Oels

Polish: Oleśnica

The name of the settlement probably derives from the alders (Polish: olszyna = alder, alder thicket) growing in the surrounding woods.

Oels is situated at 51° 12′ north latitude, 17° 23′ east longitude, 150 m above sea level, approximately 30 km north-east of Breslau/Wrocław.

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Oels is situated in the Silesian Lowlands on the left bank of the Oelsbach (Oleśnica), a tributary of the Weide (Widawa).

Lower Silesia

Poland. Oels is a town and municipality in Oleśnica County (powiat) in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship (Województwo dolnośląskie).

The coat of arms of the town of Oels, which has been featured in documents since the 15th century, depicts a silver eagle – symbolising the town’s patron saint, St John the Evangelist – on a red breastplate resembling a shield. The eagle stands on a golden band bearing the inscription ‘S+IOEVAN’, which also refers to the Evangelist. The knight’s helmet above the breastplate is adorned with a gold and silver crown, and above that a silver crescent moon with three crenellated towers. The full coat of arms is adorned with a burgundy-red crest.

A settlement once stood on the site of the present-day town, situated on the ancient Amber Road between Wrocław and Kalisz. Its early history is unclear due to the similarity of its name to that of other Silesian towns. The oldest source providing a clear reference is a charter issued by Duke Henry I (c. 1165–1238) in 1230, which mentions the parish priest in Olesniz. In 1247 and 1250, Oels was referred to as a ‘castellan’s castle’. In 1255, Oels was granted a charter of settlement under Neumarkt law by Duke Henry III of Wrocław (1227/1230–1266). In 1294, the town came into the possession of the Piast line of Glogau. Around 1313, following the division of the estates of Duke Henry III of Glogau (1251/1260–1309) amongst his sons, the Duchy of Oels was established; from around 1320, the town served as the seat of the Oels Piasts. In 1492, following the death of Conrad X (the Younger White, 1420–1492), the last Piast of this line, it came under the rule of the Münsterberg branch of the Podiebrad dynasty as a fief of the Bohemian Crown.

In 1634, Oels was captured and sacked by Swedish troops, and an epidemic caused severe population losses. Through the marriage of Elisabeth Maria (1625–1686), daughter of the last Duke of the Podiebrad family, to Silvius I Nimrod (1622–1664) in 1649, Oels came into the possession of the Dukes of Württemberg-Weiltingen, though no longer as a true fief but as a mediat principality. In 1730, a fire destroyed a large part of the town’s buildings. In 1742, the town and the duchy, like the whole of Lower Silesia, fell to Prussia. Following the death of the last Württemberg duke, Karl Christian Erdmann (1716–1792), his son-in-law, Friedrich August of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1740–1805), was enfeoffed with Oels. When he died childless in 1805, the estate passed to the Braunschweig-Lüneburg branch of the family. In 1807, Oels became a district town, and in 1850 a garrison town.

In 1884, the Braunschweig-Oels line died out and the duchy was dissolved. The fief was confiscated by the Prussian state and converted into a royal fief, to be held by the respective Prussian Crown Prince. After 1918, Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1882–1951) moved into Oels Castle. In 1926, the Prussian state recognised the royal fief as his private property.

In January 1945, Oels was captured by the Red Army; approximately 70 per cent of the built-up area was destroyed, including the historic centre. In July 1945, the town came under Polish administration. Reconstruction took place in several phases (1957–1960, 1962–1966, 1970–1976), largely in contemporary architectural styles. Even after the war, Oels retained its function as a military base and training centre; to this day, several units of the Polish Army remain stationed in the town.

In 1710, Oels had a population of 3,608; this figure fell following the town fire of 1730 (1758: 3,144 inhabitants).^[1] The economic boom of the 19th century and the town’s transformation into a garrison town led to a rapid rise in the population; in 1825, 5,205 people lived in the town, rising to 10,944 in 1905 and 18,183 in 1939.^[2] After 1945, the German inhabitants of Oels were largely expelled; in their place, Polish displaced persons from the former eastern territories and forcibly resettled Ukrainians from the Bieszczady Mountains settled there. In 1961, the town had a population of 20,847,^[3] whilst in 2014 the figure stood at 37,355.^[4]

From the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, Oels was regarded primarily as a centre for cloth-making, as well as for shoemaking and carpentry.

An economic boom took place in the second half of the 19th century following the industrialisation of the traditional craft sectors, with the establishment of furniture and shoe factories. In 1868, the Breslau–Oels–Kreuzburg railway line was opened. In 1913, the Reichsbahn repair workshop was established; it was taken over by the Polish State Railways (PKP) in 1945 and remained the town’s largest employer for many years.

