Wejherowo

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Wejherowo
Wejherowo coat of arms
Wejherowo (Poland)
Wejherowo
Wejherowo
Basic data
State : Poland
Voivodeship : Pomerania
Powiat : Wejherowo
Area : 25.65  km²
Geographic location : 54 ° 36 ′  N , 18 ° 15 ′  E Coordinates: 54 ° 36 ′ 0 ″  N , 18 ° 15 ′ 0 ″  E
Height : 24 m npm
Residents : 49,652
(Jun. 30, 2019)
Postal code : 84-200 to 84-204
Telephone code : (+48) 58
License plate : GWE
Economy and Transport
Street : E 28 Słupsk - Gdansk
Rail route : Gdansk – Szczecin
Next international airport : Gdansk Airport
Gmina
Gminatype: Borough
Surface: 25.65 km²
Residents: 49,652
(Jun. 30, 2019)
Population density : 1936 population / km²
Community number  ( GUS ): 2215031
Administration (as of 2012)
City President : Krzysztof Hildebrandt
Address: pl. Wejhera 8
84-200 Wejherowo
Website : www.wejherowo.pl



Wejherowo ( German Neustadt in West Prussia , previously Weyersfrey ; Kashubian Wejrowò ) is a town in the powiat Wejherowski of the Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland .

The powiat and the rural community Wejherowo , to which the city itself does not belong, have their administrative headquarters in the city of Wejherowo.

Geographical location

The city is located in the historical West Prussia landscape , in the wide glacial valley of the Rheda , west of the Gdansk Bay , at an altitude of 30 m above the Baltic Sea , about twenty kilometers northwest of the port city of Gdynia (Gdynia).

The nearest airport is 40 kilometers away in Gdansk .

A bird's eye view of the urban area

history

Town hall, built in 1729
Jakob von Weiher - founder of the city

From 1308 to 1466 the landscape belonged to the Teutonic Order of Prussia and then came to the western part when Prussia was divided into two parts, later also known as the autonomous Polish Prussia , which had voluntarily placed itself under the protection of the Polish crown.

By his decree of March 16, 1569 on the Lublin Sejm , King Sigismund II August unilaterally terminated the autonomy of West Prussia under threat of severe penalties, which is why the sovereignty of the Polish king in this part of the former territory of the Teutonic Order from 1569 to 1772 as foreign rule was felt.

In 1576 the Schmechau settlement, near what would later become the town, came under the rule of the Putziger Starosten Ernst von Weiher (from the noble von Weiher family, known since 1234 ).

On May 28, 1643, the voivode of Marienburg Jakob von Weiher founded the settlement Weyersfrey , Weihersfrei near the village of Schmechau , named after him, and in the same year built the Church of the Holy Trinity. During the siege of Smolensk in 1633/34 Jacob v. Weiher vows to build two churches if he should survive the siege. The second church was the Church of Saint Anne , which was built from 1648 to 1651. Weiher also had a Way of the Cross and a Calvary built with 19 chapels, the number of which later increased to 26. During these years Franciscans (OFM) also came here . Weihersfrei became a well-known place of pilgrimage .

On January 13, 1650, the city received from Johann II Casimir the city charter according to the Prussian Kulmer law . It was the only town in Pomerania founded by a private person , apart from Topolno , which soon lost its town charter . In the same year the town hall was built, which was later destroyed several times. Late 17th century, the city was the property of the princes family Radziwill and subsequently the Sobieski, among them King John III. Sobieski . Later Count Przebendowski became the owner and subsequently the English consul in Danzig , Alexander Gibson.

In 1701, witch trials took place in Neustadt .

In 1723 the village Weihersfrei, previously also Weyersfrey, named after the founder, is listed in the Scriptorum Prutenicorum by the Prussian historian David Braun .

The first division of Poland in 1772 brought western Prussia with the area around Putzig and Neustadt under Frederick II of Prussia to the Kingdom of Prussia . In 1785 Neustadt or Weyersfrey , in Polish Weyherowo or Nusdz , is referred to as a noble media town with a Catholic branch church of Gohra, a Franciscan Reformate monastery on the Rheda and Bialla and a stately grinding, fulling and cutting mill, which has 130 fireplaces (households).

In 1790 the consul sold the town to the Keyserling family . In 1816, three teachers taught at the town's school.

