Oleśnica Mała (german: Klein Öls) is a village in the administrative district of

Gmina Oława __NOTOC__ Gmina Oława is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Oława County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Its seat is the town of Oława, although the town is not part of the territory of the gmina. The gmina covers ...

, within

Oława County __NOTOC__ Oława County ( pl, powiat oławski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It was created on January 1, 1999 as a result of the Polish local government r ...

, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It lies approximately south of

Oława Oława (pronounced , , szl, Oława) is a historic town in south-western Poland with 33,029 inhabitants (2019). It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship (from 1975–1998 it was in the former Wrocław Voivodeship), within the Wrocław ...

, and south-east of the regional capital

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

. The castle of ''Olesnic'' erected by the

Piast The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I (c. 930–992). The Piasts' royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of king Casimir III the Great. Branche ...

duke Bolesław I the Tall of

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

was first mentioned in an 1173 deed. Bolesław's son and successor Duke

Henry I the Bearded Henry the Bearded ( pl, Henryk (Jędrzych) Brodaty, german: Heinrich der Bärtige; c. 1165/70 – 19 March 1238) was a Polish duke from the Piast dynasty. He was Duke of Silesia at Wrocław from 1201, Duke of Kraków and High Duke of all Pol ...

and his wife Saint

Hedwig of Andechs Hedwig of Silesia ( pl, Święta Jadwiga Śląska), also Hedwig of Andechs (german: Heilige Hedwig von Andechs, la, Hedvigis; 1174 – 15 October 1243), a member of the Bavarian comital House of Andechs, was Duchess of Silesia from 1201 and ...

granted it to the Knights Templar in 1226. Upon the order's dissolution in 1314, the

commandry In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived.Anthony Luttrell and G ...

passed to the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...

. The settlement arose around the castle within the

Duchy of Brzeg The Duchy of Brzeg ( pl, Księstwo Brzeskie) or Duchy of Brieg (german: Herzogtum Brieg; cs, Knížectví břežské) was one of the Duchies of Silesia, created in 1311 during the fragmentation of the Duchy of Wrocław. A Bohemian fief from 132 ...

under

Ludwik I the Fair Louis I the Fair, also known as the Wise or the Righteous ( pl, Ludwik I Sprawiedliwy, ''Roztropny'', or ''Prawy'') or Louis I of Brzeg (''Ludwik I brzeski''; – 6/23 December 1398), a member of the Silesian Piasts, was a Silesian duke of Legn ...

in the late 14th century. The castle was devastated during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle ...

and afterwards rebuilt in a Baroque style. After in 1742 most of Silesia had been annexed by

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

, the commandry was finally

secularised In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...

at the behest of King

Frederick William III Frederick William III (german: Friedrich Wilhelm III.; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, wh ...

in 1810. After the

War of the Sixth Coalition In the War of the Sixth Coalition (March 1813 – May 1814), sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, and a number of German States defeated F ...

the king granted the estate to his victorious general

Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg Johann David Ludwig Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (born von Yorck; 26 September 1759 – 4 October 1830) was a Prussian ''Generalfeldmarschall'' instrumental in the switching of the Kingdom of Prussia from a French alliance to a Russian allianc ...

. Klein Öls remained a possession of the Wartenburg noble family, Ludwig's descendant, the resistance fighter

Peter Yorck von Wartenburg Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (13 November 1904 – 8 August 1944) was a German jurist and a member of the German Resistance against Nazism. He studied law and politics in Bonn and Breslau from 1923 to 1926, gaining his doctorate in Breslau i ...

was born here in 1904. The composer Carl Thiel (1862−1939) was born in the town. Oleśnica Mała was part of Germany until 1945, when it passed onto Poland under the Potsdam Agreement.

References

External links

Private website
Villages in Oława County {{Oława-geo-stub