page_title: History of Wrocław
section_title: Prussia
hierarchical_section_title: History of Wrocław / Prussia
caption_attribution_description: English: Entrée du Prince Jérôme à Breslau le 7 janvier 1807
context_page_description: Wrocław has long been the largest and culturally dominant city in Silesia, and is today the capital of Poland's Lower Silesian Voivodeship.
  The history of Wrocław starts at a crossroads in Lower Silesia. It was one of the centres of the Duchy and then Kingdom of Poland, and briefly, in the first half of the 13th century, the centre of half of the divided Kingdom of Poland. German settlers arrived in increasing numbers after the first Mongol invasion of Poland in 1241, and Wrocław eventually became part of the Kingdom of Bohemia after the extinction of local Polish dukes in 1335. After the War of Austrian Succession, the city and region were annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, and later became part of the German Empire. After World War II, Wrocław and most of Silesia were transferred to Poland and its population, almost totally German-speaking, was expelled.
context_section_description: During the War of the Austrian Succession in the 1740s, most of Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia.  Prussia's claims were derived from the agreement, rejected by the Habsburgs, between the Silesian Piast rulers of the duchy and the Hohenzollerns who secured the Prussian succession after the extinction of the Piasts. The Protestant citizenry didn't fight against the armies of Protestant Prussia and Frederick II of Prussia captured the city without a struggle in January 1741. In November 1741 the Silesian classes rendered homage to Frederick. In the following years Prussian armies often stayed in the city during the winter month. After three wars Empress Maria Theresa renounced Silesia and Breslau in the Treaty of Hubertusburg in 1763.
  The Protestants of the city could now express their faith without limitation, and the new Prussian authorities also allowed the establishment of a Jewish community.
  After the demise of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Breslau was occupied by an army of the Confederation of the Rhine between 6 December 1806 to 7 January 1807. The Continental System disrupted trade almost completely. The fortifications of the city were levelled and almost every monastery and cloister secularized. The Protestant Viadrina university of Frankfurt (Oder) was relocated to Breslau in 1811, united with the local Catholic university of the Jesuits and formed the new Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität (Wrocław University).
  In 1813 King Frederick William III of Prussia gave a speech in Breslau signalling Prussia's intent to join the Russian Empire against Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars. He also donated the Iron Cross and issued the proclamation  "An mein Volk" (to my people), summoning the Prussian people to war against the French. The city became the centre of the Liberation movement against Napoleon Bonaparte as volunteers from all over Germany gathered in Breslau, among them Theodor Körner, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow, who set up his Lützow Free Corps in the city.
  The Prussian reforms of Stein and Hardenberg led to a sustainable increase in prosperity in Silesia and Breslau. Due to the levelled fortifications the city could grow beyond her old borders. Breslau became an important railway hub and a major industrial centre, notably of linen and cotton manufacture and metal industry. Thanks to the unification of the Viadrina and Jesuit university the city also became the biggest Prussian centre of sciences after Berlin, and the secularization laid the base for a rich museum landscape. In 1836 the Slavonic Literary Society was founded in the city by Czech scholar Jan Evangelista Purkyně with the assistance of Polish scholars Władysław Nehring and Wojciech Cybulski, its aim was to develop studies on Slavic languages and cultures; the Prussian authorities disbanded it in 1886
  On 15 January 1841 the Chair of Slavistics was formed in the city, and headed by Professor František Čelakovský, it was first institution of this kind in Germany
  In 1854 the Jewish Theological Seminary was created, one of the first modern rabbi seminars in Europe. Its first director, Zecharias Frankel, was the principal founder of conservative Judaism.
caption: Entering the Duke Jerome Bonaparte to Breslau, 7 January 1807
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