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Revision as of 22:00, 6 July 2005 by 145.254.202.211 (talk) (→History)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Szczytno (German: Ortelsburg) is a town in north-eastern Poland with 27,500 inhabitants (1995). Szczytno is situated in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodship (since 1999), but was previously in Olsztyn Voivodship (1975-1998).
History
Around the year 1350 Ortolf von Trier (1349-1371), a knight of the Teutonic Order, led the construction of a castle in the south of the Prussian wilderness. The first mentioning of the castle as Ortulfsburg was in 1360, after Ortolf invited Masovian colonists to help develop the town. The first custodian of the settlement was Heinrich Murer. The town received civil rights in 1616, and had its city rights reaffirmed in 1723. The town suffered from plundering and occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, but became the seat of Landkreis Ortelsburg in 1818.
The town began to quickly expand economically after the opening of a railway line in 1888. According to the German census of 1900, Lutheran Masurs constituted 74.5% of Szczytno's population. The city was almost completely destroyed by the Russian Empire at the beginning of World War I, but its recovery was aided by Berlin and Vienna. After the war ended, a plebiscite was held in 1920 to determine if Szczytno would join Poland, but its inhabitants overwhelmingly voted to remain in Germany. Most of Szczytno's German-speaking inhabitants fled before the Red Army(and the Polish-speaking fled too!) during World War II. The city joined Poland in 1945.
Szczytno contains the most important airport of the Masurian region.
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