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70-429: West Prussia's provincial capital alternated between Marienwerder (present-day Kwidzyn, Poland ) and Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland) during its existence. West Prussia was notable for its ethnic and religious diversity due to immigration and cultural changes, with the population becoming mixed over the centuries. Since the early Middle Ages the bulk of the region was inhabited by West Slavic Lechitic tribes ( Pomeranians in

140-721: A Polish fief , held by the Teutonic Knights and Ducal Prussia . The surrounding area was inhabited by Poles , Germans and Kursenieki . Following the First Partition of Poland , the territory formed part of the Kingdom of Prussia , which became part of the German Empire in 1871. From 1920 to 1939 it was split between Germany and the Free City of Danzig . In 1945, the western part, comprising 43.8%, became again part of Poland, whereas

210-653: A degree of autonomy with an own local legislature, the Prussian Estates , and maintaining its own laws, customs and rights, but was ultimately re-absorbed directly into the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland , following the Union of Lublin in 1569 . The locally spoken language differed among social classes, with the aristocracy and urban burghers initially highly Germanised as a result of earlier Teutonic policies, but gradually Polonized in

280-559: A global electronics manufacturing services company. The city has lower average crime and unemployment rates when compared with the national average rates of Poland . These lower rates are attributed to sports programmes for youth such as MMTS Kwidzyn ( handball ) and MTS Basket Kwidzyn . The town's main sports clubs are: The intersections of Polish National roads 55 and 90, Voivodeship roads 521 and 532, and Voivodeship roads 518 and 588, are located either in Kwidzyn or just outside of

350-703: A land connection between the Province of Pomerania and East Prussia , cutting off the Polish access to the Baltic Sea and rendering East Prussia more readily defensible in the event of war with the Russian Empire . The annexed voivodeships of Pomerania (i.e. Pomerelia ) excluding the City of Danzig, Malbork (German: Marienburg ) and Chełmno (German: Kulm ) excluding the City of Thorn (Polish: Toruń ) were incorporated into

420-568: A policy followed by the Hohenzollern dynasty until Frederick III decided not to let William II learn Polish. Despite this, Frederick II (Frederick the Great) looked askance upon many of his new citizens. In a letter from 1735, he calls them "dirty" and "vile apes". He had nothing but contempt for the szlachta , the numerous Polish nobility, and wrote that Poland had "the worst government in Europe with

490-751: A result of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I , the district of Marienwerder was divided. The parts west of the Vistula were incorporated into the Polish Second Republic , which had just regained its independence. The parts east of the Vistula, to which the town of Marienwerder belonged, was to take part in the East Prussian plebiscite , which was organized under the control of the League of Nations . The Inter-Allied Commission with nearly 2,000 troops often favored

560-633: A sewer tower which was once situated on a river that has since dried up. Other sights include the Appellate Court for Kwidzyn County, the town hall, the Holy Trinity church, the Saint Padre Pio chapel, various government buildings and old townhouses. A branch of International Paper is located in Kwidzyn, as is the Kwidzyn School of Management. The second biggest employer in Kwidzyn is Jabil ,

630-456: A substantial amount of trading traffic on the lagoon, but that declined due to international tensions and silting. Between 2019 and 2022, Poland built the Vistula Spit canal in their own portion of the lagoon, to create another water route out of the lagoon. Kaliningrad and Baltiysk are currently major seaports on the lagoon. It is an Important Bird Area of Poland. The earliest version of

700-640: A whole, remaining as such until the dissolution of the province in 1920, though their distribution was uneven: their majority was concentrated in Danzig, the western lands of the province, along the Vistula river, and in the Pomesanian and Pogesanian portion of the province located east of the Vistula, with a small admixture of Poles (Gedanians and Powiślans). Meanwhile, Poles (Kociewians, Borowians and Chełminians) as well as Kashubians continued to predominate in parts of Pomerelian territories west of Vistula and in parts of

770-405: A wide, flat plain, with adjacent escarpments sometimes exceeding 60 meters in height above the river valley. This area includes the fertile Chełmno Land ( German : Kulmerland ), with historic cities such as Chełmno ( German : Kulm ), Toruń ( German : Thorn ), and Grudziądz ( German : Graudenz ). The Chełmno Land stretched eastward to the border with East Prussia, partially bound on

