Haderslev is a town in eastern Southern Jutland with 22,101 inhabitants (2020), located 37 km south of Kolding and 26 km north of Aabenraa. The city's name comes from King Hader.
Haderslev was a market town until the municipal reform in 1970, when the city became the municipal seat in Haderslev Municipality (Sønderjyllands Amt), which in addition to the market town consisted of all parish municipalities in Haderslev Herred (Haderslev County). With the structural reform in 2007, it was expanded with Gram Municipality and Vojens Municipality to the current Haderslev Municipality in the Region of Southern Denmark.
The middle and easternmost part of the city belongs to Haderslev Vor Frue Domsogn with Haderslev Cathedral, which is the episcopal see of Haderslev Diocese. The western part of the town belongs to Gammel Haderslev Parish with Sct. Severin Church.
The city is located in Southern Jutland's longest tunnel valley. East of the city is Haderslev Fjord, and west of the city is Haderslev Dam.
In the area of today's town there were early settlements, as
evidenced by the Stone Age sacrificial find from Knud. A first port
place is detectable a little further east near the church of Starup, the
oldest church in the region. To the west of what later became the main
town, another settlement core was built with the Church of St. Severin,
which is also preserved today. The actual trading town developed at the
end of the Hadersleben Fjord. A sovereign castle was also built there.
Haderslev was first mentioned before 1200. In the legend, Saxo
Grammaticus tells of a king Hather, after whom the city is named. In
1228 the Dominicans built a monastery in Hadersleben or Hathörsleff =
heir to Hather, as the oldest form of the name went. In 1241 Haderslev
received market justice.
During the war between King Erich IV of
Denmark and Duke Abel of Schleswig, the town was burned down. In 1292
Haderslev, rebuilt, received Schleswig town rights from Duke Waldemar
IV. However, the castle district and the settlement of Old Haderslev
with St. Severin's Church were left out and belonged to the Haderslev
district. The granting of city rights was proof of the increase in the
prestige of the place. The city was fortified and had three city gates.
The damming of the mill stream provided further protection for the city,
which was built on a hill, which created the Hadersleben Dam to the west
of the city. The reservoir is still one of the largest bodies of water
in North Schleswig. Since then, the old town has been on a peninsula,
and the bridge over the Mühlenstrom still adorns the town's coat of
arms.
In the Middle Ages, the city was one of the wealthiest in
the region. The Marienkirche is the second largest in the area of the
old Duchy of Schleswig after the Schleswig Cathedral. As the seat of a
collegiate chapter, it had an excellent position, and there were efforts
to raise the north-eastern provost of the diocese to a separate diocese.
In 1351, Count Nikolaus von Holstein was stationed here with his
troops when he besieged Törning Castle. The divisions of the duchies of
Schleswig and Holstein, which had been linked to Denmark under one
sovereign since 1460, had a lasting impact on the city's development.
This applied in particular to the partitions of 1523 and 1544. In 1523,
King Friedrich I handed over his son Christian III. the offices of
Törning and Haderslev with the city to rule. Christian soon adopted
Luther's teachings and in 1526 appointed the Magdeburg reformer Eberhard
Weidensee, under whose influence the city became the intellectual center
and starting point of the Reformation in the north. Since, based on
Luther's translation of the Bible, German was often preached in the
city, parts of the bourgeoisie adopted this language over time, while
the rural surroundings and the poorer urban population remained Danish.
After Christian III. became Danish king and duke of Schleswig, he
had to compensate his younger brothers. This led to another division of
the country in 1544, the consequences of which were to be more lasting
than the consequences of 1490 and 1523: Haderslev became the residence
of Duke John the Elder, who now, among other things, ruled over the
north-western parts of the Duchy of Schleswig, the island of Fehmarn and
parts of Holstein the city of Rendsburg commanded. The Duke replaced the
old castle with the magnificent Hansburg Castle a little further east
and was very committed to the judiciary in his part of the country. He
founded a hospital on the southern outskirts of the city as a successor
to the abbey that had disappeared, and it still bears his name today.
