At the end of the Thirty Years War Haren was almost completely destroyed, but soon recovered and became a notable trading port at the Ems River.

While some of them were mobilised and lost at sea during World War II, Haren remains a notable port of registry for German ships.

On 19 May 1945, the Polish 1st Armoured Division, a unit attached to the British Army moved all of the thousand families of Haren out to surrounding communities.

Initially, the new Polish enclave was named Lwów, after the city in South-Eastern Poland by then occupied and later annexed by the Soviet Union.

However, under Soviet pressure, the name was then changed to Maczków, in honour of General Stanislaw Maczek, the commanding officer of the Armoured Division and the local Allied occupation forces.

In the Autumn of 1946, the Polish forces stationed in North-Western Germany started to be demobilised and ferried back to the United Kingdom.