Любушская земля: Исторический регион Германии и Польши

Historical region in Germany and Poland

Lubusz Land (Ziemia lubuska; Land Lebus) is a historical region and cultural landscape in Poland and Germany on both sides of the Oder river. Originally the settlement area of the Lechites, the swampy area was located east of Brandenburg and west of Greater Poland, south of Pomerania and north of Silesia and Lower Lusatia. Presently its eastern part lies within the Polish Lubusz Voivodeship, the western part with its historical capital Lebus (Lubusz) in the German state of Brandenburg.

When in 928 King Henry I of Germany crossed the Elbe river to conquer the lands of the Veleti, he did not subdue the Leubuzzi people settling beyond the Spree. Their territory was either already inherited by the first Polish ruler Mieszko I (~960 992) or conquered by him in the early period of his rule. After Mieszkos' death the whole country was inherited by his son Duke, and later King, Bolesław I the Brave. After the German Northern March got lost in a 983 Slavic rebellion, Duke Bolesław and King Otto III of Germany in 991 agreed at Quedlinburg to jointly conquer the remaining Lutician territory, Otto coming from the west and Bolesław starting from Lubusz in the east. However, they did not succeed. Instead Otto's successor King Henry II of Germany in the rising conflict over the adjacent Lusatian march concluded an alliance with the Lutici and repeatedly attacked Bolesław. Lubusz Land remained under Polish control even after King Mieszko II Lambert in 1031 finally had to withdraw from the adjacent, just conquered March of Lusatia and accept the overlordship of Emperor Conrad II. In 1125 Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth of Poland established the Bishopric of Lubusz to secure Lubusz Land. 1124 1125 records note that the new Bishop of Lubusz was nominated by Duke Bolesław under the Archbishopric of Gniezno. However, from the beginning Gniezno's role as metropolia of the Lubusz diocese was challenged by the claims of the mighty Archbishops of Magdeburg, who also tried to make Lebus their suffragan. The Polish position was decisively enfeebled by the process of fragmentation after the death of Duke Bolesław III in 1138, when Lubusz Land became part of the Duchy of Silesia. The Duchy of Silesia was restored to the descendants of Władysław II the Exile in 1163, and Lubusz Land together with Lower Silesia was given to his eldest son Bolesław I the Tall. In the 13th century Polish dukes in order to help develop Lubusz Land, granted some areas to different Catholic religious orders, such as the Cistercians, Canons Regular and Knights Templar. Among those orders possessions were Łagów, Chwarszczany, Lubiąż (today's Müncheberg) and Dębno. Lubusz remained under the rule of the Silesian Piasts, though Bolesław's son Duke Henry I the Bearded in 1206 signed an agreement with Duke Władysław III Spindleshanks of Greater Poland to swap it for the Kalisz Region. This agreement however did not last as it provoked the revolt of Władysław's nephew Władysław Odonic, while in addition the Lusatian margrave Conrad II of Landsberg took this occasion to invade Lubusz. Duke Henry I appealed to Emperor Otto IV and already started an armed expedition, until he was once again able to secure his possession of the region after Margrave Conrad had died in 1210. Nevertheless, the resistance against the Imperial expansion waned as the Silesian territories were again fragmented after the death of Duke Henry II the Pious at the Battle of Legnica in 1241. His younger son Mieszko then held the title of a "Duke of Lubusz", but died only one year later, after which his territory fell to his elder brother Bolesław II the Bald. In 1248 Bolesław II, then Duke of Legnica, finally sold Lubusz to Magdeburg's Archbishop Wilbrand von Käfernburg and the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg in 1249, wielding the secular reign.

But new links to Poland developed, because since 1618 the prince electors of Brandenburg ruled the Duchy of Prussia, then a Polish vassal state, in personal union. In 1657 Prussia gained sovereignty, so in 1701 the electors could upgrade their simultaneously held Prussian dukedom to the Kingdom of Prussia, dropping the title of elector of the Holy Roman Empire at its dissolution in 1806. In 1815 the kingdom joined the German Confederation, in 1866 the North German Confederation, which enlarged in 1871 to united Germany. By the 17th century most of the population, consisting of autochthon Poles and German settlers, had mingled and assimilated to German language. One of the main escape routes for insurgents of the unsuccessful Polish November Uprising from partitioned Poland to the Great Emigration led through the region. The Einsatzgruppe VI was formed in Frankfurt (Oder) before it entered several Polish cities, including Poznań, Kalisz and Leszno, to commit various crimes against Poles during the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II. During the war, the Germans operated the Stalag III C prisoner of war camp for Polish, French, Serbian, Soviet, Italian, British, American and Belgian POWs in the region, and numerous forced labour camps, including several subcamps of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Particularly infamous camps were the Oderblick labor education camp in Świecko and the Sonnenburg concentration camp in Słońsk, in which Polish, Belgian, French, Bulgarian, Dutch, Yugoslav, Russian, Italian, Ukrainian, Luxembourgish, Danish, Norwegian, Czech, Slovak and other prisoners were held, and many died. In early 1945, the death marches of prisoners of various nationalities from the dissolved camps in Świecko and Żabikowo to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp passed through the region. On 30–31 January, the SS and Gestapo perpetrated a massacre of over 800 prisoners of the Sonnenburg concentration camp. making it the most destructed town of post war Poland. In April the Battle of the Seelow Heights took place, ending in a Soviet Polish victory. It was one of the last battles before the capitulation of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II in Europe.

The portion of Lubusz Land east of the Oder River became again part of Poland by the 1945 Potsdam Conference, although with a Soviet installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the 1980s, whereas the western portion with the historical capital Lebus remained under Soviet occupation and became a part of communist East Germany in 1949. Polish and Soviet authorities expelled most of the German population from the Polish annexed part of Lubusz Land in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. Refugees who had fled before the Soviet forces were prevented from returning to their homes. The area was then resettled with Poles expelled from Soviet annexed eastern Poland and migrants from central Poland. The largest cities and capitals of the Polish Lubusz Voivodeship today are Zielona Góra and Gorzów Wielkopolski, which however were not part of the historical Lubusz Land (cf. map above), but were parts of Lower Silesia and Greater Poland (the Santok castellany) respectively. Today, the largest town of Lubusz Land is Frankfurt (Oder), located in the German part of the region. On the Polish side the largest town is Kostrzyn nad Odrą. The region's historic capital, Lebus, is one of the smallest towns. In the Polish part of the Lubusz Land, in Słubice, the Wikipedia Monument, world's first monument dedicated to the Wikipedia community, was unveiled in 2014.