German settlers arrived in increasing numbers after the first Mongol invasion of Poland in 1241, and Wrocław eventually became part of the Kingdom of Bohemia after the extinction of local Polish dukes in 1335.

It was ruled by Hungary between 1469 and 1490, and after the War of Austrian Succession in the 18th century, the city and region were annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, and in 1871 became part of the German Empire.

After World War II, Wrocław became again part of Poland and the German-speaking majority of its population was expelled to Germany in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement.

The city quickly became a commercial centre and expanded rapidly to the neighbouring Wyspa Piaskowa (Sand Island) and then to the left bank of the Odra river.

In the first half of the 13th-century duke Henry I the Bearded of the Silesian line of the Piast dynasty, managed to reunite much of the divided Polish kingdom.

His activity in this field was continued by his son and successor Henry II the Pious whose work towards this goal was halted by his sudden death in 1241 (Battle of Legnica).

The invasion, according to Norman Davies, led German historiography to portray the Mongol attack as an event which eradicated the Polish community.

With the ongoing Ostsiedlung the Polish Piast dynasty[15][disputed – discuss] dukes remained in control of the region, however, their influence declined continuously as the self-administration rights of the city council increased.

His successors Wenceslaus and Sigismund became involved in a long-lasting feud with the city and its magistrate, culminating in the revolt of the guilds in 1418 when local craftsmen killed seven councillors.

In 1474 the city was besieged by combined Polish-Bohemian forces, however in November 1474 Kings Casimir IV of Poland, his son Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Matthias Corvinus of Hungary met in the nearby village of Muchobór Wielki (present-day district of Wrocław) and in December 1474 a ceasefire was signed, according to which the city remained under Hungarian rule.

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation reached Breslau already in 1518, and in 1519 the writings of Luther, Eck and the opening of the Leipzig Disputation by Mosellanus were published by local printer Adam Dyon.

Norman Davies states that as a city it was located on the borderline between Polish and German parts of Silesia, writing that "Vretslav lay astride the dividing line"; it also hosted a Czech community.

On 11 October 1609 German emperor Rudolf II granted the Letter of Majesty, which ensured the free exercise of church services for all Silesian Protestants.

Thanks to the unification of the Viadrina and Jesuit universities the city also became the biggest Prussian centre of sciences after Berlin, and the secularization laid the base for a rich museum landscape.

The old Art Academy moved into a bigger home and attracted artists like painter Max Wislicenus, sculptor Theodor von Gosen and future Nobel Prize winner Gerhard Hauptmann.

In 1861 the Orchestral Society (Orchesterverein) was founded, which achieved a good reputation in 1880 when Max Bruch was conductor of the orchestra, and later the Polish musician Rafał Ludwik Maszkowski, who conducted the orchestra till his death in 1901; he along with other Polish artists like Wanda Landowska, Józef Śliwiński, Bronisław Huberman and Władysław Żeleński performed Polish-themed plays as part of the repertoire of the Orchesterverein.

The Silesian Landwehr under General Remus von Woyrsch was rapidly deployed to face the Russian army, but German victories at the Masurian lakes and Gorlice soon eliminated this threat.

The end of the German Empire led to workers' and soldiers' councils taking over civilian and military power across Germany with little or no opposition from the former imperial authorities.

50 large shops in the commercial centre were looted in the city when partly anti-Semitic,[74] riots broke out on 22 July, and six looters were killed.

In 1919, Breslau became the capital of the newly created Province of Lower Silesia, and its first head of government (German: Oberpräsident) was social democrat Felix Philipp.

Between 26 and 29 June 1930 it hosted the Deutsche Kampfspiele, a sporting event for German athletes after Germany was excluded from the Olympic Games after World War I.

In 1933 the Gestapo began actions against Jewish and Polish students in the city[81] who were issued special segregationist ID documents like those of Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other people deemed threats to the state.

In 1942 additional Polish resistance groups were reported to be in existence in the city, "Jaszczurka", Siła Zbrojna Polski and Polska Organizacja Polityczna[89] In addition, a network of concentration camps and forced labour camps, or Arbeitslager, was established in the district around Breslau, to serve the city's growing industrial concerns, including FAMO, Junkers and Krupp.

[92] There were four subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in the city, in which Nazi Germany imprisoned about 3,400-3,800 men of various nationalities, including Poles, Russians, Italians, Frenchmen, Ukrainians, Czechs, Belgians, Yugoslavs, Chinese, and about 1,500 Jewish women.

In one area, the workers were ordered to construct a military airfield intended for use in resupplying the fortress, while the entire residential district along the Kaiserstraße (now Plac Grunwaldzki) was razed.

[108] Bolesław Drobner, the city's newly appointed mayor, welcomed them in "Free Poland" and urged pre-war Poles from Wrocław to stay in the city, expressing his view that the Polish state needs people like them to awake to life after the war; many of the addressed heeded this call, and pre-war Poles became active members of Wrocław's political and cultural life, forming an association called "Klub Ludzi ze znakiem P" ("People with the P sign"), remembering those Poles who perished under Nazi German rule in the city.

[109] Franciszek Juszczak, a long-time leader of the Polish community in Wrocław before World War II and resistance member, was nominated by Drobner to the position of vice-president of the Lower Silesian Chamber of Crafts[110] In close cooperation with authorities he formed Związek Polaków Byłych Obywateli Niemieckich (Union of Former German Citizen Poles).

[113] After the destruction during the Siege of Breslau, the city was further destroyed by vandalism, fire, and the razing and dismantling of factories, and material assets by the Soviet Union.

For example, even as late as in the 1970s, Stucco elements from the Baroque were chiseled off in some of the town's churches according to the ideologically enforced return to the allegedly original Piast state.

In 1973, city limits were greatly expanded by including the settlements of Jarnołtów, Jerzmanowo, Osiniec, Strachowice, Kłokoczyce, Lipa Piotrowska, Marszowice, Mokra, Polanowice, Rędzin, Świniary, Widawa and Żar as new neighborhoods.