Wielbark

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Wielbark
Coat of arms of Gmina Wielbark
Wielbark (Poland)
Wielbark
Wielbark
Basic data
State : Poland
Voivodeship : Warmia-Masuria
Powiat : Szczycieński
Gmina : Wielbark
Geographic location : 53 ° 24 '  N , 20 ° 57'  E Coordinates: 53 ° 23 '54 "  N , 20 ° 56' 45"  E
Residents : 3035 (June 30, 2019)
Postal code : 12-160
Telephone code : (+48) 89
License plate : NSZ
Economy and Transport
Street : DK 57 : Bartoszyce - Biskupiec - Szczytno ↔ Chorzele - Kleszewo (- Pułtusk )
Ext. 508 : Jedwabno - Rekownica → Wielbark Ext.
604 : Nidzica - Muszaki → Wielbark
Rozogi - Księży Lasek → Wielbark
Rail route : Nidzica – Wielbark railway line (currently not used)
Ostrołęka – Szczytno railway line (currently not used)
Next international airport : Warsaw



Wielbark [ ˈvʲɛlbark ] ( German Willenberg ) is a town in the powiat Szczycieński of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in Poland . It is the seat of the town-and-country municipality of the same name with 6508 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2019).

Geographical location

Wielbark is located in historic East Prussia at the confluence of the Omulew (Omulef) and Sawica (Sawitz) at the interface between the Masurian and Kurpian Plains at 125 meters above sea level in southern Masuria , about 55 kilometers southeast of the city of Olsztyn (Allenstein) and 20 kilometers south of the District town Szczytno (Ortelsburg) . A heathland extends to the northeast, otherwise pine forests determine the landscape.

history

Local history

Willenberg south-southeast of Königsberg i. Pr. , Southeast of Allenstein and south of Ortelsburg on a map from 1908

The "Wildhaus" on an island in the Omulef River , recorded in 1361, was one of the southernmost border fortresses of the Teutonic Order opposite the Polish Duchy of Mazovia . The festival arose relatively late in the old Pruzzengau Galinden , because it was opened up by the order in the first quarter of the 14th century. At the time it was first mentioned, the Wildhaus was the seat of a guardian of the order and was subordinate to the Commander of Elbing . At the end of the 14th century, beekeepers and hunters settled between Omulef and Sawitz , and ironworkers processed the nearby lawn iron in a hammer mill . Due to its location on the important trade route Königsberg - Warsaw , the settlement, now called Willenberg, developed favorably, dealers and innkeepers moved in, and according to the “Henneberger Chronik”, Duke Albrecht was planning to make Willenberg a town. For unknown reasons, the project was not carried out.

After the establishment of the secular Duchy of Prussia by Duke Albrecht in 1525, Willenberg was administratively assigned to the Oberland District and subordinated to the Ortelsburg Main Office . In the middle of the 16th century the place had a Protestant church; in 1557 it was called a church village. During the Second Swedish-Polish War , Tartar auxiliary troops of the Polish army attacked the place in 1656 and the inhabitants fled with their cattle into the nearby jungle.

At the beginning of the 18th century Willenberg had developed into a center for the cloth making trade. The favorable location on the Königsberger Handelsstrasse and the proximity to Poland, from where wool could be imported duty-free, contributed to this. In this way it was finally achieved that the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I granted Willenberg town charter on July 21, 1723.

In 1745 the suburb, known as "Beutnerdorf" and mainly inhabited by beekeepers, was incorporated. The favorable economic conditions, also supported by the road toll collection, made Willenberg a prosperous community with numerous real estate holdings. It was still under the benevolent support of the king , who z. B. helped to repair the damage caused by the great fire of June 1743 and financially supported the first paving of the streets in 1754. The reconstruction after the devastating fire of July 16, 1763 also took place with state aid. These years were under the term of office of Mayor Valentin Schulz, who went down in the history of the city as one of the most energetic city leaders.

The Prussian administrative reform of 1752 brought Willenberg a new district assignment. It was now subordinated to the newly formed Neidenburg district . At the same time, a domain chamber was set up in the city , the administrative seat of which was built on the remains of the old castle. In 1769, the city fortifications were strengthened and a city gate was erected to protect against the raids that repeatedly started on the other side of the border. This was canceled again in 1861, but was included in the city coat of arms awarded in 1910 as a symbol of the city.

The Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century were unfavorable for the city . In January 1807, the main Napoleonic army marched through the city with 70,000 soldiers, and Napoleon himself moved into his headquarters from January 21 to February 2 in the official building of the domain administration . Parts of the army were quartered in the city and set up a field bakery, for whose operation numerous wooden stables and barns were demolished. Finally, the soldiers started a major fire, which largely destroyed the Beutnervorstadt. The city had to bear the costs of billeting, had to sell its property and take out loans. Also in the official building in 1813, Tsar Alexander I received from General von Kleist 's declaration of consent from Prussia to the joint fight against Napoleon .

