Nowa Sól is a city on the Oder River in Lubusz Voivodeship, western Poland. It is the capital of Nowa Sól County and had a population of 38,763 (2019).

History

The territory became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century, and following the country's fragmentation it formed part of the Duchy of Głogów since 1251, ruled by the Piast and Jagiellonian dynasties, including future Polish Kings John I Albert and Sigismund I the Old. The first mention of the settlement in the region of modern Nowa Sól dates back to the 14th century. The Latin book Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis (Polish: Księga uposażeń biskupstwa wrocławskiego) records two Slavic Polish settlements of Stare Żabno mentioned as Sczhabna antiqua and Nowe Żabno as Sczhabna nova. The former is currently a suburb of Nowa Sól and the latter still exists as a village. In 1506, the territory was incorporated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Holy Roman Empire.

In order to break Silesia's dependency on salt from Poland, Emperor Ferdinand I founded the demesne land Zum Neuen Saltze in 1563. The sea salt, originally from La Rochelle and the Iberian coast, was transported from Hamburg and Stettin (Szczecin) along the navigable Oder. A flood in 1573 led to the relocation of the salt refinery to the nearby village of Modritz (Modrzyca); the office of the administrator is now the town hall. The settlement was documented as Neusalzburg ("New Salzburg") in 1585 and later as Neusalz ("New Salt"). A trading harbor was built on the Oder in 1592. The Protestant Church of St. Michael, built from 1591 to 1597, was converted to Roman Catholicism in 1654.

thumb|left|Neusalz in the 18th century

The entrance of Dutch and English merchants in the Baltic Sea at the end of the 16th century led to difficulties in the supply of unrefined salt. After the Battle of Kunersdorf, Neusalz was plundered on 24 September 1759. During the final stages of the war, in January 1945, remaining prisoners were sent on a German-perpetrated death march towards Krzystkowice, with one woman escaping and returning to the town, where she was then sheltered by the remaining Polish forced laborers. German troops destroyed the concrete bridge on 9 February 1945, but the Soviet Red Army entered Neusalz on 13/14 February 1945.

Sports

The city's professional sports club is volleyball team Astra Nowa Sól, which competes in the I liga (2nd tier).

Notable people

  • Christian David Gebauer (1777–1831), painter
  • Gustav A. Schneebeli (1853–1923), politician
  • Otto Jaekel (1863–1929), paleontologist
  • Walter Thor (1870–1929), German painter and illustrator
  • Alfred Saalwächter (1883–1945), General Admiral executed for war crimes
  • Friedrich Zehm (1923–2007), German classical composer
  • Natias Neutert (born 1941), German artist
  • Seweryn Krajewski (born 1947), musician
  • Janusz Liberkowski (born 1953), winner of the first season of American Inventor
  • Józef Młynarczyk (born 1953), footballer
  • Bogdan Bojko (born 1959), politician
  • Waldemar Zboralski (born 1960), gay rights activist
  • Marcin Oleksy (born 1987), amputee footballer, 2022 FIFA Puskás Award
  • Adam Stefanow (born 1994), snooker player

Twin towns – sister cities

Nowa Sól is twinned with:

  • Achim, Germany
  • Fresagrandinaria, Italy
  • Püttlingen, Germany
  • Saint-Michel-sur-Orge, France
  • Senftenberg, Germany
  • Veszprém, Hungary
  • Žamberk, Czech Republic

Notes

References

  • Jewish Community in Nowa Sól on Virtual Shtetl