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840-630: Is a town in northern Poland on the Liwa River. With a population of 37,975, it is the capital of Kwidzyn County in the Pomeranian Voivodeship . Kwidzyn is located on the Liwa River, some 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) east of the Vistula river, approximately 70 km (43 mi) south of Gdańsk and 145 km (90 mi) southwest of Kaliningrad . It is part of the region of Powiśle . The Pomesanian settlement called Kwedis existed in

910-522: Is a lot of work to be done; there is no order, and no planning and the towns are in a lamentable condition." Frederick invited German immigrants to redevelop the province. Many German officials also regarded the Poles with contempt. According to the Polish historian Jerzy Surdykowski, Frederick the Great introduced 300,000 German colonists. According to Christopher Clark , 54 percent of the annexed area and 75 percent of

980-455: Is a reference to Mare Recens et Neriam and finally in 1288 Recenti Mari Hab , which evidently corresponds with the German "Frisches Haff". The modern German name, Frisches Haff , is derived from an earlier form, Friesisches Haff . The Russian name of the lagoon since 1946 is Kaliningradskiy zaliv (Калининградский залив), it means 'Kaliningrad Bay'. From the first half of the 13th c.

1050-712: Is still used in Modern Lithuanian as Aistmarės , which preserves the original meaning. Over three hundred years later, in the first half of the 13th Century, the name of the Vistula Lagoon occurs in deeds issued by the Teutonic Order in Latin as Mare Recens (1246 - " mare " - a pool or lake or sea and " recens " - fresh) in contrast to the contemporaneous name for the Baltic Sea - Mare Salsum (Salty Sea). Then in 1251 there

1120-508: The Chełmno Land , forming altogether around 36% of the population of the province as a whole. There were also sizeable minorities of Mennonites and Jews settling in the region. The landscape of West Prussia consisted of the lower reaches of the Vistula River ( German : Weichsel , Polish : Wisła ) near its mouth on the Baltic Sea , and neighboring lands to the west and east. In

1190-648: The German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund ), an association of 39 German-speaking states in Central Europe under the nominal leadership of Austrian Empire , as a replacement for the dissolved Holy Roman Empire . Its boundaries largely followed those of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire, defining the territory of Germany for much of the 19th century. Except for the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and

1260-543: The German Empire (1848–49) was undertaken by the Frankfurt Parliament . In 1815, the province was administratively subdivided into the Regierungsbezirke Danzig and Marienwerder . From 1829 to 1878, West Prussia was combined with East Prussia to form the Province of Prussia , after which they were re-established as separate provinces. In 1840, King Frederick William IV of Prussia sought to reconcile

1330-730: The House of Hohenzollern , remaining under Polish suzerainty. In 1657 the Brandenburg dukes severed ties with the Polish crown and in 1701 elevated their realm to the sovereign Kingdom of Prussia . During the War of the Polish Succession , Polish King Stanisław Leszczyński stayed in the town in July 1734. In 1765 Prussia established a customs chamber for Polish products floated down the Vistula to Polish Baltic ports. The town of Marienwerder meanwhile had become

1400-723: The Lizard Union and later by the Prussian Confederation , both pledging allegiance to the Polish king, caused the Thirteen Years' War which ultimately led to the Second Peace of Thorn , when most of the region and was reclaimed by Poland and henceforth formed Royal Prussia , consisting of the originally Polish Pomerelia and Chełmno Land , expanded by the addition of parts of the formerly Old Prussian territories of Pomesania , Pogesania and Warmia . The region had initially

1470-652: The Pomerelia region and Masovians in Kulmerland ), while the actual Old Prussians ( Pomesanians and Pogesanians ) populated only the remaining part of the territory lying to the east of the Vistula River . The Teutonic Order's conquest of the region resulted in German colonization in the 14th century. As a result of Germanisation , Germans became in the middle of the 19th century the most numerous ethnic group in West Prussia as

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1540-640: The Pregolya River. The lagoon is split between Poland (including the localities of Elbląg , Tolkmicko , Frombork , and Krynica Morska ) and Russia 's Kaliningrad Oblast (including the localities of Kaliningrad , Baltiysk , and Primorsk ). Before 2022, the only water route from the lagoon out to the Gdańsk Bay was the Strait of Baltiysk , in Russia's portion of the lagoon. The Polish port of Elbląg used to see

1610-604: The Treaty of Versailles in 1919, most of pre-war West Prussia's territory (62%) and population (57%, the majority of whom were Polish) was granted to the Second Polish Republic or the Free City of Danzig (8% of territory, 19% of population), while parts in the west (18% of territory, 9% of population) and east (12% of territory, 15% of population) of the former province remained in Weimar Germany . The western remainder formed Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia in 1922, while

