Waldenburg, Waldenburg in Silesia

Polish: Wałbrzych

Situated in a basin in the Waldenburg Hills at 50° 46' north latitude, 16° 17' east longitude and an altitude of 450 metres.

Silesia

Republic of Poland, Lower Silesian Voivodeship (województwo dolnośląskie); the town is part of Waldenburg District (powiat wałbrzyski).

Since the 17th century, the defining element of the coat of arms has been a tree growing out of the ground; since 1809, it has featured mountains in the background.

Waldenburg was probably founded between 1290 and 1293; the first documented reference to it dates from around 1305. Elements of the town charter are documented for 1426, although it is thought that the town already held this charter by the end of the 14th century. Waldenburg belonged to the Lords of Neuhaus until the 17th century.

During the early modern period, the small town saw little development; during the Thirty Years’ War and the Seven Years’ War, it suffered significant population losses. From 1682, Waldenburg belonged to the von Czettritz family; from 1738, the town – which had been a Prussian mediat town since 1740/42 – came under the authority of the Counts of Hochberg at the nearby Fürstenstein Castle. The manorial rule of the Counts of Hochberg, which was unpopular with the townspeople, was abolished in the sphere of local government with the introduction of the Stein Municipal Code in 1809. Attempts by the townspeople to abolish the manorial system entirely by boycotting the payment of ground rent failed. It was only after unrest had broken out in the wake of the 1848 Revolution that the redemption of the burdens and ground rents was achieved in 1852.

Following the Wars of Liberation, the town became part of the Schweidnitz district in 1816; as early as 1818, this district was divided and a separate Waldenburg district was created.

The eastern side of the ring road in Waldenburg/Wałbrzych.
(Photo: B. Conrad)

The start of industrial mining (the Waldenburg mining district) and the connection to the railway network in 1853 were followed by a sharp rise in the population, including in the surrounding communities. The influx of workers also had political repercussions: whilst the Waldenburg constituency in the Reichstag was represented from 1867 to 1884 by Hans XI, Count von Hochberg, Prince of Pleß and Baron von Fürstenstein, by a member of the long-established nobility who belonged to the conservative Reich Party; he was initially succeeded by Liberals, before an SPD candidate prevailed for the first time in the 1893 Reichstag election. From 1898 to 1918, the constituency was represented in the Reichstag by Hermann Sachse (SPD); Sachse was also a member of the Weimar National Assembly in 1919–20. Up to and including 1930, the SPD was the strongest political force in all Reichstag elections, before the NSDAP was able to take this position from 1932 onwards.

Having escaped destruction during the Second World War, Waldenburg was occupied without a fight on 8 May 1945 by troops of the Red Army’s 1st Ukrainian Front. The majority of the German-speaking inhabitants who had not fled were expelled between 1945 and 1947. Owing to the town’s importance to the mining industry, unlike in the rest of Lower Silesia, a German minority remained in Waldenburg, the members of which were predominantly granted Polish citizenship in 1951. As a recognised minority, these Germans enjoyed special rights in the education system and in cultural matters during the 1950s. Between 1955 and 1960, almost all of them resettled in the Federal Republic of Germany. During the era of the People’s Republic of Poland, Waldenburg grew into a major city. Mining, which had become unprofitable, was discontinued in 1999.

From 1707, the municipal council consisted of a mayor and two councillors; from 1765, it consisted of a mayor, two senators and a municipal elder. With the introduction of the Stein Municipal Code in 1809, a 24-member municipal council was established.

Population trends^[1]

*Of these, by nationality: 96.6 per cent (125,840) Polish, 3.1 per cent (4,022) none, 0.1 per cent (151) German, 0.2 per cent (255) other.

There were three major municipal amalgamations in Waldenburg’s history: at the start of the Weimar Republic (1919), during the Nazi era (1934) and during the People’s Republic of Poland (1950).

In the Middle Ages, the early modern period and the first half of the 19th century, the town’s population consisted almost exclusively of German speakers. In the second half of the 19th century, small groups of Czech- and Polish-speaking people settled in the area. In 1954, the German population in the town and district of Waldenburg was estimated at a maximum of 25,000 people, roughly one-sixth of the total population.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the linen trade and cloth weaving were the dominant economic sectors; in 1818, the first mechanical loom on the European mainland was put into operation. In the 19th century, coal mining – which had been practised since the 16th century – replaced the linen trade as the most important economic sector. Waldenburg was also a centre of Silesian porcelain manufacturing; it was home to Carl Krister’s porcelain factory, established in the 1830s, whose production was continued by the Polish side from the 1950s onwards under the name ‘Krzysztof’.

