Honorary city titles in Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, the state gave a number of honorary titles to certain German cities.

The following cities were given an honorary title during 1933-1939:

City	Honorary title	In English	Since	Note
Berlin-Friedrichshain	Horst-Wessel-Stadt	"Horst Wessel Horst Wessel Horst Ludwig Wessel was a German Nazi activist who was made a posthumous hero of the Nazi movement following his violent death in 1930... City"	1933
Braunschweig Braunschweig Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....	Die deutsche Siedlungsstadt	"German Settlement City"		Self-assigned title.
Bremen Bremen The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...	Stadt der Kolonien Hauptstadt der deutschen Schiffahrt	"City of the Colonies German colonial empire The German colonial empire was an overseas domain formed in the late 19th century as part of the German Empire. Short-lived colonial efforts by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Imperial Germany's colonial efforts began in 1884... " "Capital of German Shipping Ship transport Ship transport is watercraft carrying people or goods . Sea transport has been the largest carrier of freight throughout recorded history. Although the importance of sea travel for passengers has decreased due to aviation, it is effective for short trips and pleasure cruises... "	1933	Shared with the city of Hamburg, see below.
Chemnitz Chemnitz Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...	Hauptstadt der deutschen Industrie	"Capital of German Industry"	1933	Shared with the city of Essen, see below.
Coburg Coburg Coburg is a town located on the Itz River in Bavaria, Germany. Its 2005 population was 42,015. Long one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined with Bavaria by popular vote in 1920...	Erste nationalsozialistische Stadt Deutschlands	"First National Socialist Nazism Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany... City of Germany"	1939	Coburg was the first German city in which the NSDAP won the absolute majority of the popular votes during municipal elections.
Cologne Cologne Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...	Hauptstadt des deutschen Handels	"Capital of German Trade"	1933	Shared with the city of Leipzig, see below.
Essen Essen - Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...	Hauptstadt der deutschen Industrie	"Capital of German Industry"	1933	Shared with the city of Chemnitz, see above.
Frankfurt am Main	Stadt des deutschen Handwerks	"City of German Crafts"	1935	See Friedrich Krebs Friedrich Krebs Friedrich Krebs may refer to:* Friedrich Krebs , pipe organ builder* Friedrich Krebs , first chief apostle of the New Apostolic Church...
Goslar Goslar Goslar is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Goslar and located on the northwestern slopes of the Harz mountain range. The Old Town of Goslar and the Mines of Rammelsberg are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.-Geography:Goslar is situated at the...	Reichsbauernstadt	"Reich Peasant City"	1936
Graz Graz The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...	Stadt der Volkserhebung	"City of the Popular Uprising"	25 July 1938	Given because of pre-Anschluss Anschluss The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938.... pro-Nazi demonstrations.
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...	Hauptstadt der deutschen Schiffahrt	"Capital of German Shipping"	1933	Shared with the city of Bremen, see above.
Innsbruck Innsbruck - Main sights :- Buildings :Golden RoofKaiserliche Hofburg Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman EmperorAltes Landhaus...	Stadt der deutschen Bergsteiger	"City of the German Mountaineers Mountaineering Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists... "
Landsberg am Lech Landsberg am Lech Landsberg am Lech is a town in southwest Bavaria, Germany, about 65 kilometers west of Munich and 35 kilometers south of Augsburg. It is the capital of the district of Landsberg am Lech....	Stadt der Jugend	"City of the Youth"	1937
Leipzig Leipzig Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...	Reichsmessestadt Hauptstadt des deutschen Handels	"Reich Fair Fair A fair or fayre is a gathering of people to display or trade produce or other goods, to parade or display animals and often to enjoy associated carnival or funfair entertainment. It is normally of the essence of a fair that it is temporary; some last only an afternoon while others may ten weeks. ... City" "Capital of German Trade""	20 December 1937 1933	Shared with the city of Cologne, see above.
Linz Linz Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...	First: Jugendstadt des Führers Heimatstadt des Führers	First: "Youth City of the Führer Führer Führer , alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available, is a German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Adolf Hitler, who modelled it on Benito Mussolini's title il Duce, as well as with Georg von Schönerer, whose followers also... " "Home City of the Führer"		Adolf Hitler spent much of his youth in Linz, and continued to consider it his home town for the rest of his life.
