Place:Gliwice, Ślaskie, Poland

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Gliwice is a city in Upper Silesia, in southern Poland. The city is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Kłodnica river (a tributary of the Oder). It lies approximately 25 km west from Katowice, the regional capital of the Silesian Voivodeship.

Gliwice is the westernmost city of the Upper Silesian metropolis, a conurbation of 2.0 million people, and is the third-largest city of this area, with 175,102 permanent residents as of 2021.^[1] It also lies within the larger Upper Silesian metropolitan area which has a population of about 5.3 million people and spans across most of eastern Upper Silesia, western Lesser Poland and the Moravian-Silesian Region in the Czech Republic. Gliwice is bordered by three other cities and towns of the metropolitan area: Zabrze, Knurów and Pyskowice. It is one of the major college towns in Poland, thanks to the Silesian University of Technology, which was founded in 1945 by academics of Lwów University of Technology. Over 20,000 people study in Gliwice. Gliwice is an important industrial center of Poland. Following an economic transformation in the 1990s, Gliwice shifted from steelworks and coal mining to automotive and machine industry.

Founded in the 13th century, Gliwice is one of the oldest settlements in Upper Silesia, with a preserved Old Town core. Gliwice's most historical structures include St Bartholomew's Church (15th century), Gliwice Castle and city walls (14th century), (originally a hospital, 15th century) and (15th century). Gliwice is also known for its Radio Tower, where Gleiwitz incident happened shortly before the outbreak of World War II and which is thought to be the world's tallest wooden construction, as well as Weichmann Textile House, one of the first buildings designed by world-renowned architect Erich Mendelsohn. Gliwice hosted the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2019 which took place on 24 November 2019.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Early history

Gliwice was first mentioned as a town in 1276, however, it was granted town rights earlier by Duke Władysław Opolski of the Piast dynasty. It was located on a trade route connecting Kraków and Wrocław and was part of various Piast-ruled duchies of fragmented Poland: Opole until 1281, Bytom until 1322, from 1322 to 1342 Gliwice was a capital of an eponymous duchy, afterwards again part of the Duchy of Bytom until 1354, later it was also ruled by other regional Polish Piast dukes until 1532,^[2] although in 1335 it fell under the suzerainty of the Bohemian Crown, passing with that crown under suzerainty of the Austrian Habsburgs in 1526.

According to 14th-century writers, the town seemed defensive in character, when under rule of Siemowit of Bytom. In the Middle Ages the city prospered mainly due to trade and crafts, especially brewing.^[2]

On 17 April 1433, Gliwice was captured by the Duke Bolko V, who joined the Hussites after they captured Prudnik.

Early Modern Age

After the dissolution of the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz in 1532, it was incorporated as Gleiwitz into the Habsburg monarchy. Because of the vast expenses incurred by the Habsburg monarchy during their 16th century wars against the Ottoman Empire, Gleiwitz was leased to Friedrich Zettritz for the amount of 14,000 thalers. Although the original lease was for a duration of 18 years, it was renewed in 1580 for 10 years and in 1589 for an additional 18 years. Around 1612, the Reformed Franciscans came from Kraków, and then their monastery and Holy Cross Church were built. The city was besieged or captured by various armies during the Thirty Years' War.^[2] In 1645 along with the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz it returned to Poland under the House of Vasa, and in 1666 it fell to Austria again. In 1683 Polish King John III Sobieski stopped in the city before the Battle of Vienna.^[2] In the 17th and 18th century, the city's economy switched from trading and brewing beer to clothmaking, which collapsed after the 18th-century Silesian Wars.^[2]

During the mid 18th century Silesian Wars, Gleiwitz was taken from the Habsburg monarchy by the Kingdom of Prussia along with the majority of Silesia. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Gleiwitz was administered in the Prussian district of Tost-Gleiwitz within the Province of Silesia in 1816. The city was incorporated with Prussia into the German Empire in 1871 during the unification of Germany. In 1897 Gleiwitz became its own Stadtkreis, or urban district.

Industrialization

The first coke-fired blast furnace on the European continent was constructed in Gleiwitz in 1796 under the direction of John Baildon. Gleiwitz began to develop into a major city through industrialization during the 19th century. The town's ironworks fostered the growth of other industrial fields in the area. The city's population in 1875 was 14,156. However, during the late 19th century Gleiwitz had: 14 distilleries, 2 breweries, 5 mills, 7 brick factories, 3 sawmills, a shingle factory, 8 chalk factories and 2 glassworks.

