Grudziądz

Geographical location

Grudziądz is located close to the east shore of the river Vistula. It is located in Chełmno Land.

History

Early medieval Poland

Grudziądz was founded by the Duke of Poland, Bolesław I the Brave of the Piast dynasty.

Initially Grudziądz was a defensive stronghold, known as a gord. The fortress and tower were built to protect the Poles from attacks by the Baltic Prussians.

Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights

The settlement was re-fortified again from 1234 by the Teutonic Order. The erection of the castle, with the help of stone as building material, was begun around the middle of the 13th century. Under the protection of the castle the settlement gradually began to develop into a town.

In 1277 both "the castle and the town" were besieged heavily by the Yotvingians. The settlement adopted Kulm law in 1291 while under the rule of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights.

The oldest building parts of the Catholic St. Nicholas' Church stem from the end of the 13th century. The Holy Spirit Church, which apparently was founded during the 13th century, is mentioned together with the town's hospital for the first time in 1345. Other documents reveal that in the 14th century the town already had a well-developed infrastructure. A document of 1380, as an example, refers to the construction of an aqueduct, a fountain and a town-hall cellar.

In the 14th century, papal verdicts ordered the restoration of the town and region to Poland, however, the Teutonic Knights did not comply and continued to occupy it. During the era of the Teutonic Knights, Graudenz had become a distinguished trade center in particular for textiles and agricultural products including grain. In 1411, Nicholas von Renys, leader of the Lizard Union, which sought to reintegrate the city and region with Poland, was unlawfully and without defense beheaded by the Teutonic Knights at the Market Square. Around 1454, Graudenz had already reached about the same level of economic development as other towns in the western part of the State of the Teutonic Order, such as Danzig (Gdańsk), Elbing (Elbląg), Thorn (Toruń), Marienburg (Malbork), Kulm (Chełmno), Konitz (Chojnice), Neumark (Nowe Miasto Lubawskie) and Preußisch Stargard (Starogard Gdański).

Kingdom of Poland

In 1440, the city co-founded the Prussian Confederation which opposed the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. At the beginning of the Thirteen Years' War (1454–66), the citizens forced the Teutonic Order to hand over the castle. The confederation asked the King of Poland, Casimir IV Jagiellon to join Poland. The King agreed and signed the act of incorporation in Kraków in March 1454. During the entirety of the war, both the city and the castle remained under Polish control. The 1466 peace treaty confirmed the re-incorporation of Grudziądz to Poland.

Between 1454 and 1772 the city was part of the Polish Chełmno Voivodeship, which itself was since 1466 part of the Polish province of Royal Prussia, soon included in the larger Greater Poland Province. The Grudziądz Castle was seat of the local starostas (royal administrative officials). It was often visited by Polish kings.

After the great depression of the Thirteen Years' War, new economical growth in the town was slow before the middle of the 16th century. Economic progress was hampered by the religious struggles and by the Polish–Swedish wars throughout the 17th century. At the end of 1655, during the Swedish Deluge, the city and its castle were captured by the Swedes and occupied for four years. In 1659, the Swedes had been besieged for several days and retreated. During their departure, part of the town was destroyed by fire.

In 1522, Nicolaus Copernicus, who aside from his astronomical work was also an economist, presented his treatise Monetae cudendae ratio in Grudziądz. In it he postulated the principle that "bad money drives out good" which became known as the Gresham's law or the Gresham–Copernicus law. This work included an early version of the quantity theory of money – a key concept in economics.

Following Protestant Reformation, in 1569 the local Protestants were given access to the Holy Spirit Church; in 1572 Catholicism seemed to have vanished almost entirely in the town. In 1597 King Sigismund III Vasa gave order that the Protestants had to return all churches taken over by them in the past to the Catholics, including all accessories. The Protestants remained in possession solely of St. George's Church until in 1618 when the base of the building was washed away by the Vistula River and the church was torn down. For a while, they used once more the vacant Holy Spoirit Church, until in 1624 this building together with the hospital had to be handed over to nuns of the Order of Saint Benedict for the purpose of founding an affiliated institution.