	Later: Gründungsstadt des Großdeutschen Reichs Patenstadt des Führers	Later: "City of the Founding of the Greater German Reich" "Patronage City of the Führer"	1938	The law which formally legalized the incorporation of Austria Austria Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the... into the German Reich was signed in Linz on 13 March 1938 by Hitler and Arthur Seyss-Inquart Arthur Seyss-Inquart Arthur Seyss-Inquart was a Chancellor of Austria, lawyer and later Nazi official in pre-Anschluss Austria, the Third Reich and for wartime Germany in Poland and the Netherlands... , then-Chancellor of the Austrian Republic Chancellor of Austria The Federal Chancellor is the head of government in Austria. Its deputy is the Vice-Chancellor. Before 1918, the equivalent office was the Minister-President of Austria. The Federal Chancellor is considered to be the most powerful political position in Austrian politics.-Appointment:The... .
Munich Munich Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...	Hauptstadt der deutschen Kunst Hauptstadt der Bewegung Merged title: Hauptstadt der Bewegung und Hauptstadt der deutschen Kunst	"Capital of German Art" "Capital of the Movement" Merged title: "Capital of the Movement and Capital of German Art"	1933 1935 1938	"The Movement" meaning the Nazi Party, which was founded and headquartered in Munich. The dual titles were merged into one according to a May 1938 Hitler decree
Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz is the capital of the Neumarkt district in the administrative region of the Upper Palatinate, in Bavaria, Germany. With a population of about 40,000, Neumarkt is the seat of various projects, and acts as the economic and cultural center of the western Upper Palatinate,...	Dietrich-Eckart-Stadt	"Dietrich Eckart Dietrich Eckart Dietrich Eckart was a German journalist and politician, together with Adolf Hitler one of the early key members of the Nazi Party and a participant of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.-Biography:... City"
Nuremberg Nuremberg Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...	Stadt der Reichsparteitage	"City of the Reich Party Conventions"	7 July 1936	Center of the annual Nuremberg Rallies)
Salzburg Salzburg -Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...	Stadt der Lebensforschung	"City of Life Sciences Life sciences The life sciences comprise the fields of science that involve the scientific study of living organisms, like plants, animals, and human beings. While biology remains the centerpiece of the life sciences, technological advances in molecular biology and biotechnology have led to a burgeoning of... "
Salzgitter Salzgitter Salzgitter is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven Oberzentren of Lower Saxony...	Officially: Stadt der Hermann-Göring-Werke Informally: Hermann-Göring-Stadt	Officially: "City of the Hermann-Göring-Werke Reichswerke Hermann Göring Reichswerke Hermann Göring was an industrial conglomerate of Nazi Germany. It was established in July 1937 to extract and process domestic iron ores from Salzgitter that were deemed uneconomical by the privately held steel mills... " Informally: "Hermann Göring Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"... City"
Soest Soest, Germany Soest is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the Soest district. After Lippstadt, a neighbouring town, Soest is the second biggest town in its district.-Geography:...	Stadt des deutschen Mittelalters	"City of the German Middle Ages"
Stuttgart Stuttgart Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....	Stadt der Auslandsdeutscher	"City of the Abroad Germans"	1936
Wels Wels Wels is the second largest city of the state of Upper Austria, located in the north of Austria, on the Traun River near Linz. It is not part of its surrounding Wels County , but a so-called Statutarstadt . However, Wels is the county seat of Wels-Land.- Geography :Wels is located in the...	Stadt der Bewegung Patenstadt von Hermann Göring	"City of the Movement" "Patronage City of Hermann Göring"
Wolfsburg Wolfsburg Wolfsburg is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the River Aller northeast of Braunschweig , and is mainly notable as the headquarters of Volkswagen AG...	Stadt des KdF-Wagens	"City of the KdF Kraft durch Freude Kraft durch Freude was a large state-controlled leisure organization in Nazi Germany. It was a part of the German Labour Front , the national German labour organization at that time... Car Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003... "	1938	Unlike the other cities on this list which were merely assigned these honorary titles, Wolfsburg was actually founded under the name Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben, not acquiring its modern name until the post-war denazification Denazification Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering... process after the Third Reich's defeat in 1945.

See also