1680-572: The Tuchola Forest , were located in this part of the province. Further north near the sea is the Kashubian Lake District , where the highest point of the former province, Wieżyca ( German : Turmberg ), reaches 329 meters above sea level. The headwaters of Pomeranian rivers such as the Słupia ( German : Stolpe ) and Łeba ( German : Leba ) are located in these uplands. In the north

1750-616: The 11th century. In 1232, the Teutonic Knights built the castle and established the town of Marienwerder (now Kwidzyn) the following year. In 1243, the Bishopric of Pomesania received both the town and castle from the Teutonic Order as fiefs, and the settlement became the seat of the Bishops of Pomesania within Prussia . The town was populated by artisans and traders, originating from towns in

1820-535: The German invasion of Poland , which started World War II . Many Poles expelled from German-occupied Poland were deported to forced labour in the town's vicinity. The Germans also operated a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp in the town. On 21 January at approximately 16:00, a surprising order came to evacuvate the civilians westwards towards Chojnice . When the Red Army invaded East Prussia at least 95% of

1890-526: The German administration before the Polish private gymnasium was finally established on November 10, 1937. Local German press incited the Germans against the Polish school, and in 1938 a fourteen-year-old boy was shot at the school playground, which the German police ignored, and the shooter was not caught. The Germans, especially the Hitler Youth , repeatedly harassed and attacked Polish students and devastated

1960-662: The Germans, and its services towards Poles were often delayed and limited, while the administration remained under German control. The town was home to the Polish Warmian Plebiscite Committee and the Committee for Polish Affairs, which, however, had to operate partly secretly. On May 16, 1920, the largest Polish plebiscite demonstration in Powiśle took place in the town, and Poles had to organize defenses against attacks by German militias. According to Polish sources there

2030-536: The Kingdom of Prussia upon the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 . The Polish administrative and legal code was replaced by the Prussian system, and 750 schools were built from 1772-1775. Both Protestant and Roman Catholic teachers taught in West Prussia, and teachers and administrators were encouraged to be able to speak both German and Polish. Frederick II of Prussia also advised his successors to learn Polish,

2100-540: The Polish suzerainty by the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau , taking advantage of the Russo-Swedish Deluge , shortly thereafter transforming their possessions into a kingdom. This development turned out to be fatal to the Polish monarchy, as the two parts of the rising Kingdom of Prussia were separated by Polish land. Subsequently, the newly established kingdom entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories. Even though some German authors viewed

2170-588: The Pomesanian Cathedral Chapter, which now houses a museum. It is listed as a Historic Monument of Poland . The adjacent co-cathedral of St. John the Evangelist was built between 1343 and 1384, and serves as a co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Elbląg . It contains the tombs of three Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights as well as numerous bishops. A bridge connects the castle to

West Prussia - Misplaced Pages Continue

2240-658: The Province of West Prussia the following year, along with the formerly East Prussian Marienwerder Kreis . Ermland (Polish: Warmia ) became part of East Prussia while the annexed parts of Greater Poland and Kuyavia formed a separate Netze District located to the south. The Partition Sejm ratified the cession on 30 September 1773, complemented by renouncement by the Polish king of his royal title in regard to Prussia. Thereafter, Frederick finally started to style himself "King of Prussia" rather than "King in Prussia." Both abovementioned exempted cities were ultimately captured by

2310-529: The Teutonic Knights were ordered by the Pope to return Pomerelia and other lands back to Poland, but did not comply. These events resulted in a series of Polish–Teutonic Wars throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. Under the Teutonic rule, an influx of western, mainly German-speaking farmers, traders and craftsmen was encouraged. Subsequent rebellions organized by the local population against the Teutonic state, initially by

2380-628: The Teutonic state was transformed into a secular and Lutheran duchy under the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Albert , a political foundation only possible with the consent of the Polish King Sigismund I the Old . The town was visited by Polish Kings Sigismund II Augustus in 1552 and Stephen Báthory in 1576. In 1618 the ducal rights were inherited by the Brandenburg branch of

2450-594: The capital of the District of Marienwerder . In 1772, the Marienwerder district was integrated into the newly established Prussian Province of West Prussia , which consisted mostly of territories annexed in the First Partition of Poland . In November 1831, several Polish cavalry units of the November Uprising stopped in the town on the way to their internment places. By the enlargement of its administrative functions,

