One of the most famous standard-bearers of Kraków was Marcin of Wrocimowice (d. 1442) who carried the national banner in the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410.
Although the battle actually took place close to Allenstein (Olsztyn), General Erich Ludendorff's aide, Colonel Max Hoffmann, suggested naming it after Tannenberg, in the interest of German nationalist ideology, to counter the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410 by Poles and Lithuanians.
(After the 1945 conquest by Soviet Union and Poland Grünfelde was renamed Grunwald and Tannenberg was renamed Stębark.)
During the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War, the 1410 Battle of Grunwald (known as the (First) Battle of Tannenberg in German sources) took place in the vicinity of the town, whereby the Knights suffered a historic defeat.
Late in the war as Soviet forces approached Germany's border, Oskar von Hindenburg supervised the dismantling of the Tannenberg Memorial honoring his father's 1914 victory over the Russians at Tannenberg.
Stębark |