Goleniów

History

The settlement dates back to the 10th century. Pomerania became part of the emerging Polish state under its first ruler Mieszko I around 967. As a result of the 12th-century fragmentation of Poland it became part of the separate Duchy of Pomerania, ruled by the House of Griffin. Barnim I, Duke of Pomerania granted the settlement Magdeburg town rights and additional privileges in 1264, yet Goleniów was rechartered with Lübeck Law, which favoured the local merchants, in 1314. The town grew by exploiting the vast timber reserves in the town-owned forests, and by trade. Gollnow was part of the Prussian province of Pomerania from 1815 to 1945. With the unification of Germany in 1871, it became part of the German Reich. In 1919, the German administration operated a camp in the town, in which they imprisoned Poles arrested in Szubin during the Greater Poland uprising. During World War II, the Nazis operated two forced labour subcamps of the Stalag II-D prisoner-of-war camp and a prison in the town, with multiple forced labour subcamps located in the region. Polish forced labourers were imprisoned in the town. On 7 March 1945, the town was captured by the Red Army. After Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II, the area became once again part of Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. The town's German population was expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. In 1954, town limits were expanded by including Helenów as Goleniów's new district. From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the Szczecin Voivodeship.