Lübeck, Germany

 

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck (Low German: Lübęk, Lübeek; adjective: Lübsch, Lübisch, since the 19th century also Lübeckisch), Latin Lubeca, is a city in northern Germany and in the southeast of Schleswig-Holstein on the Bay of Lübeck, a bay of the Baltic Sea. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second largest city in Schleswig-Holstein after the state capital Kiel, with around 214 km² the largest city in Schleswig-Holstein and one of the four regional centers of the state. Lübeck is a member of the cooperation network for the Hamburg Metropolitan Region.

The Hanseatic city was founded in 1143 at its current location, received town charter in 1160 and is also known as the “City of Seven Towers” ​​and “Gateway to the North”. She is known as the “Queen” and “Mother of the Hanseatic League”, a trade association that has ensured great prosperity in Lübeck and other member cities through free trade and peaceful cooperation since the 12th century until modern times. St. Marien zu Lübeck is considered to be one of the main works and the “mother church” of the brick Gothic, which was spread throughout Northern Europe by the Wendish Association of Cities. The preserved areas of Lübeck's old town with over a thousand cultural monuments have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 1987. Lübeck had a tradition since 1226 as a Free Imperial City in the Holy Roman Empire and as a Free City or city-state; it ended in 1937 with the Greater Hamburg Act.

 

General

The city is located in the North German Plain on the Lower Trave, a navigable river that flows into the Baltic Sea about 17 kilometers from the old town in the Travemünde district. The urban area has a maximum extension of approximately 29 km (NE-SW axis) and 15 km (NW-SE axis). Most of it is located in the Lübeck Basin between the Baltic Sea coast and Lake Ratzeburg (Rothenhusen). The old town is located on an almost two square kilometer hill that forms a river between the waterways of the Trave and the Wakenitz. With the breakthrough of the "Canal Trave" in the north at the end of the 19th century, the old town became an island. The maximum natural elevation of the Altadthügel is 30 m above sea level (Marienkirche), the highest natural elevation in the urban area is in the forest of Waldhusen at around 45 m above sea level. The Elbe-Lübeck Canal also runs through the urban area from Krummesse to the Trave. The surrounding landscape belongs to the Ostholsteiner hill country and is characterized by the Vistula Glaciation (Pleistocene). The geographical location on the Trave, which breaks through the Baltic ridge shortly before Travemünde, favored the development of the city as a Baltic Sea port and founded its rapid rise to the north European center of power in the Middle Ages.

The nearest large cities are Hamburg around 70 km southwest, Schwerin around 70 km southeast, Kiel around 85 km northwest, Rostock around 120 km east. Copenhagen is about 270 km northeast.

 

History

Origin and history of the name

The name of Lübeck reflects the settlement history of the area. The earliest tradition of the name in the form Liubice can be found in the Hamburg Church History of Adam of Bremen from the 2nd half of the 11th century (civitas Liubice (II / 19, schol. 12) as well as the spelling variant in leubice (III / 20) ). The origin and meaning of the name have long and controversially discussed in linguistics and historical research on place names. On the one hand, there was the question of the German or Slavic origin of the name "Lübeck", which today is unanimously answered to the effect that the name is of Slavic, namely Polabian, origin and has the root * l'ub- (lovely, dear ) and, on the other hand, whether the place name can be traced back directly to this meaning or via a detour via a personal name. While the first conception founded by Wilhelm Ohnesorge (Liubice = "the lovely one") prevailed until the middle of the 20th century, the view that the name goes back to a patronymic of L'ub or L'ubomir ( Liubice = "(the settlement of the) descendants of L'ub / L'ubomir").

With the displacement and assimilation of the Western Slavs by the Saxons, Saxon, later Low German, became the predominant language in the region, and the name of the settlement Liubice was subject to the development of the Saxon language. With the transition to Middle Low German, the Old Saxon iu changed to a ü sound. So Liubice first became Lübice. When, in the early Middle Low German period, the Old Saxon palatalization of the k to sibilant sounds (such as in Kiellu to Celle) was reversed and many of the words concerned were spoken with the old k again, this development also included the originally Slavic name of Lübeck, making it the common one in the Middle Ages Name was Lübeke.

In the 17th century, Mecklenburg, to whose dialect area Lübisch belonged, was covered by an apocopy of the e and the e at the end of many words was shortened or left out. This is how today's name Lübek or Lübeek came about.

