Kreis Birnbaum

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Kreis Birnbaum, known in Polish as Powiat międzychodzki, was a Prussian district in the western part of the Grand Duchy of Posen and later the Province of Posen, within Regierungsbezirk Posen from 1815 to 1920. Today its area is in Poland’s Greater Poland and Lubusz voivodeships. The Międzychód area had belonged to Poznań Voivodeship since the 1300s, was taken by Prussia in the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, became part of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807, and was returned to Prussia in 1815; its borders were finally set in 1818. The administrative seat was Zirke from 1833, and Birnbaum from 1867. Kreis Birnbaum joined the German Empire in 1871. In 1887 the western part, including Schwerin an der Warthe, was separated as Kreis Schwerin an der Warthe.

After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles awarded most of the province, including Kreis Birnbaum, to Poland; the handover was completed in early 1920. Before 1887 the district had a German majority. The 1860 census recorded 45,425 people: 34,608 Germans (76.2%) and 10,817 Poles (23.8%). After the split of Schwerin, the population was almost evenly split between Germans and Poles. In the 1830s a Vogt (reeve) office was created in the Polish areas, later replaced by Prussian commissioners. By 1905 the Kreis Birnbaum towns were organized into three police districts, with courts in Meseritz and Birnbaum, and local civil and church arrangements serving the towns.