Działdowo

In 1701 the town became part of the Kingdom of Prussia, from 1773 on within the newly formed province of East Prussia. Within the Kingdom of Prussia and the later German Empire, the settlement developed into an important Prussian Eastern Railway junction in the second half of the 19th century.

The castle in the 19th century

Exaltation of the Holy Cross church

The town had Polish majority in 1825 with 1496 Poles and 386 Germans living within it.[6] At the same time the Prussian authorities were hostile to the local population due to its Polish pro-independence activity during the November and January Uprisings in Congress Poland. During the January Uprising of 1863 an ammunition depot and contact point was secretly established by local people trying to help their fellow Poles in the struggle against the Russian Empire; it was located at the house of Doctor Russendorf.[7] Prussian authorities arrested several locals and harassed the local population which tried to form military units to aid the uprising.[8] The area remained Polish despite attempts at Germanisation. In 1815 79% of the local population were Poles, and only 21% Germans. In 1837 74% were Poles and 26% Germans. In the second half of the 19th century 87% of the district's population were Poles. With the increase of Germanisation efforts in 1910, the whole district population was divided among 57% Poles, 42% Germans and 1% Jews according to official German statistics.[8] In 1910 the town itself had 4,728 inhabitants, 3,589 of them Germans.[2] In 1912 the Germans introduced the terms "Masurs" and "Masurian language" instead of "Pole" and "Polish language" in the census in the area.[8] It was part of the Landkreis Neidenburg district in East Prussia, and it was the southernmost town in the province.

The town was fought over in the early stages of World War I. It was briefly occupied by Russian troops, and won back by the Germans during the Battle of Tannenberg. The occupation of Soldau is described in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel August 1914.

Despite the attempts of the local German populace and authorities and the German Government, the town together with neighboring settlements was transferred to reborn Poland on January 17, 1920 by the Treaty of Versailles for geostrategic reasons without participating in the East Prussian plebiscite.[9] The Prussian Eastern Railway connection to German Prussia such as Deutsch Eylau (Iława), Osterode (Ostróda), and Neidenburg (Nidzica) in East Prussia were severed after the border changes. After the town was ceded to Poland, a large number of the German inhabitants left, including not only German-speakers, but, at roughly the same percentage, Polish-speakers, despite Polish campaigns to win them over as Polish nationals.[10]

The candidate of the German Party, Ernst Barczewski, was elected to the Sejm with 74.6% of votes in 1920,[11] and to the Polish Senate with 34.6% of votes for the Bloc of National Minorities in 1928.[11] In 1921, the Polish census gave the following data regarding the ethnic composition of the whole district: Poles, 15,496; Germans, 8,187; others, 44.[8]

During the Polish-Soviet War Działdowo was briefly occupied by the Red Army which was cheered as a liberator by the local populace, and the town hoisted the German flag again[12][13] but it was soon recovered by the Polish Army.

Monument to victims of the German Nazi Soldau concentration camp

During the German Nazi - Russian Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 that began World War II, the town was invaded by Germany, and then the Einsatzgruppe V entered to commit crimes against the Polish population.[14] Under German occupation, the town was annexed back into the Neidenburg District by Nazi Germany. The German minority in the town formed the Selbstschutz death squad that captured and tortured Polish leaders and members of the political and cultural elites before murdering them.[7] Only some of the local Polish activists were caught by the Germans, as most fled and hid under assumed names in the General Government (German-occupied central Poland).[15]

In 1939, the occupiers established a prisoner-of-war camp for captured Polish soldiers at the pre-war Polish military barracks.[16] In December 1939 it was converted into a camp for Polish civilians arrested during the Intelligenzaktion,[16] which later became the Soldau concentration camp, at which 10,000–13,000 prisoners out of 30,000 were murdered.[2] The first mass transport of Polish prisoners came to the camp from the nearby Ciechanów County in December 1939, and those were the victims of the first mass execution in the camp.[17] The Germans also operated two forced labour camps in the town.[18][19] In 1943 in Warsaw, activists from Działdowo established the secret Masurian Research Institute (Mazurski Instytut Badawczy), which was part of the Polish Secret Teaching Organization.[15]

The town was heavily damaged during the fighting on the Eastern Front. It was assigned to Poland after the war under border changes promulgated at the 1945 Potsdam Conference, and became Działdowo.