Brody, Żary County

Palace outbuilding

The village was mentioned in 1398.[3] It was granted town rights in 1454.[3] With the historic Lower Lusatia region it passed from the Kingdom of Bohemia to the Electorate of Saxony by the 1635 Peace of Prague. From 1697 it was also under the suzerainty of Polish kings in personal union. From 1740 it was a possession of the powerful Polish–Saxon statesman Heinrich von Brühl, who had an extended Baroque palace built, where he received King Augustus III of Poland and kept his famous Meissen porcelain Swan Service tableware of more than 2,000 pieces designed by Johann Joachim Kaendler. There was also a library and an archaeological collection.[4] One of the main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town.[5] In 1748, the Zasiecka Gate was built on the occasion of the arrival of King Augustus III.[6]

The palace was devastated by Prussian troops by the explicit command of King Frederick II of Hohenzollern during the Seven Years' War. After the Prussian occupation it passed to Polish diplomat, General and poet Alois Friedrich von Brühl, who spent his last years there. In 1790 the small town gained prominence throughout Europe, after Brühl staged Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the palace park.[6]

By the Final Act of the Vienna Congress in 1815 Brody (then as Pförten) with Lower Lusatia fell to Prussia and from 1871 to 1945 the area was part of Germany. The Brühl Palace, again ravaged by the Red Army, has in parts been rebuilt. After the war it became part of Poland as a village (see Territorial changes of Poland after World War II). In 1949, the post-war library was founded.[4]

• Carl von Brühl (1772–1837)
• Theresia Anna Maria von Brühl (1784–1844)
• Hermann Ulrici (1806–1884), philosopher
• Friedrich-August Graf von Brühl (1913–1981), Wehrmacht officer