[3] From 1301 the town in the centre of the Spreewald floodplain was in the possession of the monks of Dobrilugk Abbey, who sold it to Duke Rudolph I of Saxe-Wittenberg in 1329.

After several conflicts with the Wittelsbach margraves of Brandenburg the March of Lusatia was finally acquired by Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg in 1367 who incorporated Lübben into the Kingdom of Bohemia.

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

[4] During World War II, the Oflag III-C and Oflag 8 prisoner-of-war camps for Polish, French, British, Australian, New Zealander, Belgian and Dutch officers, a forced labour subcamp of the Nazi prison in Luckau and a subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were located in the town.

Seats in the municipal assembly (Stadtverordnetenversammlung) as of 2008 elections: Lübben is twinned with Wolsztyn in Poland and Neunkirchen, Saarland in Germany.