Sośnicowice () (

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 ...

: ) is a town in

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

Silesian Voivodeship Silesian Voivodeship ( ) is an administrative province in southern Poland. With over 4.2 million residents and an area of 12,300 square kilometers, it is the second-most populous, and the most-densely populated and most-urbanized region of Poland ...

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 ...

, with 1,919 inhabitants (2019). It is the capital of

Gmina Sośnicowice __NOTOC__ Gmina Sośnicowice is an urban-rural gmina (administrative district) in Gliwice County, Silesian Voivodeship, in southern Poland. Its seat is the town of Sośnicowice, which lies approximately west of Gliwice and west of the regional c ...

, which has been officially bilingual in

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 ...

and

since 2013.

Geography

Sośnicowice is located in

Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( ; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heav ...

on the

Kłodnica The Kłodnica is a river in the Upper Silesia region. It is about 75 km long and a right tributary of the Odra river. Along Kłodnica's shore are Polish cities of Katowice, Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Ruda Śląska, Gliwice, and Zabrze Zabrz ...

and Bierawka rivers on the western edge of the

Upper Silesian Industrial Region The Upper Silesian Industrial Region (, , Polish abbreviation: ''GOP'' ; ) is a large industrial region in Poland.

, about southwest of the center of

Gliwice Gliwice (; , ) is a city in Upper Silesia, in southern Poland. The city is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Kłodnica river (a tributary of the Oder River, Oder). It lies approximately 25 km west from Katowice, the regional capital ...

History

The town was first mentioned in 1305 when it was part of the

Duchy of Opole The Duchy of Opole (; ) or Duchy of Oppeln () was one of the duchies of Silesia ruled by the branch of Polish Piast dynasty, formed during the medieval fragmentation of Poland into provincial duchies. Its capital was Opole () in Upper Silesia. S ...

within fragmented

Piast The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I (–992). The Piasts' royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of King Casimir III the Great. Branches of ...

-ruled Poland. The name of the town is of Polish origin and comes from the word ''sosna'' which means "

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

". It eventually fell under suzerainty of the

Bohemian Crown The Lands of the Bohemian Crown were the states in Central Europe during the medieval and early modern periods with feudal obligations to the Bohemian kings. The crown lands primarily consisted of the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electorate of the Hol ...

(within the

Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm (), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities (composite monarchy) that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is ...

since 1526), however, it remained ruled by the Opole line of the Polish Piast dynasty until 1532. In 1526, it was granted town rights by Ferdinand I, for which the forest had been cleared by residents who immigrated from Bohemia. At first, Czech immigrants spoke Czech, but gradually the Czech language was replaced by Polish again. The town passed into the possession of various noble families. Soon afterwards, the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

took hold in the town, after which the parish church was taken over by the Protestants in 1555, in whose hands it remained until 1679. With the Counter-Reformation of the Habsburgs, the city was re-Catholicized. The town was devastated by

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

troops during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

in 1626. The town became part of the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

in 1742, after the

First Silesian War The First Silesian War () was a war between Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia and Habsburg monarchy, Austria that lasted from 1740 to 1742 and resulted in Prussia's seizing most of the region of Silesia (now in south-western Poland) from Austria. The ...

. During the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

from 1756 to 1763, it was burned to the ground. The town was subjected to

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people, and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In l ...

policies, and in the 1860s, Polish was still dominant in the town, however, already about a third of the inhabitants spoke German. In January 1871, the town, known in German as ''Kieferstädtel'' became part 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 ...

and was located in the Tost-Gleiwitz district in the Prussian

Province of Silesia The Province of Silesia (; ; ) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1919. The Silesia region was part of the Prussian realm since 1742 and established as an official province in 1815, then became part of the German Empire in 1871. In 1919, as ...

. In the 1921

Upper Silesia plebiscite The Upper Silesia plebiscite was a plebiscite mandated by the Versailles Treaty and carried out on 20 March 1921 to determine ownership of the province of Upper Silesia between Weimar Germany and the Second Polish Republic. The region was ethni ...

, 78.3% of the residents of Kieferstädtel voted to remain 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 ...

. During the

Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...

in 1938, the wooden buildings on the small Jewish cemetery southeast of Kieferstädtel were burned down. At that time, however, there were no longer any Jews living in the town. Towards the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the town was captured 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 ...

on January 27, 1945. After the end of the war, the town became again part of Poland under the terms of the

Potsdam Agreement The Potsdam Agreement () was the agreement among three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union after the war ended in Europe that was signed on 1 August 1945 and published the following day. A ...

Demographics

Sights

Landmarks of Sośnicowice include the

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

Sośnicowice Palace and Saint James church. Saint James church in Sośnicowice (1).jpg, Saint James church Sosnicowice castle.jpg, Sośnicowice Palace Sosnicowice monument.jpg, Monument to the insurgents of the

Silesian Uprisings The Silesian Uprisings (; ; ) were a series of three uprisings from August 1919 to July 1921 in Upper Silesia, which was part of the Weimar Republic at the time. Ethnic Polish and Polish-Silesian insurrectionists, seeking to have the area tran ...

Twin towns – sister cities

See twin towns of Gmina Sośnicowice.

References

External links

Official website
at Sosnicowice.pl
Jewish Community in Sośnicowice
on Virtual Shtetl {{Authority control Cities and towns in Silesian Voivodeship Gliwice County