A conversion of the long e to a short one took place only to a limited extent, and like the name of Mecklenburg, Low German authors spelled the name with a simple k, as Lübek - or, to accommodate the pronunciation, with a tonal e as Lübeek or Lübęk. The spelling with ck is only due to the establishment of a common high German spelling. However, this is only a pile of letters. Today's common pronunciation with a short e is to be understood as a hypercorrection based on the spelling.

 

Early history

The settlement of Liubice (Alt-Lübeck), founded by Slavs before 819, gave today's Lübeck its name. It was at the mouth of the Schwartau in the Trave. Since the 10th century, Liubice has been the most important Abodrite settlement alongside Oldenburg in Holstein. After its destruction in 1138, the city in its current location on the Buku hill was re-established in 1143 by Adolf II, Count von Schauenburg and Holstein, as the first German port on the Baltic Sea. Already in 1134 Heinrich the Lion privileged Baltic Sea traders and promoted Liubice, which was in competition with Schleswig. Later, after being destroyed by the Holsten and reestablished by Count Adolf II, Liubice was raised to the rank of town and henceforth called Lubeke. Lübeck prospered right from the start and many people moved to the Travestadt. Lübeck also formed an important and commercial lucrative city connection with Hamburg by land, thus further reducing Schleswig's importance. In the beginning Lübeck also competed directly with Bardowick and Lüneburg, but at the latest since the transfer of the diocese from Oldenburg to Lübeck in 1163 (1160 asked Bishop Gerold Heinrich the Lion to move the diocese to Lübeck. In 1163 the first cathedral in Lübeck was consecrated). Lübeck's regional importance was outstanding.

 

Time of the Hanseatic League

In 1160 Lübeck received the Soest town charter. The Artlenburger privilege of 1161, in which Lübeck merchants were to be legally equated with the Gotland merchants who had previously dominated the Baltic Sea trade, was extremely important for the city. Shortly afterwards, in June 1226, Lübeck obtained imperial freedom from Emperor Friedrich II with the imperial freedom letter, which means that it became a direct imperial city.

Gustav Berg shows that Lübeck initially earned the position in the Hanseatic League and by no means had it from the beginning and also makes it clear that the Hanseatic League did not have a constitution that guaranteed Lübeck this position in writing. Lübeck's regional supremacy became clear for the first time around 1227: after Henry the Lion was overthrown, the Danish King Waldemar II appropriated the areas between Hamburg and the Oder, which were also granted to him by Emperor Friedrich II. However, Lübeck and other territories did not submit to Waldemar. With their victory in the Battle of Bornhöved on July 22, 1227 with the outstanding participation of Lübeck, they succeeded in evading his rule. This was the first time that Lübeck appeared as the leading player in the region.

When Lübeck finally ousted the city of Schleswig as a serious competitor, the city of Visby, on the island of Gotland, gained in commercial importance due to its strategically favorable location in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Pagel believes Visby's initial position in the early Hanseatic period was due to the increasing insignificance of Schleswig: "The German deficit position [was] moved from Schleswig to Wisby [...]." ended with the Artlenburger privilege. The reason for the argument is not known. There are only assumptions made by various authors. Heinrich also called on people to “frequent the port of Lübeck more often.” In addition, the document referred above all to the legal status of Gotland seafarers in Lübeck and expressed the wish that Lübeck merchants would also receive the same rights in Gotland.

In 1249 Lübeck attacked the up-and-coming city of Stralsund, which had become a serious competitor in the herring business, and thus asserted its position of power in the Baltic region for the first time. After the victory over Stralsund, the Wendish cities, consisting of Lübeck, Wismar and Rostock, joined forces in 1259 to form an alliance for safe action on land and water, which other cities followed. Among them was Visby, with whom a ten-year alliance was concluded in 1280. As early as 1241 Lübeck and Hamburg had signed a similar contract in which the friendship between the cities and mutual support were confirmed. Accordingly, the two cities undertook to "fight road robbers and other evildoers at common expense." In addition, these two cities agreed that justice should be exercised towards their citizens, also outside the city limits, and that the costs for this should be borne by both cities jointly .

