Neidenburg district

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Coat of arms of the district with Teutonic Cross and Neidenburg

The Neidenburg district was a Prussian district in Masuria . It existed from 1818 to 1945. The seat of the district administration was the city of Neidenburg .

geography

The district was in the extreme southwest of the province of East Prussia . It comprised the southern foothills of the East Prussian Oberland with the 229 meter high gold mountains as the highest elevation and reached in the northeast to the Masurian Lake District with the Hartig , Malshöfer and Narthsee as the largest bodies of water. The rivers Neide and Omulef had their headwaters in the district area.

In its extent until 1920, the district had an area of ​​1,638 km², of which more than 50 percent was agricultural and about 30 percent was forest. On January 1, 1908, the district included the two cities

as well as 215 rural communities.

More than a thousand inhabitants had:

Location in East Prussia
District area around 1910

The following parishes also belonged to the Neidenburg district :

In 1910 the district had 59,416 inhabitants, of whom 49,300 were Protestants .

The district was well developed by the railway network. The railway lines Danzig – Soldau – Warsaw and Thorn – Neidenburg – Lyck crossed in Soldau, and a line to Allenstein branched off in Neidenburg . The Reichsstraßen 382 Thorn – Soldau– Mielau , 389 Hohenstein –Neidenburg – Mielau and 395 Soldau – Neidenburg also ran through the district.

There were notable industrial companies in the district town of Neidenburg, where a machine factory and a copper goods factory were located. Agriculture was predominant with almost 1,800 farms compared to only around 800 commercial farms. In addition, forestry also played an important role with four forest offices and thirty foresters' offices (all figures from 1944).

Administrative history

A first description of the landscape for the later area of ​​the Neidenburg district is available for the historical Sassen landscape . This jungle region, which was almost uninhabited in the 13th century, was settled by the Teutonic Order in the first quarter of the 14th century , almost a hundred years after the beginning of its conquest of the land between the Vistula and Memel. The order set up regional commanderies for the administration of its domain ; the Christburg commandery was initially responsible for the Sassenland, and the Osterode commandery from 1341 .

In 1349 Soldau was the first settlement to receive town charter , followed in 1381 by Neidenburg . When the religious order was converted into the secular Duchy of Prussia in 1525 , the ecclesiastical commanderies were also dissolved and replaced by circles. Soldau and Neidenburg and their surrounding area were assigned to the Oberland District , which in turn was subdivided into twelve main offices. Among them were the main offices in Soldau and Neidenburg.

Administrative reform of 1752

In 1752 the Crown of Prussia carried out a district reform , as a result of which a district Neidenburg was formed from the previous main offices of Ortelsburg, Neidenburg and Soldau and the Gilgenburg estate. In addition, a tax council Neidenburg was formed, which consisted exclusively of the cities of Gilgenburg, Hohenstein, Neidenburg, Ortelsburg , Passenheim , Soldau and Willenberg . The tax councils were abolished in 1809.

Administrative reform of 1818

In a renewed district reform in the Kingdom of Prussia ("Ordinance due to improved establishment of the provincial authorities" of April 30, 1815), a much smaller Neidenburg district was created. The new Neidenburg district officially existed from February 1, 1818 and had 20,539 inhabitants at that time. In addition to the two cities, it included 159 rural communities, which also included 55 independent manor districts.

At that time the district belonged to the province of Prussia, which later corresponded to East Prussia. On December 3, 1829, the provinces of Prussia and West Prussia were merged to form the new province of Prussia , which was divided again on April 1, 1878. From this date the eastern part was officially known as East Prussia .

The district area was subordinate to the Königsberg administrative district, which was also newly established in 1818 , and from 1905 it came to the Allenstein administrative district . By 1910, the district's population had more than doubled and was now 59,416.

