History of Gizycko

1340, located at the isthmus between two lakes in Masuria. Lötzen was administered within the Komturei of Balga. The settlement near the castle received town privileges, with a coat of arms and seal, in 1612 while part of the Duchy of Prussia.

Lötzen became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701 and was made part of the province of East Prussia in 1773. In 1709/10 the plague claimed 800 victims, only 119 inhabitants survived. In the 19th century, a Lutheran church designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel was erected in the centre of the town. Lötzen became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany.

1844–1848 the “Feste Boyen“, a fortress named after the Prussian war-minister Hermann von Boyen, was built on a small landtongue between lake Mamry (Mauersee) and lake Niegocin (Löwentinsee). This fortress is one of the largest and best conditioned fortresses of the 19th century. In 1942–1945 it was the headquarters of the German military intelligence service (Fremde Heere Ost) under Reinhard Gehlen.

As a result of the treaty of Versailles on 11 July 1920 the East Prussian plebiscite was organized under the control of the League of nations, which resulted 99,97% of votes to remain in Germany (29,378 total) and 0,03% for Poland (9 total). At the time, both German and Polish governments believed that the outcome of the plebiscite was decided by the ongoing Polish-Bolshevik War which threatened the existence of the newly formed Polish state itself. As a result, even many Poles of the region voted for Germany out of fear that if the area was allocated to Poland it would fall under Soviet rule.

In the 1930s Lötzen was the garrison of several military units of the Wehrmacht as a Sub-area Headquarter of Wehrkreis I, which was headquartered at Königsberg. Staff-, maintenance- and guardtroops of Hitler's headquarter Wolfsschanze and the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, army