Battle of the Seelow Heights
In September 1923, the Black Reichswehr attempted to occupy Küstrin but it was suppressed. At the outbreak of World War II Küstrin had 24,000 inhabitants. However, due to Allied air raids on the railway hub and local factories and its position as a German bridgehead on the east bank of the Oder during the Battle of the Oder-Neisse and the Battle of the Seelow Heights, almost 95% of its buildings were destroyed (including all 32 of the city's factories) and the town was generally deserted. The town was captured by the Red Army on 11 March 1945. The suburb Alt-Drewitz (modern Drzewice, one of Kostrzyn's boroughs) contained a Nazi POW camp, Stalag III-C Alt-Drewitz, used mostly for American, French, Soviet, and Italian prisoners of war. In 1943–45 the town also housed a number of German forced labour camps and a sub-camp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp.