Greifswald (Low German Griepswold) is the district town of the
Vorpommern-Greifswald district in the north-east of
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The university and Hanseatic city
lies on the river Ryck, which flows into the Baltic Sea, on the
Greifswalder Bodden between the islands of Rügen and Usedom.
On May 14, 1250, Greifswald was granted the town charter of Luebeck.
The University of Greifswald, founded in 1456 with around 10,000
students and around 6,000 employees, is the second oldest university
in the Baltic Sea region.
The city has 59,232 inhabitants
(December 31, 2019), making it the fifth largest city in
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Together with Stralsund, Greifswald
forms one of the four regional centers in the state. The university
town is a member of the transnational federation of the Euroregion
Pomerania.
St. Nikolai (Saint Nicholas) Cathedral (Greifswald)
The
Greifswald Cathedral St. Nikolai, the patron saint of seafarers and
merchants, is a Gothic brick building, a symbol of the city of
Greifswald and is located in the western center of the city. The
Greifswald Cathedral was the main or bishop's church of the
Pomeranian Evangelical Church from 1947–2012 and is today the sermon
place of the regional bishop for the Mecklenburg and Pomerania
District of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany and
is used by the parish of St. Nikolai.
The original name of the settlement, which
developed into the independent city of Greifswald, has not been
passed down. A confirmation certificate from Duke Wartislaw III.
from 1248, in which the oppidum Gripheswald cum omnibus pertinentiis
suis (the Gripheswald area with all its accessories) was confirmed
for the Eldena Monastery, is the first documented mention of the
current name. In the feudal deed of Wartislaw III. from June 1249
there is an explicit reference that the oppidum Gripheswald is
called Gripeswald in German, which suggests that the settlement
originally had a different Slavic, Danish or German name. There is
no evidence for the theory that the original name was a Danish one
based on Gripscogh, the name of a forest near Esrom in Denmark, the
mother monastery of Eldena Monastery. The written names Gripeswald
(1249), Grifeswolde (1250), Gripesuuolde (1280), Gripesuualde
(1280), Gripswalt (1285), Gripeswald (1383), Gripeswolde (1383),
Gripswald (1491) are also from the following years and centuries ,
Gripswolde (1577), Greipßwalde (1601), Gripheswalde (1602),
Gripheswaldt (1602), Greypffswald (1604) and already Greifswald
(1621).
The Middle Low German grip stands for the griffin and
is probably to be understood as a reference to the heraldic animal
of the Pomeranian dukes, who were later also referred to as
griffins; the wolt / wold stands for forest. Greif and forest can
also be found in Greifswald's coat of arms.
The Latin name of
Greifswald is Gryphisvaldia.
Since 1990, the city has had the
addition of the Hanseatic city again and is now a university and
Hanseatic city.
Greifswald's founding in
Pomerania goes back to the Eldena Monastery, to whose estate it
initially belonged. The settlement was opposite the salt pans on the
other side of the Ryck, which has been proven to have existed since
1193 at the latest; it was probably built in the second quarter of
the 13th century as a settlement for the workers of the Greifswald
salt works. For the settlement, where two old trade routes crossed,
the monastery received in 1241 both from the Ruegen Prince Wizlaw I
and from the Pomeranian Duke Wartislaw III. officially granted
market rights. In June 1249 Wartislaw III. persuade the monastery to
give him the market settlement of Greifswald as a fief, and on May
14, 1250 he granted it the town charter of Luebeck, which made
Greifswald much more independent from the Pomeranian dukes. In 1254,
Wartislaw made the Ryck estuary a free port and promised the
merchants compensation for losses suffered by pirates. On May 17,
1264, he allowed the city to defend itself and build a protective
wall, after which the fortifications were built. In addition to the
old town, the new town developed to the west with today's
Rubenow-Platz as the market square and the St. Jacobi Church as the
church center; an order of Wartislaw III. of 1264, according to
which there should be only one market, one bailiff and one right,
prevented the new town from developing independence compared to the
old town. In 1278 Greifswald was first mentioned in a document as a
member of the Hanseatic League. The city belonged to the influential
"Wendish quarter". One of the first Hanseatic Days took place in
Greifswald as early as 1361. However, as early as the 14th and then
in the 15th century, the Greifswald port no longer met the
requirements of shipping traffic, as it silted up - unlike the ports
in Stralsund, Wismar or Rostock. As a result, Greifswald fell behind
the other Hanseatic cities.