Other features of the 19th century industrialized Gleiwitz were a gasworks, a furnace factory, a beer bottling company, and a plant for asphalt and paste. Economically, Gleiwitz opened several banks, Savings and loan associations, and bond centers. Its tram system was completed in 1892, while its theater was opened in 1899; until World War II, Gleiwitz' theatre featured actors from throughout Europe and was one of the most famous theatres in the whole of Germany. Despite Germanisation policies, the Poles established various Polish organizations, including the "Sokół" Polish Gymnastic Society, and published local Polish newspapers.^[2]

20th century

According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Gleiwitz's population in 1905 was 61,324. By 1911 it had two Protestant and four Roman Catholic churches, a synagogue, a mining school, a convent, a hospital, two orphanages, and a barracks. Gleiwitz was the center of the mining industry of Upper Silesia. It possessed a royal foundry, with which were connected machine factories and boiler works. Other industrialized areas of the city had other foundries, meal mills, and factories producing wire, gas pipes, cement, and paper.

After the end of World War I, clashes between Poles and Germans occurred during the Polish insurrections in Silesia. Some ethnically Polish inhabitants of Upper Silesia wanted to incorporate the city into the Second Polish Republic, which just regained independence. On May 1, 1919 a Polish rally was held in Gliwice. Seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict, the League of Nations held a plebiscite on 20 March 1921 to determine which country the city should belong to. In Gleiwitz, 32,029 votes (78.7% of given votes) were for remaining in Germany, Poland received 8,558 (21.0%) votes, and 113 (0.3%) votes were declared invalid. The total voter turnout was listed as 97.0%. This prompted another insurrection by Poles. The League of Nations determined that three Silesian cities: Gleiwitz (Gliwice), Hindenburg (Zabrze) and Beuthen (Bytom) would remain in Germany, and the eastern part of Upper Silesia with its main city of Katowice (Kattowitz) would join restored Poland. After delimiting the border in Upper Silesia in 1921, Gliwice found itself in Germany, but near the border with Poland – the nearby Knurów was already in Poland.

In the interbellum the city witnessed not only Anti-Polish, but also Anti-French incidents and violence by the Germans. In 1920, local Polish doctor and city councillor , protested against the German refusal to treat French soldiers stationed in the city.^[3] In January 1922, he himself treated French soldiers shot in the city.^[3] On April 9, 1922, 17 Frenchmen died in an explosion during the liquidation of a German militia weapons warehouse in the present-day Sośnica district.^[3] Styczyński, who defended the rights of local Poles and protested against German acts of violence against Poles, was himself murdered by a German militant on April 18, 1922.^[3] Nevertheless, various Polish organizations and enterprises still operated in the city in the interbellum, including a local branch of the Union of Poles in Germany, Polish banks and a scout troop. On June 9, 1933 Gliwice was the site of the first conference of the Nazi anti-Polish organization Bund Deutscher Osten in Upper Silesia. In a secret Sicherheitsdienst report from 1934, Gliwice was named one of the main centers of the Polish movement in western Upper Silesia. Polish activists were increasingly persecuted since 1937.

An attack on a radio station in Gleiwitz on 31 August 1939, staged by the German secret police, served as a pretext, devised by Reinhard Heydrich under orders from Hitler, for Nazi Germany to invade Poland, which marked the start of the Second World War.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, on September 4, 1939, the Einsatzgruppe I entered the city to commit various atrocities against Poles. After the invasion of Poland, the assets of local Polish banks were confiscated by Germany. The Germans also formed a Kampfgruppe unit in the city. It was also the cremation site of many of around 750 Poles murdered in Katowice in September 1939.

During the war, the Germans operated a Nazi prison in the city, and established numerous forced labour camps,^[2] including a Polenlager camp solely for Poles, a camp solely for Jews, a penal "education" camp, a subcamp of the prison in Strzelce Opolskie, and six subcamps of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner of war camp. From July 1944 to January 1945, Gliwice was the location of four subcamps of the Auschwitz concentration camp. In the largest subcamp, whose prisoners were mainly Poles, Jews and Russians, nearly 100 either died of hunger, mistreatment and exhaustion or were murdered. During the evacuation of another subcamp, the Germans burned alive or shot 55 prisoners who were unable to walk. There are also two mass graves of the victims of the early 1945 death march from Auschwitz in the city, both commemorated with monuments.

On 24 January 1945, Gliwice was occupied by the Red Army as part of their Allied Occupation Zone. Under borders changes dictated by the Soviet Union at the Potsdam Conference, Gliwice fell inside Poland's new borders after Germany's defeat in the war. It was incorporated into Poland's Silesian Voivodeship on 18 March 1945, after almost 300 years of being outside of Polish rule.

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