Lübeck gained importance through trade with Novgorod. At the beginning it was the largest market on the eastern Baltic Sea. In the densely populated Volkhov region, there was one of the greatest demands for products in the West. Initially, the united Gotland drivers of the Roman Empire, i.e. Low German merchants, drove to Russia together with merchants from Gotland. Lübeck thus managed to establish itself in the Russian trade within a generation after receiving its town charter. At the beginning, the Gotlanders were very successful in trading valuable goods from the Orient in western Russia, but this trade ceased after the land route from the Orient to Novgorod through Russia was no longer possible in the course of the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe. As a result, Visby's importance in Novgorod declined, with the Lübeck-Novgorod trade prospering due to the high demand for salt on the eastern Baltic coast: The Lüneburg salt, which found its way to Novgorod via Lübeck, ensured the increased influence of the travesty city in the east.

Thanks to the salt and herring, Lübeck was able to meet the high demand and thereby gain in importance in the course of the population growth in the 12th century and the Christian fish law on holidays and public holidays. As a result, Lübeck became the central trading center for land trade and trading in herring and salt for the east-west tangent. The trading of salt in Novgorod by Low German merchants led to these traders beginning to trade the fur goods that were so popular in Western Europe. The Low German merchants were more established in the West than the Gotlanders, which again led to Visby's decline in influence.

 

Until the end of the 13th century Visby was the upper court for the Novgorod drivers. Lübeck's interest at that time was the enforcement of the Lübeck law in the entire Baltic Sea region. In this dispute with Visby, which wanted to exercise its own rights on the merchants active in Gotland, Lübeck finally prevailed, and the Oberhof was transferred to the Travestadt between 1293 and 1295; Lübeck also had Visby's seal lifted for the joint merchants.

After Visby, the first capital of the Hanseatic League, was conquered by the Danish King Waldemar IV. Atterdag in 1361, Lübeck became the new capital of the Hanseatic League (also called Queen of the Hanseatic League) in the 13th century after the First and Second Waldemark Wars Städtehanse had changed. Lübeck subsequently developed into the most important trading city in Northern Europe at times. The association of Wendish cities was created under Lübeck's leadership. Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian granted Lübeck gold minting rights in 1340. In 1356 the first general Hanseatic day took place in Lübeck. With the Peace of Stralsund, Lübeck reached the height of its power in the Baltic Sea region. In the 14th century, Lübeck was one of the largest cities in the empire alongside Cologne and Magdeburg.

Lübeck's role as the leading trading power in the Baltic Sea was increasingly endangered in the first decades of the 16th century by Dutch merchants who, bypassing the Lübeck stacks, headed for the cities in the eastern part of the Baltic Sea. The war against the Kalmar Union was followed by another loss-making war against Denmark. After Denmark's King Friedrich I was not prepared to leave Lübeck the Sundschlösser as reward for his help in the capture of Christian II. In 1532, Jürgen Wullenwever tried with military means to restore the old supremacy in the Baltic Sea area and to influence the feud of the counts in favor of Lübeck. To finance his military adventures, he had the church treasury melted down, among other things. But it failed dramatically, had to leave the city in 1535, was captured by the Archbishop of Bremen and executed in 1537. With that, Lübeck's time as "Queen of the Hanseatic League" was finally over. And the importance of the Hanseatic League also dwindled.

 

Modern times

During the Thirty Years' War Lübeck managed to remain neutral. In 1629 the Treaty of Lübeck was concluded between the imperial troops and King Christian IV of Denmark. In the course of the preparations for a comprehensive peace congress during the negotiations on the Hamburg preliminaries in 1641, the two cities of Hamburg and Lübeck were also discussed as congress locations. The Hanseatic cities were represented at the negotiations and the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia by the later mayor of Lübeck, David Gloxin. The last Hanseatic Congress took place in Lübeck in 1669. The three cities of Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen were appointed as trustees for the Hanseatic League and its remaining assets.

Thanks to the diplomatic relations of the Lübeck city commander Count Chasot, the Seven Years' War proceeded without major damage to the city. With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803 Lübeck remained an imperial city, only to become a sovereign German state with the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. As a result of the Battle of Lübeck, which was devastating for Blücher, the city was occupied by French troops from November 1806 to 1813 during the Lübeck French period. From 1811 to 1813 Lübeck belonged to the French Empire as part of the Département des Bouches de l’Elbe.