2520-400: The citizens of Marienwerder were speaking German as their mother tongue, and therefore they feared the atrocities committed to the German population. A majority of them left the city but not all arrived save territory alive. Those which stayed were robbed, raped and eventually murdered by the Red Army. On 30 January the town was captured by the Red Army. The Red Army established a war hospital in

2590-503: The earliest estimations on ethnic or national structure of West Prussia are from 1819. At that time West Prussia had 630,077 inhabitants, including 327,300 Poles (52%), 290,000 Germans (46%) and 12,700 Jews (2%). Karl Andree , " Polen: in geographischer, geschichtlicher und culturhistorischer Hinsicht " (Leipzig 1831), gives the total population of West Prussia as 700,000 – including 50% Poles (350,000), 47% Germans (330,000) and 3% Jews (20,000). The population more than doubled during

2660-699: The eastern part fell to the Soviet Union (now within Russia ). Administratively, it is divided between the Polish Pomeranian and Warmian-Masurian voivodships , and the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast . The nearly extinct ethnic group or Kursenieki lived on the Vistula Spit, by the lagoon. From January until March 1945, throughout the evacuation of East Prussia , refugees from East Prussia crossed

2730-433: The eastern remainder became part of Regierungsbezirk West Prussia within East Prussia . The 1920 East Prussian plebiscite was also held in the eastern part of West Prussia, which was known as the Marienwerder Plebiscite Area, and included partially or fully, the districts of Marienwerder , Stuhm , Rosenberg and Marienburg . The residents of this region voted by a majority of 92.4% to remain with Germany. In 1939,

2800-468: The establishment of West Prussia as a historic reunification of the lands of the Teutonic State , officially, the Prussian government shunned from justifying the annexation by such argument. The reason was that the Teutonic Order still called for reestablishment of their rule over East- and West Prussia. In the 1772 First Partition of Poland the Prussian king Frederick the Great took the occasion to annex most of Royal Prussia. The addition gave Prussia

2870-465: The exception of Ottoman Empire ". He considered West Prussia less civilized than Colonial Canada and compared the Poles to the Iroquois . In a letter to his brother Henry , Frederick wrote about the province that "it is a very good and advantageous acquisition, both from a financial and a political point of view. In order to excite less jealousy I tell everyone that on my travels I have seen just sand, pine trees, heath land and Jews. Despite that there

West Prussia - Misplaced Pages Continue

2940-509: The former Starostwo of Draheim , the Prussian lands which had been outside the Empire remained outside the Confederation, namely the former Ducal Prussia and those territories gained during the partitions of Poland. This included both predominantly Polish- or Kashubian-speaking areas (former Greater Poland and Pomerelia within West Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Posen ) and German-speaking areas ( Malbork Land within West Prussia and most of East Prussia ). A failed attempt to include these lands in

3010-406: The lagoon was part of the State of the Teutonic Order . In 1454, King Casimir IV Jagiellon incorporated the region to the Kingdom of Poland upon the request of the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation . Following the peace treaty of 1466 , it remained a part of Poland, with the western part forming part of the Polish provinces of Royal Prussia and Greater Poland , and the eastern part being

3080-420: The later years, while the peasantry continued as predominantly Kashubian- and Polish-speaking. A small area in the west of Pomerelia, the Lauenburg and Bütow Land , was granted to the rulers of Pomerania as a Polish fief before it was reintegrated with Poland in 1637, and later again transformed into a Polish fief , which it remained until the First Partition of Poland . East Prussia around Königsberg , on

3150-463: The latter in particular during Intelligenzaktion Pommern , as well as in the Stutthof concentration camp . Later in the war, many West Prussian Germans fled westward as the Red Army advanced on the Eastern Front . All of the areas occupied by Nazis were restored to Poland according to the post-war Potsdam Agreement in 1945, along with further neighbouring areas of former Nazi Germany and areas that had been part of Germany before. The vast majority of

3220-457: The local Polish Bank Ludowy was also arrested, and the local Polish consulate was cut off from telephone lines, nevertheless the state radio in Poland still provided information regarding the attack on the Polish school on the same day. Nazi Germany co-formed the Einsatzgruppe V in the town, which then entered several Polish cities, including Grudziądz , Ciechanów , Łomża and Siedlce , to commit various atrocities against Poles during

3290-428: The name of the Vistula Lagoon has been recorded in historical sources by Wulfstan of Hedeby at the end of the 9th Century as Estmere . It is an Anglo-Saxon rendition of the Old Prussian Aīstinmari , which was the name for the lagoon. The name was the fusion of two Old Prussian words: So, the oldest known meaning of the name of the Vistula Lagoon was "The lagoon or sea of the Aesti". The Old Prussian name

