Bleckede
Encyclopedia
Bleckede (ˈbleːkədə) is a town in the district of Lüneburg
, in Lower Saxony
, Germany
. It is situated mostly on the left bank of the Elbe
, approx. 20 km east of Lüneburg
.
Bleckede is located on the German Framework Road
.
the area of today's Bleckede became a part of the Duchy of Saxony
. The current name derives from an older variant Bleketsa, a Slavic
term. After the Welf Saxon, Duke Henry the Lion
, had been overthrown and deposed in 1180, the Welfs lost most of Saxony, including the ducal title which was granted to the House of Ascania. The Ascanians also claimed Bleckede. However, Henry's son William of Winchester disputed that claim and made Bleckede the Welf outpost upon Elbe in 1209, in order to have a step towards the trans-Elbian areas which were in the process of colonisation by settlers from the west. William also levied a toll from ships passing Bleckede and renamed the city in honour of his father Lowenstat (Lion's town; Löwenstadt). A castle was erected to protect the Elbe crossing and the toll station. The castle was first mentioned in 1270 and today's castle uses the foundations of the old one.
But the Ascanians did not give up and Duke Albert II of Saxony
fought for Bleckede with William's son Otto the Child, who gained the support of Prince-Archbishop Gilbert of Bremen. However, no party could subject the other so they agreed in 1287 to let King Rudolph I of Germany
decide. He conceded Bleckede to Saxony, so the Welf name of Lowenstat was dropped and Bleckede prevailed. In 1293 the Saxon dukes granted Bleckede - together with other towns - the privilege of coin
age.
The co-ruling Saxon dukes Albert II and his nephews Albert III, Eric I and John II partitioned Saxony into Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg
before 20 September 1296. Bleckede was then a part of Saxe-Lauenburg, colloquially also called Lower Saxony, as opposed to Upper Saxony
for Saxe-Wittenberg.
Saxe-Lauenburg ceded Bleckede - with toll and castle - to Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg-Stendal
, who quickly sold his new acquisition in 1308 to the Welf duke Otto the Strict, ruling the branch Principality of Lunenburg (Lüneburg). Two years later the duke granted Bleckede town privileges
, comprising the obligation to fortify the town. In 1379 Duke Albert of Lunenburg-Celle
pawned Bleckede castle to his creditors Hamburg
, Lübeck, Hanover
and Lunenburg (Lüneburg)
. The latter managed to hold Bleckede by way of pawn until 1600.
In 1666 Bleckede burnt down almost completely. After the Brunswick and Lunenburg
ian Duke George William
, prince of the branch of Lunenburg (Celle), died in 1705, Bleckede - like all the principality - merged by way of inheritance with the Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg, colloquially called after its capital Electorate of Hanover.
After the French
victory over the electorate Bleckede was occupied, before it was annexed to the ephemeric Kingdom of Westphalia
in March 1810, forming part of its Lower Elbe département. After the Great French War
Bleckede was restored to the Electorate of Hanover in 1813, which was elevated to Kingdom of Hanover
two years later. After the Prussian annexation of Hanover Bleckede became a part of the new Province of Hanover
in 1866. At the introduction of Prussian style district administration
in Hanover on 1 April 1885 Bleckede became the capital of the new Bleckede district, which merged into the District of Lunenburg (Lüneburg)
on 1 October 1932.
During the Nazi era the Hanoveran provincial administration was superseded by the Nazi party Gau administration of Eastern Hanover
under gauleiter Otto Telschow
. A subcamp of the Nazi concentration camp Neuengamme existed from August 24, 1944 to February 15, 1945 in the Alt Garge quarter.
With the Allied occupation of Germany the situation changed again. There was no bridge between the bulk of the Hanover province south of the Elbe
, being part of the British zone of occupation in Germany, and the small north Elbian quarters of Bleckede, namely Neu Bleckede and Neu Wendischthun, actually also part of the British zone. So the Britons decided a territorial redeployment and ceded Bleckede's north Elbian quarters to the Soviet Zone of occupation in Germany, state of Mecklenburg, making Bleckede one of the divided towns in a divided Germany. With Mecklenburg that area became part of the East German Democratic Republic
in 1949. The East German control zone along the Inner German border, hermetically sealed off since 1952, made the West and the Elbe banks inaccessible for the inhabitants of Neu Bleckede and Neu Wendischthun. Families considered to be living too close to the border were evacuated and their houses demolished.
After World War II
the British opened a displaced person camp in their part of Bleckede.
After the downfall of the communist regime in East Germany in 1989 (Die Wende
) the inhabitants of Bleckede's north Elbian quarters (part of the new state of Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania
) demanded the reunification with western Bleckede, which belonged since 1946 to the West German state of Lower Saxony
.
So both states stipulated in an interstate treaty to disentangle Neu Bleckede and Neu Wendischthun, as well as the neighbouring municipality of Amt Neuhaus
from Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania with effect of 30 June 1993, when they were annexed to Lower Saxony. In a referendum the inhabitants of Amt Neuhaus voted for a merger with Bleckede on 7 June 2009. Bleckede, however, has not decided yet.