In 1815 Lübeck became a sovereign member of the German Confederation as a Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck at the Congress of Vienna. Legations and consulates were mostly maintained together with the two sister cities Bremen and Hamburg in important capitals and ports. The Hanseatic resident ministers such as Vincent Rumpff in Paris or James Colquhoun in London, who were also the last Hanseatic stewardship, negotiated international agreements with the most important trading partners. Each town ran the postal service for itself. The city became an important symbol of the Vormärz through its renewal movement Jung-Lübeck and the Germanist Day of 1847, but survived the revolutionary year 1848 without major unrest due to the well advanced preparation of a new constitution.

 

Modern

The German Imperium

Lübeck joined the North German Confederation in 1866 and the Zollverein in 1868 and became a member of the German Empire in 1871; This ended Lübeck's sovereignty under international law, which had existed since 1806. Industrialization began at the end of the 19th century. The population grew rapidly and the suburbs expanded with the lifting of the gates in 1864. In 1895 the German-Nordic Trade and Industry Exhibition was held in Lübeck, for the citizens of the small city-state "their world exhibition".

In 1897 the city got its infantry regiment "Lübeck" (3rd Hanseatic) No. 162. During the First World War it was among other things. used in the Battle of the Somme, the Siegfried Line and the spring offensive of 1918.

 

Weimar Republic

The collapse of the German Empire in 1918 led to a sailors' uprising in Lübeck as the next city after Kiel, but in Lübeck, as the only state in the German Empire, it did not lead to revolutionary upheavals due to the November Revolution. Mayor Emil Ferdinand Fehling and all the senators remained in office, but in the same year there was a new, contemporary electoral law for the state and in May 1920 a new, first democratic constitution in the modern sense.

The citizenship member Johannes Stelling represented the Free State at the constituent national assembly, which took place from February 6, 1919, in Weimar. With the right to vote for women, the Weimar constitution passed there already contained much of what the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Basic Law, which had come into force in 1949, was supposed to contain.

Since there have only been various series of photos for tourism, the Senate decided. At the beginning of July 1919, to commission the Deutsche Lichtbild-Gesellschaft to produce a film about the city. Johannes Warncke, a board member of the Association for the Elevation of Tourism, was made available to the two-person team from Berlin who had come from Berlin as a local expert. The three-day shooting in Travemünde began on July 14, 1919.

In 1930, when the BCG vaccination against tuberculosis was introduced, the Lübeck vaccination accident, the greatest vaccination accident of the 20th century, occurred in the city.


Time of the nationalsocialism

As early as 1932, the NSDAP had the second largest parliamentary group in the Lübeck Senate after the SPD. A speech by Adolf Hitler planned in Lübeck in 1932 could not take place, however, as no suitable place could be found for it.

In March 1933 the NSDAP in Lübeck enforced the "Gleichschaltung" combined with the resignation of the SPD mayor Paul Löwigt and the other social democratic senators and the democratic constitutional principles were suspended; Friedrich Hildebrandt, the Reich governor for Mecklenburg and Lübeck, appointed his deputy, Otto-Heinrich Drechsler, as mayor on May 30th. The dispute between the National Socialists and the democratic parties led to the arrest of Julius Leber on February 1, 1933. Willy Brandt (at that time still under his maiden name Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm) could only escape persecution by fleeing to Scandinavia. As a result of the Greater Hamburg Law in 1937, Lübeck lost its 711-year-old territorial independence and became part of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein.

As part of the recently issued British Area Bombing Directive, on 28/29. March 1942 - Palm Sunday night - the Royal Air Force launched an air raid on Lübeck, targeting the densely built medieval old town. In this first area bombing of a large city, a total of 320 people were killed and 1,044 buildings destroyed or damaged, among them the Marienkirche, the Petrikirche and the cathedral.

In 1943, four clergymen (Lübeck martyrs) were sentenced to death and executed for “broadcast crimes, treasonous enemy favoring and disintegration of the military force”.

On May 2, 1945, troops of the British Army occupied the city, the further destruction of which was avoided by the German Major General Kurt Lottner by removing the explosives already attached to the bridges and quay walls. One day later, the Cap Arcona, on which concentration camp prisoners had been abducted, was erroneously sunk by Allied airmen in the Bay of Lübeck. On May 4, 1945, Hans-Georg von Friedeburg finally signed the surrender of all German troops in northwest Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark in Lüneburg on behalf of the last Reich President Karl Dönitz, who had fled to Flensburg-Mürwik.

