Chapter One

The Development of a Fortress

Küstrin began as a lucrative customs post at the junction of the Warthe and Oder rivers, which remained important communications routes until the Oder became part of the revised east German boundary at the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945 and all river traffic came to a standstill.

The town was originally known as Cüstrin and was first mentioned in official records in 1232 when it was entrusted until 1262 to the Knights Templar, who reinforced the existing castle there and established a market. In 1397 the town was pawned to the Knights of St John and was then sold in 1402 to the German Order of Knights, who constructed the first bridge across the Oder there, built a castle to protect it and occupied the castle with a garrison of armed knights. In 1455 the German Order sold the town to the Markgraf Albrecht von Hohenzollern, in whose family’s hands the town was to remain until the abdication of the Kaiser in 1918.

Markgraf Hans von Hohenzollern built the new Schloss (fortified palace) between 1535 and 1537, and then had the fortress that is still recognisable today constructed by the engineer Giromella, with its four corner bastions (König, Königin, Kronprinzessin and Philipp) and the central northern bastion (Kronprinz, or Hohen Kavalier).

When King Gustav Adolf of Sweden conquered the Mark Brandenburg in 1631, he also acquired Küstrin. The Swedes reinforced the fortress and added the Albrecht and August Wilhelm ravelins, as well as two lunettes to the Oder bridgehead. (The remains of the upriver lunette were still visible on 1945 aerial photographs.) The Swedish king was killed at the battle of Lützen in 1632 and three years later the Mark Brandenburg was back in Prussian hands.

On 5 September 1730 Crown Prince Friedrich (later King Frederick the Great) was brought to the fortress under guard with his companion Second-Lieutenant von Katte, having been caught while trying to desert from his father’s army. He was incarcerated in the Schloss, from where he was later obliged to watch the beheading of von Katte, and remained imprisoned there until 26 February 1732.

The Russian siege of August 1758

The siege lasted from 14 to22 August 1758, when Frederick the Great attacked the Russian army from the rear and defeated it at the battle of Kutzdorf. The planis taken from the volume Neues Kriegstheater oder Sammlung der merkwürdigsten Begebenheiten des gegenwärtigen Krieges in Deutschland (Leipzig, 1758).

Key:

A. The town and fortress of Küstrin

B. Russian artillery and mortar batteries that set fire to the town on 22 August 1758

C. Advanced Russian corps besieging the town

D. The camp of the imperial Russian troops under Field Marshal Graf von Fermor