10 largest cities in Germany
Berlin
Hamburg
Munich
Cologne
Frankfurt am Main
Hanover
Dusseldorf
Leipzig
Bremen
Dresden
Blankenburg (Harz) is a town in the Harz district in
Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It has been a state-approved resort since
November 2016. The city of Blankenburg (Harz) lies close to the
northern edge of the Harz at an altitude of about 234 m. Blankenburg
(Harz) is located west of Quedlinburg, south of Halberstadt and east
of Wernigerode. The Goldbach flows through the Oesig district to the
northwest of the city center.
The historic old town, laid out
around 1200, nestles north of the Blankenstein, on which Blankenburg
Castle is located today. This city center can be traced back to the
course of the former and still existing city walls. From the 18th
century onwards, we can speak of overcoming these narrow limits.
During this time the parks and gardens as well as the representative
buildings in the baroque style essentially fall. In the 19th
century, numerous villas were built in the Classicist, Historicist
and Art Nouveau styles, stretching west, north and east of the old
town up to higher mountains. The outskirts are characterized by
residential and commercial areas of the 20th and 21st centuries.
In addition to this core town, the village districts Börnecke,
Cattenstedt, Heimburg, Hüttenrode, Timmenrode, Wienrode and the city
of Derenburg belong to Blankenburg (Harz). On July 1, 2014, the new
municipal constitutional law of the state of Saxony-Anhalt came into
force. In its §14 (2) the municipalities are given the opportunity
to assign this designation to the districts that were towns before
the incorporation. The city of Blankenburg (Harz) has made use of
this regulation. Their amended main statutes came into force on
January 13, 2017.
From the city's foundation to 1599
Finds in the wider area of
the city of Blankenburg point to different phases of settlement in
the northern Harz foreland from the Neolithic to the Roman Empire.
For the period from approx. 400 to 600 AD, the so-called Migration
Period, a depopulation of this region can be assumed due to the lack
of archaeological traces.
The first documented mention of
Blankenburg Castle goes back to 1123 in a document from Emperor
Lothar von Supplinburg. A few years later, he left the facility to
his follower Poppo I. von Blankenburg. The descendants of Poppos,
who are referred to as Counts of Regenstein-Blankenburg, were
responsible for the nearby Regenstein Castle and Heimburg Castle.
The emerging county of Blankenburg existed as a Guelph fief, whereby
the fiefdom was occasionally also claimed by the diocese of
Halberstadt. In 1180/82 Friedrich Barbarossa had the Blankenburg
devastated because the counts of "sole loyalty" had conspired to the
Guelph Heinrich the Lion.
The first mention of the city of
Blankenburg can be found in a document from the Bishop of
Halberstadt from 1212. The city was built around 1200 as a planned
system between the eponymous castle and the older settlement Linzke
to the north. This village fell desolate in the transition from the
Middle Ages to the early modern period and was completely absorbed
into the city of Blankenburg. [4] The structure of the Blankenburg
town hall goes back mainly to the late Middle Ages and the
Renaissance period. A hierarchical structure of secular rule (castle
/ palace), church (St. Bartholomew) and bourgeoisie (town hall) on
the mountain slope is characteristic of the cityscape and the
medieval structure is still recognizable today through the remains
of the city wall and the streets of the old town.
In the
middle of the 13th century, the abbess von Quedlinburg pledged
divisional goods to Jews from Blankenburg. They apparently lived in
Blankenburg and also in Quedlinburg. There is no synagogue in
Blankenburg. The oldest parish church in the city of St. Bartholomew
was built at the end of the 12th century and structurally bears
witness to different phases of use, including as a double monastery
(secular canon and Cistercian nuns). In the 14th century, the
Heimburg line of the Counts Regenstein-Blankenburg took over
sovereignty over the city and castle after the other Blankenburg
lines had died out. Guild rights, that is, permission to form craft
guilds, were first granted by the counts of Blankenburg around 1380.
After the death of the last Count of Regenstein, Johann Ernst,
the 1599 fell back to the Dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg as a
"settled fiefdom".
From devastation to a royal seat
With a
number of 255 houses in 1616, Blankenburg can be considered a
medium-sized town in the wider region at that time. The city was
spared the effects of the Thirty Years' War for a long time, but was
finally hard pressed by Colonel Jean de Merode under Wallenstein's
authority and occupied in 1625. Nine cannon balls walled in in the
town hall are a reminder of these events. After the war, the city
lay largely fallow and impoverished, but the first reconstruction
measures were already promoted by Duke Rudolf August, who tried to
help Blankenburg.
The dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg made the
place into a secondary residence in the 17th century, which had its
heyday (1690–1731) under Duke Ludwig Rudolf, the second son of Anton
Ulrich von Wolfenbüttel. Rudolf received Blankenburg in 1707 as a
Paragium. At the same time, the county of Blankenburg was elevated
to an imperial principality and ruled independently until 1731, but
then reunited with Braunschweig by Ludwig Rudolf. The town also
experienced an economic boom through the princely promotion of
mining and metallurgy. Many representative buildings and facilities
were created under Ludwig Rudolf, the designs of which often came
from the master builder Hermann Korb. The vacant lots that arose in
the Thirty Years' War were closed, although complete development
within the city walls could not be achieved again until the middle
of the 19th century.
Duke Ludwig Rudolf ensured a lively
cultural life with festivals and theater performances. On November
22nd, 1717, Friederike Caroline Neuber appeared for the first time
at Blankenburg Castle. As their patron, Ludwig Rudolph promoted the
German theater reform together with his wife Christine Luise. Not
least through efforts for his Blankenburg estate and the support of
the regent, Berend Lehmann had a significant impact on this period,
so that, for example, there was even a Hebrew print shop in the city
for a short time.
New buildings and renovations under Duke Ludwig Rudolf
Conversion of the Great Palace into a baroque residence
Ducal
domain in the old town
Baroque gardens with a small castle
Schützenhaus auf dem Thie (not preserved)
Palais Behrend Lehmanns
(today's city administration)
Lustschlösschen Luisenburg
Foundation of the baroque altar of the Bartholomäuskirche
New
construction of the Georgenhof hospital
Church in the
Michaelstein Monastery
Reconstruction of the Katharinenkirche as
a garrison church
After Ludwig Rudolf's death in 1735,
Blankenburg became the widow's residence of his widow Christine
Luise von Oettingen-Oettingen until her death in 1747. She decreed
that her husband's extensive library should remain at Blankenburg
Castle in memory of him. However, this was later transferred to the
Collegium Carolinum, opened in 1745 in Braunschweig, and to the
Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel in 1764. During the Seven
Years' War, the city's complete neutrality granted the Brunswick
court under Charles I of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel a safe refuge. The
future French King Louis XVIII also lived in Blankenburg. after his
escape from Dillingen under the name "Graf von Lille" from August
24, 1796 to February 10, 1798. From 1731 the principality was
permanently connected with Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel in personal
union, but remained an independent imperial estate until 1805.
From 1805 until the end of World War II
From 1807 to 1813
Blankenburg belonged to the Kingdom of Westphalia. After the
Congress of Vienna, the Duchy of Braunschweig was formed from the
Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. The Braunschweigischen
Harz areas and the area of the principality of Blankenburg were
combined to form the district of Blankenburg in 1833. From 1850 the
district court Blankenburg existed in the city.
With the
establishment of the empire in 1871, there was an economic boom in
the Harz city. In 1872 the Harzer Werke for smelting and processing
the ores of the Blankenburg area was founded and in 1873 the
connection to the rail network by the Halberstadt-Blankenburg
Railway. At the same time, tourism increased, so that hotels and
pensions were created. Under these positive conditions, the
population also increased considerably. On the one hand, German and
Polish workers from the east settled down, creating the Catholic
Church of St. Joseph in 1882, and on the other hand, pensioners from
the nearby cities chose Blankenburg as their retirement home. In
this context, extensive areas with Art Nouveau villas emerged. In
1885, the Rübelandbahn line was also inaugurated.
The
naturopath Adolf Just founded the healing earth company Luvos Just
GmbH in Blankenburg in 1918. The construction and commissioning of
the Teufelsbad in 1938 and the subsequent recognition as a spa in
1940 are part of this tradition. On the outskirts of the city, this
tradition continues with the Teufelsbad Fachklinik, although the
status as a spa has not continued in favor of a different overall
tourist profile since the 21st century is sought.
At the
beginning of the National Socialist era, opponents of the Nazis were
persecuted and murdered. In a notorious action by the Braunschweig
SS leader Jeckeln in September 1933, 140 communists and social
democrats were rounded up in the inn “to relax”. Here and in the
Blankenburger Hof they were badly mistreated, so that some died as a
result. In the wake of the Reichspogromnacht, Jews from Blankenburg
were deported to various camps. At the census on May 17, 1939,
twelve Jewish citizens were still registered, including five men.
