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Grunwald Battlefield and Museum

I will be traveling in May with an unrelated twenty year old who loves military history. We traveled together in April last year to Normandy and Berlin. The Poland leg of the trip will be 7 nights:

  • Gdansk x 2 nights (Westerplatte, WWII Museum)
  • Travel Day to include Malbork Castle and Finckenstein Palace ruins
  • Olsztyn x 2 nights (serving as base for Wolf's Lair and former OKH Headquarters/Wehrmacht bunkers at Mamerki)
  • Warsaw x 3 nights

Question: Is the Grunwald Battlefield/Museum worth a stop on the way to Warsaw?

Posted by
4180 posts

I would say definitely yes. I visited the Grunwald Battlefield back in 2015 and the experience still stays with me all these years. As you probably know, the Battle of Grunwald was arguably the largest battle in medieval European history, it pitted the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania versus the German Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades. The battle still plays a big role in Polish and Slavic national identity.

The atmosphere of the place is really something, even though for the most part it is an open field (intentionally preserved) with a few memorials, I felt the underlying atmosphere was palpable. Adjacent to the battlefield, the small museum has some artifacts from the battle, as well as some ruins of the original 15th century chapels commemorating the battle. As this is a bit off the beaten-path, when I was there in 2015, all the signs were in Polish, but the shop by the entrance to the battlefield has informational brochures in English and German.

I also visited the grand ruins of Finckenstein Palace back in 2015 and had the whole ruins to myself, not a single other tourist there. There is a small village, Kamieniec, that sprouted up from the manor's estates. The Soviets torched the place on their '45 march to Berlin, now the grand old ruins sit empty and overgrown, lost to history, save for the occasional adventurous traveler or two. I recall there is a shop on the other side of the street and if you get the mobile number from there of the land owner he can take you into the ruins.

Posted by
4180 posts

Forgot to add that the Grunwald Battlefield also hosts an annual reenactment of the battle every July, the largest medieval reenactment in Europe, while it falls outside your timeline, it may be interesting just to see a few vids of it to help envision the battle before you go.

Here's from the 500th anniversary reenactment in 2010 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmnrk0OV278&ab_channel=MaciejPuczynskiCinematographer

Here you can see the battle recreated in the famous 1960 Polish film Krzyżacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBs4a4Io49I

Posted by
4043 posts

Carlos,

Thanks for the detailed response and the video links. I think we will try to make a stop at the battlefield.

Posted by
4180 posts

Happy to help, I think it's a very historically important site that's sadly often overlooked in the anglosphere. When I was there the other people visiting the site were almost exclusively local Poles and from surrounding countries like Germany or the Baltics.

Posted by
14970 posts

I know this is not part of your proposed itinerary.

Pertaining to the Grunwald battle: In Krakow about a 15 min walk or so from the central station, Krakow Glowny, a large monument to this momentous battle is located. I saw it in 2001, very convenient as my hotel was just literally a few steps from the train station.

Posted by
4043 posts

I noticed when I google "Grunwald Memorial," google always shows results for the Krakow monument as opposed to the battlefield!