Kołobrzeg [kɔˈwɔbʐɛk] (German: Kolberg ( listen)) is a city in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in north-western Poland with some 47,000 inhabitants (as of 2014). Kołobrzeg is located on the Parsęta River on the south coast of the Baltic Sea (in the middle of the section divided by the Oder and Vistula Rivers). It has been the capital of Kołobrzeg County in West Pomeranian Voivodship since 1999, and previously was in Koszalin Voivodship (1950–1998).
During the Early Middle Ages, Slavic Pomeranians founded a settlement at the site of modern Budzistowo. Thietmar of Merseburg first mentioned the site as Salsa Cholbergiensis. Around the year 1000, when the city was part of Poland, it became seat of the Diocese of Kołobrzeg. During High Middle Ages, the town was expanded with an additional settlement a few kilometers north of the stronghold and chartered with Lübeck law. The city later joined the Hanseatic League. Within the Duchy of Pomerania, the town was the urban center of the secular reign of the Cammin bishops and their residence throughout the High and Late Middle Ages. When it was part of Brandenburgian Pomerania during the Early Modern Age, it withstood Polish and Napoleon's troops in the Siege of Kolberg. From 1815, it was part of the Prussian province of Pomerania. During the 19th century a Polish community started to organize itself. As the Nazis took power in Germany, the local Jewish population was discriminated against, determined to be subhuman and eventually subjected to genocide. In 1945 Polish and Soviet troops seized the town, while the remaining German population which had not fled the advancing Red Army was expelled. Kołobrzeg, now part of post-war Poland and devastated in the preceding Battle of Kolberg, was rebuilt but lost its status as the regional center to the nearby city of Koszalin.
Kolberg is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Kolberg is a 1945 German historical film directed by Veit Harlan. One of the last films of the Third Reich, it was intended as a Nazi propaganda piece to shore up the will of the German population to resist the Allies.
The film is based on the autobiography of Joachim Nettelbeck, mayor of Kolberg in western Pomerania. It tells the story of the defence of the besieged fortress town of Kolberg against French troops between April and July 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. In reality, the city's defense, led by then-Lieutenant Colonel August von Gneisenau, held out until the war was ended by the Treaty of Tilsit. In the film, the French abandon the siege.
The film begins in 1813 after the phase of the Napoleonic Wars known in German as the Befreiungskriege (War of Liberation). The opening scenes show Prussian Landwehr and volunteers marching down the streets of Breslau through enthusiastic crowds. This is followed by a dialogue between King Frederick William III of Prussia and Count August von Gneisenau, in which Gneisenau explains that the siege of Kolberg taught the importance of citizen armies. Ending with the admonition that kings who cannot lead must abdicate, the scene switches to Vienna in 1806 to show the abdication of the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of Austria, whom the script has Gneisenau call "an Emperor who abandoned the German people in their hour of need".