Ząbkowice Śląskie ( ; ) is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of Ząbkowice County and of a local municipality called Gmina Ząbkowice Śląskie. The town lies approximately south of the regional capital Wrocław. , it had a population of 15,004.

History

The town was established in Silesia as Frankenstein in the late 13th century by German settlers, during the reign of Henry IV Probus of the Piast dynasty, following the Mongol invasion of Poland. It was founded in the vicinity of the old Polish settlement of Sadlno, through which ran a trade route connecting Silesia and Bohemia. The town was sited on a piece of land that belonged partly to the episcopal lands of Zwrócona and partly to the monastery at Trzebnica. The town was located between the sites of two previously existing towns that had failed to attract enough settlers: Frankenberg (Przyłęk) and Löwenstein (Koziniec), and inherited its German name from both. Its positioning on the so-called "King's Road" between Prague and Wrocław, not too far from the commercially important city of Kłodzko, would favour the development of the town. The town received municipal rights around 1280, the first mention of civitas Frankenstein is dated 10 January 1287. In 1295, Duke Bolko I the Strict granted the town staple right for salt and lead. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) ended the town's prosperity.

thumb|left|Mid-19th century view of the market square

In 1858, the town burned down and had to be rebuilt. On this occasion, the upper part of the 15th-century leaning tower was reconstructed in a straight manner. The town was a county seat from 1816 to 1945. From 1871 to 1918 it was part of the German Empire. In the final stages of World War II in 1945, a German-conducted death march of thousands of prisoners of several subcamps of the Auschwitz concentration camp passed through the town towards the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, and additionally some prisoners from the Nazi prison in Kłodzko were moved to the town. The town was not destroyed during the war.

Notable people

  • David Pareus (1548–1622), German Reformed Protestant theologian and reformer
  • Karl von Strotha (1786–1870), Prussian officer and Minister of War
  • Fritz Erler (1868–1940), German artist, born in Frankenstein
  • Wilhelm Kroll (1869–1939), German classic philologist
  • Günther Specht (1914–1945), Luftwaffe pilot
  • Horst Hannig (1921–1943), Luftwaffe pilot
  • Wiesław Kilian (1952–2019), Polish politician
  • Ewa Sonnenberg (born 1967), Polish poet, pianist and essayist
  • Marcin Gwóźdź (born 1977), Polish politician and engineer
  • Piotr Zieliński (born 1994), Polish football player

Twin towns – sister cities

See twin towns of Gmina Ząbkowice Śląskie.

References

  • Ząbkowice Śląskie municipal website
  • Frankenstein.pl: events of 1606 involving undertakers which might have inspired the 1818 novel by Mary Shelley
  • Jewish Community in Ząbkowice Śląskie on Virtual Shtetl