Prussian Partition of Poland

Following the First Partition of Poland declared on 5 August 1772, the city was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1773, it had a population of only 2,172 persons. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was part of the area affected by the Partitions of Poland. To stimulate municipal trade, Frederick the Great brought in 44 colonist families. Grain trade flourished. Among the most successful grain traders were the Schönborn family. In 1776, a decision was made to build a fortress in the town. Between 1796 and 1804, by decision of the King of Prussia, the Grudziądz Castle was demolished. During the Napoleonic invasion in Prussia in 1806–1807, the fortress was successfully defended by General of Infantry Wilhelm René de l'Homme de Courbière against attacks by French troops.

In 1871, Graudenz became part of the unified German Empire. Administratively it belonged to the administrative district of Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder in the Province of West Prussia. With the improvement of the railway network in Germany, Graudenz transiently lost its meaning as an important trading place for grain. In 1878, the railway line to Jabłonowo Pomorskie (then Germanized as Goßlershausen) opened. After the construction of a railroad bridge across the Vistula in 1878, a railway line to Laskowice (Laskowitz) opened. Graudenz became a rapidly growing industrialized city. In 1883 also the Thorn (Toruń)-Graudenz-Marienburg (Malbork) railway line went into operation.

In 1899, the Chamber of Commerce was established in Graudenz. The Imperial German Navy named a light cruiser class and its lead ship, the SMS Graudenz, after the city. The newspaper Der Gesellige, founded by book seller Rothe in 1826, belonged up to the end of World War I to the most widely spread newspapers of east Germany. Around the turn to the 20th century, Graudenz had become an important cultural centre in east Germany with numerous schools, municipal archives and a museum.

The city was the site of a military prison for Polish activists. In 1832, also 249 Polish insurgents the November Uprising were imprisoned by the Prussians in the local fortress and subjected to forced labour, malnutrition, beatings and insults. Released prisoners who left Europe formed the Gromada Grudziądz in Portsmouth, England in 1835 as part of the Great Emigration movement.

Frederick had nourished a particular contempt for the Polish state and people. Germanisation was enforced to assimilate residents. He brought in German and Frisian workers and peasants, who in his opinion, were more suitable for building up his new civilization. Frederick settled around 300,000 colonists in the eastern provinces of Prussia. Using state funds for colonization, German craftsmen were placed in all local Polish cities. A second colonization wave of ethnic Germans was pursued by Prussia after 1832. Laws were passed aimed at Germanisation of the Polish inhabited areas and 154,000 colonists were settled by the Prussian Settlement Commission before World War I.

Interwar Poland

On 23 January 1920, the regulations of the Treaty of Versailles became effective, the city was reincorporated under its Polish name Grudziądz into the reborn Polish state (Second Polish Republic), although a majority of its inhabitants were German. At that time Józef Włodek, the newly appointed Polish mayor, described his impression of the town as "modern but unfortunately completely German".

Between 1926 and 1934 the number of Germans (34,194 in 1910) rose from 3,542 to 3,875. Some Polish authors emphasize a wider emigration pattern motivated chiefly by economic conditions and the unwillingness of the German minority to live in the Polish state. In 1935, Poles already constituted 93% of the inhabitants of Grudziądz, so within a few years the city became ethnically Polish again after the ethnic Germans left the city.

The German author Christian Raitz von Frentz writes that after the First World War ended, the Polish government tried to reverse the systematic Germanization of the past decades.

Prejudices, stereotypes and conflicts dating back to German harsh rule and discrimination of Poles influenced Polish policies towards minorities in the new independent Polish state.

The Polish authorities, supported by the public (e.g. the "explicitly anti-German" Związek Obrony Kresów Zachodnich), initiated a number of measures to further Polonization. The local press was also hostile towards the Germans.

Fearful of a re-Germanization of the city, the Polish paper "Słowo Pomorskie" (23.19.1923) criticized the authorities of Grudziądz for tolerating the local German amateur theatre "Deutsche Bühne". The theatre was funded by money from Berlin. Created before the war, its actors were mostly German officers stationed with the local garrison.

The mayor responded by pointing out that the theatre was being monitored because of suspected "anti-state activities". According to Kotowski, this episode indicates that even the most minor activities of the German minority were closely scrutinized by the Polish authorities beginning with the earliest phase of Polish policy towards the German minority.

World War II

On 3 September 1939 units from the Wehrmacht entered the town after the Battle of Grudziądz and then occupied it. From 26 October 1939 to 1945 the city was part of the administrative district of Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder in the new province of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia.

