During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II, the "Einsatzgruppe I" entered the town on September 4, 1939, to commit atrocities against Poles. In September 1939, the Germans confiscated assets of the local Polish bank, and carried out mass arrests of prominent Poles, including the chairman of the local "Sokół" Polish Gymnastic Society, the editor-in-chief of local Polish newspaper "Dziennik Raciborski", the chairman of the local Polish bank and activists of the Association of Polish Women. During the war, the Germans operated a Nazi prison, a "Polenlager" forced labour camp for Poles, a forced labour camp for Jews, and six labour subcamps of the &lt;a href="Stalag%20VIII-B"&gt;Stalag VIII-B/344&lt;/a&gt; prisoner-of-war camp in the town. In 1945, two German-conducted death marches of prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp and its subcamps passed through the town towards the Gross-Rosen concentration camp and Opava. In the final stages of the war, it was initially spared by the Red Army Vistula–Oder Offensive but occupied and devastated on 30 March 1945. After end of the war, in June 1945, the army of Czechoslovakia briefly entered into the town and Czechoslovakia officially claimed the area of Racibórz and Głubczyce ("Ratibořsko" and "Hlubčicko") because of having a substantial Czech minority (see border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia). At the same time the expulsion of Germans started, while the town became wholly part of Poland as defined at the Potsdam Conference. The German CDU politician Herbert Hupka at the end of his life promoted reconciliation between the former German inhabitants, including himself, and the new Polish settlers and administration of Racibórz. In 1997, a flood devastated the town.