In 1538, Duke Johann of Podiebrad (1509–1565) introduced the Reformation. As the successors to the House of Podiebrad from the Württemberg-Weiltingen family were also Protestant, the Counter-Reformation failed to take hold in Oels after the Thirty Years’ War. Until 1945, the majority of the inhabitants remained Protestant (in 1939, the figure was 77 per cent).^[5]

Jewish inhabitants were mentioned in Oels as early as the Middle Ages. Around 1500, Jews opened a printing works in Oels which produced Hebrew texts. Around 1530, the Jews were expelled from the town; the late 14th-century synagogue served as an arsenal from 1535 and, from 1695, as the Protestant Church of St Salvator.^[6] From 1750 onwards, there was once again a Jewish community in Oels; a new synagogue was built in 1839 (which burnt down in 1938). In 1880, 268 people of the Jewish faith lived in Oels; by 1939, this number had fallen to 18.^[7] After 1945, alongside a predominantly Catholic majority, an Orthodox and a Ukrainian Greek Catholic community also settled in Oels.

Despite the destruction caused by the Second World War, the town’s medieval layout remains recognisable to this day, with the basic outlines of the town walls and fortifications (the Breslau Gate Tower) as well as the picturesque panoramic view of the town from the south-west, featuring numerous towers.

Around 1900, the suburbs to the south and east began to develop; residential and villa districts, as well as public buildings, were constructed (the post office in 1890, the district court between 1903 and 1905, and a number of schools). During the interwar period, modern department stores, housing estates on the southern and eastern outskirts, and sports and leisure facilities in the north were built, amongst other developments.

The present-day parish church of St John (known as the ‘Castle Church’) on the Schlossgraben in the south-western part of the town was first mentioned in 1230. Construction of the three-aisled Gothic brick basilica began in the second half of the 13th century and continued until around 1510. Between 1700 and 1708, the church was given a Baroque makeover; following the collapse of the vaults and the west gable, it was rebuilt between 1906 and 1908. The most recent restoration took place between 1996 and 1998. Gothic architectural details, numerous tombs and epitaphs from the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as the rich modern furnishings – the wooden gallery with biblical scenes, the pulpit, the princely box, the organ and the high altar – have been preserved. Between 1698 and 1700, the burial chapel of the Dukes of Württemberg-Oels was built on the south side of the choir, into which the Renaissance tomb of Duke Johann von Podiebrad and his wife Christina Katharina von Schidlowitz (d. 1556) was transferred.

During the reign of Charles II Podiebrad, Oels became renowned for its newly opened ‘gymnasium illustre’ (also known as the Ducal Grammar School of Oels), where, 1692–1707, the Silesian scholar Johann Sinapius (1657–1725) served as vice-principal, and with an extensive ducal library – at that time one of the largest in Silesia – became an important centre of culture and the arts. In his memoirs *Aus meinem Leben* (From My Life ), the writer Gustav Freytag (1816–1895), who attended the grammar school from 1829, describes , amongst other things, his school days in Oels.

In 1649, the Silesian mystic Johannes Scheffler (Angelus Silesius; 1624–1677) became personal physician to Silvius I Nimrod.

In her novel *Seven Leaps from the Edge of the World*, Ulrike Draesner explores the story of a family from Oels and the impact of their flight and expulsion from Silesia in 1945 on the two subsequent generations. Their experiences are also placed within a German-Polish context.

• Ulrike Draesner: Seven Leaps from the Edge of the World. Munich 2014.
• Jakub Kostowski: Oleśnica/Oels. In: Ernst Badstüber, Dietmar Popp, Andrzej Tomaszewski, Dethard von Winterfeld (eds.), Sławomir Brzezicki, Christiane Nielsen (eds.): Dehio Handbook of Art Monuments in Poland. Silesia. Munich, Berlin 2005, pp. 685–693.
• Maria Starzewska: Oleśnica. Wrocław, Warsaw, Kraków (Silesia in Art Monuments) 1963.
• Wojciech Mrozowicz, Przemysław Wiszewski: Oleśnica from the Earliest Times to the Present Day [Oels from the Earliest Times to the Present Day]. Wrocław 2006.
• Hugo Weczerka: Oels. In: Ibid.: Handbook of Historical Sites. Silesia. Stuttgart 1977 (Kröners Taschenausgabe 316), pp. 368–373.

• www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q138229 (Illustrations relating to Oels in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)

[1] Weczerka: Oels, p. 372.

[2] Weczerka: Oels, p. 373.

[3] Weczerka: Oels, p. 373.

[4] As at 31 December 2014: Central Statistical Office (GUS): stat.gov.pl/obszary-tematyczne/ludnosc/ludnosc/ludnosc-stan-i-struktura-ludnosci-oraz-ruch-naturalny-w-przekroju-terytorialnym-stan-w-dniu-31-xii-2014-r-,6,17.html (accessed 25 September 2015).

[5] Michael Rademacher: A History of German Administration from the Unification of the German Empire in 1871 to Reunification in 1990. URL: treemagic.org/rademacher/www.verwaltungsgeschichte.de/ (accessed 16 August 2021).

[6] Leszek Ziątkowski: Dzieje Żydów we Wrocławiu [History of the Jews in Breslau]. Wrocław 2000, p. 36.

[7] treemagic.org/rademacher/www.verwaltungsgeschichte.de/ (note 5).

Beata Lejman, Tomasz Torbus: Oels/Oleśnica. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2015. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32275 (as at 18 February 2022).