When Duke Hans died childless in 1580, the duchy of
Schleswig-Holstein-Hadersleben became extinct and was divided between
the other two lines of sovereignty. Haderslev remained with the royal
part from now on. In 1627 the residents were hit by a fire. The wars of
the 17th century did not spare the city. Hansburg Castle was also
destroyed when the Swedish General Wrangel besieged and conquered the
castle. It caught fire and was blown up by the explosion of powder
stored in the vault. It has not been rebuilt. Most of the remains were
used to repair Kolding Castle. The canal that separated the castle and
the town disappeared and was completely filled up by 1729. Since
maneuvering on the narrow fjord was difficult for larger ships, the town
lost some of its importance as a trading town, but remained the
undisputed center for the north of the Duchy of Schleswig.
Christiansfeld, founded in 1771 just 13 km north of the city, became an
unwelcome competitor. The Moravian Church enjoyed extensive trade and
commerce freedoms there.
In 1834 the castle grounds were incorporated. In the 19th century,
the city was sucked into the German-Danish conflict, which very quickly
overshadowed the question of political liberalization and
democratization. While the German-speaking part of the bourgeoisie opted
for the German-Schleswig-Holstein side, other residents and the majority
of the rural surroundings joined the Danish side. Unlike the neighbors
in Tønder and Apenrade, the city administration did not immediately join
the Schleswig-Holsteiners when they initially gained the upper hand
during the uprising in 1848. After the end of the war in 1851, the
previous situation was restored, and German and Danish were given equal
status as official languages in the city, although school instruction
was to be given primarily in Danish from then on.
However, the
German-Danish conflict was not resolved and flared up again in 1863 when
the Danish government sought a common constitution for the kingdom and
Schleswig. In this, the German Confederation, under Prussian leadership,
recognized a violation of the London Protocol. On the one hand, it was
argued that Holstein, which was part of the German Confederation, could
not remain without a constitution (this had been suspended by the
Holstein Assembly of Estates in 1858); on the other hand, the London
Protocol stipulated that the Danish fief of Schleswig could not be more
closely tied to Denmark than Holstein. The German-Danish War ended in
1864 with a Danish defeat, after which the Elbe duchies had to be ceded.
The part of Schleswig with the city of Hadersleben was initially
administered by Prussia. With the possession patent of 1866 it then
became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. The new state border now ran 15
kilometers north of the city and disrupted the previous economic ties to
the north. With the incipient realignment to the south, the city was
able to record a certain industrial boom. In 1867 a district court was
set up. The garrison town also became a popular retirement home, of
which numerous beautiful villas still bear witness today. In 1910 the
western suburb of Alt-Hadersleben and the southern suburb of Süderotting
were incorporated. A disadvantage was that in 1862 the main railway line
from Hamburg via Flensburg to Fredericia (Vamdrup-Padborg-Bahn) had been
planned to bypass Hadersleben for strategic military reasons. In 1866,
however, the town was connected to the rail network with the
Vojens–Haderslev railway. From 1899 the Hadersleben circular railway was
built.
After the end of the First World War, the city was included in Zone I
for the German-Danish referendum on Schleswig's future state status. On
February 10, 1920, around 60% of the population voted for Denmark, and
since North Schleswig voted en bloc with a total of 75% for Denmark, the
city has belonged to the Kingdom of Denmark since June 15, 1920. The
national conflict was not resolved, however, and large sections of the
German minority did not accept the new state border. Shortly after
uniting with Denmark, the city became a bishopric.
When German
troops occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940, there was brief fighting in
Haderslev, during which several Danish soldiers lost their lives.
However, the Germans did not move the border. In 1943, the German
"Hadersleben Circle", which was in opposition to the minority
leadership, declared its loyalty to the Danish state in the Hadersleben
Declaration. During this time, Hadersleben Air Base was built for the
Air Force about 15 km west of the city center. Today it is the only
remaining combat aircraft base of the Danish Air Force. With the end of
the war, the border question was discussed again for a while. However,
the Bonn-Copenhagen Declarations ended the German-Danish conflict in
1955. Today there is a German school, a German kindergarten and several
German clubs in the city.
