Active winding shaft and surviving early headframe complex of KWK Knurów–Szczygłowice colliery, modernised to 850 metres and still in operational use.
Szyb Paweł is the second shaft sunk at the Knurów hard coal colliery in Upper Silesia, begun on 19 December 1903 as von Velsen II, within months of the first shaft. It is located on Pole Wschód and reached a depth of approximately 462.5 metres by June 1906. Following the transfer of the mine to Polish administration after the Silesian Uprisings, the shaft was renamed Paweł on 22 September 1922 at a ceremony attended by Wojciech Korfanty.
A new headframe was erected at the shaft in 1910 alongside sorting and preparation facilities. The shaft underwent modernisation in the 1980s and again in 2002, extending operational capability to the 850-metre level. Unlike the companion Szyb Piotr, which was demolished in 2011, Szyb Paweł has survived as the sole remaining early shaft at the Knurów Pole Wschód complex.
It continues in use as part of KWK Knurów–Szczygłowice, now owned by Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa. The JSW 120th anniversary article of 2023 describes it as still a modern operational facility.
The Knurów colliery was initiated in June 1903 by Gustav von Velsen, a departmental director at the Prussian Ministry of Trade and Industry in Berlin, and construction began on the eastern field (Pole Wschód). The first shaft, Velsen-Schacht (von Velsen I), was sunk from 15 June 1903 and completed on 16 December 1905 at a depth of 463 metres, with coal seams encountered at 214 metres. Sinking of the second shaft, von Velsen II — the direct predecessor of Szyb Paweł — began on 19 December 1903 and was completed on 23 June 1906 at a depth of 462.5 metres. In the same year, coal was extracted from workings at the 250-metre and 350-metre levels, yielding approximately 9,721 tonnes — the mine's first recorded production. By 1908, the workforce had reached 902 and annual output stood at 70,600 tonnes.
Railway lines connecting the colliery to the regional network were constructed from 1904, and a first residential workers' estate was begun simultaneously. Further estates followed in 1909 and 1919, so that within roughly fifteen years a substantial mining settlement had grown around the colliery. A coking plant connected to the mine by conveyor was built nearby. In 1910 a new headframe was erected at the von Velsen II shaft together with a coal-sorting plant. By 1913 the von Velsen I shaft had been modernised and a coal-preparation plant built. Before the First World War the mine employed foreign workers, and during the war prisoners of war were deployed underground. In 1917 an underground fire killed eleven miners.
Following the three Silesian Uprisings and the 1921 plebiscite, Knurów was incorporated into the Second Polish Republic. At the end of June 1922 the Prussian administration formally transferred the mine to Polish management. On 22 September 1922, at a ceremony attended by Wojciech Korfanty, von Velsen II received its Polish name Paweł, while von Velsen I was named Piotr and Schacht IV on Pole Zachód was named Foch. The mine entered the structures of the Polish-French company Skarboferm. The early discovery that a substantial proportion of the mine's coal had coking properties made the integrated industrial complex commercially important.
The interwar economic crisis caused severe workforce reductions — from 3,790 employees in 1924 to 1,033 by 1934 — but the profitability of Skarboferm as a whole prevented closure. In 1926, the steam winding engine at Szyb Piotr was replaced by an electrical machine; a parallel development for Szyb Paweł in this period is not separately documented in available sources. Output recovered to over 501,000 tonnes in 1936. In 1938 the 650-metre level was brought into use and daily output reached 2,050 tonnes. Following the German occupation in 1939, the colliery was taken over by Preussag. In 1944 Szyb Foch was deepened to 685 metres during the occupation.
German forces damaged the electrical infrastructure during their withdrawal, but 73 miners prevented the mine's flooding. Production resumed in January 1945. By 1948 annual output exceeded one million tonnes, and within four years of the war's end daily production exceeded 4,000 tonnes. In 1947 the colliery was incorporated into the Gliwice industrial coal group. By 1951 it was formally constituted as an independent enterprise, KWK Knurów, with output that year exceeding 1,464,000 tonnes. In 1957 it joined the Zabrze industrial group, and in subsequent years new shafts were added: Foch II was sunk in 1960–1963 and Szyb Jan was completed in 1968 with a new preparation plant in 1972. Daily output by 1961 had reached 6,333 tonnes.
The 1980s brought significant modernisation of Szyb Paweł, upgrading it to serve the 650-metre level; specifically, in 1987 the shaft was technically upgraded to level 650. In 1983, on the occasion of the colliery's 80th anniversary, the mine was opened to visitors. The mine became an independent enterprise in 1990, then entered the Gliwice Coal Company (Gliwicka Spółka Węglowa) in 1993, and Kompania Węglowa S.A. in February 2003. In 2002 a further major modernisation extended Szyb Paweł's operational reach to the 850-metre level. In 2000 the old preparation plant adjacent to Szyb Piotr was demolished, and in 2007 Szyb Piotr was itself liquidated; Szyb Paweł thereafter remained as the sole surviving original shaft on Pole Wschód. In February 2010 KWK Knurów was merged with KWK Szczygłowice to form the two-section KWK Knurów–Szczygłowice, with Knurów operating as Ruch Knurów. On 1 August 2014 the combined enterprise was acquired by Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa for 1.49 billion złoty. The JSW 120th anniversary article of 2023 describes Szyb Paweł, after many modernisations, as still a modern operational facility of the mine. Its winding gear and the shaft's pulley wheels from the demolished Szyb Piotr were transferred to the Museum of Upper Silesian Land (Muzeum Ziemi Górnośląskiej) in Ratingen, Germany.