courtyard The settlement was originally founded by Old Prussians who established a small fortified fort and were subsequently invaded by
Teutonic Knights in 1355, who then erected a small castle around 1376 It was again captured by the Poles in 1414. In 1455 a Teutonic attack was repulsed In 1656 the town was unsuccessfully besieged during the
Northern Wars. The city suffered from fires in 1656, 1664, 1784 and 1804. In 16th century a significant part of inhabitants in surrounding countryside were Polish farmers. Neidenburg became part of the
Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. Half of Neidenburg's inhabitants died from
plague from 1708 to 1711. In 1758 the town was under
Russian control. In 1831 a cholera epidemic broke out, which killed 218 people. Since 1840 the local German authorities issued decrees ordering to report any Poles fleeing from the
Russian Partition of Poland. During the
January Uprising local population was involved in smuggling and trading weapons to Polish fighters in Russian Empire.
20th century At the beginning of
World War I in 1914, Neidenburg was heavily damaged by invading
Imperial Russian troops; 167 residential and agricultural houses, 8 public and 58 business buildings were destroyed by artillery fire on 22 August 1914. The town was reconquered and rebuilt by the Germans after the
Battle of Tannenberg later in August 1914. The reconstruction was originally based on plans by
Bodo Ebhardt, however, his
neo-gothic style was not carried out; instead, a
neoclassicist style was preferred. As a result of the
Treaty of Versailles, the
East Prussian plebiscite was organized under the control of the
League of Nations on 11 July 1920. The votes were 3,156 for remaining in Prussia and 17 for joining Poland. During the
Kristallnacht riots in November 1938, the synagogue was destroyed and two Jewish inhabitants, Julius Naftali and Minna Zack, were killed by Nazi
SA members, while several others were injured. The surviving members of the Jewish congregation were deported and killed in
the Holocaust during
World War II. During World War II, the Germans operated a
forced labour subcamp of the
Stalag I-B prisoner-of-war camp in the town. A local branch of the
Peasant Battalions was established by the
Polish resistance. In October 1944, the city was bombed by the Soviets. Neidenburg was the seat of a district in
East Prussia until 1945; in that year the
Red Army entered and occupied the town while pursuing the retreating
Wehrmacht. While many, if not most, German civilians had fled the area, many of those who remained experienced atrocities at the hands of
Soviet soldiers, who found themselves on German soil for the first time.
Lev Kopelev, a Soviet officer and later
dissident, described how he was appalled by the acts of murder and looting against those who remained. In accordance to the
Potsdam Agreement, the town along with most of historic
Masuria became again part of Poland, and the remaining German population was
expelled. Rather than being renamed to the traditional Polish name Nibork, the town received a new name, Nidzica. The town was significantly damaged during the war. ==Heritage monuments==