Åbenrå (also Aabenraa, Apenrade) is a Danish town on the Jutland
Peninsula.
Åbenrå is not far from the border with Germany.
Nearby cities are German Flensburg, Esbjerg, Kolding, Vejle and
Fredericia.
The town was known as Opnøraa as a trading center
and town since the 13th century. The city later received the Middle
Low German name Apenrade, which is still used in German today. The
Danish name Åbenrå has also been in use since 1600 and has been the
official city name since 1920. With the spelling reform of 1948, the
former Aabenraa became the official Åbenrå, but the locals still
favor the Aabenraa, which is at least an optional secondary form.
Initially, the place belonged to the dominion of Duke Gottorf.
The town was badly affected by the German-Danish conflict between
1840 and 1864. Since 1864 the city belonged to Prussia. As a result
of the Schleswig referendum in 1920, Åbenrå came to Denmark. To
date, many facilities such. B. Schools bilingual.
Åbenrå has
been able to hold its own as a port town to this day. Numerous
branches of industry are located in the city. The city has been the
center of the municipality of the same name since 2007.
By plane
There is no airport in Åbenrå, but there is in nearby
Sønderborg.
By train
The railway line now passes Åbenrå. The
former train station is used by shops.
By bus
In the street
Åbenrå is on the European route E45.
The National Archives for Southern Jutland is part of the State
Archives and covers the area from the Kongeå to the border, i.e. the
parts of Southern Jutland that came back to Denmark at the Reunification
in 1920, and which largely correspond to the former County of Southern
Jutland. The archive has private personal and association archives from
the period under Prussian rule from 1864 to 1920, but can also muster a
large local collection of private archives.
Since the creation of
the collections in the early 1960s, the Institute for South Jutland
Local History has collected images, sound, films and "other traditional
material" (music, songbooks, hymn books, school books and other) from
all over South Jutland.
Aabenraa Museum Sønderjylland's Maritime
Museum is both an urban history museum and a maritime museum. The city's
history is characterized by the fact that in the years 1700-1800,
seafaring and shipbuilding were the city's main industries. Aabenraa's
sailing differed in that it mainly went on long voyages and carried
goods for foreign trading houses. The museum was established in 1887
around the distinctive collections that the city's captains in
particular brought home.
Art Museum Brundlund Castle's
collections mainly have Danish art from the period after 1920, with some
from the 19th century. The collection includes paintings, graphics and
sculptures. In connection with the art museum, an art school has been
set up, which is a supplement to the primary school's teaching in art.
Station. Art & Culture has changing exhibitions, readings, song and
music and related activities.
In addition, there are
Mug mill
The Old Forge
Hans Falck's House
Jacob Michelsen's farm
Sønderjysk Scout Museum
The city has several historic and
interesting buildings, including Brundlund Castle and Postmestergården.
There are a total of four churches in Aabenraa; Høje Kolstrup
Church, St. Jørgen's Church, St. Nicolai Church and St. Ansgar Church.
The city has several different orchestras and music schools
associated with it. This includes, among other things:
Aabenraa Brass
Band
Aabenraa Music School
Aabenraa School Orchestra
Big Band
Pianoforte
Bivox Music Association
The Southern Jutland Guard
Virgin Fanny Bigband
Sønderjysk Amateur Symphony Orchestra
Aabenraa Library is the public library for Aabenraa municipality and has a large selection of, among other things, local history literature. In addition, the Deutsche Zentralbücherei, which is the main library for the German minority in North Schleswig, has a total of 23 libraries.
Sønderskov Riding Club
Aabenraa Boat Club
Aabenraa boxing club
Aabenraa Karate club
Bind, Fjordvejen 120, Krusa, Abenra. Phone: +45 7467 8822.
Cafe
Kridt, Storegade 22. Tel.: +45 7363 0005, E-Mail: cafekridt@mail.dk.
Fakkelgaarden, Fjordvejen, Kollund, Abenra.
Knapp, Stennevej 79,
Abenra. Phone: +45 7462 0092.