3360-407: The next seven decades, reaching 1,433,681 inhabitants (including 1,976 foreigners) in 1890. According to the German census of 1910, in areas that became Polish after 1918, 42% of the populace were Germans (including German military, officials and colonists ), while the Polish census of 1921 found 19% of Germans in the same territory. Contemporary sources in late 19th and early 20th centuries gave

3430-442: The northern parts of the Holy Roman Empire . A Teutonic knight, Werner von Orseln , was murdered in Marienburg (Malbork) in 1330. He was among the first to be buried in the newly erected cathedral of the town. St. Dorothea of Montau lived in Marienwerder from 1391 until her death in 1394; future pilgrims visiting her shrine would contribute to the flourishing economy. The Prussian Confederation , which opposed Teutonic rule,

3500-493: The number of Kashubians between 80,000–200,000. Note: Prussian provinces were subdivided into districts called Kreise (singular Kreis , abbreviated Kr. ). Cities would have their own Stadtkreis (urban district) and the surrounding rural area would be named for the city, but referred to as a Landkreis (rural district). Kwidzyn Kwidzyn ( Kfee-dzin [ˈkfʲid͡zɨn] ; German : Marienwerder ; Latin : Quedin ; Old Prussian : Kwēdina )

3570-435: The other hand, remained with the State of the Teutonic Knights , who were reduced to vassals of the Polish kings. Their territory was secularised to become the Lutheran Duchy of Prussia according to the 1525 Treaty of Kraków and the Prussian Homage . The duchy was later ruled in personal union with the Imperial Margraviate of Brandenburg from 1618. The Hohenzollern rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia were able to remove

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3640-441: The population of West Prussia was put at 1,703,474, of whom around 64 percent listed their first language as German, 28 percent Polish and 7 percent Kashubian. According to Polish authors the real share of Poles and Kashubians was 43% (rather than 35.5% as in official figures), but many of them were counted as Catholic Germans by Prussian census clerks. In 1910, ethnic Poles were between 36% and 43% of West Prussia's populace. After

3710-458: The population of the town started to grow and in 1885, it numbered 8,079. This population was composed mostly of Lutheran inhabitants, many of whom were engaged in trades connected with the manufacturing of sugar, vinegar and brewing as well as dairy farming, fruit growing and the industrial construction of machines. In 1910, Marienwerder had a population of 12,983 of which 12,408 (95.6%) were German-speaking and 346 (2.7%) were Polish-speaking. As

3780-407: The pretext of helping the King Władysław I Łokietek to quell a rebellion, with subsequent Teutonic atrocities against the Polish population, such as the Slaughter of Gdańsk . The possession of Danzig and Pomerelia by the Teutonic Order was questioned consistently by the Polish kings Władysław I and Casimir the Great in legal suits in the papal court in 1320 and 1333. Both times, as well as in 1339,

3850-465: The region was invaded, then included in the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia within Nazi Germany during World War II and settled with 130,000 German colonists, while between 120,000 and 170,000 Poles and Jews were removed by the Germans through expulsion , massacres, enslavement or killed in extermination camps . As in all other areas, Poles and Jews were classified as " Untermenschen " by the German state, with their fate being slavery and extermination,

3920-419: The remaining German population of the region that had not fled was subsequently expelled westward. Many German civilians were deported to labor camps like Vorkuta in the Soviet Union , where a large number of them perished or were later reported missing. In 1949, the refugees established the non-profit Landsmannschaft Westpreußen to represent West Prussians in the Federal Republic of Germany . ] Perhaps

3990-506: The school. It was forcibly closed down on August 25, 1939. The German police surrounded the Polish school and arrested its principal Władysław Gębik, 13 teachers, other staff and 162 students, who were imprisoned in Tapiau (today Gvardeysk ), and then deported elsewhere. Later on, students under the age of 18 were released, older students were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht , while teachers and staff were deported to concentration camps , where most of them were murdered. The head of

4060-459: The short-lived Duchy of Warsaw ; it also lost Danzig, which was a Free City from 1807 until 1814. After the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Danzig, Kulm, and Thorn were returned to West Prussia by resolution of the Vienna Congress . Some of the areas of Greater Poland annexed in 1772 that had formed the Netze District were added to West Prussia as well (the remainder became part of the Grand Duchy of Posen ). The Congress of Vienna established