Lüneburg (district)
Lüneburg is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Lüchow-Dannenberg, Uelzen, Heidekreis and Harburg, and the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .-History:The Amt of Lüneburg appeared in 1862...
, in Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. It is situated mostly on the left bank of the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
, approx. 20 km east of Lüneburg
Lüneburg
Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...
.
Bleckede is located on the German Framework Road
German Framework Road
The German Timber-Frame Road is a German tourist route leading from the river Elbe in the north to Lake Constance in the south. Along the road you can find nearly 100 cities and towns with remarkable timber-framed houses...
.
History
In the course of the eastern colonisationOstsiedlung
Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...
the area of today's Bleckede became a part of the Duchy of Saxony
Duchy of Saxony
The medieval Duchy of Saxony was a late Early Middle Ages "Carolingian stem duchy" covering the greater part of Northern Germany. It covered the area of the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt and most of Schleswig-Holstein...
. The current name derives from an older variant Bleketsa, a Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
term. After the Welf Saxon, Duke Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion
Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, which duchies he held until 1180....
, had been overthrown and deposed in 1180, the Welfs lost most of Saxony, including the ducal title which was granted to the House of Ascania. The Ascanians also claimed Bleckede. However, Henry's son William of Winchester disputed that claim and made Bleckede the Welf outpost upon Elbe in 1209, in order to have a step towards the trans-Elbian areas which were in the process of colonisation by settlers from the west. William also levied a toll from ships passing Bleckede and renamed the city in honour of his father Lowenstat (Lion's town; Löwenstadt). A castle was erected to protect the Elbe crossing and the toll station. The castle was first mentioned in 1270 and today's castle uses the foundations of the old one.
But the Ascanians did not give up and Duke Albert II of Saxony
Albert II, Duke of Saxony
Albert II of Saxony was a son of Duke Albert I of Saxony and his third wife Helen of Brunswick and Lunenburg, a daughter of Otto the Child. He supported Rudolph I of Germany at his election as Roman king and became his son-in-law...
fought for Bleckede with William's son Otto the Child, who gained the support of Prince-Archbishop Gilbert of Bremen. However, no party could subject the other so they agreed in 1287 to let King Rudolph I of Germany
Rudolph I of Germany
Rudolph I was King of the Romans from 1273 until his death. He played a vital role in raising the Habsburg dynasty to a leading position among the Imperial feudal dynasties...
decide. He conceded Bleckede to Saxony, so the Welf name of Lowenstat was dropped and Bleckede prevailed. In 1293 the Saxon dukes granted Bleckede - together with other towns - the privilege of coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
age.
The co-ruling Saxon dukes Albert II and his nephews Albert III, Eric I and John II partitioned Saxony into Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg
Saxe-Wittenberg
The Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg was a medieval duchy of the Holy Roman Empire centered at Wittenberg, which emerged after the dissolution of the stem duchy of Saxony. As the precursor of the Saxon Electorate, the Ascanian Wittenberg dukes prevailed in obtaining the Saxon electoral dignity.-Ascanian...
before 20 September 1296. Bleckede was then a part of Saxe-Lauenburg, colloquially also called Lower Saxony, as opposed to Upper Saxony
Upper Saxony
Upper Saxony was a name given to the majority of the German lands held by the House of Wettin, in what is now called Mitteldeutschland....
for Saxe-Wittenberg.
Saxe-Lauenburg ceded Bleckede - with toll and castle - to Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg-Stendal
Waldemar, Margrave of Brandenburg-Stendal
Waldemar of Brandenburg was Margrave of Brandenburg-Stendal, the last from the Ascanian House.-Life:He was a son of Conrad, Margrave of Brandenburg-Stendal and Constance, daughter of Przemysł I of Greater Poland...
, who quickly sold his new acquisition in 1308 to the Welf duke Otto the Strict, ruling the branch Principality of Lunenburg (Lüneburg). Two years later the duke granted Bleckede town privileges
Town privileges
Town privileges or city rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium.Judicially, a town was distinguished from the surrounding land by means of a charter from the ruling monarch that defined its privileges and laws. Common privileges were related to trading...
, comprising the obligation to fortify the town. In 1379 Duke Albert of Lunenburg-Celle
Albert of Saxe-Wittenberg, Duke of Lüneburg
Albert of Saxe-Wittenberg was born as the son of Otto , a younger son of the prince-elector Rudolph I of Saxe-Wittenberg, and his wife Elisabeth, daughter of Duke William II of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
pawned Bleckede castle to his creditors Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Lübeck, Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
and Lunenburg (Lüneburg)
Lüneburg
Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...
. The latter managed to hold Bleckede by way of pawn until 1600.