Under the Sail, Flensborgvej 15. Tel.:
+45 7462 0100.
Fjordlyst Holiday Resort, Sønderskovvej 100. Tel.: +45 7462 2699.
Camping, Hütten und Doppelzimmer.
Best Western Europe, Hp
Hannssensgade 10, Abenra.
Hotel Soparken, Soparken 1, Aabybro,
Abenra.
Christie's Sdr. Hostrup Kro, Sdr. Hostrup, Sdr. Hostrup
Ostergade 21, Abenra.
If you don't speak Danish: no problem! In Åbenrå you will also get on
with German. English is also common there. However, the question of
whether the person you are talking to can also speak German should be
asked in Danish (“Taler De/Du Tysk”; pronounced: “tääler die/du tüüsk”)
or in English.
Aabenraa Turistbureau, 6200 Aabenraa, Storegade
30. Tel.: +45 (0)74 62 35 00, e-mail:
info@visitaabenraa.dk
The town's oldest name was Opnør, which consists of Old Danish opæn
and ør ("open beach"), later Opnøraa and Opneraa after the location by
the river. There may be a village, Opnør, and a nearby trading post,
Opnør Å, which has developed into a market town. From 1257 the name
Oberroe is known.
The German name Apenrade is believed to have
arisen from a mix-up of "Apenra" with the ending -rade, which is a
typical place name ending in Holstein, which in Low German is pronounced
/ra:/ or /rå:/. The German form Apenrade gradually became predominant in
writing, also in Danish texts, but the form Aabenraa also occurred. The
form Aabenraa was only again consistently used in Danish in the
nationally conscious period from approx. 1840-50 onwards.
Aabenraa, like Aalborg, is one of the Danish cities where there has
been a dispute about the spelling. The spelling rules recommend Åbenrå,
but the page form Aabenraa is also allowed (in the Spelling Dictionary
it is in brackets). In the official list of place names there is also
Åbenrå, but with a note that "the local municipality wants å, Å written
as aa, Aa". The municipality and many local citizens prefer Aabenraa.
Education Minister Bertel Haarder and Culture Minister Mimi Jacobsen
decided in 1984 that the municipalities could choose the spelling
themselves, which went against the advice of the Place Names Committee
and the Danish Language Board.
The spelling with Å was introduced
after the spelling reform in 1948. Aabenraa fought strongly against the
new bolle-å, as the town wanted to maintain its place at the very top of
name lists. Since 1948, however, Aa has been alphabetized at the back
together with å. The association Dansk Sproggærn published posters and
stickers with the text in the 1950s
The town's name is Aabenraa -
without Swedish buns on it!
The fact that the municipality itself
uses aa does not oblige other language users to do the same, as it is
always permitted to use å in place names.
Although many local
residents are supporters of the Aa spelling, it is most often written
Affenrå (or Åffenrå) when using the dialect name in writing.
Early history of the town
Opnør was originally a village by the
river. The name appears for the first time in the written sources in
King Valdemar's Land Register from 1231. The village developed in the
early Middle Ages around the bishop's castle Opnør Hus into a small
urban community with a port, crafts and fishing. That the harbor was the
city's lifeblood is confirmed by a document from 1257. Here Christopher
1. gives the monks of Løgumkloster customs freedom if their ships should
call at "our harbor in Oberroe".
Aabenraa belonged to the Gottorp
dukes after the division of inheritance in 1560 and until the tribute of
inheritance in 1721.
The city had its heyday from the 1750s until
1864, when the city's shipping was booming with trade on the
Mediterranean, in China, South America and Australia. The sailors
brought home distinctive customs and wealth especially from the East.
Aabenraa had the Danish monarchy's largest merchant fleet after
Copenhagen and Flensburg. The city's four to six shipyards were famous
for their ships. Most famous was the clipper Cimber, which sailed from
Liverpool to San Francisco in 111 days in 1857.
