Neumark (region)
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Coat of arms of the Neumark (Brandenburg) |
The , also known as the
New March or
East Brandenburg (), was an historical region of the Margraviate of
Brandenburg east of the
Oder River. As
Brandenburg-Küstrin it was an independent state of the
Holy Roman Empire from 1535-1571. Most of the Neumark was transferred to
Poland in 1945 and its expelled German population was replaced largely with Poles. Most of the Polish part of the territory is now part of
Lubusz Voivodeship, while the northern towns (
Choszczno,
Myślibórz,
Chojna) are in the
West Pomeranian Voivodeship.
The Neumark was bordered in the west and the south by the Oder, in the north by
Pomerania, and in the east by Poland (later by
Provinz Posen). The
Warta and
Notec rivers and their swamp regions also dominated the landscape of the region. At the time of the Neumark's greatest territorial extent (at the end of the 17th century), the region included the
districts and towns of
Königsberg in der Neumark,
Soldin,
Landsberg an der Warthe,
Friedeberg,
Arnswalde,
Dramburg,
Schivelbein, and
Crossen an der Oder.
Middle Ages
Until the beginning of the 13th century the region of the later Neumark was thinly populated by
Slavs and had been under the sovereignty of Poland as the
Lubusz Land since the end of the 10th century. Beginning in the 1230s colonists speaking
Low Saxon began settling north and south of the Warta and the Notec upon the initiative of
Pomeranian and Polish lords (see
East Colonization). The lords invited members of the
Knights Templar and
Knights Hospitaller to establish
monasteries, in whose surroundings settlements began to develop. To fortify the borderland Pomerania and Poland built castles in the north, around which settlements also grew.
The
Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg aspired to extend their dominion east of the Oder. By 1242 they had gained a foothold east of the river and in 1252 Brandenburg and the
Archbishopric of Magdeburg purchased the Lubusz Land. In 1253 they founded
Frankfurt an der Oder as a river crossing and staging point for further expansion easward.
[Barraclough, Geoffrey. The Origins of Modern Germany. W.W. Norton. 1984. ISBN 0393301532] Through land purchases, marriage pacts, and services to Poland's
Piast dynasty, the Ascanians extended their territory eastward to the
Drawa river and northward to the
Parsęta river. For instance, the Polish
castellany of Zantoch, an important base and crossing point over the Warta near its junction with the Notec, was sought by Pomerania. To relieve himself of the trouble of maintaining the fortress, Duke
Przemysł I of
Greater Poland granted the castellany to Margrave
Conrad as a dowry for his daughter Konstancja. To safeguard the region Margrave
John I founded the town of
Landsberg an der Warthe in 1257. The Templars sold
Soldin to the Ascanians in 1261, and the town began to become a center for the region.
Most of the colonists who settled in Brandenburg's new eastern territory came from
Magdeburg or the
Altmark ("Old March"). Unlike in the rest of Brandenburg where the Ascanians settled knights in open villages, the margraves began constructing castles in their land east of the Oder to guard against Poland.
[Koch, H.W. A History of Prussia. Barnes & Noble Books, 1993. ISBN 0880291583] The original Slavic inhabitants of the region were gradually
Germanized. Because the new "Terra trans Oderam" of the margraves was an extension of the
Margraviate of Brandenburg, it became known as the Neumark ("New March") after the middle of the 15th century.
With the extinction of the Ascanian line in 1320 Brandenburg's interest in the Neumark decreased. Neither the margraves of the
Wittelsbach (1323-1373) or
Luxembourg dynasties concerned themselves with developing their eastern-most territory further. The political vacuum allowed Poland to reassert its influence in the area, while
robber barons terrorized the populace.
Teutonic Knights
The Neumark was pawned to the
Teutonic Knights in 1402 and passed completely to their control in 1429, although the Order neglected the region as well. After the Teutonic Knights' defeat in the
Battle of Grunwald in 1410, the future Grand Master
Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg used the Neumark as a staging ground for an army of
German and
Hungarian mercenaries which he later used against the forces of King
Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland, allowing the Order to retain much of its territory in the
First Peace of Toruń in 1411.
