History of Gorzow Wielkopolski

In 1701 Landsberg (Gorzów) - like all of Brandenburg - became ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Prussia. On 4 February 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars the Russian Ataman Aleksandr Chernichev and his Cossack troops defeated a French battalion of 1,500 men of Louis-Nicolas Davout's corps. In 1815 - in the course of an administrative restructuring - the town became part of Prussia's Province of Brandenburg. The city, like all of Prussia, was included in the German Empire in 1871 during the unification of Germany.

In early 1945 during World War II the town was heavily damaged following the retreat of the Wehrmacht ahead of the Soviet Red Army. The Red Army arrived in the city on 30 January 1945, approaching from the left bank of the river Warta. The Wehrmacht had already evacuated most of the city, and the advancing forces met very little resistance. Over the course of the next few days, most of the city centre was destroyed, reportedly through the accidental spread of a fire started in order to light the westward march of the Red Army.

The city became part of Poland in accordance with the provisions of the post-war Potsdam Conference, and most of the remaining German population was expelled. The last original inhabitants were forced to leave the city in the early 1950s. Between February and September 1945, the original population of the city was gradually replaced by Poles from central parts of Poland and those expelled from Polish territory annexed by the Soviet Union (also known as Kresy). It was at this time that Gorzów's significant Tatar and Romani communities arrived