Guben/Gubin

Guben lies in the midst of Brandenburg’s landscape, between the Neisse and Spree rivers. As a twin city of neighbouring Gubin, Guben serves as a bridge to Poland. The city is one of the oldest in Lower Lusatia and looks back on 765 years of chequered history. Thanks to the growing of fruit and wine, textile manufacturing, as well as shipping and trading, the city on the Neisse was already flourishing in the 14th Century. Industrialization in the 19th Century made Guben known worldwide as an industrial town and as a producer of hats. By the end of World War II, large parts of the town had been destroyed, and at the Potsdam Conference it was divided into two parts. Since then the historical centre has belonged to Poland, and the more industrialized part to Germany. During the post-war upswing Guben developed into the most important centre of synthetic fibre production in the GDR, and hats from Guben gained popularity all over the world. After the turn of the nineties, Guben suffered an economic collapse. The city centre in particular became spotted with abandoned factories.

Today things are different. As a result of the redevelopment which began in 2002, Guben has been given a new city centre. To promote German-Polish collaboration, a street connecting Guben with Gubin has been built. This new street, Frankfurter Straße, now connects both city centres and encourages shopping expeditions.