In 1869, a strike by miners in the Waldenburg mining district, which lasted several weeks, was of national significance, after employers had refused to allow the establishment of a local branch of the liberal Hirsch-Duncker trade unions. This uncompromising stance later led to the strengthening of the socialist trade unions.

From the Reformation until the 19th century, the town’s population was predominantly Protestant; in the 19th century, the proportion of Catholics rose due to the influx of migrant workers. In 1925, of the 44,111 inhabitants, 58.6 per cent (25,849) were Protestant, 35.2 per cent (15,522) were Catholic and 0.5 per cent (220) were Jewish. It is worth noting that, compared with Germany as a whole at that time (1925: 64.1 per cent Protestant, 32.4 per cent Catholic, 0.9 per cent Jewish), the proportion of people with no religious affiliation was high.^[2]

One of the oldest surviving buildings is the Czettritz family’s castle in the Ober-Waldenburg district, built between 1604 and 1628. The most important churches and town houses on the Ring date from the 18th and 19th centuries, whilst the new town hall dates from the mid-19th century. During the 19th century, the town expanded rapidly to the north-west and south – as viewed from the Ring. The fragmented municipal structure of the Waldenburg district and Waldenburg’s small area led to persistent problems in town planning during the second half of the 19th century; these were only gradually resolved with the land acquisition that began in 1896, the establishment of the town planning office in 1906 and the incorporations of neighbouring areas at the start of the Weimar Republic. During the Weimar Republic, municipal housing construction – which particularly benefited the mining workforce – reached its first peak.

In the post-war period, there was a German-Polish controversy over whether a settlement mentioned in the 17th century as dating from the year 1191 was in fact Waldenburg, and whether the town might therefore be of Slavic origin. Polish historians asserted this, whilst German historians disputed it. In the process, the factual issue took a back seat to the narrative, which was important for national self-perception. No evidence has yet been produced to support the claim that the place mentioned in the source – assuming it ever existed – and Waldenburg, which was probably founded between 1290 and 1293, are one and the same.

• Bernhard Grund: The Cultural Life of Germans in Lower Silesia under Polish Administration, 1947–1958. Bonn, Berlin 1967 (Bonner Berichte aus Mittel- und Ostdeutschland).
• Artur Hryniewicz: Wałbrzych/Waldenburg. In: Ernst Badstübner, Dietmar Popp, Andrzej Tomaszewski, Dethard von Winterfeld (eds.), Sławomir Brzezicki, Christine Nielsen (eds.): Dehio Handbook of Art Monuments in Poland. Silesia. Munich, Berlin 2005, pp. 981–987.
• Joachim Köhler: Waldenburg. In: Hugo Weczerka (ed.): Handbook of Historical Sites. Silesia. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Stuttgart 2003 (Kröners Taschenausgabe 316), pp. 554–557.
• Konrad Pflug: Chronicle of the Town of Waldenburg in Silesia. Waldenburg, Silesia, 1908.
• Bruno Paschky: Waldenburg/Silesia. In: Heinz Stoob, Peter Johanek (eds.): Silesian Town Book. Stuttgart et al. 1995 (German Town Book, founded by Erich Keyser, revised edition 1), pp. 440–445.
• Waldenburger Bergland Twinning Working Group, Dortmund (eds.), Heinrich Bartsch (author): Unforgettable Waldenburg Homeland. A Book of Remembrance, Love and Loyalty. Norden 1969.

• um.walbrzych.pl/ (the town’s website)
• www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q110732 (Images of Waldenburg/Wałbrzych in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)

[1] Source: For 1743–1910 and 1939–1985: Paschky, p. 441. For 1925: Statistics of the German Reich. Vol. 401. Berlin 1930, p. 361. For 2002–2010, from the website of the Polish Central Statistical Office: stat.gov.pl/.

[2] Source: For Waldenburg: Statistics of the German Reich. Vol. 401. Berlin 1930, p. 361. For Germany: *The World in Measure and Number*. Geography, Economy and Ecclesiastical Statistics of All Continents and Countries. Freiburg im Breisgau 1932, p. 9.

Benjamin Conrad: Waldenburg/Wałbrzych. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2012. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32431 (as at 30 July 2021).