The turbulent history of Szczecinek reaches back to the High Middle Ages, when the area was ruled by Pomeranian dukes and princes. The majority of the city's architecture survived World War II and, subsequently, its entire Old Town was proclaimed a national heritage monument of Poland.
In the Middle Ages a Slavic stronghold existed in present-day Szczecinek.[1] It was part of the early Polish state in the 10th century, and as a result of the 12th-century fragmentation of Poland, it became part of the separate Duchy of Pomerania.
In 1310, the castle at the site of a former stronghold, and town were founded under Lübeck law by Duke Wartislaw IV of Pomerania and modelled after Szczecin (German: Stettin) which is situated about 150 kilometres (93 miles) to the west. The initial name was "Neustettin" (Polish: Nowy Szczecin, German: Neustettin, Latin: Stetin Nova). It was also known as "Klein Stettin" (Polish: Mały Szczecin, German: Klein Stettin). In 1707 the town was known in Polish as Nowoszczecin, while the Mały Szczecin name gradually developed into the modern name Szczecinek.[2]
The town was fortified to face the Brandenburgers, with a wall and palisades. In 1356 it was hit by the plague. Thankful for their survival, the Dukes Bogislaw V, Barnim IV and Wartislaw V founded the Augustine monastery Marientron, on the Marientron [pl] hill on the southern bank of the Trzesiecko [pl] Lake. It was plundered by Brandenburgers in 1470. From 1368 to 1390 it was the seat of an eponymous duchy under its only historic ruler Wartislaw V. Afterwards, it was ruled by Pomeranian duchies: Darłowo (Rügenwalde) (until 1418), Słupsk (until 1474, fief of Poland) and the united Duchy of Pomerania (until 1618).
In 1881 Abraham Springer, great-grandfather of TV presenterJerry Springer and a prominent member of the town's Jewish community launched an unsuccessful attempt to sue agitator Dr Ernst Henrici, claiming that an inflammatory anti-semitic speech in the town led directly to the burning down of the synagogue on 18 February of that year.[citation needed]
In 1914 the Regional Museum was established. In 1923 the Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit was built, then called the "Polish Church", as it was co-financed by local Poles.[5]
After the Nazis took power in Germany in the 1930s, new military barracks were built, and the invasion of Poland was carried out from the town at the beginning of World War II in 1939.[3] During the war, three forced labour camps were established and operated by the Germans in the town, and its prisoners were mostly Poles and Russians.[6] In September 1944, the Germans made the first arrests of local members of the Polish underground organization "Odra", ultimately crushing it in the following weeks. In February 1945, the town was captured by the Red Army,[3] and the local agricultural machinery factory, which used forced labour during the war, was plundered by occupying Russian forces.[6] The town then passed to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which remained in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. The town's German population was expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, and it was repopulated with Poles, expellees from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union and settlers from central Poland.[3] The plundered agricultural machinery factory was relaunched by Poles in July 1945.[6] The Polish anti-communist resistance ("cursed soldiers") was active in the town, and many of its members were arrested and sentenced to prison by the communists.[7] The last "cursed soldier" of Szczecinek, Maria Sosnowska, died in 2018.[7]
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