Wieluń
| Wieluń | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Basic data | |||
| State : | Poland | ||
| Voivodeship : | Łódź | ||
| Powiat : | Wieluń | ||
| Gmina : | Wieluń | ||
| Area : | 16.90 km² | ||
| Geographic location : | 51 ° 13 ' N , 18 ° 34' E | ||
| Residents : | 22,973 (Dec. 31, 2016) | ||
| Postal code : | 98-300 | ||
| Telephone code : | (+48) 43 | ||
| License plate : | EWI | ||
| Economy and Transport | |||
| Street : | DK 8 / E 67 Wroclaw - Warsaw | ||
| DK 45 | |||
| DK43 | |||
| Rail route : | Herby-Oels | ||
| Next international airport : | Łódź Airport | ||
Wieluń [ ˈvʲɛluɲ ] (German Welun , older also Vielin ) is a city in Poland . It is the seat of the Powiat Wieluń and the city-and-country municipality of the same name in the Łódź Voivodeship . It lies on the edge of the Wyżyna Wieluńska karst area . The largest employer in the city is the Polish commercial vehicle manufacturer Wielton .
The city was the first to be bombed at the beginning of the Second World War - a few minutes before the attack on Westerplatte - and largely destroyed by German dive bombers .
history
Wieluń was founded in 1217 and expanded as a fortress by the Piasts in 1281 . The great Polish Duke Przemysław II. Gave the city in 1283, the city charter . At the end of the 13th century, Wieluń was finally elevated to the status of a royal city and the seat of a castellan . Under Casimir the Great , King of Poland between 1333 and 1370, it was given a city fortification. From 1370 to 1392 Wieluń also functioned under the Opole Duke Władysław II as the capital of the duchy of the same name .
In the 16th century, Wieluń was one of the most important cities in the Kingdom of Poland. There was a branch of the University of Krakow and the city's own theater . The craft flourished and was organized in numerous guilds . During the Swedish-Polish War between 1655 and 1660, the city was captured by the Swedes and burned down in 1656.
After the second division of the Polish state , Wieluń belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia from 1793, to the Duchy of Warsaw from 1806 and again to the Kingdom of Poland from 1815 until it was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1831 . During this phase, Wieluń was elevated to a district seat in 1867.
After the end of the First World War , the city finally came to the independent Poland in 1918 . In 1926 it was connected to the state railway network .
During the war and the occupation of Poland, the city was in 1940 in Welun , a year later in Welungen and 1942 again in Welun renamed. It also served as the seat of the German district of Welun in the Reichsgau Wartheland until 1945 . After the end of the Second World War it was given its original name again.
Destruction in World War II
As the first act of war during the German invasion of Poland , Wieluń was attacked and bombed by German dive bombers in the early morning of September 1, 1939. It is apparently the Wehrmacht's first war crime in World War II. According to contemporary witnesses, the attack began at around 4:37 a.m., an hour later according to the German incident report. The first wave of attacks razed the city's hospital to the ground. The completely surprised residents were targeted with guns on board. In a total of three bombing raids during the day, up to 1,200 of the then 16,000 inhabitants died. 70 percent of the city's buildings and 90 percent of the town center were destroyed by fire.
The purpose of the attack is disputed among historians. Rolf-Dieter Müller argues that the air force wanted to eliminate military targets in order to have an immediate effect on the battlefield. On August 31, a Polish division and a cavalry brigade had been identified in Wieluń to carry out the attacks. But because of the ground fog, these goals were missed. Despite the devastating effects, the attack on Wieluń was therefore not a planned terrorist attack. According to Jochen Böhler , the first operational report of the Sturzkampfgeschwader 76 recorded "no enemy observation". Rather, more recent research suggests that the destruction of the city was the aim of the attack in order to test the effectiveness of the German air force. Two weeks before the attack, the Chief of the Army General Staff, Franz Halder , had noted in his war diary: “Red hunt in the Wielun area”. The air force flew further attacks in this area in the first days of the war, including on the small towns of Działoszyn and Kamieńsk , and had "impact pictures" made of other bombed towns. In his war diary, Halder also made a distinction between “terrorist attacks” and military attacks. Hans-Erich Volkmann emphasizes that the German 10th Army , which was the decisive military factor in this section of the front, did not attach any operational, let alone strategic, importance to the town of Wieluń that could have justified a bombing. The responsible commander of the air force, Wolfram von Richthofen , ordered the attack on his own. Richthofen did not intend a "terror attack", but selected Wieluń as a military exercise target close to the border in order to test the operational capability and functionality of the dive bombers without losing any of their own. Volkmann characterizes the destruction of Wieluń as an attack on a non-military target and therefore a war crime .
local community
The urban and rural community (gmina miejsko-wiejska) Wieluń consists of the eponymous city and 20 villages with a school administration office ( sołectwo ).
traffic
The city is on the national roads 74 from Wroclaw to Warsaw and 45 from Opole to Łódź and 43 from Częstochowa to Wieluń and the voivodship roads 481 and 486 .
