Bad Doberan (until 1921: Doberan) is a town in the Rostock
district in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It is the seat of the Bad
Doberan-Land office, to which nine municipalities belong, but are
not officially themselves. The city is one of the 18 medium-sized
centers in the country.
The place developed around the Gothic
cathedral, the church of Doberan Monastery consecrated in 1232. Bad
Doberan is known for its well-preserved old town with many
architectural monuments, the horse racing track and for its district
Heiligendamm on the Baltic Sea. The Heiligendamm seaside resort was
founded in 1793 and is the oldest seaside resort on the European
continent.
Geography
Bad Doberan is located between
Rostock and Wismar on the northeastern edge of the cooling, an edged
moraine with larger forests. In the district of Heiligendamm, which
is just under 6 km away, the city has an approximately 1 km long
Baltic Sea beach, in the west on the Kleiner Wohld there is a steep
coast, in the east there is a flat coast that merges into the
Heiligen Damm. In the urban area as in the vicinity of the city
there are larger forests, u. a. Großer and Kleiner Wohld,
Kellerswald and Doberaner wood. In the northwest the city borders on
the Conventer See.
Bad Doberan includes the districts of
Althof, Heiligendamm and Vorder Bollhagen.
Name
The name Doberan, originally Dobran, is probably derived
from a Polish personal name Dobran meaning "good" (dobry). Until
1921, different spellings of the name such as Dobĕran or Dobberan
were in use.
According to legend, the name Doberan is related
to the promise of Heinrich Borwin I, Prince of Mecklenburg, to build
a monastery on the site of the first stag he killed. The startled
swans screeched dobre, dobre (good). Stag and swan still adorn the
city's coat of arms today.
middle age
Bad Doberan was
mentioned in a document in 1177 as Villa Slavica Doberan, but as
early as 1171, Cistercian monks from the Amelungsborn monastery in
the Weser Uplands in the Althof 3 km southeast, today a district of
Bad Doberan, founded the first monastery in Mecklenburg. Most of
these monastery buildings were destroyed in a Slav uprising in 1179.
Seven years later, the Cistercians made a second attempt to found a
monastery on the site of today's monastery complex. The Romanesque
monastery church, consecrated in 1232, was replaced by a high Gothic
church after the fire in 1291, construction of which probably began
in 1295, with preserved parts of the Romanesque church being
incorporated into the new structure. The new Gothic building was
consecrated in 1368. The Doberan monastery was very prosperous due
to its economic ventures, at times it owned 66 villages and estates.
Until the dissolution of the monastery in the course of the
Reformation in 1552, it determined the development of Doberan. In
addition to the monastery, there was a craftsmen's settlement, the
Kammerhof (former construction yard of the monastery), two inns, a
brick factory, a forge and some kötter. Little changed in this
regard after the monastery had passed to the sovereign in 1552. A
ducal office was established in the monastery, and a mill and a
hunter's house were also built.
Recent history
Doberan
suffered in the Thirty Years War.
Doberan's status improved
considerably in the 18th century when the Mecklenburg Duke Friedrich
Franz I made it a place of recreation and entertainment for the
ducal family, the Mecklenburg nobility and later also the wealthy
bourgeoisie. It became known from England that bathing in the sea
was particularly beneficial for health. In 1793, on the advice of
his Rostock personal physician Samuel Gottlieb Vogel, the Duke
bathed at the “Holy Dam” in the Baltic Sea, marking the birth of the
first German seaside resort Heiligendamm. Bathers lived in Doberan
and enjoyed gambling (the ducal bathing fund collected 30,000
thalers a year from the ducal Doberan casino, which was founded in
1802 and existed with an interruption from 1849–1851 to 1867),
dancing and horse racing (presumably the first horse race on 10
August 1822 in Germany).
Well-known master builders such as
Carl Theodor Severin, pupil of the two old masters of classical
architecture Carl Gotthard Langhans and Friedrich Gilly, and also
Johann Christoph von Seydewitz built the lodging house, the salon
building with the representative ballroom in Empire style, the
Prince's palace in quick succession in a purely classical style ,
the Prinzenpalais, the Stahlbad, several town houses and the
much-vaunted Chinese-style pavilions, including the gem of garden
architecture, the so-called Kamps. The prince's thanks for the
master builder, who shaped Doberan's face substantially, were very
little; Severin died in poverty and oblivion in Bad Doberan, where
he is buried in an unknown place. The heyday (1793: 900, 1840: 3000,
1870: 4000 inhabitants) lasted only a few decades. Gradually,
Heiligendamm, the former appendage of Doberan, developed into an
independent seaside resort, and Doberan became quiet again.
In 1879 Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II founded a Progymnasium in
Doberan. The grammar school was named Friderico-Francisceum in 1883
after its founder.
The town was granted city rights in 1879
(coat of arms saying: deer, crook and swan / are the coat of arms of
Doberan). Doberan finally became a country town in Mecklenburg in
1881 and was represented as such until 1918 as part of the towns of
the Mecklenburg district in the state parliaments of the estates
that had been united since 1523. The construction of the Rostock –
Bad Doberan – Wismar railway line in 1883/1884 and the establishment
of a steam narrow-gauge railway from 1886 to 1910 did little to
change Doberan's standstill. The train, popularly known as "Molli",
still runs from the center of the city via Heiligendamm to
Kühlungsborn.
Bad Doberan today
From around 1965 to 1985 the residential
areas Buchenberg with 1049 apartments and Kammerhof with 589
apartments were built in prefabricated construction. After the end
of the GDR, the historic town center and the monastery area of Bad
Doberan were fundamentally refurbished as part of urban development
funding. The Rehabilitation Clinic Moorbad was opened in 1996 and
the Median Clinic Heiligendamm in 1997. Bad Doberan has been a
medicinal bath since 2000. In 2005 the new town hall was
inaugurated.
On July 13, 2006, US President George W. Bush
stayed in Heiligendamm. The G8 summit took place in Heiligendamm
from June 6th to 8th, 2007. Participants included Angela Merkel
(Germany), Nicolas Sarkozy (France), Romano Prodi (Italy), Shinzō
Abe (Japan), Stephen Harper (Canada), George W. Bush (United
States), Tony Blair (United Kingdom), Vladimir Putin (Russia ) and
José Manuel Barroso (European Union).
From 1952 to 2011 Bad
Doberan was the district town of the district of the same name
(until 1990 in the GDR district of Rostock, then in the state of
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania). Since the district reform in 2011,
the city has been in the Rostock district.
History of the
districts
Althof: A Cistercian monastery was founded here in 1171
(see history of Althof).
Heiligendamm was founded in 1793 as
a seaside resort (see the history of Heiligendamm and the list of
buildings in Heiligendamm).
Front Bollhagen was a domain
property that belonged to the Doberan office. In 1914, Rudolf
Burmeister managed the 550 hectare estate. The renovated manor house
from the 19th century is now a company headquarters.
Bad Doberan is located between Rostock and Wismar on the
northeastern edge of the cooling, a compression moraine with larger
forests. In the district of Heiligendamm, which is just under 6 km
away, the city has an approximately 1 km long Baltic Sea beach, in
the west on the Kleiner Wohld there is a steep coast, in the east
there is a flat coast that merges into the Heiligen Damm. In the
urban area as well as in the vicinity of the city there are larger
forests, among others. Großer and Kleiner Wohld, Kellerswald and
Doberaner wood. In the northwest the city borders on the Conventer
See.
Bad Doberan includes the districts of Althof,
Heiligendamm and Vorder Bollhagen.