Görlitz - Altstadtbrücke 02 ies.jpg

Görlitz (; pl, Zgorzelec, hsb, Zhorjelc, cz, Zhořelec, East Lusatian dialect: ''Gerlz'', ''Gerltz'', ''Gerltsch'') is a town in the German state of Saxony. It is located on the Lusatian Neisse as well as the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia, after Cottbus. Görlitz is the easternmost town in Germany (easternmost village is Zentendorf (Šćeńc)), and lies opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was the eastern part of Görlitz until 1945. The town has approximately 56,000 inhabitants, which make Görlitz the sixth-largest town in Saxony. It is the seat of the district of Görlitz. Together with Zgorzelec, it forms the Euro City of Görlitz/Zgorzelec, which has a combined population of around 86,000. While not Lusatiophone itself, the town is situated just east of the Sorbian-speaking parts of Lusatia.

The town's recorded history began in the 11th century as a Sorbian settlement. Through its history, it has been under German, Czech (Bohemian), Polish and Hungarian rule. From 1815 until 1918, Görlitz belonged to the Province of Silesia in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later to the Province of Lower Silesia in the Free State of Prussia — it was the Silesian provinces' largest town west of the Oder-Neisse line, and hence Görlitz became part of East Germany from 1949 until German reunification in 1990.

Görlitz is culturally diverse. While it is a town of Saxony, its inhabitants also identify as Upper Lusatian. The East Lusatian dialect ('' Ostlausitzer Mundart'') of the town differs from the Upper Saxon dialects spoken in most parts of Saxony, especially those of Dresden and Leipzig. And because the town had been integrated into the former provinces of Silesia and later Lower Silesia respectively, there is also a strong Silesian element in the city's culture, which is reflected by the presence of some Silesian dishes like '' Schlesisches Himmelreich'' or '' Liegnitzer Bombe'', a Silesian Museum (''Schlesisches Museum zu Görlitz''), or the Silesian Christmas Market ('' Schlesischer Christkindelmarkt''). Additionally, there is the Sorbian element, as Görlitz was founded and first settled by the Sorbs, a Slavic people. This is most obvious in that the name of the town and the etymology of some of its incorporated villages and geographic features are of Slavic origin.

Spared from the destruction of World War II, the town also has a rich architectural heritage. Many movie-makers have used the various sites as filming locations.

History

Middle Ages

In the Early Middle Ages, the area was inhabited by the Bieżuńczanie tribe, one of the old Polish tribes. The nearby Landeskrone mountain, as ''Businc'', is considered the main stronghold of the tribe, while ''Gorelic'' was a small village. Together with the Sorbian Milceni tribe, with which they bordered in the west, they were subjugated in 990 by the Margraviate of Meissen, a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire. The settlement was then conquered by Polish ruler Bolesław I Chrobry in 1002, and then formed part of the Duchy of Poland (kingdom from 1025) until 1031, when the region fell back to the Margraviate of Meissen. In 1075, the village was assigned to the Duchy of Bohemia. The date of the town's foundation is unknown. However, ''Goreliz'' was first mentioned in a document from the King of Germany, and later Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV in 1071. This document granted Görlitz to the Diocese of Meissen, then under Bishop Benno of Meissen. Currently, this document can be found in the Saxony State Archives in Dresden. The origin of the name Görlitz is derived from the Slavic word for "burned land", referring to the technique used to clear land for settlement. Zgorzelec and Czech ''Zhořelec'' have the same derivation. In 1126–1131, Bohemian Duke Soběslav I erected a castle, one of several new castles on the Bohemian-Polish border. It was probably located at the site of the present St. Peter and Paul church. In the 13th century the village gradually became a town. Due to its location on the Via Regia, an ancient and medieval trade route, the settlement prospered.

In 1319 it became part of the Piast-ruled Duchy of Jawor, the southwesternmost duchy of fragmented Poland, and Duke Henry I of Jawor confirmed the town's privileges. Later on, the town fell back to Bohemia. From 1346 Görlitz was a wealthy member of the Lusatian League, which consisted of Bautzen, Görlitz, Kamenz, Lubań, Löbau and Zittau. Around 1348 a Jewish woman, Adasse, was made a citizen of the town. In 1352 during the reign of King Casimir III the Great, Lusatian German colonists from Görlitz founded the town of Gorlice in southern Poland near Kraków. From 1377 to 1396 it was the capital of an eponymous duchy. In 1469, along with the Lusatian League, the town recognized the rule of King Matthias Corvinus, thus passing to Hungarian rule, and in 1490 it fell back to Bohemia then ruled by Polish prince Vladislaus Jagiellon.

Modern period

The Protestant Reformation came to Görlitz in the early 1520s and by the last half of the 16th century, it and the surrounding vicinity, became almost completely Lutheran.

During the Thirty Years' War, in 1623, the town was captured and occupied alternately by Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire. In 1635, the region of Upper Lusatia (including Görlitz) was ceded to the Electorate of Saxony. From 1639, the town was occupied by Sweden again, and then it was besieged by Imperial and Saxon forces in 1641. After the war, it was part of the Electorate of Saxony, from 1697 within the Polish–Saxon personal union. One of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town in the 18th century and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland often traveled that route. Napoleon visited the town several times in 1807, 1812 and 1813. After the Napoleonic Wars, the 1815 Congress of Vienna transferred the town from the Kingdom of Saxony to the Kingdom of Prussia. Görlitz was subsequently administered within the Province of Silesia, and, after World War I, the Province of Lower Silesia, until 1945. During World War I, an internment camp for Greek soldiers was located in present-day Zgorzelec, while 500 Greek officers lived in private quarters throughout the town. A burial ground for Greek soldiers was located at the local cemetery.

Shortly after the Nazi Party's rise to power, in March 1933, the SA established the Leschwitz concentration camp in Leschwitz (present-day district of Weinhübel). Political prisoners were held and tortured in the camp, before it was dissolved in August 1933, and the prisoners were deported to other concentration camps. In 1936, during a nationwide Nazi campaign of changing of placenames, two present-day districts of Görlitz were renamed to erase traces of Slavic origin—Leschwitz to ''Weinhübel'' and Nikrisch to ''Hagenwerder''. During Kristallnacht in November 1938, an arson attack was carried out on the city's synagogue. However, the building survived the attack without major damage, because firefighters resisted the order not to extinguish the fire. It is the only one synagogue in the present state of Saxony that survived Nazi rule. In the interwar period, most of the Jews left the city, and their number dropped from 567 in 1925 to 134 in 1939. Many remaining Jews were then killed in the Holocaust during World War II.

During World War II, a Nazi prison was operated in the town, with four forced labour subcamps within the town limits and three in nearby villages. The Nazis also established and operated two subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, located in present-day districts of Biesnitz and Kunnerwitz, in which over 1,500 Jewish men and women were used as forced labour, and 470 of whom died. Numerous subcamps of the Stalag VIII-A prisoner-of-war camp were located in the town, in which over 10,000 POWs worked as forced labour in 1942, and one of the largest subcamps was located in nearby Weinhübel (district of Görlitz since 1949). After the Soviet offensive of 1944 and the partial evacuation of the German court staff from the General Government in German-occupied Poland, a special court of the General Government was established at the local courthouse. Several Polish citizens were detained in Görlitz and sentenced to prison or death at this court for rescuing Jews from the Holocaust.

Near the end of World War II, German troops destroyed all bridges crossing the Lusatian Neisse