Dobrodzień d is a town in Olesno County

Olesno County

Olesno County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Opole Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat and largest town is Olesno, which lies ...

, Opole Voivodeship

Opole Voivodeship

- Administrative division :Opole Voivodeship is divided into 12 counties : 1 city county and 11 land counties. These are further divided into 71 gminas.The counties are listed in the following table .- Economy :...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, with 4,168 inhabitants (2006).

Both names in Polish and German mean "Good day". The name Guttentag is an archaic variant of standard German Guten Tag. The town was part of the Austrian Empire until 1742, when it became part of Prussia, and in 1871 it became part of Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in the Prussian Province of Silesia

Province of Silesia

The Province of Silesia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1919.-Geography:The territory comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Silesia and the County of Kladsko, which King Frederick the Great had conquered from the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in the 18th...

 (Province of Upper Silesia

Province of Upper Silesia

The Province of Upper Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia created in the aftermath of World War I. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided into two administrative regions , Kattowitz and Oppeln...

 after 1919).

German-Polish border changes impacted Guttentag/Dobrodzień twice in the 20th century. First, after World War I, a portion of Upper Silesia became part of the re-established nation of Poland, and as a result, Guttentag ended up very close to the new German-Polish border, on the German side. Second, after 1945, as part of Potsdam Agreement by the Allied victors in World War II, most German territories east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers (including Guttentag) became part of Poland. Up till then it had a mostly Protestant population, but after the expulsion of most of the German inhabitants

Expulsion of Germans after World War II

The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...

 it was resettled with mainly Roman Catholic Poles. Dobrodzień's German-Protestant legacy can still be seen in the Luther rose

Luther rose

The Luther seal or Luther rose is a widely-recognized symbol for Lutheranism. It was the seal that was designed for Martin Luther at the behest of Prince John Frederick, in 1530, while Luther was staying at the Coburg Fortress during the Diet of Augsburg. Lazarus Spengler, to whom Luther wrote his...

 on its coat of arms.

Dobrodzień and most of the surrounding towns are at present officially bilingual in both Polish and German; a sizable German minority

German minority in Poland

The registered German minority in Poland consists of 152,900 people, according to a 2002 census.The German language is used in certain areas in Opole Voivodeship , where most of the minority resides...

has continued to settle in the area even after the war.

Gallery