Rychtal ' is a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Kępno County

Kepno County

Kępno County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Greater Poland Voivodeship, west-central 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 only town is Kępno, which lies ...

, Greater Poland Voivodeship

Greater Poland Voivodeship

Wielkopolska Voivodeship , or Greater Poland Voivodeship, is a voivodeship, or province, in west-central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Poznań, Kalisz, Konin, Piła and Leszno Voivodeships, pursuant to the Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998...

, in west-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina

Gmina

The gmina is the principal unit of administrative division of Poland at its lowest uniform level. It is often translated as "commune" or "municipality." As of 2010 there were 2,479 gminas throughout the country...

 (administrative district) called Gmina Rychtal

Gmina Rychtal

Gmina Rychtal is a rural gmina in Kępno County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. Its seat is the village of Rychtal, which lies approximately south-west of Kępno and south-east of the regional capital Poznań....

. It lies approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) south-west of Kępno

Kepno

Kępno is a town in Poland. It lies on the outskirts of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, as it borders on Silesia and the Łódz Land, at the crossing point of two transport routes: north to south and east to west . As of December 31, 2009 Kępno had a population of 14,760...

 and 153 km (95 mi) south-east of the regional capital Poznań

Poznan

Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

.

In 1233 Duke Henry I the Bearded

Henry I the Bearded

Henry I the Bearded , of the Silesian line of the Piast dynasty, was Duke of Silesia at Wrocław from 1201 and Duke of Kraków and thus High Duke of all Poland - internally divided - from 1232 until his death.-Heir of Wroclaw:...

 of Silesia

Duchy of Silesia

The Duchy of Silesia with its capital at Wrocław was a medieval duchy located in the historic Silesian region of Poland. Soon after it was formed under the Piast dynasty in 1138, it fragmented into various Duchies of Silesia. In 1327 the remaining Duchy of Wrocław as well as most other duchies...

 opened the area to German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 and Walloon

Walloons

Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...

 colonists in the course of the Ostsiedlung

Ostsiedlung

Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...

. Their settlement Reichthal ("Rich Valley") was first mentioned in 1294 as a possession of the Bishop of Wrocław. It replaced an older locality Bandlowice held by the Teutonic Knights

Teutonic Knights

The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...

. Due to the proximity of the Bishops' land to Greater Poland

Greater Poland

Greater Poland or Great Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief city is Poznań.The boundaries of Greater Poland have varied somewhat throughout history...

, Rychtal remained bilingual with both German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

 speaking populations and predominantly Catholic.

After the secularization

Secularization

Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...

 of the Bishopric's estates under Prussian

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

 rule in 1810, Rychtal belonged to the Namslau district of the Silesia Province. After the German defeat in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the area (Reichthaler Ländchen) was allocated to the Greater Polish Poznań Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

 by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...

. The adjacent area of the Namslau district around Noldau

Domaszowice, Opole Voivodeship

Domaszowice is a village in Namysłów County, Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Domaszowice...

 (present-day Domaszowice) in the south was included in the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite

Upper Silesia plebiscite

The Upper Silesia plebiscite was a border referendum mandated by the Versailles Treaty and carried out in March 1921 to determine a section of the border between Weimar Germany and Poland. The region was ethnically mixed, chiefly among Germans, Poles and Silesians. According to prewar statistics,...

 with 97.6% of the votes being cast for Germany

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

.

In the course of the 1939 Invasion of Poland, Rychtal was again occupied by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 as part of the "Reichsgau Wartheland

Reichsgau Wartheland

Reichsgau Wartheland was a Nazi German Reichsgau formed from Polish territory annexed in 1939. It comprised the Greater Poland and adjacent areas, and only in part matched the area of the similarly named pre-Versailles Prussian province of Posen...

", attended with persecutions of the Polish speaking inhabitants. The area was overrun by the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 in the course of the Vistula–Oder Offensive in January 1945 and restored to the Republic of Poland

People's Republic of Poland

The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...

.