Kreis Meseritz (''Landkreis Meseritz'' from 1939; ) was a district in Prussia, first in the southern administrative Region of Posen within the

Grand Duchy of Posen The Grand Duchy of Posen (; ) was part of the Kingdom of Prussia, created from Prussian Partition, territories annexed by Prussia after the Partitions of Poland, and formally established following the Congress of Vienna in 1815. On 9 February 1 ...

(till 1848), then the

Province of Posen The Province of Posen (; ) was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1848 to 1920, occupying most of the historical Greater Poland. The province was established following the Greater Poland Uprising (1848), Poznań Uprisi ...

(till 1920), then within the Province of Posen-West Prussia (till 1938) and at last as part of the administrative Region of Frankfurt within the

Province of Brandenburg The Province of Brandenburg () was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1947. Brandenburg was established in 1815 from the Kingdom of Prussia's core territory, comprised the bulk of the historic Margraviate of Brandenburg (excluding Altmark) and ...

(till 1945). Its former territory presently lies in the eastern part of the

Lubusz Voivodeship Lubusz Voivodeship ( ) is a voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) in western Poland with a population of 972,140. Its regional capitals are Gorzów Wielkopolski and Zielona Góra. The region is characterized by a landscape of forests, lake ...

, a region of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, roughly resembling the extent of the present

Międzyrzecz County __NOTOC__ Międzyrzecz County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lubusz Voivodeship, western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998 ...

History

When the area later forming the territory of the Kreis Meseritz was first annexed to

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

from 1793 to 1807 it formed the ''Meseritzer Kreis'' (Meseritz district) within the Province of South Prussia, then governed by the ''Departement der Kriegs- und Domänen-Kammer zu Posen'' (Department of the chamber of war and domains at Posen). After being part of the

Duchy of Warsaw The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...

, the area returned to Prussia as a result of the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

. The Kreis Meseritz came into existence on 1 January 1818 after separation from

Kreis Birnbaum Kreis Birnbaum () was a district in Prussia (''Kreis'') in the west of the Grand Duchy of Posen and the succeeding Province of Posen, as part of ''Regierungsbezirk'' Posen between 1815 and 1920. Today the area belongs to the Polish voivodeships ...

. In 1837 it measured 21.78 Prussian square miles (). It consisted mostly of the rural territories around the town of Meseritz. It became part of the

North German Confederation The North German Confederation () was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state (a ''de facto'' feder ...

in 1867 and of the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

when it was founded in 1871. After

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, the administration had to be reorganized because the Region of Posen was split. Thus the eastern part of the district was handed over to Poland in 1920, according to the

Versailles treaty The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, exactl ...

. In 1920, the remaining district, measuring , joined the newly founded

Regierungsbezirk A ' (, 'governmental district') is a type of administrative division in Germany. Currently, four of sixteen ' (states of Germany) are split into '. Beneath these are rural and urban districts ' (plural, ) serve as regional mid-level local gov ...

Schneidemühl, which became part of the Province of the Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia, established in 1922. Together with

Kreis Bomst The district of Bomst was a Prussian district which existed from 1793 to 1807 in the province of South Prussia and from 1815 to 1938 successively in the Grand Duchy of Posen, the Province of Posen and the Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia. Th ...

and Kreis Schwerin the Kreis Meseritz formed a western territorial

exclave An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is s ...

of Posen-West Prussia. When that province was dissolved in 1938, the bulk of its territory, anyway neighboring

Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...

, was merged into that province, whereas its western exclave including Meseritz became part of Brandenburg. In 1945, the ''Landkreis Meseritz'' was occupied by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

and was integrated into

Demographics

The district had a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

majority population, with a significant

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

minority. After 1920, with the loss of the eastern part of the district to

, the remainder of the district in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

had a Polish minority of 5.8% (including bilinguals), according to the 1925 census.

Civil registry offices

In 1905, these

civil registry Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events ( births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in diffe ...

offices () served the following towns in ''Kreis Meseritz'': * Altvorwerk * Bauchwitz * Bentschen * Betsche * Brätz * Friedenhorst * Kurzig * Kranz * Lowin * Meseritz * Rogsen * Tirschtiegel * Paradies * Weißensee

References

Districts of Prussia Former subdivisions of Brandenburg Districts of the Province of Posen 1818 establishments in Prussia 1945 disestablishments in Germany {{Germany-hist-stub