History of Hamburg
Charlemagne's son Louis built this castle in 810 on the old trading path from Hedeby in the North to Magdeburg and Bardowick.
[citation needed] A charter in 1189 from Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor granted Hamburg the status of a free imperial city, tax-free access up the Lower Elbe into the North Sea, and the rights to fish, to cut trees and the freedom of military service.
A series of Danish defeats culminating in the Battle of Bornhöved on 22 July 1227 cemented the loss of Denmark's northern German territories and liberated Hamburg.
The first description of civil, criminal and procedural law for a city in Germany in German language, the Ordeelbook (Ordeel: sentence) was written by the solicitor of the senate Jordan von Boitzenburg in 1270.
[10][11] In 1350 the Black Death, one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, killed more than 6,000 in Hamburg, half of the city's population.
The formed Council of the Sixty (German: der Sechzigerrat) demanded to free Brandt and to enter into negotiations.
The mayor, Kersten Miles, and the senate freed Brandt and agreed after four days of negotiations to a compromise of 20 points.
The senate of Hamburg had asked Martin Luther to send his friend and colleague Johannes Bugenhagen to create a new church order.
There was no iconoclasm in Hamburg mostly because of Johannes Aepinus, the new pastor of St. Petri, who stated the statues of false gods and lying pictures needed to be removed from the churches instantly.
[21] When the Senate commissioned Jan van Valckenborgh to build a second layer to the city's fortifications to protect against the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), Hamburg was also extended by the newly created "New Town" (Neustadt).
The safety in person were granted; however, several assaults, often triggered by Christian homilies, against individual Jews took place.
A popular belief (omen) is that Hamburg will be free and Hanseatic so long as swans are living on the Alster river.
[25] In 1762 the city was briefly occupied by Danish forces who were trying to raise money to fight a coming war with Russia.
[26] Briefly annexed by Napoleon I (1810–14), Hamburg was the capital of the department Bouches-de-l'Elbe, with Amandus Augustus Abendroth as the new mayor.
In addition to stimulating German nationalism, the war had a major impact in mobilizing a civic spirit in numerous volunteer activities.
Many volunteer militias and civic associations were formed, and collaborated with churches, and the press to support local and state armies, patriotic wartime mobilization, humanitarian relief and postwar commemorative practices and rituals.
The Hamburg water supply from the Elbe did not meet modern standards, and the authorities long continued to deny there was an epidemic, or implement the new understanding of the germ theory of disease.
In 1903, the world's first organised club for social and family nudism, Freilichtpark (Open-air Park) was opened in Hamburg.
However, populist sentiments were rising after WWI and the Great Depression, and the relatively centrist SPD quickly lost grounds.
[35] Following their seizure of power at the national level, the Nazi government embarked on a policy of Gleichschaltung (coordination) by which they intended to eliminate any potential sources of opposition in the states.
[36] On 8 March 1933, the Bürgerschaft (state parliament) elected Carl Vincent Krogmann as President of the Senate and Bürgermeister (mayor), and he formed a coalition administration dominated by Nazis but also containing members of the bourgeois parties.
[38] Under the provisions of the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich" of 30 January 1934, the Bürgerschaft was abolished altogether and all the state's sovereign powers passed to the central government.
On 29 July 1936, this was resolved in Kaufmann's favor when Hitler granted him the title of Führer der Landesregierung (Leader of the State Government).
[41] During World War II Hamburg suffered a series of devastating air raids which killed 42,000 German civilians.
From 1939 until 1945 more than 500,000 men, women and children[44] — including prisoners of war — were forced to work at more than 900 companies, living in more than 1,200 camps all over Hamburg.
Specially George Ayscough Armytage and Governor Henry V. Berry identified with the city and worked through the indirect rule, asking prospective Hamburg inhabitants to resume office in the administration.
On 16 February 1962 a severe storm caused the Elbe to rise to an all-time high, inundating one fifth of Hamburg and killing more than 300 people.
In 2008, started the conversion of a section of the old Port of Hamburg facilities in the Elbe river island of Grasbrook into a mixed-used development called HafenCity.
[48] The project include modern office space, housing blocks, parks, and the flagship building Elbphilharmonie, designed by swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and inaugurated in January 2017.
[53] In 2015, a section to the north of the HafenCity called Speicherstadt was granted the UNESCO World Heritage Site status with the adjacent Kontorhausviertel.
