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Malbork (German: Marienburg) is a town in the Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland. It is the seat of Malbork County and has a population of 36,709 people as of 2024. The town is located on the Nogat river, in the historical region of Pomerelia.
Founded in the 13th century by the Knights of the Teutonic Order, the town is noted for its medieval Malbork Castle, built in the 13th century as the order's headquarters, which was also one of the residences of Polish kings and seat of notable early modern Polish institutions.
Under continuous construction for nearly 230 years, the castle complex is actually three castles combined in one. A classic example of a medieval fortress, it is the world's largest brick castle and one of the most impressive of its kind in Europe. The castle was in the process of being restored by the Germans when World War II broke out. During the war, the castle was over 50% destroyed. Restoration has been ongoing since the war. The castle and its museum are listed as one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.
The town became capital of the Malbork Voivodeship in the Polish province of Royal Prussia (and later also in the Greater Poland Province) after the Second Peace of Thorn (1466).Stephen R. Turnbull, Peter Dennis, Crusader Castles of the Teutonic Knights, Osprey Publishing, 2003, p. 58, , 9781841765570 Google Books
It was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the First Partition of Poland in 1772 and became part of the newly established province of West Prussia the following year. Prussians liquidated the municipal government and replaced it with new Prussian-appointed administration. In the early 19th century, Prussian authorities acknowledged the town's Polish-speaking community, ensuring that priests could deliver the sermon in Polish.
In 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, the French entered the town, and in 1812 the Grande Armée marched through the town heading for Russia. Napoleon has visited the town in those years. In October–December 1831, various Polish cavalry and infantry units of the November Uprising stopped in the town and its environs on the way to their internment places, and later on, one of the insurgents' main escape routes from partitioned Poland to the Great Emigration led through the town.
There were no World War I fights, however, the town felt the war's negative effects: the influx of refugees, inflation, unemployment, and food supply shortages.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, the inhabitants were asked in a plebiscite on 11 July 1920 whether they wanted to remain in Germany or join the newly re-established Poland. In the town of Marienburg, 9,641 votes were cast for Germany, 165 votes for Poland. marienburg.de As a result, Marienburg was included in the Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder within the Weimar Germany Province of East Prussia. During the Weimar Germany, Marienburg was located at the tripoint between Poland, Germany and the Free City of Danzig.
The town was hit by an economic crisis following the end of World War I. After a brief recovery in the mid-1920s, the Great Depression was particularly severe in East Prussia. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power and immediately began eliminating political opponents, so that in the last semi-free elections of March 1933, 54% of Marienburg's votes went to the Nazis. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, leaders of the Polish minority were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
During the war, the Germans established the Stalag XX-B prisoner of war camp in the present-day district of Wielbark, among the prisoners of which were Polish, British, French, Belgian, Serbian, Italian, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian POWs. Also a forced labour camp was established, and several forced labour subcamps of the Stalag XX-B POW camp. Some expelled Poles from Pomerania were enslaved by the Germans as forced labour in the town's vicinity.
The Polish resistance was present in the town and would smuggle underground Polish press and data on German concentration camps and prisons, and organize transports of POWs who escaped the Stalag XX-B to the port city of Gdynia, from where they were further evacuated by sea to neutral Sweden.
Near the end of World War II, the city was declared a fortress and most of the civilian population fled or were evacuated, with some 4,000 people opting to remain. In early 1945, Marienburg was the scene of fierce battles by the Nazis against the Red Army and was almost completely destroyed. The battle lasted until 9 March 1945. Following the town's military capture by the Red Army, the remaining civilian population disappeared; 1,840 people remain missing. In June 1945, the town was turned over to Polish authorities who had arrived in the town in April and renamed it to its historic Polish name, Malbork. The German population that had not fled was expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement.
Half a century later, in 1996, 178 corpses were found in a mass grave in Malbork; another 123 were found in 2005. In October 2008, during excavations for the foundation of a new hotel in Malbork, a mass grave was found containing the remains of 2,116 people. All the dead were said to have been German residents of pre-1945 Marienburg, but they could not be individually identified, nor could the cause of their deaths be definitely established. A Polish investigation concluded that the bodies, along with the remains of some dead animals, may have been buried to prevent the spread of typhus, which was extant in the turmoil at the end of World War II. The investigation was thus closed on 1 October 2010 as no justifiable suspicions of any crime were found. Majority of the dead were women and children most likely dead from hunger, diseases, cold and as collateral casualties of war operations, only a few of the bones had markings showing possible gunshot wounds.[3] Komunikat o umorzeniu śledztwa w sprawie zabójstwa w 1945 r. ok. 2110 osób, których szczątki ujawniono w 2008 r. w Malborku On 14 August 2009, all the dead people's remains were buried in a German military cemetery at Stare Czarnowo in Polish Pomerania, not far from the German border.
In April 1945 the malt house resumed work, in May a Polish post office was established and the first post-war Polish services were held in the St. John church, in September Polish schools were opened. In the following years, most of the war damage was removed, and in 1947 the railway bridge on the Nogat was rebuilt, after it was destroyed by the Germans in March 1945. A new road bridge was built in 1949. In 1946 a sugar factory was established.
Also following the war, the Old Town in Malbork was not rebuilt; instead the bricks from its ruins were used to rebuild the oldest sections of Warsaw and Gdańsk. As a result, with the exception of the Old Town Hall, two city gates and St. John's church, no pre-World War II buildings remain in the Old Town area. In place of the old town, a housing estate was built in the 1960s.
In 1962, a pasta factory was established in Malbork, which soon became one of the largest pasta factories in Poland.
==Gallery==
World War II
During World War II a Focke-Wulf aircraft factory was set up at the airfield to the east of Marienburg. It was bombed twice by the USAAF in 1943 and 1944. Today the airfield belongs to the 22nd Air Base of the Polish Air Force.
Post-war period
After World War II, the town was gradually repopulated by Polish people, many expelled from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. In February 1946, the population of the town reached 10,017 people, then by 1965 grew further to 28,292 and by 1994 to 40,347.
Traditional Language
Traditionally, the town was close to the linguistic border between the High Prussian and the Low Prussian dialects of German. In Elbing, High Prussian was spoken, in Thiergart (today: Trygort) and Thiensdorf (today: Jezioro) Low Prussian, and in Posilge (Żuławka Sztumska) yet again High Prussian. From there, the dialect border went westwards towards Marienburg. In the south of the town, the language border was diffuse, but in Stuhm and Rehof High Prussian was spoken, while villages towards the Nogat river were closer to Low Prussian. Today, the German dialects are extinct.
Sports
The town's football clubs are Pomezania Malbork (men) and Jastrząb Malbork (women), both currently playing in the lower divisions. There are various other clubs in the town, dedicated to sports such as canoeing, swimming, triathlon and karate, as well as a number of youth sports clubs.
Sights
The greatest landmark of Malbork is the Malbork Castle, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Historic Monument of Poland. Other notable sights include:
Notable residents
International relations
Malbork is twinned with:
Citations
Notes
External links
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