 648 |
11,529 51,728 434 |
German-speaking bilingual Polish -speaking * |
12,262 - 22,788 |
24,012 - 30,322 |
28,343 - 33,740 |
/ / / |
24,454 909 27,106 |
26,214 640 31,087 |
28,032 753 34,917 |
Kashubian speakers also fall under “Polish- speaking” .
languages
With regard to the language groups, restrictions must be made with regard to the informative value of the information. In the years 1831, 1852 and 1861 “German-speaking” included all persons who had mastered the German language, including many with their native language Polish. Also because of other methodological inaccuracies, the information on Polish speakers for these years is only to be regarded as a minimum value. In the years 1890, 1900 and 1910 the mother tongue was raised. However, despite the generally improved methodology, possible sources of error were also included here. Against the background of the conflict between the German state and the Polish national movement at the time, the counting forces and local authorities sometimes tended to make certain "corrections" to the detriment of the Polish language group. The so-called bilingual people, for example, are usually fully assigned to that group.
These restrictions cannot be ruled out for the language count among school children, which was carried out every five years in the Prussian districts between 1886 and 1911. On the other hand, as a second point of reference, it can help to clarify the linguistic relationships. The information for the years 1891, 1901 and 1911 for the Konitz district:
year | 1891 | 1901 | 1911 |
School children | 10.177 | 11,617 | 12,718 |
German-speaking, bilingual, Polish -speaking |
4,411 236 5,530 |
4,717 411 6,489 |
4,799 511 7,406 |
If one calculates the percentages for the absolute values of the population censuses and schoolchildren censuses, the following picture emerges (again, the reduction of the circle 1875 is to be considered):
year | 1831 | 1852 | 1861 | / | 1890/91 | 1900/01 | 1910/11 |
German speaking according to German census according to school children census |
? | ? | ? | / | 46.6% 43.3% |
45.2% 40.6% |
44.0% 37.7% |
bilingual according to census bilingual according to school children census |
? | ? | ? | / | 1.7% 2.3% |
1.1% 3.5% |
1.2% 4.0% |
Polishsp. according to census Polish language according to school children census |
65.0% + |
55.8% + |
54.3% + |
/ | 51.6% 54.3% |
53.6% 57.3% |
54.8% 58.2% |
With the necessary addition of bilinguals to Polish speakers, this means that before the First World War between 56 and 62% of the population of the Konitz district had Polish or Kashubian as their mother tongue, and this proportion was still increasing.
cities and communes
In 1910, the Konitz district included the city of Konitz and 68 rural communities.
|
|
|
|
In 1910, the district also included 36 manor districts.
Konitz district in occupied Poland 1939–1945
Administrative history
After the invasion of Poland , the Powiat Konitz was converted with a new bureaucracy into the Konitz district, which was assigned to the Gdansk administrative district . The cities of Heiderode and Konitz were subject to the German municipal code of January 30, 1935, which was valid in the Altreich and provided for the enforcement of the Führer principle at the municipal level. The other communities were grouped together in administrative districts , manor districts no longer existed. Most recently, on April 1, 1944, the 11 communities in the " Koschneiderei " (Osterwick district, Kr. Konitz) were awarded the German municipal code.
District administrators
- 1939–1940 Forester ( acting )
- 1940–1943 Artur Jäger ( acting )
Place names
In view of the ethnically mixed population, many places had both Polish and German names (e.g. Angowice = Hennigsdorf), one of which - depending on the current state affiliation of the district - was the official name.
After reintegration into the German Reich in 1939, the place names that had been valid before 1918/1920 continued to apply for the time being, following an unpublished decree of December 29, 1939. By means of the order concerning the change of place names of the Reich Governor in Danzig-West Prussia of June 25, 1942, all place names were Germanized with the consent of the Reich Minister of the Interior. All place names were linguistically adjusted or translated, for example:
- Chotzenmühl → Holzmühl
- Ciß → Eibenort
- Czersk → Heiderode
- Dombrowo → Eichenfier
- Gurki: Görken, Kr. Konitz
- Karschin → Karschen
- Lesno → Leisten, Kr. Konitz
- Lubna → Lubben
- Schwornigatz → Schwarnegast
- Zappendowo → zapping
literature
- Gustav Neumann : Geography of the Prussian State. 2nd edition, Volume 2, Berlin 1874, p. 55, paragraph 10 ( books.google.de ).
- E. Jacobson: Topographical-statistical manual for the administrative district Marienwerder. Danzig 1868, pp. 30–53, directory of places ( books.google.de ).
- ACA Friedrich: Historical-geographical representation of old and new Poland . Berlin 1839, pp. 614-615.
- Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. Konitz district. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006).
- Johann Friedrich Goldbeck : Complete topography of the Kingdom of Prussia . Part II: Topography of West Prussia , Kantersche Hofbuchdruckerei, Marienwerder 1789, pp. 70–78.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Johann Friedrich Goldbeck (ed.): Complete topography of the Kingdom of Prussia . tape 2 . Marienwerder 1789, p. 70 ff . ( Digitized version ).
- ^ Max Töppen: Historisch-Comparative Geographie von Preussen . Justus Perthes, Gotha 1858, p. 355 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ Database of members of the Reichstag ( memento of the original from January 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Leszek Belzyt: Linguistic minorities in the Prussian state from 1815 to 1914. Marburg 1998. p. 107.
- ↑ Leszek Belzyt: Linguistic minorities in the Prussian state from 1815 to 1914 . Marburg 1998. p. 7 ff.
- ↑ Leszek Belzyt: Linguistic minorities in the Prussian state from 1815 to 1914 . Marburg 1998. p. 107.
- ↑ Municipal directory 1910 with population figures