The biggest tragedy in the city's
recent history happened in 1959, when the tourist boat Turisten caught
fire on Haderslebener Damm. 57 people died in the flames or drowned.
Economically, the city continued to boom and expanded more and more.
New industrial areas emerged in the northwest and south of the city.
In 1970 the town was merged with the municipalities of Moltrup,
Vonsbæk, Åstrup, Øsby, Halk, Grarup, Starup, Vilstrup and Hoptrup and
what was left of Gammel Haderslev to form the new municipality of
Haderslev. In 2007 the municipalities of Gram and Vojens as well as the
parishes of Bevtoft, Hjerndrup, Bjerning and Fjelstrup will follow. The
population of the new metropolitan area of Haderslev is thus 55,340 (as
of January 1, 2022).
In 2015, Mayor Hans Peter Geil (Venstre) put
up a bilingual place name sign with the Danish and German place names
near Gammel Haderslev Kirke. A heated argument arose over the German
place name; after a few days the sign was damaged and finally stolen by
unknown perpetrators. In the city council, Venstre, Dansk Folkeparti and
Liberal Alliance disapproved of the mayor's arbitrary actions.
Hadersleben Cathedral is considered the most beautiful Gothic church
in the country; worth seeing epitaphs, burial chapels, bronze baptism,
two organs.
Old town, many well-preserved streets with buildings from
the 17th to 19th centuries, especially to the east of the market place
around Schlossstrasse and Klingenberg, but also to the west of the main
street in the area of the former monastery
Water mill, now a theatre
Herzog Johann Hospital, 16th century
Haderslev Museum, mainly
archaeology, but also cultural history
The Ehlers collection,
ceramics, is expanded into a city history museum
Schleswig carriage
collection
Old cemetery, numerous historical tombs, view over
Haderslebener Damm
Haderslebener Damm, large medieval reservoir with
numerous hiking trails
car traffic
The north-south motorway E 45 has passed the city
about eight kilometers to the west since 1978 and can be reached via
three junctions. The former A 10, bypassing the old town, also runs
north-south through the city as Landesstraße 170.
public
transport
Hadersleben has an express bus connection with Sønderborg
and Vejle and hourly overland connections north and south, while
east-west connections are thinner.
rail traffic
The
Fredericia–Flensburg railway line from Hamburg via Flensburg to
Fredericia passed 12 km to the west of the city. On the one hand, the
tracks on the Geest ridge could be laid largely without expensive bridge
construction, on the other hand, the Danish army command wanted to avoid
making the main towns on the Baltic Sea bays easier to attack from the
south. The Vojens–Haderslev railway, opened in 1866, has only served as
a museum railway since 2011. The nearest train station with regular
passenger services is Vojens.
The narrow-gauge lines of Haderslev
Amts Jernbane were discontinued in the second half of the 1930s, most
recently the connection to Toftlund in 1939.
bicycle traffic
Several local, national and international cycle routes pass through
Haderslev: the international Baltic Sea Cycle Route (runs once around
the Baltic Sea as the European EuroVelo route EV 10), the national cycle
route Haervejen and the local cycle routes Ribe - Gram, Haderslev -
Vojens Tunneldal and Haderslev – Hejls.
Bispen, cultural center with communal library, city archive and
activity center with cabaret stage, music rooms and café
German
library
Kulturhaus Harmonien with theater hall
VUC Syd (Adult
Education Center) with locations in Haderslev, Aabenraa, Sønderborg,
Tønder
Katedralskole: Gymnasium (traditional school since the 16th
century)
CVU Sønderjylland (University of Education) with two
campuses (Haderslev and Soenderborg) - University College
(Health/Nutrition and Nursing School)
trade school
Realschule
(private school, nine grades)
Den Kristne Friskole (Christian private
school, nine grades)
four elementary schools in the city area (St.
Severin, Favredal, Hertug Hans and Hjortebro)
Primary schools in the
surrounding villages, which also belong to Haderslev Municipality
10th class Skole (10th year, voluntary year)
Ungdomsskolen (voluntary
classes)
German School Hadersleben (private school, nine classes)
Special school "Skolen ved Stadion"
eight Danish kindergartens and
one German kindergarten