Fort 45 “Zielonki”: A Main Artillery Fort of the Kraków Fortress
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.9
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Poland
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page7 sections
History
Fort 45 “Zielonki” is a main artillery fort near Kraków, Poland, built during the 1880s as part of the Kraków Fortress, a system of permanent forts, batteries, shelters, and related military installations created to defend the city. The fort formed the core of a wider defensive complex that included artillery batteries and field fortifications.
Fortress service
Fort 45 “Zielonki” did not take part directly in combat during the First World War. In the interwar period, it was incorporated into the Kraków Fortified Camp, continuing its connection with the city’s wider defensive system.
Decline and adaptation
After the war, the Kraków Horticultural and Beekeeping Cooperative used the fort. The cooperative abandoned it in 1985, and the property deteriorated between 1985 and 1990 before being taken over by Zielonki Municipality. During this period of decline, historic military fittings were removed. The original armored sponson, a projecting armored gun position, was torn from the barracks wall, while the caponiers, fortified works projecting into or across the ditch to provide defensive fire along it, lost their armored elements.
In 1999, with support from the European Union, the fort was adapted as the now-defunct “Twierdza” hotel. Witold Sztorc and his team prepared the adaptation project. During work to secure one of the combat rooms, members of the Kraków association of the Imperial and Royal Fortress Artillery Regiment No. 2 of Baron Edward von Beschi discovered original gun drawings made by Austrian soldiers beneath later layers of repainting. “Imperial and Royal” was the Austro-Hungarian military’s institutional designation. The fort entered the heritage register under number A-41 on 10 February 2006.
Remains
Defensive complex
Fort 45 “Zielonki” survives as the principal work in a defensive complex organized around artillery positions and supporting installations. Its associated batteries included the heavy-artillery battery FB-V-1 and two long-range-defense batteries, B-45-4, also called B 45a, and B-45-1, also called B 45b. The field fortifications IS-V-1 and IS-V-2 provided additional support, while the “Marszowiec” ammunition shelter formed another part of the complex.
Supporting ammunition works
A powder magazine, or munitions magazine, stood nearby at Witkowice. It was built between 1882 and 1886 and belonged to the network of installations supporting the fort and its associated batteries.
Combat-room evidence
One combat-room wall preserves original drawings of guns made by Austrian soldiers. The drawings were found beneath later repainting during the securing of the room, providing a surviving trace of the fort’s military use and the soldiers who worked within it.
Nearby sites
