History of Jelenia Gora

The town was inherited by Habsburg Austria in 1526, two years after the town adopted the Protestant faith. A Protestant school was built in 1566. In 1560 a fire destroyed large parts of the city and stopped the economic development, which until then had been characterized by linen-weaving. The city recovered when Joachim Girnth, a shoemaker on a return journey from Holland, introduced veil-weaving. The first "light veils" were offered in 1625, and five years later the city received an imperial privilege by Ferdinand II for these veils.

During the Thirty Years' War the city suffered badly. Hirschberg was beleaguered by troops of both parties, paid high contributions, and during a siege in 1634 the city burned down again. Two more sieges followed in 1640 and 1641. The town needed several years to recover. One reason for the new boost was the creation of a merchant society 1658, which secured Hirschbergs position as the most important center of linen and veil trade in the Silesian mountains during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Protestants of the city were oppressed during the Counter-Reformation, but the second Treaty of Altranstädt, which allowed a Protestant community center and church to be established outside the medieval city walls, brought relief. Great sacrifices by the merchant society, especially its most prominent member Christian Menzel, made the construction of a large church, modeled after Church of Catherine in Stockholm, possible. The cemetery of the church was the preferred burial place for most merchant families.

Hirschberg was annexed with Lower Silesia by the Kingdom