Parts of the medieval town were destroyed by a blaze in 1457, it suffered further damages during the Thirty Years' War and by a plague epidemic in 1680. After the First Silesian War in 1742, it was annexed by Prussia and later incorporated into the Province of Silesia. During the Napoleonic Wars, the town was visited by Napoleon twice, in 1807 and 1812. Between 1871 and 1945 the town was part of Germany and was renamed "Heerwegen" in 1937 by German Nazi authorities during a campaign of erasing placenames of Polish origin. During World War II, a German forced labour subcamp of the prison in Jawor was operated in the present-day district of Polkowice Dolne. On January 11, 1945, the German administration evacuated the population, leaving only the army in the town. On February 9, 1945, the town was captured by the Red Army. Afterwards the abandoned town became again part of Poland in accordance to the Potsdam Agreement and was repopulated by Poles, many displaced from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union.