Lubliniec

Geography

Lubliniec is situated in the north of the historic Upper Silesia region at the rim of the Upper Silesian Industrial Region, about 60 km northwest of Katowice. It is an important rail hub, with two major lines crossing there – east-west (from Częstochowa to Opole) and south–north (from Katowice to Poznań) – and a site of light and chemical industry. The surrounding area is characterized by extended forests (Lasy Lublinieckie), including the Upper Liswarta Forests Landscape Park north of the town.

History

Lubliniec was established about 1270 by the Piast duke Władysław of Opole on the road leading from his residence Opole to Kraków. It was part of the Duchy of Opole within fragmented Piast-ruled Poland. According to old folk tradition the name comes from the Polish sentence lubi mi się tu kościół i miasto budować, which refers to the erection of the church and the town by Duke Władysław. In medieval Polish documents the town appeared under the names Lubie, Duke Jan II the Good granted the citizens many privileges, including brewing and market rights as well as the permit to form guilds.

Upon Jan's death in 1532, Lubliniec with the Duchy of Opole fell as a reverted fief to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, which since 1526 were ruled by the Austrian House of Habsburg. In 1638 the town was visited by King of Poland Władysław IV Vasa. In 1645 along with the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz it returned to Poland under the House of Vasa, and in 1655 the Black Madonna of Częstochowa was briefly hidden at the local castle by the Poles during the Swedish invasion of Poland. In 1666 the town fell to the Habsburg monarchy again, until it was annexed with most of Silesia by the Prussian king Frederick the Great in 1742.

The town was an important center of Polish Bar Confederates, and in the 1770s it was visited several times by Kazimierz Pułaski, one of the Confederates' military commanders and soon-to-be hero of the American Revolutionary War. In the late 18th century the town was held by the Polish noble Grotowski family. To this day the facade of the former orphanage is decorated with a relief of the Łodzia coat of arms of the Grotowski family. The town was a center of Polish resistance against Germanisation policies. 19th-century Polish publicist, activist and poet printed many of his works in the town.

According to the 1910 German census, in the city of Lublinitz 59% of the population reported German as their sole mother tongue while 25% reported Polish, with the remainder reporting as bilingual; in the entire district of Lublinitz including outlying villages, the figures were 15% German-speaking and 79% Polish-speaking. After World War I, Poland regained independence in 1918, and the region was divided according to the Upper Silesia plebiscite in 1921, whereby 88% of the Lublinitz citizens voted for continuance in the German Weimar Republic, while 47% of the citizens of the entire county voted to join the reborn Polish state. Nevertheless, after Wojciech Korfanty had initiated the Third Silesian Uprising from the nearby village of Czarny Las, it was incorporated into the Silesian Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic and became a border town. In the interbellum the Polish 74th Infantry Regiment was stationed in Lubliniec.

Again occupied in the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany during World War II (and renamed Loben, 1941–45). During the German occupation, the Polish population was subjected to mass arrests, imprisonment, deportations to Nazi concentration camps and executions. On September 8, 1939, the Einsatzgruppe II entered the town to commit various crimes against Poles. 180 civilian defenders were murdered immediately by the invading Germans in September 1939, in accordance with Adolf Hitler's orders to execute Polish "partisans" immediately. Soon after capturing the city, the Germans took over the local psychiatric hospital, and several hundred children were murdered there during the occupation as part of the Aktion T4. There were also cases in which the killed children's brains were used for medical research by the Germans in Wrocław, as mentioned by German doctor Elisabeth Hecker, who was in charge of the hospital since 1941. and the E609 forced labour subcamp of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp in the present-day district of Kokotek. Teachers from Lubliniec were among Polish teachers imprisoned and murdered in concentration camps. The area was conquered by the Red Army in January 1945 in the course of the Vistula–Oder Offensive, and then restored to Poland.

From 1975 to 1998, Lubliniec was administratively located in the Częstochowa Voivodeship.

Sport

The local football team is . It competes in the lower leagues.

Notable people

• Hans Heinrich Lammers (27 May 1879 – 4 January 1962) was a German jurist and prominent Nazi politician. From 1933 until 1945 he served as Chief of the Reich Chancellery under Adolf Hitler.
• Richard Courant (1888–1972), mathematician; his cousin Edith Stein often visited the house of her maternal grandparents Courant near the rynek, today the site of a small museum.
• Eva Gabriele Reichmann (1897–1998), historian
• Zygmunt Anczok (born 1946), footballer
• Michael Kutzop (born 1955), footballer
• Alexander Famulla (born 1960), footballer
• Major General Roman Polko (born 1962), served in the Polish 1st Special Commando Regiment at Lubliniec
• Max Kolonko (born 1965), journalist
• Andrzej Grzesik (born 1967), politician
• Anna Świątczak (born 1977), pop singer

Twin towns – sister cities

Lubliniec is twinned with:

• SVK Bánovce nad Bebravou, Slovakia
• HUN Kiskunmajsa, Hungary
• CZE Kravaře, Czech Republic
• POL Łowicz, Poland
• POL Reda, Poland
• ESP Teruel, Spain

References

References

1. (2024-12-31). "Population. Demographic data of Lubliniec. As of 31th December". Statistics Poland.
2. Felix Triest ''Topographisches handbuch von Oberschlesien'', 1865, p. 429 (in German)
3. "Lubliniec - Zamek Lubliniecki".
4. [https://www.muzeumpulaski.pl/images/aktualnosci/aktualnosci2017/konkurs-2-oblicza-Pulaskiego2017/wystawa_o_K_Pułaskim.pdf ''Kazimierz Pułaski. Bohater Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej i Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki. W 230. rocznicę śmierci./Casimir Pulaski. Hero of Poland and the United States on the 230th anniversary of the Hero’s death'' (in Polish and English)]
5. (1912). "Gemeindelexikon für die Regierungsbezirke Allenstein, Danzig, Marienwerder, Posen, Bromberg und Oppeln". Königlich Preußisches Statistisches Landesamt.
6. Wardzyńska, Maria. (2009). "Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion". [[Institute of National Remembrance.
7. Wardzyńska, p. 66
8. Olivia Kortas. "Kiedy lekarze byli mordercami. Elisabeth Hecker i dzieci z Lublińca".
9. "NS-Gefängnis Loben".
10. "Working Parties".
11. Wardzyńska, p. 138
12. "Miasta partnerskie". Lubliniec.