Another administrative reform in 1817 formed the Ortelsburg district, to which Willenberg was also assigned. On September 23, 1819 and June 9, 1834, major fires again caused considerable damage. In 1831 and 1852 cholera claimed many lives. In 1827 the Protestant congregation began building a new church, as the previous one had to be demolished because it was in disrepair. The new building was built in the classical style based on Schinkel's designs. The Catholic community built their church between 1878 and 1880. After the Prussian trade regulations were introduced on January 17, 1845, craft guilds for cloth makers, carpenters, locksmiths, blacksmiths, glaziers, furriers and shoemakers were registered in Willenberg.

In 1860 the construction of the new road to Ortelsburg began, which later became a section of Reichsstrasse 128 to Königsberg (Prussia) . Willenberg was connected to the railway network late. On July 1, 1900, the Ortelsburg – Willenberg – Neidenburg line was opened. Due to this late connection to the modern traffic routes, hardly any industry developed in the city. At the end of the 19th century there were only three mills and a steam bakery here. The number of residents stagnated accordingly. While it had risen noticeably from 2,044 to 2,641 between 1857 and 1875, it later fell to 2,577 in 1880 and to 2,463 in 1910. Before the First World War , however, the infrastructure was enhanced by the construction of a water-powered power station (1906) and the Commissioning of a large slaughterhouse (1910) and living conditions noticeably improved through the redesign of the market square (1905) and the installation of street lighting (1907).

From the beginning, Willenberg was severely affected by the First World War. Immediately after the start of the war, Russian troops occupied the city, and this was repeated two more times during the war. In the course of the Battle of Tannenberg , 16,100 Russian soldiers of the Narew Army were captured by the German army in a skirmish near the city on August 30, 1914. Their General Samsonov then shot himself at the Karolinenhof forestry south of the city (today Rokitka ). The memorial stone erected for him by the Ortelsburg District Administrator von Poser after the end of the war was removed by the Poles after 1945.

After the end of the First World War, Poland closed its borders with East Prussia, which meant that Willenberg lost its profitable border trade, which had a negative impact on the city's economic strength. However, due to the influx of residents from the West Prussian territories lost in the war, the number of residents rose to 2,599 by 1939. In the referendum on membership of East Prussia or Poland ordered by the Versailles Treaty , the citizens of Willenberg voted for East Prussia with 1,851 votes to 24.

At the end of the Second World War , Willenberg was captured by the Red Army in January 1945 . As in the entire southern Masurian region (e.g. Ortelsburg and Neidenburg), there was no evacuation in Willenberg either, the population was weighed to be completely safe just before the Red Army marched in. It was only in the hours before the invasion that there were spontaneous escape acts. The treks were then overrun by the front and those fleeing, if not killed, forced to return to their hometowns, only a rather smaller part of this area managed to escape. Only a few large families had already been evacuated to Pomerania as planned.

A few weeks later the city was placed under Polish administration. The immigration of Polish civilians began. The remaining German residents were expelled in the following time . The city was given the Polish name "Wielbark" and lost its town charter in 1946. 1975 to 1998 the place was part of the Olsztyn Voivodeship . On January 1, 2019, Wielbark was restored to town.

In 2007 IKEA built a sawmill costing 26 million euros. In a second step, the construction of a furniture factory is also planned.

Population numbers

year Check-
residents 		Remarks
1782 1,100
1831 1,883 partly Poland
1857 2,044
1875 2,641
1880 2,577
1910 2,463
1933 2,506
1939 2,599

church

Before the Reformation there was a Catholic church in Willenberg. With the introduction of the Reformation in East Prussia, she adopted the Evangelical Lutheran creed.

Evangelical

Evangelical Church: View of the portal of the tower

The church from 1827 is a neo-Romanesque brick building from the Karl Friedrich Schinkel School. Until 1945 it was the parish church for the Willenberg parish with more than twenty villages. The parish belonged to the superintendent district Ortelsburg in the parish of Ortelsburg within the church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union . After 1945 the church building became the property of the Evangelical Augsburg Church in Poland . The church was not used for years. Unfinished security measures are intended to save them from deterioration. The Protestant church members living in Wielbark and the surrounding area today belong to the Szczytno parish in the Masurian diocese of the Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland.

Roman Catholic

The St. Johannes Nepomuk Church from 1880 has been the parish church of the newly founded parish since 1888 . Until 1945 Willenberg was part of the Deanery Masuria I based in Angerburg in what was then the Diocese of Warmia . Today the parish belongs to the Deanery of Szczytno in what is now the Archdiocese of Warmia .

local community

The area of ​​the municipality of Wielbark (click to enlarge)

The city ​​and country community (gmina miejsko-wiejska) Wielbark includes the city itself and 22 villages with school authorities, with no place having more than 300 inhabitants. It has an area of ​​almost 348 km².

traffic

Street

State road 57 (formerly Reichsstrasse 128 ) Bartoszyce - Kleszewo (- Pułtusk ) runs through the village , and the two voivodship roads 508 and 604 coming from Jedwabno (Gedwangen) and Nidzica (Neidenburg) end in Wielbark. A side street via Księży Lasek (Fürstenwalde) connects Wielbark with the neighboring Gmina Rozogi (Friedrichshof) .

rail

The city of Wielbark is a train station on the Ostrołęka – Szczytno railway line . Passenger traffic was stopped on June 9, 2001 and resumed in 2016 on the section from Szczytno to Mazury Airport . There have been several attempts to resume passenger traffic on the southern section of line 35. The Ostrołęka – Chorzele section is to be modernized by 2020. The Wielbark – Szczytno section continues to operate in freight traffic. A railway line coming from Nidzica ends in Wielbark. The line is currently no longer used.

air

The regional airport "Mazury" near Szymany (Groß Schiemanen) is located ten kilometers north of Wielbark .