4130-401: The south by the path of the river Drwęca ( German : Drewenz ), which formed part of the province's southeastern border with Congress Poland and the Russian Empire . The region of Pomerelia or Gdańsk Pomerania , historically Polish and never inhabited by Old Prussians , was forcibly occupied by the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights in 1308, following an invasion of Poland under

4200-464: The state with the Catholic Church and the kingdom's Polish subjects by granting amnesty to imprisoned Polish bishops and by re-establishing Polish instruction in schools in districts having Polish majorities. With rise of nationalism , the Hohenzollern-ruled territory increasingly became a target of aggressive Germanisation efforts , German settlement, anti-Catholic campaigns ( Kulturkampf ), as well as disfranchisement and expropriations of Poles, and

4270-469: The town became again part of Poland under the terms of the Potsdam Agreement , although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the 1980s. From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the Elbląg Voivodeship . In 1982, the communists brutally crushed the protest of interned anti-communist oppositionists. The main landmark is the Kwidzyn Castle , a 14th-century Brick Gothic Ordensburg castle and cathedral complex of

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4340-418: The town for 20,000 people. The town center was burned and pillaged by Soviet soldiers. In the course of 1945 the city was emptied of the last German inhabitants. Meanwhile, large parts of the inner city were sacked. Since then, Polish newcomers from Poland and Lithuania repopulated the town and its environments. The Lutheran ecclesiastical buildings were handed over to the Catholic Church. After World War II ,

4410-446: The town limits. There is also a train station. Kwidzyn is twinned with: Vistula Lagoon The Vistula Lagoon is a brackish water lagoon on the Baltic Sea roughly 56 miles (90 km) long, 6 to 15 miles (10 to 19 km) wide, and up to 17 feet (5 m) deep, separated from the Gdańsk Bay by the Vistula Spit . The lagoon is a mouth of a few branches of the Vistula River, notably Nogat and Szkarpawa , and of

4480-435: The urban population were German-speaking Protestants. Further Polish areas were annexed in the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, now including the cities of Danzig ( Gdańsk ) and Thorn ( Toruń ). After the defeat of Prussia by the Napoleonic French Empire at the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt followed by the Treaties of Tilsit , West Prussia lost its southern territory in the vicinity of Thorn and Kulm (Chełmno) to

4550-476: The west, the province shared a border with easternmost Brandenburg , and comprised those lands between the provinces of Posen and Pomerania . This region of the province was characterized by the Baltic Uplands , with southward flowing rivers joining the Noteć ( German : Netze ). The Brda ( German : Brahe ) drains much of this area, joining the Vistula after passing through Bydgoszcz ( German : Bromberg ). Numerous large expanses of woodland, including

4620-441: Was German electoral fraud resulted in 7,811 votes given to remain in East Prussia, and therefore Germany, and only 362 for Poland. Afterwards, anti-Polish terror intensified. According to the Geneva Conventions , the Polish community was entitled to its own schools, and from 1934 local Poles strove to establish a Polish school. The Germans blocked the establishment of the school, and Polish organizations filed 100 complaints to

4690-401: Was finally annexed into Germany following the North German Confederation Treaty (1866). The Polish historian Andrzej Chwalba cites Germanization measures that included: At the time of German Unification in 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia was the largest and dominant part of the North German Confederation , the predecessor of the newly-formed German Empire . In the German census of 1910,

4760-414: Was found at the northwestern end of the delta. The Nogat river, a distributary of the Vistula, flows to the northeast past the city of Malbork ( German : Marienburg ) and into the Vistula Lagoon . Further east near Elbląg ( German : Elbing ), the border with East Prussia crossed the Vistula Spit , Vistula Lagoon, and the Elbląg Upland . In the southeast, the course of the Vistula river forms

4830-430: Was founded in the town on March 14, 1440. The town itself joined the organization on 17 April 1440. Upon the request of the organization in 1454 Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon incorporated the region and town to the Kingdom of Poland , and the Thirteen Years' War broke out. In 1466, after the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the war, the town became part of Poland as a fief held by the Teutonic Knights. In 1525,

4900-403: Was the Baltic coast, consisting of a graded shoreline with landmarks such as the Hel Peninsula stretching 35 kilometers into the Gdańsk Bay , and the Vistula Fens where that river meets the sea. The Vistula delta encompasses a heavily cultivated area of approximately 2,000 square kilometers of land, much of it below sea level. Gdańsk ( German : Danzig ), the largest city of the province,

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