In 1818 Neustadt became the seat of a separate Prussian district of Neustadt (West Pr.) . During this time, the proportion of German-speaking residents increased to almost 50% (in the Prussian census of 1905, 27,358 residents stated Kashubian and 27,048 German as their mother tongue). In 1870 the city was connected to the railway network and received a direct connection to Gdansk and Szczecin .

After the monastery school, founded by the Franciscan counter-reformates in Neustadt in 1651, ceased to exist in 1826, a Progymnasium was opened in the city in 1857 , which was expanded into a full grammar school in 1861 . At the beginning of the 20th century there was a Protestant church, two Catholic churches, a synagogue , a Protestant school teacher seminar, a preparatory institute , a forest ranger's office and a district court in the city.

Until 1920 Neustadt part of the district Neustadt in the administrative district of Gdansk the province of West Prussia of the German Reich .

After the end of the First World War , the district of Neustadt, like the greater part of West Prussia, had to be given to Poland for the purpose of establishing the Polish Corridor due to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty in 1920 , without a referendum and with effect from January 20, 1920. Neustadt was in Renamed Wejherowo . In 1921 the newspaper "Gazeta Kaszubska" ( Kashubian newspaper ) appeared there .

With the attack on Poland in 1939, the annexed area of ​​the Polish Corridor, in violation of international law , became part of the German Reich . The district with the city of Neustadt in West Prussia was incorporated into the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia , to which Neustadt belonged until 1945.

Before September 27, 1939, the psychiatric patients of the provincial insane asylum in Neustadt were murdered by the German occupiers. A German military hospital was then set up in the affected clinic.

From 1940 onwards, several Wehrmacht replacement units were housed in the city . During the time the city was incorporated into the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, the Polish underground organization Gryf Pomorski was active in the area.

Towards the end of the Second World War , the Red Army occupied the city on March 12, 1945 , making it part of Poland again. The German minority was largely expelled in the period that followed .

In an administrative reform in 1975, the city lost the seat of the powiat , but received it again in a new reform in 1999.

Demographics

Population development until 1945
year Residents Remarks
1776 00789 in 129 residential buildings
1783 about 700 all German, Protestant or Catholic denomination, in 130 houses
1802 00921
1810 01107
1816 01021 thereof 297 Evangelicals, 693 Catholics and 31 Jews
1821 01380
1827 0 1363
1831 01690
1845 01800
1853 02500
1865 03200
1875 04506
1880 04715
1890 05546 thereof 2336 Protestants, 3039 Catholics and 160 Jews (240 Poles)
1905 08389 thereof 3,044 Protestants, 5171 Catholics, 26 other Christians and 148 JewsM; according to other sources 8,390 inhabitants, including 3,160 Evangelicals and 149 Jews
1921 08786 , including 1,800 Germans
1943 16,490
since 1945
year Residents Remarks
1948 13,400
1960 24,500
1980 42,400
2000 46,200
2012 50,258 As of June 30, 2012

City structure

The city of Wejherowo consists of the following districts:

Polish name Kashubian name German name
Dzielnica Zachodnia
Nanice Nańc Nanitz
Śmiechowo Smiechòwò Schmechau
Śródmieście City center

Partnerships

Culture and sights

Neustadt Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection
Castle of the Przebendowski and Keyserling families. Today a Kashubian museum
Old hospital and homeless shelter

Wejherowo calls itself the spiritual capital of the Kashubians . One of the pilgrims' destinations is the patron saint Wejherowos and his surroundings, Our Lady, whose icon was crowned in 1999 by John Paul II .

Buildings

  • the Calvary
  • the castle of the Keyserling family
  • the town hall, which was built in 1650, but received its current architecture in 1908 after being destroyed
  • the collegiate church of the Holy Trinity , which was built in 1643 and was rebuilt many times until 1972
  • the monastery church of St. Anna (17th century), the interior of which dates from the 18th century