Following the German invasion, the Einsatzkommando 16 and Einsatzgruppen IV and V entered the city to commit crimes against the population. They also carried out mass searches of Polish courthouses, organizations, police stations, etc., and seized large amounts of grain, textiles, coffee, equipment, and even homing pigeons. On 7 September, 25 Polish citizens were detained as hostages – priests, teachers and other members that enjoyed the respect of local society. They were threatened with execution if any harm came to the ethnic Germans from the city who were detained and held by the Polish authorities during the invasion of Poland. After their initial release on the return of the members of the German minority, they were re-arrested and most of them were shot.

On 9 September a further 85 Poles were imprisoned by the Germans.

The German authorities destroyed the city's monuments to Polish independence, and banned Polish priests from speaking Polish during church masses.

On 4 September, the Einsatzgruppe V demanded a list of names of all members of the 600-strong Jewish community within 14 hours, as well as a list of all their possessions. They were also fined 20,000 zlotych

On 6 September, the whole city was covered with posters demanding that Jews and "mixed races" of category I and IInd degree (so-called Mischlinge, i.e. persons of mixed race) gather at the headquarters of the Einsatzgruppe V (established in the local school). Around 100 people responded to the demand and were immediately arrested and robbed. After this they were transported to an unknown destination and disappeared – it is believed that they were most likely executed by the Germans in the Mniszek-Grupa forests.

On 19 October, the city was visited by the NSDAP Gauleiter (regional chief) Albert Forster. In a public speech to the Volksdeutsche, he declared that the area was to become "one hundred percent" German, and that Poles "have nothing to do here, and should be evicted"

Demographics

In 2018, it was populated by 95,045 inhabitants.

Economy

Grudziądz has a diversified economy based on manufacturing, agriculture, and services.

The city has seen significant investment in the energy sector, notably with the construction of a large gas-fired power plant by Energa. In 2025, Energa awarded Siemens Energy a contract to build a second combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) unit in Grudziądz, with an investment value of approximately 3.1 billion Polish złoty. The additional unit is expected to provide around 560 MW of dispatchable capacity.

Education

Nicolaus Copernicus University

Grudziądzka Szkoła Wyższa

Sport

Grudziądz has two professional sports teams. The largest following has the popular speedway team GKM Grudziądz, who race at the Grudziądz Speedway Stadium and compete in the Ekstraliga (Poland's top division), whereas the local football team Olimpia Grudziądz has a slightly more modest following, playing in the lower leagues (as of 2025). GKS Olimpia Grudziądz is also a multi-sports club with athletics and judo sections.

One of the key elements of the city’s sports infrastructure is the Bronisław Malinowski Central Stadium, also referred to as the Grudziądz Municipal Stadium. It serves as the home ground of the local football club, Olimpia Grudziądz, and provides facilities not only for professional matches but also for community events and youth training. The stadium plays an important role in promoting physical activity and strengthening the city’s identity through sport.

Notable people

Piotr of Grudziądz (c. 1400–1480), composer

Johann Stobäus (1580–1646), composer

Alfred Wohl (1863–1946), German chemist

Alexander Pohlmann (1865–1952), politician

Max Winkler (1875–1961), Mayor of Graudenz

Ernst Hardt (1876–1947), writer

Waldemar Kophamel (1880–1934), U-boat commander

Leo White (1882–1948), stage performer

Hans Kyser writer, screenwriter, radio drama writer, and film director

Alfons Hoffmann (1895–1963), Polish engineer

Bolesław Orliński (1899–1992), Polish aviator and test pilot

Kurt Weyher (1901–1991), Admiral

Erich Witte (1911–2008), stage actor, operatic tenor and opera director

Antoni Czortek (1915–2003), Polish boxing champion

Henryk Sawistowski (1925–1984), dean of City and Guilds College of London Institute

Waldemar Baszanowski (1935–2011), Olympic champion weightlifter

Stefania Toczyska (born 1943), mezzo-soprano

Bronisław Malinowski (1951–1981), Olympic Champion in the 3000m steeplechase race, 1980 Summer Olympics

Twin towns – sister cities

Grudziądz is twinned with:

italicized that this city is suspended due to Russian Invasion of Ukraine.