Lower Lusatia (German: Niederlausitz; Lower Sorbian: Dolna Łužyca [ˈdɔlna ˈwuʒɨtsa]; Upper Sorbian: Delnja Łužica [ˈdɛlnʲa ˈwuʒitsa]; Polish: Łużyce Dolne; Czech: Dolní Lužice) is a historical region in Central Europe, stretching from the southeast of the German state of Brandenburg to the southwest of Lubusz Voivodeship in Poland.
Between Lower and Upper Lusatia is a hill region called the Grenzwall (literally "border dike", although it is in fact a morainic ridge), the eastern continuation of the Fläming Heath.
In the course of much of the 19th and the entire 20th century, Lower Lusatia was shaped by the lignite (brown coal) industry and extensive open-pit mining, by which more than 100 of the region's villages—many of them within the Sorbian settlement area—were damaged or destroyed, especially by order of East German authorities.
Today the area comprises the Brandenburg districts of Oberspreewald-Lausitz and Spree-Neiße with the unitary authority of Cottbus, as well as parts of Elbe-Elster, Dahme-Spreewald, and Oder-Spree.
Important towns beside Cottbus and the historic capitals Lübben and Luckau include Calau, Doberlug-Kirchhain, Finsterwalde, Forst, Guben/Gubin, Lauchhammer, Lübbenau, Senftenberg, Spremberg, Vetschau, and Żary.
Odo I became the first margrave; his successor Gero II from 1002 onwards had to face several attacks by Polish duke Bolesław I Chrobry, which did not end until the 1018 Treaty of Bautzen, which ceded large parts of eastern Lusatia to Poland.
[6] From 1364, entire Lower Lusatia was ruled by the Duchy of Jawor-Świdnica, and after the death of Duke Bolko II the Small it passed to the Kingdom of Bohemia (Czechia).
One of the main escape routes for insurgents of the unsuccessful Polish November Uprising from partitioned Poland to the Great Emigration led through Lübben and Luckau.
[12] During World War II, the Germans established and operated the Stalag III-B, Oflag III-C and Oflag 8 and prisoner-of-war camps for Polish, French, Belgian, Serbian, British, Australian, New Zealander, Soviet, American, Dutch and Italian POWs with several forced labour subcamps in the region,[13] several Nazi prisons with multiple forced labour subcamps, including in Luckau and a prison solely for women in Cottbus,[14][15] and several subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, the prisoners of which included Jewish women and Polish, French, Soviet, Croatian and Czech men.
In 1378, upon the death of Emperor Charles IV, it appeared in gules on a field argent (red on silver), similar to the coat of arms of Luckau, in which the bull has gold horns and hooves, and turns his head to look at the viewer.