Personalities

sons and daughters of the town

Personalities who have worked in the city

  • Jakob von Weiher (1609–1657), founded the city of Weyersfrey (Weihersfrei) in 1643
  • Matthäus Prätorius (* around 1635 probably in Memel; † around 1704 in Weyherststadt), Protestant pastor, later Catholic clergyman, historian and ethnographer
  • Friedrich Gütte (1779–1843), was elected mayor in 1811, and since 1819 was the initiator of the establishment of the Sopot seaside resort near Danzig
  • Stanislaus Maronski (1825–1907), historian, worked from 1857 to 1872 as a high school teacher in Neustadt
  • Clara Quandt (1841-1919), German writer, headed a private college for girls from 1869 in Neustadt
  • Paul Gottlieb Nipkow (1860–1940), German technician and inventor, attended the Königliche Gymnasium in Neustadt from 1880 to 1882 and began practical experiments in telephony here
  • Ottomar Schreiber (1889–1955), German politician and state president of the Memelland, grew up in Neustadt
  • Edmund Roszczynialski (1888–1939), Polish priest, chronicler and founder of the underground organization Polska Żyje ("Poland Lives")

Honorary citizen

Wejherowo rural municipality

The rural community Wejherowo, to which the city itself does not belong, covers an area of ​​194.08 km² and has 26,129 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2019).

Memorial and mass graves

A twelve-meter-high monument on the northern outskirts near Wielka Piaśnica on the main road between Wejherowo and Krokowa commemorates the Piaśnica massacre from September 1939.

literature

Web links

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

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b population. Size and Structure by Territorial Division. As of June 30, 2019. Główny Urząd Statystyczny (GUS) (PDF files; 0.99 MiB), accessed December 24, 2019 .
  2. ^ A b Hans Prutz: History of the Neustadt district in West Prussia . Danzig 1872, pp. 197-204 .
  3. ^ Hans Prutz: History of the Neustadt district in West Prussia . Danzig 1872, p. 104 .
  4. ^ GR Jaquet: Sketches from East and West Prussia . In: Amusements. A house library for entertainment and instruction for all stands . Volume 36, Stuttgart 1864, pp. 332-337, in particular pp. 336-337.
  5. ^ Hans Prutz: History of the Neustadt district in West Prussia . Danzig 1872, pp. 151-154 .
  6. ↑ Scriptorum Prutenicorum , David Braun 1723
  7. ^ Johann Friedrich Goldbeck : Complete topography of the Kingdom of Prussia . Part I, Königsberg / Leipzig 1785, Complete Topography of the West Prussian Cammer Department , p. 149.
  8. ↑ a b c d e Alexander August Mützell and Leopold Krug : New topographical-statistical-geographical dictionary of the Prussian state . Volume 5: T – Z , Halle 1823, pp. 346–347, item 482.
  9. ^ L. Wiese: The higher school system in Prussia. Historical-statistical representation. Berlin 1864, pp. 70-71
  10. ^ Meyer's Large Conversational Lexicon . 6th edition, Volume 14, Leipzig and Vienna 1908, pp. 578-580, paragraph 21.
  11. ↑ Ute Gerlant: There's no holding back on this inclined plane pdf, p. 4, accessed October 10, 2015
  12. ^ Johann Friedrich Goldbeck : Complete topography of the Kingdom of Prussia . Part II, Marienwerder 1789, pp. 53–54, No. 4.
  13. ^ Hans Prutz : History of the Neustadt district in West Prussia , Danzig 1872, p. 171 .
  14. ^ August Eduard Preuss: Prussian country and folklore . Königsberg 1835, pp. 411–412, no. 27.
  15. ↑ Universal Lexicon of the Present and the Past (HA Pierer, ed.), 2nd edition, Vol. 19, Altenburg 1845, p. 407, No. 14.
  16. ^ Conversations-Lexikon , 10th edition, Volume 11, Brockhaus, Leipzig 1853, p. 163.
  17. ^ Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon , 2nd edition, Volume 11, Hildburghausen 1865, p. 1085, No. 17.
  18. ^ A b c Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. Province of West Prussia, Neustadt district. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006).
  19. ↑ Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon, 14th edition, Volume 12, Berlin and Vienna 1894, p. 289, No. 32
  20. ↑ a b c Handbook of Historic Places, East and West Prussia , Kröner, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-520-31701-X , p. 157.
  21. ^ Meyer's Large Conversational Lexicon . 6th edition, Volume 14, Leipzig / Vienna 1908, pp. 578-580, item 21 .
  22. ↑ Der Große Brockhaus , 15th edition, Volume 13, Leipzig 1932, p. 329, No. 19.
  23. ↑ http://www.stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/l_ludnosc_stan_struktura_30062012.pdf