The Decline of the Cloth Industry in Birnbaum (Międzychód) After the Napoleonic Wars

Abstract

dzy chód) applied to King Frederick William III for the award of the re­ vised town ordinance, a civil servant of the Ministry of the Interior praised the town’s conditions and recommended the award without reservation. Birnbaum, as he emphasized in his letter to Interior Minister von Brenn, differed positively from other small towns in the province, and it had a “de­ cent, well­meaning population” of 2,453 inhabitants, consisting mainly of Germans. The financial situation of the municipality was well ordered and it was expected that the introduction of the town order (Städteordnung) would have a positive effect on the development of the urban situation.1 In his administrative report for the year 1832, which he had submitted together with the application of the magistrate, Mayor Wieczorowski de­ scribed the circumstances somewhat more differentiated2: the town was free of debt and the main streets were almost all newly paved. They also had an orderly fire­fighting system and public safety, which was the con­ cern of four gendarmes and four night watchmen, was guaranteed. The economic and social conditions, however, caused the mayor sorrow. In re­ cent years – since the export of cloths to Russia had come to a standstill – Birnbaum had lost, with a few exceptions, its clothiers, who had so far