Szczecin, West Pomeranian, Poland, Europe
Szczecin is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. In the vicinity of the Baltic Sea, it is the country's seventh-largest city and a major seaport in Poland. As of June 2011 the population was 407,811. Szczecin is located on the Oder River, south of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Bay of Pomerania. The city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river. Szczecin borders with the town of Police. Area of Szczecin's Międzyodrze had changed during building of harbour. This area is covered by many islands (Dębina, Czarnołęka, Radolin, Mewia Wyspa, Gryfia, Ostrów Grabowski, Łasztownia, Kępa Parnicka, Ostrów Mieleński, Wielka Kępa, Mieleńska Łąka, Międzyodrze-Wyspa Pucka , Zaleskie Łęgi, Siedlińska Kępa, Klucki Ostrów, Sadlińskie Łąki and Czapli Ostrów). The city's beginnings were as an 8th-century Slavic Pomeranian stronghold, built at the site of today's castle. In the 12th century, when Szczecin had become one of Pomerania's main urban centres, it lost its independence to Piast Poland, Saxony, the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark. At the same time, the Griffin dynasty established themselves as local rulers, the population was converted to Christianity, and German settlers arrived. The native Slavic population was assimilated and sometimes discriminated against in the following centuries. In 1237/43, the town was built anew and granted vast autonomy rights, and it joined the Hanseatic League.
After the Treaty of Stettin (1630) the town came under Swedish control. It was fortified and remained a Swedish fortress until 1720, when it was acquired by the Kingdom of Prussia and became capital of the Province of Pomerania, which after 1870 was part of the German Empire. In the late 19th century, Stettin became an industrial town, and vastly increased in size and population, serving as a major port for Berlin. During the Nazi era, opposition groups were persecuted as were minorities such as the city's Jews and the few Poles living there. At the end of World War II Stettin's status was in doubt, and the Soviet occupation authorities at first appointed officials from the city's almost entirely German pre-war population. In July 1945, however, Polish authorities were permitted to take power. Stettin was renamed Szczecin and became part of the People's Republic of Poland, and from 1989 the Republic of Poland. After the flight and expulsion of the German population and Polish settlement, Szczecin became the administrative and industrial center of Polish Western Pomerania, the site of the University of Szczecin and Szczecin University of Technology, and the see of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Szczecin-Kamień. Szczecin was an important site of anti-communist unrest in the communist era. During the 1939 invasion of Poland, which started World War II in Europe, Stettin was the base for the German 2nd Motorized Infantry Division, which cut across the Polish Corridor and was later used in 1940 as an embarcation point for Operation Weserübung, Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway. On 15 October 1939, neighbouring municipalities were amalgamated into Stettin, creating Groß-Stettin with about 380,000 inhabitants in 1940. The city had become the third-largest German city by area, after Berlin and Hamburg. As the war started, the number of non-Germans in the city increased as slave workers were brought in. The first transports came in 1939 from Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Łódż. They were mainly used in a synthetic silk factory near Szczecin. The next wave of slave workers was brought in 1940, in addition to PoWs who were used for work in the agricultural industry. According to German police reports from 1940, 15,000 Polish slave workers lived within the city. During the war, 135 forced labour camps for slave workers were established in the city. Most of the 25,000 slave workers were Poles, but Czechs, Italians, Frenchmen and Belgians, as well as Dutch citizens, were also enslaved in the camps.