Nicolaus Copernicus University

The decree of the Council of Ministers of 24 August 1945 on the founding of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, approved by the Presidium of the National Council of National Coun- cil on 11 September, closed nearly 550 years of efforts for higher education in the Pomeranian lands. This idea appeared several times close to completion, the last time in the interwar period. Ultimately, however, an academic college, located in Northern Poland, became a reality only in the year of the end of World War II. The initiative to establish the university in Toruń came out in February 1945, just days after the liberation of the city from the German occupation, from Dr. Henryk Swiatkowski, the delegate of the government, then the Pomeranian governor, and quickly gained wide social support. In favor of the higher education institution in Pomerania, many arguments were raised, above all the need for scientific and cultural activation of this region and the need to develop extensive republicanization, especially in those areas of Northern Poland, which underwent intensive Germanisation for decades. Equally important was the training of human resources for the needs of the national economy and culture, not only for the purpose of fulfilling enormous military losses in the intelligentsia, but also for the cultural and educational development of these lands. Pretty soon there was another justification: the academic school in the Pomeranian lands was supposed to equalize, in part, the losses of Polish culture resulting from the liquidation of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius and the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, creating new workshops for their staff. From professors of Vilnius professors repatriated to Lodz and From the authorities of the Polish Historical Association on behalf of prof. Ludwik Kolankowski, in March and April 1945, issued memoranda and petitions to the central authorities justifying the need to establish a higher university in the lands lying on the lower Vistula. This was initially independent of the actions undertaken in Toruń.