[Urban, William. The Teutonic Knights. Greenhill Books. 2003. ISBN 1853675350]The Knights' mismanagement led to their pawning of the Neumark back to Brandenburg in 1454/1455, by then led by Elector
Frederick II of the
Hohenzollern dynasty. After Frederick completed the reacquisition of Neumark in 1463 for 40,000
guilder, the region belonged to Brandenburg for the following centuries, with the exception of the time between 1535-1571. Frederick II wrote for his successors "that the said land, the New Mark, shall belong to German territory and to the worshipful Electorate of the Mark of Brandenburg, with which it was incorporated at the institution of the Electorate, and shall so remain, and shall never pass to those who speak not the German tongue".
[Eulenburg, Herbert, translated by M.M.Bozman. The Hohenzollerns. The Century Co. 1929.]Brandenburg-Küstrin
After the death of Elector
Joachim I Nestor in 1535, Brandenburg's territory west of the Oder (the Kurmark) went to his older son
Joachim II, while the Neumark went to his younger son
John of Brandenburg-Küstrin. John began ruling the Neumark as an independent entity and consolidating the land. An enthusiastic supporter of the
Protestant Reformation, John succeeded in converting the Neumark to
Lutheranism and confiscating church property. He lived frugally and acquired wealth for his treasury through
usury and hiring out
mercenary companies.
The division of Brandenburg resulted in
trade wars between the brothers, as Crossen and Landsberg competed with the Kurmark's Frankfurt for mercantile primacy. The two margraves eventually compromised to the economic expense of
Stettin. The brothers also reconciled out of concern for their territories during the
Schmalkaldic War.
In 1548 John's administration was moved from Soldin to
Küstrin. With the death of both brothers within ten days of each other in 1571, the Neumark became reunited with the Kurmark under Joachim II's son,
John George.
Brandenburg-Prussia
In 1618 East Brandenburg became part of
Brandenburg-Prussia after the electors' inheritance of
Ducal Prussia. During the
Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), the Neumark was ravaged by both
Swedish and
Imperial troops who plundered and burnt the land, while
plague epidemics in 1626 and 1631 killed much of the populace. While occupied by Swedish troops the region had to contribute 60,000
talers and 10,000
Wispel of
rye.
Kingdom of Prussia
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Districts of the Neumark in 1818 |
After the creation of the
Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, the situation in the Neumark began to improve. King
Frederick I initiated new waves of colonization. Many of the new settlers were
French Hugenots forced to flee from religious persecution in
France. The textile industry also began to develop in the Neumark. The
Seven Years' War caused the region to regress in its development, as high contributions were exacted from the population for the war effort and the Neumark was the setting for battles such as at
Kunersdorf. Under King
Frederick II, increased land reclamation and economic consolidation resulted from the drainage of the Warta and Notec areas.
The reorganization of Prussia after the territorial changes resulting from the
Vienna Congress in 1815 changed the political makeup of the Neumark. The districts of
Dramburg and
Schivelbein and the northern part of
Landkreis Arnswald with the town of
Nörenberg were transferred to the Province of
Pomerania. The Neumark's remaining territory was incorporated into the newly created
Regierungsbezirk Frankfurt/Oder.
Germany
With the creation of the Prussian-led
German Empire in 1871, the Neumark became part of a unified German state with the rest of Brandenburg. In the
Weimar Republic's
National Assembly of
1 November 1919, the majority of the region voted for the
Social Democratic Party of Germany. The Neumark populace mostly voted for the
German National People's Party in the elections for the German
Reichstag on
20 May 1928, with a small island of SDP voters. In the Reichstag vote of December 1924 1,900 votes were cast for the
Polish Peasant Party out of a population of 570,000. In 1925 the Neumark had 3,500
Polish-speakers.
[Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen. History of the German expellees and their homelands. Accessed 12 May 2006.] In the Reichstag vote of
6 November 1932, the
National Socialist German Workers Party won the election in the region.
[Westermanns Atlas zur Weltgeschichte. Georg Westermann Verlag. 1963.]When the province of
Posen-West Prussia was dissolved in 1938, the Neumark was expanded to include the districts of
Schwerin and
Meseritz, although the districts of Arnswalde and Friedeberg were transferred to Pomerania. In the census of 1939 the Neumark had a population of 645,000 inhabitants, including 3,000 non-Germans.
The dialect spoken in much of the territory was
Neumärkisch, a variation of the
East Low Saxon dialect
Brandenburgisch.
Infrastructure before 1945
The Neumark region was always marked by its
agriculture and
forestry. The medium-sized towns were mostly
Ackerbürgerstädte, or farmer-citizen-towns. The textile industry became prominent in the 19th century. With the construction of modern roadways, the
Fernverkehrstraß 1 (an arterial road from
Berlin to
Königsberg), and the
Preußische Ostbahn (Prussian Eastern Railroad), the Neumark also began to develop industrially. Such development was primarily geared toward agricultural needs and was concentrated near the large towns of Landsberg and Küstrin, and the Neumark did not become nearly as industrialized or densely-populated as other German areas such as the
Ruhr Area,
Saxony, or
Upper Silesia.
World War II
Near the end of
World War II, the
Soviet Red Army reached the Neumark at the end of January 1945. Because the Red army had advanced so quickly, the civilian population of the region suffered greatly from warfare and occupying troops because they had not prepared to flee in time. More than 40,000 Neumarkers were
killed in action as soldiers,
As the Neumark lay east of the
Oder-Neisse Line which formed the new border between Germany and Poland, the region was put under Polish administration after the
Potsdam Conference. Germans remaining in the region were
expelled and their land and possessions confiscated in accordance with the Polish government's
Bierut Decree of March 1946. A small part of the German population, mostly technicians for the water supply companies, were retained and used for compulsory labor; they were allowed to return to Germany in the 1950s. Older estimates indicated that of the pre-war population of 645,000, only 5,000 of the inhabitants from 1939 remained in the province in 1950.
ˈ.
[Scheuch, Manfred. Historischer Atlas Deutschland: Vom Frankenreich bis zur Wiedervereinigung. Bechtermünz Verlag. 2001. ISBN 3828903584] According to the
Centre Against Expulsions, 40,000 Neumarkers were
killed in action as soldiers, 395,000 fled to
West or
East Germany by 1950, and 208,000 died, disappeared, or were murdered during the course of flight or expulsion by Polish and Soviet troops.
Poland
The Oder-Neisse Line delimiting Germany and Poland split several localities of the region into
divided cities:
*Küstrin was separated into
Küstrin-Kietz and
Kostrzyn nad Odrą,
*Frankfurt an der Oder was split into
Frankfurt (Oder) and
Słubice,
*Guben was divided into
Guben and
Gubin,
*Bad Muskau was split into
Bad Muskau and
Łęknica,
*Forst was divided into
Forst and
Zasieki,
*Görlitz was separated into
Görlitz and
Zgorzelec.
To replace the expelled German population, the former Neumark was resettled, with about 66% of the new population
Poles from central Poland and about 33% Poles and
Ukrainians from
Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. From 1975-1998 the former Neumark territory was divided between the Voivodeships of
Gorzów and
Zielona Góra with a small section around Chojna in
Szczecin Voivodeship. Since the reorganization of Polish voivodeships on
1 January 1999, almost all of the former Neumark region lies within
Lubusz Voivodeship.
This article contains information retrieved from the German Wikipedia's
Neumark (Landschaft) article on
12 May 2006.
*
Bishopric of Lebus*
Brandenburg*
List of cities and towns in the Neumark*
Lubusz Land*
Lubusz Voivodeship*
Map of the Neumark in the Middle Ages*
Administrative history*
Genealogical research
