Voivodeship Capital in Poland (after 1945)
In 1945 there was already a small Polish community consisting of the few Stettin citizens from before of World War II and the Polish enforced workers during World War II, who survived the war. The city was settled with the new inhabitants from every region of Poland, mainly from Pomerania (Bydgoszcz Voivodeship) and Greater Poland (Poznań Voivodeship), but also including those who lost their homes in the eastern Polish territories that were given to the Soviet Union, especially the city of Wilno. This settlement process was coordinated by the city of Poznań and Stettin was renamed Szczecin.
Old and new settlers did a great effort to raise the Szczecin from ruins, rebuild, reconstruct and extend the city's industry, residential areas but also the cultural heritage (e.g. the Pomeranian Dukes' Castle in Szczecin), and it was still harder to do this under the communist regime. Szczecin became a major industrial centre of and a principal seaport not only for Poland (especially the Silesian coal) but also for Czechoslovakia and East Germany.
Szczecin together with Gdańsk (Danzig), Gdynia and Upper Silesia was the main centre of the democratic anti-communist movements in first in March 1968 and December 1970. The protesters attacked and burned the Polish United Workers' Party regional headquarters and the Soviet consulate in Szczecin. The bloody riots were pacified by the secret police and the armed forces; see: Coastal cities events. After 10 years in August 1980 the protesters locked themselves in their factories to avoid the bloody riots. The strike was led by Marian Jurczyk, leader of the Szczecin Shipyard workers and it proved successful with the outbreak of the Solidarity movement.
From 1946 to 1998 Szczecin was the capital of the Szczecin Voivodeship, but the region's boundaries were redrawn in the administrative reorganizations in 1950 and 1975. Boundaries of the Szczecin City were extended by joining with Dąbie in 1948. Since 1999 it is the capital of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Communist-dominated municipal administration was replaced by a local government in 1990, and the direct election of the city president (mayor) was introduced in 2006.
Read more about this topic: History Of Szczecin
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