Słonowice ()''Ortsnamenverzeichnis der Ortschaften jenseits von Oder und Neiße'' by M. Kaemmerer is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the administrative district of

Gmina Kobylnica __NOTOC__ Gmina Kobylnica is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Słupsk County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. Its seat is the village of Kobylnica, which lies approximately south-west of Słupsk and west of the regional cap ...

, within

Słupsk County __NOTOC__ Słupsk County (, ) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Pomeranian Voivodeship, northern Poland, on the Baltic coast. It came into being on 1 January 1999, as a result of the Polish local government re ...

Pomeranian Voivodeship Pomeranian Voivodeship ( ; ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship, or province, in northwestern Poland. The provincial capital is Gdańsk. The voivodeship was established on January 1, 1999, out of the former voivodeships of Gdańsk Voivo ...

, in northern Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Kobylnica, south-west of

Słupsk Słupsk (; ; ) is a city with powiat rights located on the Słupia River in the Pomeranian Voivodeship in northern Poland, in the historical region of Pomerania or more specifically in its part known in contemporary Poland as Central Pomerania ...

, and west of the regional capital

Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...

History

For the history of the region, see

History of Pomerania The history of Pomerania starts shortly before 1000 AD, with ongoing conquests by newly arrived Polans (western), Polan rulers. Before that, the area was recorded nearly 2000 years ago as Germania, and in modern times Pomerania has been split betw ...

. Słonowice is served by the Słonowice (PKP station), which had been built in the 19th century to serve the estate of Groß Schlönwitz, then the property of the

von Blumenthal The Blumenthal family is a Lutheran and Roman Catholic German noble family, originally from Brandenburg-Prussia. Other (unrelated) families of this name exist in Switzerland and formerly in Russia, and many unrelated families (quite a few of them ...

family, who inherited it from Valeska von Krockow, wife of Herrmann von Blumenthal. During the 1930s the estate was 90% owned by Professor

Albrecht von Blumenthal Albrecht von Blumenthal (10 August 1889 – 28 March 1945) was a Classicist professor and soldier. Early life Albrecht von Blumenthal was born in Mescherin, Staffelde in Vorpommern, the son of Rittmeister Vally von Blumenthal and Cornelia Ka ...

, 10% by his brother Robert, who resided there. The estate became an outpost of the secret education of pastors for the Nazi-opponent fraction of the united

Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union The Prussian Union of Churches (known under multiple other names) was a major Protestant church body which emerged in 1817 from a series of decrees by Frederick William III of Prussia that united both Lutheran and Reformed denominations in Pru ...

, represented by the

Confessing Church The Confessing Church (, ) was a movement within German Protestantism in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all of the Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German Evangelical Church. See dro ...

and its brethren councils, persecuted by the Nazis during the struggle of the churches. After the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

had closed the preacher seminary in Stettin-Finkenwalde in autumn 1937, in December the same year the brothers Albrecht and Robert von Blumenthal permitted its lecturer, the

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

pastor and theologian

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, neo-orthodox theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the s ...

, to use the local vicarage as an illegal seminary (Sammelvikariat). The pastors of Groß Schlönwitz and neighbouring villages supported the education by employing and housing the students as vicars in their congregations.''Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pfarrer, Berlin-Charlottenburg 9, Marienburger Allee 43: Begleitheft zur Ausstellung'', corr. a. ext. ed., Kuratorium Bonhoeffer Haus (ed.), Berlin: Erinnerungs- und Begegnungsstätte Bonhoeffer Haus, ²1996, p. 51. No ISBN. In summer 1939 the seminary could move to Sigurdshof, an outlying estate (Vorwerk) of

von Kleist The House of Kleist is the name of an old and distinguished Prussian noble family, originating in Pomerania, whose members obtained many important military and administrative positions within the Kingdom of Prussia and later in the German Empire. ...

family in Wendisch Tychow. There the

shut down the seminary in March 1940. The manor house of Groß Schlönwitz burned down by chance in 1939. The place after the war lies in Poland. It was overtaken by communists who incorporated the estate into the Sysewice Agricultural State Kombinat (German: Zitzewitz Kombinat). The Vicarage and church are still to be seen; the latter, now Catholic, contains a painting of

as a Christ-figure.

References

{{Authority control Villages in Słupsk County