Stettin
Stettin is an ancient German city, the capital of the Province of Pomerania, since 1945 occupied by Poland.
History
In 1143, a large army under Albert 'The Bear', Margrave of Brandenburg, and Conrad of Meissen, advanced on Stettin castle and persuaded Duke Ratibor of Pomerania to accept Christianity,[1] and this Duke subsequently took part in the crusade against the Wends four years later. The Dukes of Pomerania fell under the Holy Roman Emperor as their overlord. This family became extinct in 1637, and Pomerania passed to Sweden from 1648 to 1720, thereafter to Prussia.
It was considered a bulwark to the Marches of Brandenburg and about 1815 the fortifications were greatly improved.[2] It was already busy commercially and became also a manufacturing town of great importance (shipbuilding, machinery, chemicals, sugar, paper, cement, porcelain, oil refining, etc.), situated on both banks of the river Oder, the principal part being on the left bank. The Oder at Stettin was sufficiently deep (20 feet) for vessels of substantial size. On the right bank of the Oder is the Free Harbour, 150 acres in extent, constructed between 1893 and 1898. In 1904 the city had 210,000 inhabitants.[3] The population in 1935 was 254,466.[4]
Stettin was the birthplace of the German noblewoman and future Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, Catherine being an adopted name, she being born as Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. It was also the birthplace of the famous German actor, Heinrich George (1893-1946).
WWII
At the end of World War II Stettin fell into the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany as set forth by the victorious Allies. The Soviets, however, illegally awarded Pomerania, and Stettin, to their Communist puppet state of Poland. The Red Army and illegal Polish Communist Militias, brutally expelled the entire population of the city[5] and replaced them with Polish settlers.
Population
- 1600 5,000 —
- 1720 6,081 +21.6%
- 1740 12,300 +102.3%
- 1812 21,255 +72.8%
- 1840 35,300 +66.1%
- 1852 48,028 +36.1%
- 1861 58,487 +21.8%
- 1872 76,000 +29.9%
- 1885 99,543 +31.0%
- 1905 224,119 +125.1%
- 1939 383,000 +70.9%
- Expulsions
- 1946 72,948 −81.0%
- Imported Polish settlers.
- 1950 178,907 +145.3%
- 1960 269,318 +50.5%
- 1970 338,000 +25.5%
- 1980 388,322 +14.9%
- 1990 413,437 +6.5%
- 2000 416,657 +0.8%
- 2010 405,606 −2.7%
- 2020 398,255 −1.8%
Notables from Stettin (excerpt)
- Otto Helmut Lebrecht von Trotha (1839–1916), German Major General
- Dita Parlo (1908–1971) was born in Stettin, Pomerania, German Empire. (Sources differ as to whether her birth name was Grethe Gerda Kornstädt or Gerda Olga Justine Kornstädt.) A famous film actress.
References
- ↑ Fuhrmann, Horst, Germany in the High Middle Ages c1050-1200, Cambridge University Press UK, English edition, 1986, p.141, ISBN: 0-521-26638-6.
- ↑ Encyclopaedia Britannica, Fifth edition, Edinburgh, 1815, vol.xix, p.700.
- ↑ Baedeker, Karl, Northern Germany, 14th revised edition, Leipzig & London, 1904, p.157.
- ↑ Odhams New Pictorial Atlas of the World with Gazetteer, Odham's Press Ltd., London, 1935, p.286.
- ↑ The Expulsion of the German Population from the Territories East of the Oder-Neisse-Line, editor, Professor Theodor Schieder, University of Koln, et al, with translations by Professor Dr. Vivian Stranders, M.A., University of London, FDR Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, Bonn, 1954.
