Brzeg Dolny

Not to be confused with Brzeg.

Brzeg Dolny
Market square in Brzeg Dolny
Flag Coat of arms
Brzeg Dolny
Coordinates: 51°16′15″N 16°43′15″E
Country	Poland
Voivodeship	Lower Silesian
County	Wołów
Gmina	Brzeg Dolny
Government
• Mayor	Stanisław Jastrzębski
Area
• Total	17.20 km2 (6.64 sq mi)
Population (2006)
• Total	12,786
• Density	740/km2 (1,900/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	56-120
Car plates	DWL
Website	http://www.brzegdolny.pl

Brzeg Dolny [ˈbʐɛɡ ˈdɔlnɨ] (until 1945 German: Dyhernfurth) is a town in Wołów County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is located 31 kilometres (19 mi) north-west of Wrocław on the Oder River, and is the site of a large chemical complex, PCC Rokita SA. As at 2006 the town has a population of 12,786.

History

Brzeg Dolny Palace

Brzeg was first mentioned in a 1353 deed as a part of the Duchy of Wrocław, then within the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. In 1660 the city was bought by the Dyhrn family. The first owner from this family was the Chancellor Baron George Abraham von Dyhrn. In 1663 the city officially received the name Dyhernfurth after the Dyhrn family and it also received town privileges by Emperor Leopold I of Habsburg. The Dyhrns had a palace built already in 17th century, which stayed in their possession till the early 1780s, when the palace (then owned by Count Wilhelm von Dyhrn) was sold to Baroness Antoinette von Dyhrn (1745–1820) and her husband, the famous Prussian minister Karl Georg von Hoym, with whom she modernized the palace and the park according to plans of Carl Gotthard Langhans.

During World War II as part of the Grün 3 program, a plant for the manufacture of the nerve agent tabun was established in Dyhernfurth, producing the nerve agent under the codename Trilon-83. Run by the Anorgana GmbH, a branch of IG Farben, the plant began production in 1942. Large scale manufacturing of the agent resulted in problems with the product's degradation over time and only around 12,500 tons of material were manufactured before the plant was over-run by the advancing Soviet forces. The plant initially produced shells and aerial bombs using a 95:5 mix of tabun and chlorobenzene, designated "Variant A" before switching in the latter half of the war to "Variant B," an 80:20 mix of tabun and chlorobenzene designed to make the mixture disperse more easily.

The Soviets, however, did not capture any tabun at Dyhernfurth. Although they occupied the area of the factory, a German raid was organized by Generalmajor Max Sachsenheimer. The German unit of roughly battalion strength crossed the Oder River early on February 5, 1945, seized the factory, and deployed an anti-tank screen. During the day, the tabun at the factory was pumped into the Oder River while the screening force defeated two small-scale Soviet counter-attacks. In the evening of February 5, the German force pulled back behind the Oder River.

Subsequently, the Soviet government had the plant dismantled and taken back to Russia. Nevertheless Rokita started the production of chemicals again in 1947.

Flag: for the flag of the city is being used the coat of arms of the Dyhrn noble family.

International relations

Signpost of twin towns.

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Poland

Twin towns — Sister cities

Brzeg Dolny is twinned with:

• Barsinghausen, Germany
• Mont-Saint-Aignan, France
• Kovel, Ukraine
• Chernyakhovsk, Russia

References

• Duffy, Christopher. "Red Storm on the Reich", New York: Atheneum, 1991. ISBN 0-689-12092-3.

External links

• Brzeg Dolny Home Page
• Jewish Community in Brzeg Dolny on Virtual Shtetl
• Google Maps link
• Jewish Encyclopedia