The total area of Gostyń is 10.79 square kilometres (4.17 sq mi). The town comprises 1% of the area of the county and 8% of the commune, according to Główny Urząd Statystyczny.
In 1793 Gostyń was annexed by Prussia during the Second Partition of Poland. In 1807 regained by the Poles as part of the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw, in 1815 it was re-annexed by Prussia.[4] Gostyń was a center of Polish resistance to Germanisation policies.[2] In 1835 Kasyno Gostyńskie was founded, a significant local Polish organization, which under the disguise of social activity conducted economic, educational and library activities.[6] The Prussians abolished the organization in 1846 and its library's collection was moved to Poznań.[6] Gostyń was the site of preparations for the Greater Poland uprising (1848), and during the uprising, it was captured by the Prussians in April 1848.[6] Many inhabitants took part in the next Greater Poland uprising (1918–19),[2][4] after which Gostyń joined the re-established Polish state.
World War II
Monument to the victims of the 21 October 1939 execution at the Market Square
During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II, Gostyń was captured by the Wehrmacht on 6 September 1939.[7] During the Nazi German occupation of Poland, Gostyń became the site of public executions, arrests and expulsions of Poles. First mass arrests and executions were carried out in September 1939.[8] On 21 October 1939 some 30 citizens of the town whose names were listed in the Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen (Special Prosecution Book-Poland) prepared by local German minority, were executed by an Einsatzkommando. Among the murdered were Gostyń's mayor Hipolit Niestrawski, Polish activists, officials, craftsmen and former Greater Poland insurgents.[9] It was one of many massacres of Poles committed by Germany on 20–23 October 1939 across the region in attempt to pacify and terrorize the Polish population.[10] Mass expulsions began on 4 December 1939, with up to 2,000 Poles deported to General Government on the orders of SS-Standartenführer Ernst Damzog stationing in Poznań. Between spring of 1940 and 15 March 1941 additional 3,222 were deported.[11]Władysław Nawrocki [pl], Polish officer and pre-war chairman of the local football club Kania Gostyń, was murdered by the Soviets in the Katyn massacre in 1940.[12]
Despite such circumstances, local Poles organized an underground resistance movement, which included structures of the Polish Underground State, the secret youth organization Tajny Hufiec,[13] and the Czarny Legion [pl] organization, which was founded in 1940.[7]Czarny Legion was crushed by the Germans in 1941. Several dozens of its members were arrested and then brutally tortured in a prison in Rawicz.[7] After a Nazi show trial in Zwickau in 1942, 12 members were executed in Dresden, and several dozen were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, where 37 of them died.[7] German occupation ended in 1945.
^ abcdef"Historia". Gostyn.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 8 March 2020.
^Atlas historyczny Polski. Wielkopolska w drugiej połowie XVI wieku. Część I. Mapy, plany (in Polish). Warszawa: Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk. 2017. p. 1a.
^ abc"Gostyń". Encyklopedia PWN (in Polish). Retrieved 8 March 2020.
^Wardzyńska, Maria (2009). Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion (in Polish). Warszawa: IPN. pp. 95, 116.
^Grochowina, Sylwia (2017). Cultural policy of the Nazi occupying forces in the Reich district Gdańsk–West Prussia, the Reich district Wartheland, and the Reich district of Katowice in the years 1939–1945. Toruń. p. 87. ISBN978-83-88693-73-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Pietrowicz, Aleksandra (2011). "Konspiracja wielkopolska 1939–1945". Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej (in Polish). No. 5–6 (126–127). IPN. pp. 33, 36. ISSN1641-9561.