Territory ceded to Poland in 1920

According to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty of 1919, an area of ​​501 km² around the town of Soldau with 24,767 inhabitants had to go to Poland on January 10, 1920, of which a slim majority of 54% stated Polish, Kashubian or Masurian as their mother tongue in the 1910 census ceded because the railway connection from Warsaw to Danzig led via Soldau. The population of the district fell to around 38,500. The inhabitants of this area were also called upon by the Versailles Treaty to a referendum on belonging to East Prussia or Poland. On July 11, 1920, they voted 22,235 to 330 in favor of remaining with East Prussia.

Development after 1920

With effect from September 30, 1929, the independence of the manor districts in the Free State of Prussia was abolished, they were assigned to the neighboring rural communities, the number of which was only 115 in 1931. On July 16, 1938, the place names of 38 municipalities were changed through phonetic adjustments, translations or free inventions. B. Bartoschken in Bartzdorf, Dembowitz in Eichenau, Jablonken in Seehag, Puchallowen in Windau, Saddek in Gartenau etc.

In 1934, the Polish state government unilaterally terminated the minority protection treaty concluded in Versailles on June 28, 1919 between the Allied and Associated Main Powers and Poland .

With the attack on Poland , the removed part of the Soldau area came back to the Reich territory on September 2 and was added to the German district of Soldau on October 26, 1939 . On April 24, 1940, it was reintegrated into the Neidenburg district, which increased its population to 64,560.

On January 21, 1945, the district was occupied by the Red Army . In the summer of 1945 it was placed under Polish administration by the Soviet occupying power in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, along with all of West Prussia and the southern half of East Prussia . Insofar as the German residents had not fled, they were subsequently expelled from the district by the local Polish administrative authorities .

The district area is now divided between the two Polish districts Powiat Nidzicki (Neidenburg district) and Powiat Działdowski (Soldau district) .

District administrators

1809: v. Mountains on Sagsau
1818–1839: Lackowitz
1839–1867: Alexander von Lavergne-Peguilhen (1803–1867)
1867–1877: Karl von Portatius (1834–1877)
1877–1882: Oskar von Hasselbach (1846–1903)
1882–1886: Leo Becker (1840–1886)
1886–1906: Bernhard Schultz
1906–1914: Gustav Bansi (1870–1935)
1914–1928: Werner von Mirbach (1878–1928)
1928–1932: Philipp Deichmann (1889–1962)
1932–1937: Gottfried Stein (1896–1977)
1937–1940: Fritz Adam (1889–1945)
1940–1945: Axel Crewell (1882–1945)

Place names

In 1938, several places in the Neidenburg district were renamed for political and ideological reasons to ward off foreign-sounding place names . Others were given new names earlier and for other reasons:

Sponsorship

Since 1953 Bochum has been the sponsor city of the Neidenburg district community , an association of the expelled German population from the city and district of Neidenburg.

literature

  • Contributions to the customer of Prussia . Volume 2, Koenigsberg 1819, pp. 497-498.
  • Adolf Schlott: Topographical-statistical overview of the government district of Königsberg, according to official sources . Hartung, Königsberg 1861, pp. 173-180.
  • Gustav Neumann : Geography of the Prussian State . 2nd edition, Volume 2, Berlin 1874, p. 23, item 19.
  • Prussian Ministry of Finance: The results of the property and building tax assessment in the Königsberg administrative region . Berlin 1966, Neidenburg district, pp. 1–36.
  • Max Meyhöfer : The Neidenburg district. An East Prussian homeland book . 1968.
  • Max Meyhöfer: The rural communities of the Neidenburg district - settlement, population development and economic history from the 14th century to 1945 . 1969.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Max Toeppen : Historisch-Comparative Geographie von Preussen . Gotha: Perthes 1858, page 320 .
  2. ^ Max Toeppen : Historisch-Comparative Geographie von Preussen . Gotha: Perthes 1858, page 321 .
  3. ↑ Statistisches Reichsamt (Ed.): Economy and Statistics. Special issue 2, Berlin 1925, p. 69.