History of Leba

town fell back to the Polish Crown after the death of the last Pomeranian duke Bogislaw XIV until King John II Casimir Vasa enfeoffed Elector Frederick William I of Brandenburg-Prussia with Lauenburg Land by the 1657 Treaty of Bromberg.

With the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772, Leba was incorporated into Prussia. Soon after a large port was built on instruction of the Prussian king, whereby a 34-metre (112-foot) broad channel between the Leba lake and the Baltic Sea was dug, which however did not weather the storms on the coast. Due to its picturesque setting, the Leba seaside after World War I became a popular resort for German bohémiens. The painter Max Pechstein and other expressionists frequented the place.

In the proximity of Leba there is a large former testing area for long-range rocket weapons operated by the Rheinmetall company. On the Leba spit the German long-range rocket Rheinbote was tested between 1941 and 1945. Also the V-1 flying bomb was tested here from 1943 to 1945. Between 1963 and 1973 33 Polish sounding rockets of the type Meteor were launched in Łeba.

In March 1945, short before the end of World War II, the region was occupied by the Red Army. According to the Potsdam Conference, after the end of the war the town was put together with Farther Pomerania under Polish administration. The local populace was evacuated by the Nazis or expelled and replaced by Poles