During the Second World War, Dr. Dasch set up the
Blankenburg-Oesig subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp and
shortly thereafter placed it under the Mittelbau-Dora concentration
camp, where around 500 prisoners had to do forced labor in the
monastery and the Oda works. There was also a labor camp run by the
Gestapo for "half-Jews" who were forced to do hard labor. Another
camp was occupied in February 1945 with prisoners from the Auschwitz
subcamp Fürstengrube and operated as the subcamp
Blankenburg-Regenstein.
The occupation of the city, largely evacuated by German troops,
by US troops on April 20, 1945 took place after several days of
bomber attacks, artillery and tank bombardment. There was
corresponding destruction and casualties among the civilian
population.
From the end of the war in 1945 until today
From 1815 to 1945 Blankenburg was the district town of the district
of the same name. When Germany was divided into zones of occupation
in 1945, the district of Blankenburg was assigned to the British
zone after the Potsdam Conference and the London Protocol. Since the
larger eastern part of the district was only connected to the rest
of the British zone by a road and a narrow-gauge railway, the
demarcation was corrected and Blankenburg was assigned to the Soviet
occupation zone. The largest part of the district thus later
belonged to the GDR and then to the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The main
part of the former state of Braunschweig came to the British zone
and thus to Lower Saxony. Since 1952 Blankenburg belonged to the
district of Wernigerode. In the post-war period, the city's
population grew due to the influx of resettlers and refugees from
the eastern German regions.
The tunnels of the
Blankenburg-Regenstein facility have been used and expanded by the
GDR's National People's Army since 1974 as a large and
nuclear-bomb-proof ammunition depot. In 1992 the German Armed Forces
moved into the 8 km long tunnel system and built “the largest
underground pharmacy in the world” there: for routine tasks of the
German armed forces, but also for disaster relief around the world
and for military “emergencies”.
From 1987 the Church of St.
Bartholomew became a meeting place for political opponents of the
political system of the GDR. In 1990, Blankenburg hosted the
Braunschweigische Landschaft cultural festival. In the same year
Blankenburg again became part of the newly founded state of
Saxony-Anhalt. With the establishment of the Berlin Republic, the
restructuring of the Blankenburg administration began. The
renovation of the historical building stock (old town, gardens and
castle), the demographic change as well as the maintenance and
strengthening of the infrastructure and economy became core tasks
after 1990. On May 25, 2009, the city received the title “Place of
Diversity” awarded by the German government ".
Blankenburg
has been part of the Harz district since 2007. On January 1, 2010,
the formerly independent towns of Cattenstedt, Derenburg, Heimburg,
Hüttenrode, Timmenrode and Wienrode were incorporated.
The city of Blankenburg (Harz) lies close to the northern edge of
the Harz at an altitude of about 234 m. Blankenburg (Harz) is
located west of Quedlinburg, south of Halberstadt and east of
Wernigerode. The Goldbach flows through the Oesig district to the
northwest of the city center.
City structure
The historic
old town, laid out around 1200, nestles north of the Blankenstein,
on which Blankenburg Castle is located today. This city center can
be traced back to the course of the former and still existing city
walls. From the 18th century onwards, we can speak of overcoming
these narrow limits. During this time the parks and gardens as well
as the representative buildings in the baroque style essentially
fall. In the 19th century, numerous villas were built in the
Classicist, Historicist and Art Nouveau styles, stretching west,
north and east of the old town up to higher mountains. The outskirts
are characterized by residential and commercial areas of the 20th
and 21st centuries.
In addition to this core town, the
village districts Börnecke, Cattenstedt, Heimburg, Hüttenrode,
Timmenrode, Wienrode and the city of Derenburg belong to Blankenburg
(Harz). On July 1, 2014, the new municipal constitution law of the
state of Saxony-Anhalt came into force. In its §14 (2) the
municipalities are given the opportunity to assign this designation
to the districts that were towns before the incorporation. The city
of Blankenburg (Harz) has made use of this regulation. Their amended
main statutes came into force on January 13, 2017.
There are
also Birkental, Gehren, Helsungen, Michaelstein, Oesig, Pfeifenkrug,
Regenstein, Sonnenbreite, Stukenbreite and Westend as unofficial
names for districts.