Personalities

A native of the city

  • Gerhard Bassarak (born February 3, 1918 in Willenberg), Protestant theologian, student pastor († 2008)
  • Bernhard Fisch (born August 22, 1926 in Willenberg), author of books on East Prussian history
  • Julius Frenzel (born April 16, 1830 in Willenberg), district administrator of the Oletzko district († 1880)
  • Johann Eduard Loch (born October 5, 1840 in Willenberg), classical philologist († 1905).

Connected to the city

  • Franz Bulitta (1900–1974), Catholic clergyman and pastor in Willenberg.

Other

14 members of the Corps Masovia came from Willenberg . Karl Adolf Schrage and August Myckert were pastors , Simon Sadowski and Gustav Heckert rectors in Willenberg.

literature

  • Johann Friedrich Goldbeck : Complete topography of the Kingdom of Prussia . Part I: Topography of East Prussia . Königsberg / Leipzig 1785, pp. 27–28, No. 3.
  • August Eduard Preuss : Prussian country and folklore or description of Prussia. A manual for primary school teachers in the province of Prussia, as well as for all friends of the fatherland . Bornträger Brothers, Königsberg 1835, p. 459, no.73.
  • Max Toeppen : About Prussian Lischken, towns and cities. A contribution to the history of the municipal constitutions in Prussia . In: Old Prussian Monthly , Volume 4. Königsberg 1867, pp. 621–646, especially pp. 644–646.
  • Max Toeppen : History of Masuria - A contribution to the Prussian national and cultural history , 1870 (540 pages); Reprinted 1979, pp. 91-92.
  • Olaf Göbeler: Willenberg. The history of an East Prussian border region. Weber Druck GmbH, Gevelsberg 2004.
  • Emil Merks: History of the City of Willenberg. Masurische Allgemeine Zeitung, Ortelsburg 1936.
  • Werner Pachollek, Martin Jend, Reinhard Kayss, Bernhard Maxin, Marc Plessa. Amt / Kirchspiel Willenberg - Places, living places and their inhabitants 1579-1945 (Vol. I-III). No. 21 of the writings of the Genealogical Working Group Neidenburg and Ortelsburg. Historical registers of inhabitants (HEV) for the former Southeast Prussia. Self-published, Bornheim (2010).
  • Paul Romanowski: Willenberg. In: Victor von Poser, Max Meyhöfer: The Ortelsburg district. An East Prussian homeland book. Holzner, Würzburg 1957, pp. 343-345 ( East German contributions from the Göttingen Working Group 4, ISSN  0474-8204 ), (Unchanged reprint: Rautenbergsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leer 1978).
  • Reinhold Weber: Willenberg. In: Reinhold Weber: Masuren. History - country and people. Verlag Gerhard Rautenberg, Leer 1983, ISBN 3-7921-0285-4 , pp. 227-229.
  • Michael Bulitta. Franz Bulitta - Catholic pastor in Willenberg, clergyman. Ortelsburger Heimatbote 2002, pp. 183–190.

Web links

Commons : Wielbark  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Polish Postal Code Directory 2013, p. 1447
  2. ↑ Herbert Marzian , Csaba Kenez : "Self-determination for East Germany - A Documentation on the 50th Anniversary of the East and West Prussian Referendum on July 11, 1920"; Editor: Göttinger Arbeitskreis , 1970, p. 99
  3. ↑ Rozporządzenie Rady Ministrów z dnia 25 lipca 2018 r. w sprawie ustalenia granic niektórych gmin i miast oraz nadania niektórym miejscowościom statusu miasta in the Internetowy system Aktów Prawnych, accessed on January 1, 2019.
  4. ^ Johann Friedrich Goldbeck : Complete topography of the Kingdom of Prussia . Part I: Topography of East Prussia . Königsberg / Leipzig 1785, pp. 27–28, No. 3.
  5. ^ August Eduard Preuss : Prussian country and folklore or description of Prussia. A manual for primary school teachers in the province of Prussia, as well as for all friends of the fatherland . Bornträger Brothers, Königsberg 1835, p. 459, no.73.
  6. ↑ Olaf Goebeler: Willenberg. The history of an East Prussian border region. Weber Druck GmbH, Gevelsberg 2004.
  7. ↑ a b c d Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. ortelsburg.html # ew33ortlwillenbergd. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006).
  8. ^ Uli Schubert, community directory, Ortelsburg district
  9. ↑ Walther Hubatsch , History of the Evangelical Church of East Prussia , Volume 3 Documents , Göttingen 1968, p. 496
  10. ^ Parafia Wielbark in the Archdiocese of Warmia