Pyrzyce

Pyrzyce (Përzëca; Pyritz) is a town in Pomerania, north-western Poland. As of 2007, it had 13,331 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Pyrzyce County in West Pomeranian Voivodeship.

History
An anonymous medieval document of about 850, called Bavarian Geographer, mentions the tribe of Prissani having 70 strongholds (Prissani civitates LXX). The territory became part of the emerging Polish state under Mieszko I around 967.

The settlement was first mentioned in 1124 by bishop Otto von Bamberg, who baptized the first Pomeranians here, a task entrusted to him by Polish monarch Bolesław III Wrymouth. It was one of the first towns of Western Pomerania to convert to Christianity. In 1140, a church was founded, and a castle was first mentioned. Later on, as a result of the fragmentation of Poland, it was part of the Duchy of Pomerania. In 1248, a ducal mint of Barnim I was mentioned for the first time. A new church was built in 1250, an Augustinian cloister in 1256 and a monastery of the Franciscan order in 1281.

In 1263 the town received Magdeburg town rights from Duke Barnim I. In 1320 Dukes Otto I and Barnim III exempted the burghers from customs duties throughout their duchy, in 1322 they granted the town the village of Czarnowo, and in 1326 they confirmed the old right to mint coins. By the Contract of Pyritz of March 26, 1493 the Dukes of Pomerania recognized the right of succession of the House of Brandenburg. A large fire destroyed almost the whole town in 1496. Pyritz was the first town in Pomerania to implement the Lutheran Reformation in 1524.

During the Thirty Years' War, the town was occupied by the Holy Roman Empire since 1628, then by Sweden from 1630, by the Holy Roman Empire again in 1635, and by Sweden again in 1636. It was plundered repeatedly both by Imperial and Swedish troops, and in 1634, it was largely destroyed by a conflagration. After the death of the last Pomeranian Duke in 1637, the Swedes took over the town. In 1653 the town became part of the Brandenburg-Prussian province of Pomerania following the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the Treaty of Stettin (1653), along within the rest of Farther Pomerania.

In 1818, the town became the seat of the district administration (Kreis Pyritz) and was connected to the railway system in 1882. As part of Prussia the town was located in unified Germany of 1871.

At the end of World War II the Soviet Red Army conquered the town during the Pomeranian Offensive. Bombardment of Pyritz by Soviet artillery began on February 1, 1945, and achieved maximum intensity on February 27, when attacks by heavy artillery destroyed the old town. Following the post-war boundary changes, Pyrzyce became again part of Poland; the local population was expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement and replaced by Poles, including those displaced from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union.

From 1975 to 1998 Pyrzyce was administratively located in the Szczecin Voivodeship.

Famous people

 * Sir Trevor Corry (1724–1780), British diplomat, died in Pyritz
 * Karl Gützlaff (1803–1851), a German Lutheran missionary to the Far East
 * Salomon Neumann (1819–1908), surgeon and founder of "Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums" (Berlin)
 * Gustav Jacobsthal (1845–1912), composer and full-time professor of historical musicology
 * Gustav Hirschfeld (1847–1895), a German classical archaeologist
 * Otto Gerstenberg (1848-1935), a German businessman, mathematician and art collector
 * Otto Hintze (1861–1940), a German historian of public administration
 * Margarete Neumann (1917–2002), a German writer and lyrical poet
 * Danuta Bartoszek (born 1961), a former long-distance runner; competed for Canada at the 1996 Summer Olympics
 * Paweł Januszewski (born 1972), a retired hurdler, represented Poland in the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics
 * Magda Toeters (born 1986), a Dutch swimmer, won silver at the 2012 Summer Paralympics