Nowe (german: Neuenburg in Westpreußen, 1942-1945: ''Neuenburg (Weichsel)'') is a town in

Świecie County __NOTOC__ Świecie County ( pl, powiat świecki) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, north-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local ...

Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, also known as Cuiavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship or simply Kujawsko-Pomorskie, or Kujawy-Pomerania Province ( pl, województwo kujawsko-pomorskie ) is one of the 16 voivodeships (provinces) into which Poland is divide ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, with 6,270 inhabitants (2004).

Geographical location

Nowe is located approximately 75 kilometers north-east of Bydgoszcz and 80 kilometers south of Gdańsk in an elevated position on the river

Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

. It is located in the historic region of

Gdańsk Pomerania Gdańsk Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze Gdańskie), csb, Gduńsczim Pòmòrzã, german: Danziger Pommern) is a geographical region within Pomerelia in northern and northwestern Poland, covering the bulk of Pomeranian Voivodeship. It forms a part and ...

History

The medieval name of the town was Novo Castro, or Nowy Gród in

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

. The town was founded in 1185 by

Sobieslaw I, Duke of Pomerania Sobieslaw I ( pl, Sobiesław I Gdański, csb, Subisłôw I) (d. 1177/79) or Subislaw I was the first recorded member of the Samborides (''Sobiesławice'') dynasty ruling Pomerelia (''Gdańsk Pomerania''). His ancestry has not been conclusively es ...

. In 1266 the settlement is mentioned as a fortess place. In 1282 the

Franciscan friar , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

s settled down here. It was part of the medieval

Kingdom of Poland The Kingdom of Poland ( pl, Królestwo Polskie; Latin: ''Regnum Poloniae'') was a state in Central Europe. It may refer to: Historical political entities * Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1025 to 1031 * Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom exi ...

. In 1301 King Wenceslaus II of Poland granted the town to Piotr Swienca. In 1308 the town was invaded, destroyed and later annexed by the

Teutonic Knights The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians o ...

. In 1350 it was granted new privileges, later confirmed by King Sigismund I the Old in 1528.''Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich'', Tom VII, Warszawa, 1886, p. 216 Poles recaptured the town after the

Battle of Grunwald The Battle of Grunwald, Battle of Žalgiris or First Battle of Tannenberg was fought on 15 July 1410 during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. The alliance of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led respec ...

in 1410, however, after the 1411

peace treaty A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring ...

it fell back to the Teutonic Knights. In 1440 the town joined the

Prussian Confederation The Prussian Confederation (german: Preußischer Bund, pl, Związek Pruski) was an organization formed on 21 February 1440 at Kwidzyn (then officially ''Marienwerder'') by a group of 53 nobles and clergy and 19 cities in Prussia (region), Prussi ...

, which opposed Teutonic rule, and upon the request of which King

Casimir IV Jagiellon Casimir IV (in full Casimir IV Andrew Jagiellon; pl, Kazimierz IV Andrzej Jagiellończyk ; Lithuanian: ; 30 November 1427 – 7 June 1492) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1440 and King of Poland from 1447, until his death. He was one of the m ...

re-incorporated the territory to the

in 1454. During the subsequent Thirteen Years' War it was captured by the Teutonic Knights in 1458, besieged by Poles in August 1464, and the Teutonic Knights capitulated in February 1465,''Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich'', Tom VII, Warszawa, 1886, p. 217 losing their last stronghold on the west bank of the Vistula. It was reintegrated with Poland, the castle became the seat of the local starosts and the next year the Teutonic Knights renounced any claims to the town. In 1626 and 1655 Nowe was besieged by Sweden. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the town, as ''Neuenburg'', was annexed by the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. ...

and was subject to Germanisation policies, however, in the late 19th century it was still mainly populated by

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in C ...

.''Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich'', Tom VII, Warszawa, 1886, p. 214 Up to the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, it belonged to Kreis Schwetz in the administrative region of Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder in the Prussian

Province of West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (german: Provinz Westpreußen; csb, Zôpadné Prësë; pl, Prusy Zachodnie) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and 1878 to 1920. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 177 ...

in the

German Reich German ''Reich'' (lit. German Realm, German Empire, from german: Deutsches Reich, ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty ...

. According to the German census of 1910, Neuenburg had a population of 5,152, of which 2,702 (52.45%) were German-speaking, 2,316 (44.95%) were Polish-speaking and 134 (2.6%) were bilingual. In 1920, after

, the town became part of the re-established Second Polish Republic as a result of the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

and was part of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. Arrest warrant for members of Polish intelligentsia from Nowe in Świecie county

After the

German Invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...

it was annexed into the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, from 1939 to 1945 as part of

Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia (german: Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreußen) was an administrative division of Nazi Germany created on 8 October 1939 from annexed territory of the Free City of Danzig, the Greater Pomeranian Voivodship (Polish Corridor ...

. During the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

, Poles were subjected to mass arrests and executions as part of the '' Intelligenzaktion Pommern''.Maria Wardzyńska, ''Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion'', IPN, Warszawa, 2009, p. 167 (in Polish) The Germans established a prison in the local courthouse, in which around 200 Poles were imprisoned and tortured in September and October 1939, before being murdered in large massacres in the nearby village of Grupa. Towards the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Nowe was captured by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

and after the end of the war, it was restored to Poland.

Number of inhabitants by year

Note that the above table is based on primary, possibly biased or inaccurate, sources. Johann Friedrich Goldbeck: ''Volständige Topographie des Königreichs Preußen''. Part II: ''Topographie von West-Preußen''. Marienwerder 1789
p. 65, paragraph 3
Michael Rademacher:

' (2006).August Eduard Preuß: ''Preußische Landes- und Volkskunde'', Königsberg 1835,
pp. 386–387

Sights

The landmarks of Nowe are the Old Town with the ''Rynek'' (market square) filled with colourful historic townhouses, the

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

churches of Saint Matthew and Saint Maximilian Kolbe, and the medieval Nowe Castle, which today houses the Culture Centre.

References

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Świecie County