History of Torun

During the Great Northern War (1700–21), the restoration of Augustus the Strong as King of Poland was prepared in the town in the Treaty of Thorn (1709) by Russian Tsar Peter the Great. In the second half of the 17th century, tensions between Catholics and Protestants grew, similarly to religious wars throughout Europe. In the early 18th century about 50 percent of the populace, especially the gentry and middle class were German-speaking Protestants, while the other 50 percent were Polish speaking Roman Catholics. Protestant influence was subsequently pushed back after the Tumult of Thorn of 1724.

During Prussian and German rule, especially in the second half of the 19th century, the German authorities promoted ethnic German settlement in the city by falsifying census results. To diminish the number of Poles, one method involved counting all bilingual Poles who spoke German as Germans. Additionally, German soldiers stationed in the city were included in census figures as citizens for propaganda purposes. In order to achieve German majority over Polish population in Toruń, German authorities helped settle large numbers of German officials, workers and craftsmen by legal and administrative means