Koźle (german: Cosel) is a district of Kędzierzyn-Koźle (since 1975), Poland and is at the junction of the

Kłodnica Kłodnica () is a river in the Upper Silesia region. It is about 75 km long and a right tributary of the Odra river. Along Kłodnica's shore are Polish cities of Katowice, Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Ruda Śląska, Gliwice, and Zabrze. The ...

and

Oder The Oder ( , ; Czech, Lower Sorbian and ; ) is a river in Central Europe. It is Poland's second-longest river in total length and third-longest within its borders after the Vistula and Warta. The Oder rises in the Czech Republic and flows ...

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 ''Gesta principum Polonorum'' (; "''Deeds of the Princes of the Poles''") is the oldest known medieval chronicle documenting the history of Poland from the legendary times until 1113. Written in Latin by an anonymous author, it was most lik ...

'', the oldest Polish chronicle. Its name comes from the Polish word ''kozioł'', which means "

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically 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 a ...

". 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 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. Branch ...

. 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 ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

. It was besieged several times 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 battl ...

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

House of Vasa The House of Vasa or Wasa Georg Starbäck in ''Berättelser ur Sweriges Medeltid, Tredje Bandet'' pp 264, 275, 278, 291–296 & 321 ( sv, Vasaätten, pl, Wazowie, lt, Vazos) was an early modern royal house founded in 1523 in Sweden. Its memb ...

. It fell to

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 e ...

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 (1682–1806) and then Kingdom (1806–1919) of Bavaria. It existed from 1682 as the standing army of Bavaria until the merger of the military sovereignty (''Wehrhoheit'') of Bavaria into that of ...

, which was allied with

Napoleonic France The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire (; Latin: ) after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental ...

. From 1871 it was part of the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

. 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 lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relative ...

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

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, 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, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

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 by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. ...

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 or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Conven ...

of thousands of prisoners of several subcamps of the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. I ...

passed through the town towards the

Gross-Rosen concentration camp , known for = , location = , built by = , operated by = , commandant = , original use = , construction = , in operation = Summer of 1940 – 14 February 1945 , gas cham ...

. 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.

Notable residents

* Theodor von Scheve (1851–1922), chess master * Georg Kaul (1873–1933), politician * Erna von Dobschütz (1876–1963), painter * Georg Rasel (1882–1945), German artist * Kurt Liese (1882–1945), German general * Moritz Hadda (1887–1942), Jewish-German architect * Heinrich Tischler (1892–1938), German painter *

Irene Eisinger Irene Eisinger (8 December 1903 – 8 April 1994) was a German and British opera singer and film actress. Her career was closely linked to the foundation and the early years of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Life and career Irene Eisinger wa ...

(1903–1994), singer *

Georg Wahl Georg Wahl ( Kosel, Upper Silesia, 21 February 1920 – 4 November 2013) was Chief Rider at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, dressage instructor, rider and trainer. He was also known as the coach and trainer of Swiss Olympic medalist Christi ...

(1920–2013), equestrian * Hanno von Graevenitz (1937–2007), German diplomat * Ullrich Libor (1940–), German sportsman *

Mathias Fischer Mathias Fischer may refer to: * Mathias Fischer (basketball) * Mathias Fischer (footballer) {{hndis, Fischer, Mathias ...

(1971–), sportsman

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kozle Kędzierzyn-Koźle Neighbourhoods in Poland