Szubin

Remains of the old castle

The first record of a settlement next to the castle of the Pałuka family was noted in 1365. It became a town in 1434. Szubin was a private town of Polish nobility, including the Mycielski and Opaliński families,[1] administratively located in the Kcynia County in the Kalisz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown.[2] It was granted new privileges in 1645 and 1750.[1]

In 1773 it was annexed by Prussia during the Partitions of Poland. In 1807 it was regained by Poles and included in the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, administratively located within its Bydgoszcz Department.[1] After the duchy's dissolution it was reannexed by Prussia in 1815, from 1871 to 1919 it was also part of Germany. Local people took part in the various insurrections which unsuccessfully tried to regain freedom in the 19th century. To resist Germanisation policies Poles also founded various organizations. After World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence, and the Greater Poland Uprising broke out, which goal was to reintegrate the region with the reborn Polish state. On January 3, 1919 the town was recaptured by the German Grenzschutz, and afterwards Germany concentrated significant forces in the town, and carried out mass arrests of local Poles, who were then deported to Bydgoszcz, Szczecin and Goleniów.[3] On January 8, 1919, Polish insurgents unsuccessfully attempted to recapture the town,[3] however the next battle of Szubin on January 11–12 ended with Polish victory, and the town finally became part of the Second Polish Republic.

Memorial to the Oflag XXI-B and Oflag 64 prisoners

During the invasion of Poland, which started World War II, in September 1939, the town was quickly occupied by German troops and was directly annexed to Nazi Germany as part of the newly established region named Warthegau. Szubin was one of the sites of executions of Poles, carried out by the Germans as part of the Intelligenzaktion.[4] In December 1939 and January 1940, the Germans expelled 1,280 and 780 Poles respectively, including activists, veterans of the Greater Poland Uprising, families of teachers, local officials and owners of shops, workshops and better houses, which were then handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy.[5] In 1940, the boys' school in the town was surrounded by barbed wire fences and additional concrete huts were added, so that it could become a prisoner of war camp for captured Polish, French, British and Soviet officers as Oflag XXI-B. In 1943, the camp was changed to a camp for U.S. Army officers as Oflag 64. Also a Nazi prison was operated in the town.[6] The town reverted to Poland after being liberated by Soviet troops on 21 January 1945.

The local football club is Szubinianka Szubin. It competes in the lower leagues.

• 
  Town hall
• 
  Saint Martin church
• 
  Saint Andrew Bobola church
• 
  Memorial to the victims of the Nazi German occupation

• Moses Mielziner (1828–1903), rabbi
• Friedrich-Wilhelm von Chappuis (1886–1942), general

• Oflag 64
• Kreis Schubin

• Oflag 64 Association