Koźle () is a district of

Kędzierzyn-Koźle Kędzierzyn-Koźle () is a city in south-western Poland, the administrative center of Kędzierzyn-Koźle County. With 58,899 inhabitants as of 2021, it is the second most-populous city in the Opole Voivodeship. Founded from the merger of the prev ...

, Poland, located in the western part of the city at the junction of the Kłodnica and

Oder The Oder ( ; Czech and ) is a river in Central Europe. It is Poland's second-longest river and third-longest within its borders after the Vistula and its largest tributary the Warta. The Oder rises in the Czech Republic and flows through wes ...

rivers, km southeast of Opole. The district has a Roman Catholic church, a medieval chateau, remains of a 19th-century fortress and a high school. Koźle's industries include a shipyard and an inland port.

History

The settlement was first mentioned in the early 12th-century '' Gesta principum Polonorum'', the oldest Polish chronicle. Its name comes from the Polish word ''kozioł'', which means "

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...

". As a result of the fragmentation of Poland, from 1281 to 1355 Koźle was the seat of a splinter eponymous duchy ruled by a local branch of the

Piast dynasty The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented List of Polish monarchs, Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I of Poland, Mieszko I (–992). The Poland during the Piast dynasty, Piasts' royal rule in Pol ...

. Also in 1281, Koźle obtained

town rights Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...

. After 1355, it remained under the rule of other branches of the Polish Piast dynasty until 1532, when it was absorbed to

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

. In 1431, Duke Konrad VII the White founded a Monastery of the

Order of Friars Minor The Order of Friars Minor (commonly called the Franciscans, the Franciscan Order, or the Seraphic Order; Post-nominal letters, postnominal abbreviation OFM) is a Mendicant orders, mendicant Catholic religious order, founded in 1209 by Francis ...

in Koźle. It was besieged several times during the

Thirty Years War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine, or disease, whil ...

, and in 1645, it returned to Polish rule under the

House of Vasa The House of Vasa or Wasa was a Dynasty, royal house that was founded in 1523 in Sweden. Its members ruled the Kingdom of Sweden from 1523 to 1654 and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1587 to 1668. Its agnatic line became extinct with t ...

. It fell to

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

by the 1742 Treaty of Breslau. Frederick II converted it into a fortress which held against Austrian sieges in 1758, 1759, 1760 and 1762. In 1807 it almost withstood a siege by the Von Deroy brigade of the

Bavarian Army The Bavarian Army () was the army of the Electorate of Bavaria, Electorate (1682–1806) and then Kingdom of Bavaria, Kingdom (1806–1918) of Bavaria. It existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereig ...

, which was allied with

Napoleonic France The First French Empire or French Empire (; ), also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from ...

. From 1871 it was part of the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

. In 1903, the Polish ''Bank Ludowy'' was founded in the town. Polish insurgents captured the part of the town east of the Oder during the 1921 Third Silesian Uprising, however, the town remained part of Germany in the

interbellum In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

. Local Polish activists were intensively persecuted by the Germans since 1937. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the Germans operated three

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

subcamps (E2, E153, E155) of the Stalag VIII-B/344

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

in the town. In the final stages of the war, in 1945, a German-conducted

death march A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war, other captives, or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinct from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convention requires tha ...

of thousands of prisoners of several subcamps of the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

passed through the town towards the

Gross-Rosen concentration camp Gross-Rosen was a network of Nazi concentration camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during World War II. The main camp was located in the German village of Gross-Rosen, now the modern-day Rogoźnica in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, di ...

. With the bulk of Silesia, it was among territories regained by Poland after World War II. However, 6,000 bomb craters were recorded in the Koźle Basin ranging from to in diameter, as American and British bombers dropped a total of 39,137 bombs in the region starting from February 1943, which was used by the German government for industrial fuel production. In the wake of Polish takeover of the region, many of the townspeople were expelled and some were arrested for speaking German.

Notable residents

* Theodor von Scheve (1851–1922), chess master * Moritz Hadda (1887–1942), Jewish-German architect * Heinrich Tischler (1892–1938), German painter * Irene Eisinger (1903–1994), singer * Georg Wahl (1920–2013), equestrian * Hanno von Graevenitz (1937–2007), German diplomat * Ullrich Libor (1940–), German sportsman * Mathias Fischer (1971–), sportsman

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kozle Kędzierzyn-Koźle Neighbourhoods in Poland Populated riverside places in Poland