A history of Szczecin
Szczecin is one of those European cities whose historical and cultural achievements have been shared by more than one nationality. The city's beginnings goes back down to the 8th century, when Slavic settlers established a borough on the present Castle Height. The crucial milestone of Szczecin's history was the Location Act, released in 1243. It introduced Magdeburg Law and some important economic regulations.
Thanks to the participation in long distance trade trading (mainly food, grain, fish and timber) Szczecin grew into a prosperous state. The flourishing development of the city was strongly influenced by its membership in Hansa.
The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was a turning point for Szczecin. During the war Boguslaw XIV, the last duke of the Gryfici dynasty died (1637). According to the Westfalen peace treaty, Pomerania was divided up between Sweden and Brandenburg. Szczecin then fell into Swedish hands. A new stage of the city's development began in 1713, when it found itself within the borders of the Prussian Kingdom. Szczecin was important to Prussia as a garrison town and sea harbour. This was demonstrated by the construction of a fortification system and the water route to Swinoujscie. In 1731, they began to dredge the River Swina and in 1739 they started construction on the seaport facilities at Swinoujscie. The purpose was to free the seaborne trade of Szczecin from Swedish customs taxes. The transit trade of Polish grain and timber took an important position on the city's transactions list. In 1794 alone, 2.500 barges and cargo boats were sent from Szczecin down the River Odra and other waterways connected to Berlin, Magdeburg, Wroclaw, Poznan and Warsaw. Such a policy made a healthy increase of the city's revenue by 2.5 times.
The 19th century was a new age for the city's economic history. Prussian reforms of the municipal system, introducing industrial and professional freedom and the release from customs barriers within the country stimulated sweeping changes. The year 1843 can be regarded as another turning point; that's when the Szczecin-Berlin railroad line was put into service, the first railroad connection between the Prussian capital and the seaside. Shortly afterwards the line was extended to Stargard and farther to Poznan. That way Wroclaw obtained a railway link with Szczecin. The release from very burdensome Sund taxes (1857) gave Szczecin yet more attractiveness as a trade centre. Favourable transport links soon attracted goods, people and capital to the city. In 1851 two engineers from Hamburg set up a shipyard, foundry and machine-building factory in Drzetowo, a Szczecin suburb. In 1857, it was turned into the "Vulcan" joint-stock company to deal mainly with constructions of steel steamships. The "Vulcan" shipyard was a highly profitable company, ensuring large dividends on capital invested. The city's very asset, giving enormous profits to the "Vulcan" company and the whole Szczecin industry was cheap manpower. The "Vulcan" shipyard dominated the German shipbuilding industry upto the beginning of 20th century. The largest and most advanced ships were built here, including two transatlantic liners, that won the very prestigious "Blue Band of the Atlantic". In the 1850's, the city became an important centre of the cement industry with three cement plants sited here. The chemical industry also developed rapidly with two large chemical plants ("Pommernsdorf" at Pomorzany and "Union" at Glinki). That industry, dealing mainly with the production of synthetic fertilizers, was very expansive. Szczecin as an investments location was also extremely attractive for Silesian industrial circles. Guido Von Donnersmarck, a Silesian industrial magnate, built steelworks at the Szczecin suburb Stolczyn and a synthetic silk factory at Podjuchy. Silesian industrialists also built a paper mill at Skolwin in 1910. The turn of the century saw an enormous development of the food-processing industry in the city. There were two sugar refineries, a sugar factory, two steam-powered grain mills, three oil mills, three breweries, as well as a vinegar, yeast and chicory factory. Before the First World War another industrial branch was added to the city's rich economic life: the automotive industry. The local industry owed its prosperity first and foremost to the close connections with the seaport, which provided the supply of raw materials and received the finished products. Szczecin was granted a permit to build a canal connecting the city with Berlin in order to guarantee the harbour more cargo. The canal was put into operation in 1913. Szczecin should have become the harbour of Berlin. After 1945, both the recovering of city's significance as a seaport, and integration with Polish economic structure were the main goals for local authorities. In the new situation mainly bulk cargo was foreseen for the harbour as well as transit services. The establishment of the harbour's links with Silesia and Greater Poland region became crucial once more. In the first period various goods were directed here in order to help Szczecin develop faster. These measures had some political reasons. Their aim was to put pressure on Soviet authorities to hand the harbour over to the Polish party as soon as possible. The hand over took place partly in 1947 and fully in January 1955.
In 1948 Polish Szczecin handled only 3.3 million tones of cargo; this figure only exceeded that of the pre-war period, to get over 8.8 million tones in early 60's. The rapid development of the Swinoujscie's harbour and modernization of the Szczecin port led to the highest ever amount of cargo handled (25 million tones) in 1980; in the following years this figure stood at more than ten million tones a year. The harbour's transit capacity was not fully used due to the governmental economic policy. The best period in this regard were the 1960's with rate 27% of transit cargo handled; in the early 1980's there was a drop down to 15%. Both, the establishment of the Szczecin-Swinoujscie harbour complex and the construction of the bulk cargo terminal around 1975 were significant factors for the development of the harbour.
Another element necessary for the city's maritime functions was the growth of the merchant navy. In 1951 the Polish Steamship Company (Polska Zegluga Morska) was set up. Around 1975 the company owned 124 ships of 1.759 thousand BRT, and in 1968 these figures stood at 126 ships and 1.952 thousand BRT. The Szczecin shipping company was the largest firm of that sort in Poland.
These processes were accompanied by the development of inland shipping, however the navigational possibilities the Odra water route offered were not fully exploited. The Szczecin Shipyard began to dominate in the city's economic life. The construction of more sophisticated and specialized ships was undertaken (semicontainer ships, chemical tankers, research vessels, passenger-auto ferries). Over 350 ships of 4 million DWT have been built so far. The history of Szczecin has demonstrated that the prosperity and economic wealth of its citizens has always depended on the links with neighbours and farther regions, especially those cut by Odra flowing through and the routes heading from Scandinavia to Southern Europe.