Early days of the city

The area around present-day Szczecin is believed to be inhabited by the Germanic rugians, who came from southwestern Norway around the year 100. The rugies lived here for several centuries before moving south to the Danube area in the 400s.

The town of Szczecin dates back to the 7th century, when Slavic tribes settled on the present castle mound on the river Oder. It was a smaller settlement where fishermen, craftsmen and traders settled. There was not much growth and the city continued to be just a smaller village for the following centuries.

 

Stetinum booms

Settlement Stetinum was, until the beginning of the 12th century, a small town, shaded by the nearby Wolin, whose significance declined at this time. This led to a large growth in Stetinum, which grew to about 5,000 inhabitants. The city had quickly become one of the most important on the southern Baltic coast.

In the winter of 1121-1122, the area was conquered by the Polish king Boleslaw III, and he let the inhabitants of Stetinum Christians in 1124; a few years later, the first Christian church could be put into service.

Poland was a kingdom, but at the same time sat a Duke of Stetinum, Wartislaw I, who extended the territory of the Duchy to the west, so that it would form the later Pomeranian territory. Wartislaw I was the first duke of the duchy dynasty, who for centuries sat on the throne of Pomerania and Szczecin, which has since maintained its position as the Pomeranian capital. However, supremacy over the city and the region has shifted several times; for example, Stetinum became subordinate to the German-Roman Empire in 1187.

 

13th Century growth and trade

From the decades around the year 1200, the dukes of the city invited Germans to the city and the area to expand it, and in 1237 the German minority settled away from the Slavic majority. This was done by Duke Barnim, who also introduced market town rights, following the example of Magdeburg in 1243. The rights introduced significant new economic opportunities for the city and for the citizens.

The city’s position by the sea created a very large trade with other countries and cities along the Baltic Sea, and Szczecin gained membership in the Hanseatic League in 1278. Hansen brought new growth in many cities, as did Szczecin. Thus, the first centuries of the city’s history were a long period of flourishing and growth in both the city and the duchy.

 

16th Century challenges

Trade in grain, herring and salt was not least what had made Szczecin rich and significant. The upland was large and not only Pomerania, but also Brandenburg and the Greater Poland.

Other cities also grew these years, and they too wanted part of the lucrative trade. Szczecin was therefore increasingly waging trade wars against cities such as Greifenberg and Stargard, now called Gryfino and Stargard Szczeciński, and there was also a tariff war with Frankfurt an der Oder.

The 16th century was a time of decline for Szczecin, with some of the exports and trade in grain slipping into the city. At the same time, the market for herring declined significantly, and it also led to declines in the economy of the city, which might otherwise have erected fine churches and other buildings during the Hanseatic centuries.

Other things also happened in Szczecin in the 16th century. The Protestant Reformation reached the city in 1534, and in 1570 the peace in Stettin was concluded as the end of the Seven Years’ War, which had raged since 1563 between Denmark-Norway and Sweden.

 

The Swedish time

The Thirty Years War in the years 1618-1648 became a turning point for Szczecin. In 1630, Sweden conquered the city and the area and maintained military control of the duchy.

The last Duke of the Gryfici dynasty, Boguslav XIV, died in 1637, and troops from the German-Roman Empire invaded Pumen to secure Brandenburg’s succession to the Duke Throne. However, the Swedes fought back the attack and maintained their position in the region.

The Thirty Years War ended with the Westphalian Peace in 1648, and with that Sweden achieved large concessions in the North German area. Sweden received, among others, Forpomerania, Rügen and the mouth of Oder; however, the areas remained the German rule. The prince of Brandenburg got the other part of Pomerania, and thus Szczecin’s former territory was divided into two.

With the Szczecin Treaty in 1653, the border between Brandenburg and Szczecin was established, and the Swedish king became Duke of Pomerania. The time during the Swedes did not last long, for as early as 1713 a new era began in the city’s development.

 

Time as a German port city

In 1713, Szczecin was conquered by the Prussian Kingdom, and the city quickly became important to Prussia as a garrison town and a major trading town on the Baltic Sea. Prussia had gone into the city to monitor an agreed ceasefire, but they remained in the city, which formally became Prussian in 1720.

Prussia expanded Szczecin as the state’s most important port city. They built a large fort in and around the city, and by trade the waterway to Swinoujscie was opened; it created the breeding ground for a greater development of shipping. It was in 1731, the river Swine was redone, and in 1739 the first port facilities were built in the coastal town of Swinemünde; today’s Świnoujście.