In 1296, Duke Bogislaw IV freed
Greifswald from his army succession and promised not to keep a court
in the city and not to build any fortifications towards the Peene.
In 1289 he had already allowed a Jewish settlement in the city,
presumably to stimulate trade. However, the privilege was not used.
In 1412 Greifswald clashed with the Pomeranian Duke Wartislaw
VIII when his citizens attacked his vassals. The dispute dragged on
until 1415 before a reconciliation was reached through the mediation
of the estates. The city also received fishing rights in the
Greifswalder Bodden. When Duke Wartislaw IV died in 1326 and the
First War of Succession with Mecklenburg over the question of rule
broke out around his underage children, Greifswald formed a state
peace alliance with its neighboring towns of Stralsund, Anklam and
Demmin in order to keep the Pomeranian dukes in power. With the help
of the Danish king, the Mecklenburgers could be turned away. The
same city alliance was concluded again when it was necessary to
protect oneself from pirates and robber barons at the end of the
14th century. When disputes arose between Pomerania and the Teutonic
Order around 1390, which also impaired relations with Poland,
Greifswald granted the Polish merchants transport privileges in
order to maintain trade with them. In 1452, with the award of the
Golden Privilege by the Pomeranian Duke Wartislaw IX, Greifswald
received extensive trading rights that helped the city to achieve
economic power and prosperity.
In 1456, Duke Wartislaw IX
followed. the initiative of Mayor Heinrich Rubenow and founded the
university as a Pomeranian state university. The foundation of the
university has had a positive effect up to the present day.
The Reformation found its way into
Greifswald in 1531. At the instigation of the citizens, the
Stralsund Lutheran clergyman Johannes Knipstro came to the city and
was able to introduce Luther's teaching there without much
resistance. A new evangelical school was founded in 1561 in the
abandoned Franciscan monastery. Under the rector Lucas Tacke she won
many students around 1600.
With the Thirty Years War,
hardship and misery came to the city. On May 19, 1626, sovereign
Bogislaw XIV ordered the Greifswalders to improve the
fortifications, some of which had fallen into disrepair, as much as
possible, but on November 10, 1627 the seriously ill Duke
surrendered Pomerania to the imperial troops. These moved into
Greifswald under Wallenstein on November 20, 1627 and established a
regime of terror in which the population was looted in the worst
possible way. To repel the Swedish troops, Wallenstein had the
fortifications reinforced and used the population to do forced
labor. A plague epidemic decimated the inhabitants so much that only
half of the houses were still inhabited by the end of the war. In
June 1631 the troops of King Gustav Adolf II stood in front of the
city and took it after a short battle.
The following period,
the so-called Sweden Era, lasted 184 years. Until the Congress of
Vienna in 1815, the Swedes were masters of Western Pomerania and
thus also responsible for Greifswald's fate. However, they left the
Pomeranian cities quite independently. Greifswald was upgraded to
the extent that it became the seat of the highest judicial and
church authorities for Swedish Pomerania. With the relocation of the
higher tribunal in 1803, Greifswald received a higher appeal court
in addition to the existing court of appeal and thus became the
location of three courts. Brandenburg tried several times to
recapture the lost territory, and in 1678 it was possible to occupy
Greifswald for a year. In the previous battles, the city center
including St. Mary's Church was badly damaged. In the walls of the
church there are still a number of Brandenburg cannonballs. The wars
of the 18th century placed a heavy burden on the city. During the
Great Northern War in 1712 and 1713 the passing Danish, Saxon and
Russian troops had to be supplied, and in the Seven Years War in
1758 a powder magazine set up in the city by the Prussians exploded,
which destroyed large parts of the city. Before that, major fires in
1713 and 1736 had cremated parts of the city center. The efforts of
the Swedes for the University of Greifswald have been fondly
remembered. After its decline at the end of the Thirty Years' War,
they revived teaching and had the main university building built in
1747.
