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Police (; Kashubian/Pomeranian: Pòlice) is a town in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, northwestern Poland. It is the capital of Police County. As of 2006, the town had 34,284 inhabitants. The name comes from Polish pole, which means "". The town is situated on the Oder River and an estuary of the Oder River - Roztoka Odrzańska, south of the Lagoon of Szczecin and the Bay of Pomerania. The centre of Police Town is situated about 15 km north of the centre of Szczecin. There are 34,319 inhabitants in 2005 and 34,456 in 2004 in the town. [edit] History
The settlement was first mentioned in 1243. Pomeranian duke Barnim of Pomerania granted Magdeburg law to the town in 1260. At the end of the 13th century, the town had become a fief of a local dynasty of knights, the Drake family.[1] In 1321, with the death of Otto Drake, the town became a dependency of nearby Stettin (now Szczecin), hindering its growth until the mid-18th century. Nearby Jasenitz Abbey, now within the Police city limits, was secularized during the Protestant Reformation, which was adapted in the Duchy of Pomerania in 1534. After its secularization, the abbey became a ducal domain, and was the site of the treaty that for the first time partitioned the duchy into a western and eastern part (Pomerania-Wolgast and Pomerania-Stettin) in 1569. From the Treaty of Stettin (1630) until the Treaty of Stockholm (1720), Pölitz was part of Swedish Pomerania, and of Prussian Pomerania thereafter. In 1808, Pölitz became independent from Stettin again. In 1815, Pölitz became part of the restructured Province of Pomerania, administered within Landkreis Randow county. In 1939, this county was dissolved and Pölitz was made part of Groß-Stettin. In 1937, the synthetic fuel plant Hydrierwerke Pölitz AG was founded by IG Farben, Rhenania-Ossag, and Deutsch-Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft. By 1943, the plant produced 15% of Nazi Germany's synthetic fuels, 577,000 tons. The plant derived its workforce from an adjacent system of camps (Pommernlager, Nordlager, Tobruklager, Wullenwever-Lager, Arbeitserziehungslager Hägerwelle, Dürrfeld Lager). A trade ship moored on the Oder River also served as a camp (Umschulungslager Bremerhaven). In addition, a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp was located in Pölitz. During World War II, the plant made Pölitz a bombing target of the Allied Oil Campaign of World War II. During the war, 70% of the town were destroyed.[2][3] Notable buildings from the pre-IIWW era are
[edit] Post-World War IIThe city with the plant was captured by the Red Army during the Battle of Berlin on 26 April 1945. While most of the former German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line became Polish, Pölitz remained a Soviet-administered exclave: Marshal Zhukov decreed the establishment of a Soviet county with Pölitz, Ziegenort, Jasenitz, Messenthin and Scholwin. 25,000 German workers had to disassemble the plant before it was sent to the USSR.[4] Gradually, the area without the plant was given to Poland: Mścięcino (formerly Messenthin) on 7 September 1946, and Police (formerly Pölitz) with Jasienica (formerly Jasenitz) on 19 September. On 25 February 1947 the plant also passed to Polish control. Polish settlers, partially expellees from the east of former Poland, arrived in the region to replace the native population that had fled or was expelled. They were joined by refugees from Greece and Yugoslav Macedonia in 1953. The ruins of the plant still remain standing, though they are not secured and are dangerous to visit. A large chemical plant (Zakłady Chemiczne "Police") was built in the town in 1969 and has grown since to become one of the largest in Poland. It produces mostly titanium dioxide pigments and nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers. Police is in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, previously it was in the Szczecin Voivodeship (1946-1998). [edit] Research Tips
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