Siege of Kolberg (1807) - Aftermath

Aftermath

After the announcement of the peace, Kolberg was not occupied by the French army. Already on 3/4 July, Napoleon ordered the bulk of the siege force to march west to Swedish Pomerania and reinforce, under command of Guillaume Brune, the French forces besieging Stralsund. The commander of the siege forces in Kolberg, Louis Henri Loison, likewise departed to the Stralsund pocket and was put in command of a division near Demmin. Ferdinand von Schill and Neidhardt von Gneisenau received the highest Prussian military decoration "pour le mérite" for their service.

During the siege, Kolberg's suburbs had been levelled, more than half of the Old Town was damaged or destroyed by artillery fire, and Kolberg's economy with its two important branches sea trade and salt mining declined. A shortage of coins had led to the circulation of paper money, hand-written by students from the local lyceum on Gneisenau's behalf. The overall damage was at 155,000 reichstalers. Only in the mid-19th century began the reconstruction and modernization of the town and its port. The ruins of the destroyed medieval town hall were replaced by the current building, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Kolberg ceased to be a fortress in 1872 - by 1873, most of the defensive works were levelled.