The former town centre, the Kostrzyn fortress located on the headland between the Oder and Warta rivers, was destroyed by the Red Army as an act of revenge weeks before the end of WW2 and not rebuilt.

Settled since the Bronze Age, the area was held by the Piast dukes and kings of Poland from about 960 until 1261, who had a gord laid out in the borderlands with the Pomeranian tribes in the north.

Likewise, beginning in 1002, his successor Bolesław I the Brave used the area to prepare for conquests and battles in the German–Polish War against King Henry II.

In the 12th century it developed into a fortified castellany and a Polish taxation post, however, together with Lubusz Land it was seized by the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg in 1261 and incorporated into their Neumark territory east of the Oder river.

While still crown prince, Frederick the Great was imprisoned in the fortress, from which he witnessed the execution of his friend Hans Hermann von Katte on 6 November 1730.

One of the main escape routes for surviving insurgents of the Polish November Uprising from partitioned Poland to the Great Emigration led through the town.

During World War I, a German strict regime prisoner-of-war camp for French, Russian, Belgian, British and Canadian officers was operated at the local fortress.

[6] Notable inmates included Leefe Robinson, Jocelyn Lee Hardy, Roland Garros and Jules Bastin, who all made unsuccessful escape attempts.

[citation needed] The remnants of the old town within the fortress walls, including the castle in which the young Frederick the Great had been imprisoned, were razed after the war and the bricks were used to rebuild Polish cities elsewhere.