Szczecin’s location also created a large transit trade of Polish goods that were sailed along the Oder River and other waterways from, among others, Warsaw, Wroclaw and Poznan to Berlin and Magdeburg. The traffic created a great economic growth in Szczecin.

 

Industrialization

The 19th century meant a new development for Szczecin’s economy. Major changes were made to Prussia’s administrative systems, such as the dismantling of a number of tariff barriers. At the same time, other rules for the industry were significantly relaxed. It stimulated growth in the whole area and thus also in Szczecin, whose position as a leading trading town was merely expanded. In terms of population, there were around 6,000 inhabitants living in 1720, and by the beginning of the 19th century it was the place for over 20,000.

Szczecin was within Prussia’s port of Berlin, and in 1843 a railway was constructed between the two cities. Shortly after, the railway was extended to Stargard Szczecinski and on to Poznan and Wroclaw. Szczecin was centrally located on the railway, and the ongoing industrialization in the present Polish territories provided an even greater basis for Szczecin’s success as a trading town. The city became even more attractive with the lapse of tax on goods in 1857.

The mid-19th century was also the time for the start of a major industrialization of the city. In 1851, two engineers from Hamburg founded a shipyard and machine factories in the suburb of Drzetowo. Six years after its founding, the shipyard became the steel shipyard Vulcan, which became Germany’s leader until the beginning of the 20th century. The yard and the city’s many new industries, in virtually all industrial directions, created a continued good economy in the port city.

 

1900-1945

In 1898, German Emperor Wilhelm II had opened Stettin’s new free port, which gave a good start to the new century, which was to be the last under German rule. In the year 1900 and again in 1911, several suburbs became well under Stettin, which was rapidly developing.

In 1913, the canal between Szczecin and Berlin was opened, and it meant further transport through the city, which continued as a hub until World War II. However, the aftermath of the First World War could be felt in Germany and also in Stettin. There had been downturns, and the changed financial situation, for example, caused the Vulcan shipyard to turn the key in 1928.

In 1933, there were 272,000 people living in Stettin, which again grew in 1939. Here, several suburbs were added under Stettin, which became Germany’s third largest area at the time. 1939 was also the year when some Baltic Germans came to the port of Stettin. With the German-Soviet agreement on the Baltic, some Germans were resettled in several places in Germany, and part of them came sailing to Stettin’s port on that road.

World War II also started in 1939, and the war quickly reached Stettin as an important German port city. The first bombing of the city took place in 1940, but these did not do any major damage to those that occurred later in the war.

In 1943, and especially in 1944, the bombings escalated, and before the end of the war, the port and about 90% of the old town were crushed. The fighting for the city lasted until the end of World War II, and after German surrender of the city, Soviet troops were able to capture Stettin without a fight on April 26, 1945.

After the war ended, the Soviet authorities deployed a communist-oriented German mayor, and the German-controlled time in the ruined port city lasted for the following months.

 

The Polish port to the world

After World War II, Szczecin was to be integrated into Poland, which was given authority over the city and the area on July 5, 1945. Here the first Polish mayor was deployed, and on September 21 of that year the new Polish-German border was drawn. Before this, some 80,000 Germans and 6,000 Poles had lived in Szczecin. The Germans left, and by the end of the following year more than 100,000 Poles lived in the city.

The task was great for Poland, and in addition to a reconstruction, Szczecin was to retain its importance as one of the most important port cities on the Baltic Sea. It succeeded, and this was not least due to the shipment of Polish goods from Silesia’s significant industries.

Decades after the war, Szczecin was not rebuilt to the same extent as other Polish major cities. A few larger buildings such as the old duchy castle and some medieval churches were rebuilt, but the city’s expression became a mixture of modern Poland with wide boulevards, green areas and in the suburbs large new residential areas for the many Polish migrants and a city center with the contours of the old German trading town.

Throughout the decades of communism in Poland, numerous educational establishments were established in Szczecin, which were also industrialized; among other things, a large shipyard was built in the city.

With Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 and later accession to the Schengen cooperation, the borders are fully opened and Szczecin on the border between Poland and Germany is once again truly international and the unifying city for the entire region in the area. With over 400,000 inhabitants, Szczecin is also the region’s largest city and thus the natural center.