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.
Baroque castle Blankenburg (Harz) u. a. with a restored and
occasionally used theater hall
Baroque small castle with the adjacent
castle gardens, which belong to the network of garden dreams
Saxony-Anhalt
Schlosshotel Blankenburg (former castle barracks) and
the Kurhotel Fürstenhof
Remains of the former pleasure palace
Luisenburg
Geological natural monument Teufelsmauer as a bizarre
sandstone formation, which is accessible by hiking trails and shows
prehistoric and historical traces of processing on the rocks
Observation tower Wilhelm-Raabe-Warte west of Blankenburg (Harz) on the
Eichenberg
Ziegenkopf observation tower with gastronomy
Ruins of
Regenstein Castle and Fortress. Below the Regenstein are the so-called
sand caves in the Heers and not far from them the remains of the
Regenstein mill with a ditch system.
Former Cistercian monastery
Michaelstein Monastery now houses the Saxony-Anhalt Music Academy for
education and performance practice and maintains e.g. an instrument
museum
Forest cemetery Blankenburg (Harz) in the east of the city
Furthermore, the city of Blankenburg (Harz) has a medieval city center
that has been preserved in its structure with buildings from different
eras (including the medieval half-timbered house at Bäuersche Straße 17,
the Renaissance-style town hall, the Obere Mühle) and a residential area
adjoining the old town that is well worth seeing Turn of the 20th
century as well as the partially preserved medieval town fortifications
of Blankenburg.
The hostel museum is unique in Germany. It houses a further
collection of materials and a library of crafts. In cooperation with the
guild of righteous foreign journeymen, the Rolandschacht, the Fremden
Freiheitsschacht, the Gesellschaft der Freie Vogtländer Deutschlands,
the Ax und Kelle shaft and the Freie encounter shaft, there is
information about the righteous waltz of the present.
There is also
the Michaelstein Monastery with its herb garden and instrument museum.
Memorial grove for concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers
of various nationalities at the leveled old cemetery on Lühner-Tor-Platz
Memorial stone commemorating the concentration camp prisoners of the
Blankenburg-Oesig subcamp near the former Diesterweg school in the Oesig
area
Commemorative plaque at Mauerstraße 14 for the sentencing of 63
anti-fascists in September 1933
The musical life of the city is characterized by the Telemann Chamber Orchestra, the rock-pop band Markenzeichen, the gospel choir of the Am Thie high school and the Spinnesänger vocal ensemble. Nationally successful musicians include the band SUNBEAT, Ska-T and the singer Toni Kater. The Michaelstein Monastery Music Academy can be considered a nationwide center of musical life.
Especially since the 2000s, the city has developed into a popular filming location. Particular attention is paid to the Great Castle, Regenstein Castle and the nearby sand caves as well as the Teufelsmauer. Blankenburg is a secondary location for the Quedlinburg-based ARD television series Alles Klara, where the old post office building in Blankenburg serves as the police headquarters. Parts of the film Black Death starring Sean Bean were also shot. The castle and sand caves served as backdrops for this film. Furthermore, shooting for the film 1½ Knights by Til Schweiger took place at the Regenstein castle ruins and the surrounding forests. The film adaptation of the novel Tschick, which was also filmed on the Regenstein, was released in cinemas in 2016.
Blankenburg Carnival (in the sports forum)
Viking Festival
(Easter)
Knight's Tournament (in July)
Old Town Festival (in
August)
Michaelstein Monastery Festival (beginning of August)
Sternthal Christmas market
Historical Weekends (Railways and Markets;
Baroque Castle Gardens and Parks)
Michaelstein monastery concerts
(all year round) as part of the Saxony-Anhalt Music Festival
Blankenburg chess tournament (in the town hall)
By plane
The nearest international airports are Leipzig Halle
Airport (IATA: LEJ) and Hanover Airport (IATA: HAJ) .
By train
Blankenburg has a railway connection to Halberstadt. During the day,
there is a clock hub in Halberstadt on the hour with connections to and
from Halle, Magdeburg and Goslar (with a transfer to Hanover).
Blankenburg train station is about a kilometer north of downtown.
By bus
Flixbus drives to Berlin once or twice a day and several
times a week to the Ruhr area via Göttingen. The long-distance bus stop
is at the train station.
On the street
Blankenburg is on the
A36 and the B81. The A 36 offers fast connections to Braunschweig and
Halle/ Leipzig.
Blankenburg is the starting point of the B27,
which runs from here in a southerly direction through the Harz
Mountains.