The story since
1864
After the war in 1864, Aabenraa, like the rest of South Jutland,
was taken over by Austria and Prussia and after 1866 as part of a
province in Prussia. Aabenraa, like Flensburg, failed to convert the
shipyards to building steamships, and development stagnated. The town
got a navigation school and in 1868 got a railway connection to Rødekro
with the Aabenraabanen, which was a side line to the line between
Fredericia and Flensburg. Then the narrow-gauge Aabenraa County Railway
was established, which opened the section to Gråsten in 1899 and in 1901
to Løgumkloster. The county railways were closed down in 1926.
Throughout the period, Aabenraa was North Schleswig's center for the
national tensions between Danish and German. In 1900, the Language
Association bought the Schweizerhalle at Haderslevvej and turned it into
a Danish community center under the name Folkehjem. Here, the South
Jutland politician H.P. Hanssen in November 1918 the Southern Jutland
people's right to national self-determination.
At the referendum
in 1920, 55% of Aabenraa voted to belong to Germany, but since it was
the result for the whole of zone 1 that was valid, Aabenraa, like the
rest of Southern Jutland, came back to Denmark. In Genforeninghaven
between Madevej and H.P. Hanssens Vej stands a monument to H.P. Hanssen,
created by the sculptor Rikard Axel Poulsen in 1945. Another memorial in
the city about the Reunification in 1920 can be found in front of
Folkehjem, where there are 5 boundary stones from the former Kongeå
border.
Aabenraa was the center of the German minority in North
Schleswig in the interwar years. A new German newspaper, Der
Nordschleswiger, appeared from 1946, a German private school and library
were established in 1947 and a kindergarten in 1956.
In 1925, the
harbor was expanded with a 450-metre quay and a power plant,
Sønderjylland's High-Voltage Power Station, and with increased traffic
in the 1930s, this meant employment for many workers. There is today a
diverse industry, from Marcussens Orgelbyggeri to Callesens
Maskinfabrik.
Sønderjyllandshallen was inaugurated in 1956, where
the region's major fairs, sports events and congresses are held.
Former capital of Sønderjylland County
In 1970, the town became the
administrative center of Sønderjylland County. Since 2007, the former
County of South Jutland has merged with other surrounding counties to
form the Region of Southern Denmark. The town is now also part of a
larger municipality, still with the name Aabenraa Municipality together
with the old municipalities: Rødekro, Lundtoft, Tinglev and Bov. The
current Aabenraa Municipality corresponds almost to the old Aabenraa
County, except for the Gråsten area.
As the largest city in the municipality, Aabenraa is a natural
gathering place for a wide range of educations.
Public schools,
private schools, etc.
The town has three primary schools;
Kongehøjskolen, Høje Kolstrup School and 10. Aabenraa. Another school
can be found in Stubbæk (Stubbæk Skole), which is located a little
outside the town of Aabenraa. In addition, there is Aabenraa Friskole
and Deutsche Privatschule Apenrade, which is a German private school.
Aabenraa State School offers both matriculation and HF.
Deutsches
Gymnasium für Nordschleswig is the German minority's high school, which
offers the possibility of both a Danish and a German matriculation exam.
Teknisk Gymnasium Aabenraa offers HTX. The high school belongs to EUC
Syd and has close cooperation with HTX Sønderborg, HTX Haderslev and HTX
Tønder.
Handelsskolen IBC Aabenraa began business school teaching at
Købmandsskolen on 12 October 1868. With more than 135 years, the school
is one of the country's oldest business schools. The school is today a
branch of IBC International Business College, which also has branches in
Kolding, Fredericia and Middelfart.
Vocational education
Social and Health School Syd offers social and health education.
The only higher education institution is University College
Syddanmark, which has a department (campus) in Aabenraa, which offers
these welfare courses:
Nurse
Social worker
Pedagogue
Teaching assistant
Other schools and educational offers
VUC
Aabenraa, which is a branch of VUC Sønderjylland
The Baltic Sea
College
Jomfru Fanny was a woman in the 19th century Aabenraa who is known
for her embroideries and her visions.
Ernst Reuter (1889–1953),
German politician, Lord Mayor of Berlin (1948–53) and General Secretary
of the Volga German ASSR (October 1918 March 1919)