In 1666 Bleckede burnt down almost completely. After the Brunswick and Lunenburg
Brunswick-Lüneburg
The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , or more properly Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg, was an historical ducal state from the late Middle Ages until the late Early Modern era within the North-Western domains of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, in what is now northern Germany...
ian Duke George William
George William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
George William was duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and ruled first over the Principality of Calenberg, a subdivision of the duchy, then over the Lüneburg subdivision. In 1689 he occupied the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg....
, prince of the branch of Lunenburg (Celle), died in 1705, Bleckede - like all the principality - merged by way of inheritance with the Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg, colloquially called after its capital Electorate of Hanover.
After the French
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
victory over the electorate Bleckede was occupied, before it was annexed to the ephemeric Kingdom of Westphalia
Kingdom of Westphalia
The Kingdom of Westphalia was a new country of 2.6 million Germans that existed from 1807-1813. It included of territory in Hesse and other parts of present-day Germany. While formally independent, it was a vassal state of the First French Empire, ruled by Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte...
in March 1810, forming part of its Lower Elbe département. After the Great French War
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
Bleckede was restored to the Electorate of Hanover in 1813, which was elevated to Kingdom of Hanover
Kingdom of Hanover
The Kingdom of Hanover was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg , and joined with 38 other sovereign states in the German...
two years later. After the Prussian annexation of Hanover Bleckede became a part of the new Province of Hanover
Province of Hanover
The Province of Hanover was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1868 to 1946.During the Austro-Prussian War, the Kingdom of Hanover had attempted to maintain a neutral position, along with some other member states of the German Confederation...
in 1866. At the introduction of Prussian style district administration
Kreis in Prussia
Prussian districts were administrative units in the former German state of Prussia. The districts , also known as counties, usually took the name of the district's capital . A typical district had a rough diameter of 20 to 40 miles, though few were circular in shape...
in Hanover on 1 April 1885 Bleckede became the capital of the new Bleckede district, which merged into the District of Lunenburg (Lüneburg)
Lüneburg (district)
Lüneburg is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Lüchow-Dannenberg, Uelzen, Heidekreis and Harburg, and the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .-History:The Amt of Lüneburg appeared in 1862...
on 1 October 1932.
During the Nazi era the Hanoveran provincial administration was superseded by the Nazi party Gau administration of Eastern Hanover
Gau Eastern Hanover
Gau Eastern Hanover was a regional district of the NSDAP established in 1925 in the north eastern part of the Prussian Province of Hanover, comprising the governorates of Stade and Lunenburg in their then boundaries...
under gauleiter Otto Telschow
Otto Telschow
Otto Telschow , German Nazi Party official, was born in Wittenberge and became a police official in Hamburg. He joined the Nazi Party in 1925, and was the founder of the regional Nazi newspaper, the Niedersachsen-Stürmer...
. A subcamp of the Nazi concentration camp Neuengamme existed from August 24, 1944 to February 15, 1945 in the Alt Garge quarter.
With the Allied occupation of Germany the situation changed again. There was no bridge between the bulk of the Hanover province south of the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
, being part of the British zone of occupation in Germany, and the small north Elbian quarters of Bleckede, namely Neu Bleckede and Neu Wendischthun, actually also part of the British zone. So the Britons decided a territorial redeployment and ceded Bleckede's north Elbian quarters to the Soviet Zone of occupation in Germany, state of Mecklenburg, making Bleckede one of the divided towns in a divided Germany. With Mecklenburg that area became part of the East German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
in 1949. The East German control zone along the Inner German border, hermetically sealed off since 1952, made the West and the Elbe banks inaccessible for the inhabitants of Neu Bleckede and Neu Wendischthun. Families considered to be living too close to the border were evacuated and their houses demolished.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the British opened a displaced person camp in their part of Bleckede.
After the downfall of the communist regime in East Germany in 1989 (Die Wende
Die Wende
marks the complete process of the change from socialism and planned economy to market economy and capitalism in East Germany around the years 1989 and 1990. It encompasses several processes and events which later have become synonymous with the overall process...
) the inhabitants of Bleckede's north Elbian quarters (part of the new state of Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a federal state in northern Germany. The capital city is Schwerin...
) demanded the reunification with western Bleckede, which belonged since 1946 to the West German state of Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
.
So both states stipulated in an interstate treaty to disentangle Neu Bleckede and Neu Wendischthun, as well as the neighbouring municipality of Amt Neuhaus
Amt Neuhaus
Amt Neuhaus is a municipality in the District of Lunenburg , in Lower Saxony, Germany.- History :In the course of the eastern colonisation the area of today's Amt Neuhaus became a part of the Duchy of Saxony...
from Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania with effect of 30 June 1993, when they were annexed to Lower Saxony. In a referendum the inhabitants of Amt Neuhaus voted for a merger with Bleckede on 7 June 2009. Bleckede, however, has not decided yet.
External links
- Official website
- http://boards.historychannel.com/thread.jspa?threadID=600000103&tstart=0&mod=1188284128120