Wieluń is located on the Herby – Oleśnica railway line ; there used to be the Rosenberg District Railway , which also served Wieluń.
Demographics
The vast majority of the city's residents profess the Roman Catholic denomination.
- Development of the population
- 1900: 7.351
- 1909: 9,095, including 3,444 Jews (37.8%), 352 Protestants (3.9%).
- 1931: 13.220
- 2005: 24,453
- 2009: 23,986
Attractions
- City wall with the Kraków Gate
- Corpus Christi Church, 14th century
- Nikolaikirche, baroque
- Monastery complex (museum)
- Barbara Chapel, 16th century
- Castle, classicist building in place of the old Piast castle, residence for state guests
Personalities born in the place
- Ezekiel Zivier (1868–1925), historian and publicist
- Andrzej Zawada (* 1948), literary historian, literary critic, essayist and university professor
- Jan Wątroba (* 1953), bishop
- Olga Sosnovska (born 1972), actress
- Dariusz Żuraw (* 1972), footballer
Twin cities
literature
- Tadeusz Olejnik: Wielun - polska Guernica (Wielun - the Polish Guernica) , Urzad Miejski w Wieluniu et al., Wielun 2005, ISBN 83-91378-86-1 .
Web links
- Municipality website (Polish)
- Agnieszka Hreczuk: Start of the World War: “Planes, Papa, Planes!” , Der Tagesspiegel , August 30, 2009
Footnotes
- ^ Johann Matthias Hase : Ducatus Silesiae. (djvu) Norimbergae: Homannis Heredes, 1745, accessed on June 25, 2016 (Latin, French, historical map from the digital library of Zielona Góra ).
- ^ A b Sven Felix Kellerhoff : The War Crime of Wielun , Die Welt , September 2, 2009.
- ↑ Thomas Urban : Poland: Portrait of a Neighbors , Verlag CH Beck (Beck'sche Reihe Volume 6043), 2012, ISBN 3406633269 , p. 14 f .; Google Books .
- ↑ Agnieszka Hreczuk: Beginning of the World War: “Planes, Papa, Planes!” , Der Tagesspiegel , August 30, 2009.
- ↑ Jens Mattern, Hans Michael Kloth: The beginning of the war in 1939: Stukas via Wielun , one day , August 26, 2009.
- ↑ a b Jochen Böhler : The Destruction of the Neighborhood - The Beginnings of the War of Extermination in Poland in 1939. In: Mike Schmeitzner , Katarzyna Stokłosa: Partner or Counterparty? German-Polish neighborhood in the century of dictatorships. Central and East Central European Studies Vol. 8, Lit Verlag , Berlin 2008, ISBN 3825812545 , p. 82 f.
- ^ Joachim Trenkner: Second World War: Destroyed target , Die Zeit 07/2003.
- ^ Rolf-Dieter Müller : The bomb war 1939-1945 , Ch. Links Verlag , Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-86153-317-7 , p. 54; Horst Boog: Bomb War Legends, in: Military history contributions 9/1995, p. 22.
- ↑ Hans-Erich Volkmann: Wolfram von Richthofen, the destruction of Wieluń and the international law of war . In: Military History Journal 70 (2011), pp. 287–328.
- ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition, Volume 20, Leipzig and Vienna 1909, p. 601.
- ↑ Erich Zechlin : The population and property development in Zartum Poland . Reimer, Berlin 1916, pp. 90-91.
- ↑ The Big Brockhaus . 15th edition, Volume 20, Leipzig 1935, p. 303.
- ↑ City friendship makes an important contribution , Volksstimme , September 2, 2014
- ↑ Maximilian Stascheit: Remembering at dawn: Ochtrup delegation takes part in commemoration in Wieluń, Poland , Westfälische Nachrichten , September 2, 2014