1 Berghotel Vogelherd, Am Vogelherd 10, 38889 Blankenburg. Tel.: +49
(0)3944 9260. Price: SR from €47.
2 Kurhotel Fürstenhof, Mauerstrasse
9, 38889 Blankenburg. Tel.: +49 (0)3944 90440. Price: SR from €59.
3
Hotel Grandfather, Grandfatherweg 15, 38889 Blankenburg. Tel.: +49 3944
363928. Price: SR from €45.
Tourist Information Blankenburg, Schnappelberg 3, 38889 Blankenburg.
Tel: (0)3944 2898.
The HarzCard offers numerous discounts, not only
in Blankenburg.
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. 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".
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 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 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.
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.
The current coat of arms came into force in the Official Gazette on
23 July 2016 and was replaced by the former one; his blazon is: "In
black, a jointed and pewtered silver round tower with a base and a black
gate opening, accompanied at the front by a silver shield with a red
deer rod and at the back by a silver spangenhelm with red deer rods as a
crest." The two main colors of the coat of arms are silver (white ) and
black.
The hoisting flag is divided into black and red and has
the city coat of arms in the middle; the banner is split black and red
with the applied coat of arms in the middle of the cloth.
The
previous blazon read: “In black, a silver tower standing on a brick base
with a semi-circular, red gate walled in the middle, crowned by five
battlements; on the right accompanied by a shield in silver with a
four-pointed red stag's spear facing left, accompanied on the left by a
silver pot helmet with two attached, four-pointed red stag's spear
facing outwards as a crest."
Next to the tower as a symbol of the
fortification are the coat of arms and crest of the Counts of
Regenstein.
The most important economic factor in Blankenburg (Harz) is tourism and spa and health facilities. There are also several smaller medium-sized companies and tradespeople. FEW Fahrzeug- und Entwicklungswerk Blankenburg GmbH is a large industrial company with almost 100 employees, which dates back to 1873. In 1987, 1,292 people worked there for the Deutsche Reichsbahn.[24] This is followed by Harzer Werke Motorentechnik GmbH with around 60 employees, which emerged from a gray cast iron foundry founded in 1870. The construction company Umwelttechnik und Wasserbau GmbH is based in Blankenburg. It is the legal successor to the combined operation Speicherbau Ostharz of the VEB Spezialbaukombinat Wasserbau.
Road traffic
Blankenburg is directly connected to the federal
autobahn 36 with the two junctions center and east. The B 27 also runs
south-west and the B 81 north-south through Blankenburg.
For the
development of the postal service in Blankenburg (Harz), see: Post route
Braunschweig-Blankenburg.
On the southern outskirts there are the
remains of the so-called Erzstufenbahn on the slope from the time of the
industrial revolution.
Railway traffic
Blankenburg (Harz)
station is a terminal station and has a bypass curve for freight
traffic. There are connections to Elbingerode (Rübelandbahn) (only
freight traffic) and to Halberstadt. There is a special railway feature
on the route of the Rübelandbahn. Due to the steepness of the route, a
switchback was built in at the time. On the tracks of this route there
are special trips with steam operation several times a year. Regional
express trains operated by the operator Abellio Rail Mitteldeutschland
run hourly to Halberstadt and then to Magdeburg every two hours. In the
20th century there was still a railway line to Thale and Quedlinburg.
Bus transport
Local public transport is provided, among other
things, by the PlusBus of the Saxony-Anhalt state network. The following
connections run through Blankenburg:
Line 230: Wernigerode ↔
Benzingerode ↔ Blankenburg ↔ Westerhausen ↔ Quedlinburg
Line 250:
Wernigerode ↔ Benzingerode ↔ Blankenburg ↔ Timmenrode ↔ Thale
The
Harzer Verkehrsbetriebe operate the bus service in the Harz district as
well as the city transport.
Bike lanes
The cycle path of the
European route (D3) leads through the town as part of the European cycle
route R1 and the capital route (EV2).
Schools
Elementary schools: Am Regenstein elementary school,
Martin Luther elementary school, Derenburg elementary school, Timmenrode
elementary school
Secondary School: August Bebel School
Gymnasium:
Gymnasium Am Thie
Special school: Pestalozzi School Wienrode
Other educational institutions
State Music Academy Michaelstein
Monastery
Education and training institute of the state of
Saxony-Anhalt
Academy of Überlingen
district music school
District Adult Education Center Harz
VHS educational work
Schicker
music school
leisure and sports facilities
Am Thie outdoor
pool
Outdoor pool in Derenburg
sports forum
"Glück Auf" sports
field in Hüttenrode