After the coup d'état of the Swedish King Gustav
IV Adolf and the legal separation of Swedish Pomerania from the Holy
Roman Empire, the Swedish constitution was introduced on June 26,
1806 and serfdom was revoked on July 4. The Greifswald Landtag in
August 1806 primarily served to represent the new conditions.
During the Napoleonic Wars, troops from France and its allies
occupied the city from 1807 to 1810 and 1812/13. In the course of
the Peace of Kiel in January 1814, Greifswald and Swedish Pomerania
were to fall to Denmark, but came to Prussia during the Congress of
Vienna by ceding the then Prussian Duchy of Lauenburg to Denmark.
The transfer to Prussia took place on October 23, 1815. In the
course of the Prussian administrative reform, Greifswald became the
administrative seat of the district of the same name in 1818. With
the connection to the Berlin – Stralsund trunk road in 1836 and the
connection to the railway network in 1863, the prerequisites were
created for an - albeit modest - industry to develop in the former
country town. In 1848, 53 merchant ships were based in Greifswald.
In 1864 the Boddenstadt was the seat of 14 shipowners, who owned 60
sailing and four steamers with a total of 8,744 loads and employed
575 seafarers. The largest Greifswald sailing ships at that time
were the barque unity of the ship owner Carl Graedner (303 loads,
captain: JCF Braun, 13 man owner) and the barque Greifswald of the
same shipowner (277 loads, captain: Hermann Vorbrodt, 13 man owner).
. This was followed by the Bark Rubenow owned by shipowner J.D.
Hagen (259 loads, captain: CD Stüdemann, 13 man owner) and the
barque Louise of the shipowner H. Odebrecht (255 loads, captain:
Robert Beckmann, 13 man owner), finally the barque Hermann of the
ship owner W. Haeger (253 Loads, captain: L. Reetz, 13 man owner)
and the barque Fomalhaut of the shipowner L. Wittenberg (245 loads,
captain: Robert Bülow, 13 man owner). In addition to several
mechanical engineering companies and foundries, the main railway
workshop built in 1863 was an important economic factor. For many
decades it was one of the city's largest employers. The university
was still of the greatest importance. Construction of the clinic
district in the north-west of the city had already begun in 1856.
In 1871 - late compared to other cities - an independent Jewish
community with around 100 members emerged, which was separated from
the Stralsund community. A Jewish cemetery on its own property had
existed on the road to Gützkow-Jarmen since 1860. When the community
moved away, the community dwindled until it had shrunk to just a few
people before 1938 during the Nazi era. A memorial plaque on the
site of the former prayer room in the Marktostquartier reminds of
the community today.
On November 13, 1872, a storm flood led
to 2.64 m above sea level. to the highest high water level since the
beginning of the recording.
At the turn of
the century, lavishly built new streets were built, in which the
increasingly affluent citizens settled. In 1912 Greifswald received
the status of an independent city. At the beginning of the First
World War, 1,500 students were enrolled at the university. In 1915 a
new theater was opened. A donation of land from the city to the
university in 1925 enabled the university to grow beyond the
boundaries of the old town. In 1929 a modern skin clinic was opened
on the new university campus in the east of the city. In 1934 the
construction of the arboretum began there; In 1935 the Clinic for
Ear, Nose and Throat Diseases opened.
In 1926, the railway
workshop - known as RAW (Reichsbahn repair shop) since the DR
(Deutsche Reichsbahn) was founded in 1920 - was closed after labor
disputes. The world economic crisis of the 1930s made itself felt
through high unemployment. On the occasion of the regional reform
carried out in 1939, the towns of Wieck and Eldena were
incorporated. This increased the population to over 37,000. From
1940 to 1945 the large prisoner-of-war camp, main camp IIC, existed
on today's Franz-Mehring-Strasse, in which many prisoners of war
from numerous countries occupied by Germany were interned and used
in subcamps for forced labor. The city, which housed a large
garrison of the Wehrmacht, survived the Second World War without
being destroyed. On April 30, 1945, at the instigation of city
commandant Rudolf Petershagen, it was handed over to the Red Army
without a fight. The then rector of the University of Carl Engel,
the deputy city commander Max Otto Wurmbach and Gerhardt Katsch as
head of the university clinics and senior medical officer in the
city were involved in the negotiations.
In the immediate post-war years, functions for the part of
Pomerania that remained with Germany were relocated from Stettin to
Greifswald. the management of the Pomeranian regional church, the
regional archive and the Reich Railway Directorate. In 1945 the
Soviet occupiers reopened the railway works. From the RAW and some
other companies, the KAW (Kraftwagen-Maschungswerk) was later
formed; there was also a motor vehicle depot (KBW).
The
damage and loss of important parts of the building structure of the
historically valuable old town can be traced back to demolition and
neglected restoration and maintenance in the GDR; Due to
demolitions, for example the classicist Steinbecker Tor (also known
as the Brandenburg Gate) by Carl August Peter Menzel in 1951, and
historicizing new (slab) buildings in the north of the old town,
around half of the historical building fabric was lost between 1945
and 1990.
"It was the slaughter of a historic old town," said
Conrad. Similar to the West Pomeranian historian Norbert Buske in
1991: "Anyone who comes to Greifswald today must think that
Greifswald was also hit by the war roller and left the city in
ruins".
At the end of the 1960s, the redesign of an
inner-city sub-area between Brüggstrasse and Bachstrasse, Old Harbor
and Markt began as part of a research project by the GDR Building
Academy in "adapted panel construction". In the process, some listed
objects were restored, including the city library, the captain's
house, today's funeral home and the buildings on the north side of
the market. After this renovation was completed in the late 1970s,
other parts of the northern old town were redesigned according to
this pattern.
From around 1965 to 1988 the large
prefabricated residential areas Schönwalde I / Südstadt (1496
apartments (WE)), Schönwalde II (5250 WE), Old Ostseeviertel (731
WE), Ostseeviertel / Parkseite (2202 WE) and Ostseeviertel /
Ryckseite (804 WE) in the south and east of Greifswald.
The renovations of the historic city center that have been
carried out since 1991 as part of the urban development subsidy have
meanwhile made the parts of the old town still preserved worth
seeing again. In particular, the market square with its
free-standing town hall is considered to be one of the most
beautiful in northern Germany. Since 1993 the redesign and upgrading
took place and from 2000 also the demolition in the prefabricated
housing estates (urban redevelopment).
In the course of the
district reform Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 2011 on September 4,
2011, Greifswald lost its district freedom and became part of the
newly formed district of Vorpommern-Greifswald. The city therefore
tried to maintain its status as an independent city of a special
kind. Together with some neighboring communities, which all remain
independent, the Hanseatic city wanted to form its own urban
district.
In 2017, Greifswald was awarded the honorary title
“Reformation City of Europe” by the Community of Evangelical
Churches in Europe.
Population
development in Greifswald according to the table below. Above from
1618 to 2018. Below an excerpt from 1871
Population density
of Greifswald 2011
In 1989 the population of the city of
Greifswald reached its historical high of over 68,000. In the years
following the fall of the Wall in the GDR, the city lost around
15,000 inhabitants by 2004 due to a decline in the birth rate,
relocation due to high unemployment and relocation to surrounding
communities. The number of students at the university, on the other
hand, increased and reached its highest level in 2012 with around
12,500 students. In a 2008 study, Greifswald was the “youngest” city
in Germany; it had the highest proportion of households with people
under 30 years of age. Between 2005 and 2020 the city grew
moderately by around 6,500 inhabitants to over 59,200. With
secondary residences, Greifswald has a population of around 62,000.
The following overview shows the population figures according to
the respective territorial status. Up to 1833 these are mostly
estimates, then census results (¹) or official updates from the
respective statistical offices or the city administration itself
“Population at the place of the main residence”. Before 1843, the
number of inhabitants was determined according to inconsistent
survey methods.