 

Lübeck in the state of Schleswig-Holstein

Lübeck became part of the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, which was formed by the Allies, but enjoyed an exceptional status of municipal authority in the field of cultural policy and monument preservation. Statehood was denied in the 1956 Lübeck judgment. The division of Germany separated Lübeck from the Mecklenburg part of its hinterland, but gave its ferry port Travemünde a privileged position in ferry traffic between Western Europe and the Baltic Sea countries of Sweden and Finland. Since German reunification, Lübeck has again been the regional center for western Mecklenburg.

On January 18, 1996, ten people died in an arson attack on asylum seekers' accommodation in Hafenstrasse, 30 were seriously injured and 20 were slightly injured. The fact could not be resolved until today.

 

Population development

From the late Middle Ages to the middle of the 19th century, Lübeck's population was between 20,000 and 30,000. In the second half of the 19th century, the population increased sharply. In 1912 it was finally over 100,000, making Lübeck statistically a major city. At the time of incorporation into the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein in 1937, around 146,000 people lived in the previously free city; at the start of the war in 1939 it was almost 160,000. As a result of the Second World War, the population increased extremely rapidly within a short time due to the immigration of refugees and displaced persons from the east and was around 250,000 at the end of 1945. In addition, 11,580 displaced persons from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who had fled the Red Army were accepted in Lübeck. In 1968, the city's population peaked again at over 243,000. Since around 1980 the population has remained largely stable at around 210,000 to 220,000 inhabitants. The changed situation after German reunification in 1990 had no long-term impact on population development. Today around 11.5% of the people living in Lübeck do not have German citizenship.

 

Urban structure and urban morphology

From the total area of ​​the Lübeck city area are:
36.8% arable land and green areas
28.1% settlement area
13.6% water surface
12.1% forest areas
9.4% traffic areas

The city area of ​​Lübeck has been officially divided into ten city districts since the restructuring by the citizenship resolution of September 28, 1972. These, in turn, are divided into a total of 35 city districts. The ten districts with their official numbers and the number of inhabitants:
01 city center (around 14,000 inhabitants)
02 St. Jürgen (about 45,500 inhabitants)
03 Moisling (about 11,000 inhabitants)
04 Buntekuh (about 11,000 inhabitants)
05 St. Lorenz-Süd (about 15,500 inhabitants)
06 St. Lorenz-Nord (about 43,500 inhabitants)
07 St. Gertrud (around 41,500 inhabitants)
08 Schlutup (about 6,000 inhabitants)
09 Kücknitz (about 18,500 inhabitants)
10 Travemünde (about 13,500 inhabitants)

Other names of districts such as university district, Ringstedtensiedlung, gemstone settlement or planetary settlement do not correspond to the administrative structure.

The Lübeck districts have each developed their own image over time.

01: The city center is the tourist center of Lübeck, the oldest and smallest district in terms of area. The city center is mainly located on the old town island between Trave and Wakenitz, which extends roughly two kilometers from north to south and one kilometer from west to east. Some of the main buildings that are part of the inner city are located on surrounding smaller islands, such as the Holsten Gate, which is located at the foot of the so-called Wall Peninsula. About three quarters of the buildings in the old town were not destroyed in World War II. To leave the city center, you have to cross a bridge in the old fortification belt around the city with the Trave and the ramparts. The suburbs are therefore not directly connected to the medieval old town as in most other cities. Only 7% of the population of Lübeck live in the old town.

02: In the south of the old town and on the Wakenitz peninsula also encompassing the eastern outskirts of the old town lies the St. Jürgen district, which is by far the largest in terms of area; is shaped. In the south, St. Jürgen runs out into the Lauenburg landscape with a wide green belt full of fields and meadows. In the east, the district is bordered by single-family houses and finally by the Wakenitz. Due to the former German-German border, an untouched, species-rich nature reserve has emerged in the Wakenitz-Auen. The two largest universities in Lübeck, the university and the technical university, are located in St. Jürgen. St. Jürgen was originally a suburb with market gardens and pastures. Today there are only four nurseries left, because most of the green areas have been built on. The most important new building projects are the university district, which was designed as a mixed residential and business district, and the Bornkamp development area.

In the extreme south of Lübeck, there are several village districts such as Vorrade, Beidendorf, Wulfsdorf and Blankensee with the airport, which still belong to the St. Jürgen area.

The borderline in the village of Krummesse is unusual. Here the old farms with their hooves belong alternately to Lübeck and to the Duchy of Lauenburg, so that the territorial affiliation resembles a patchwork quilt. Krummesse (Lübeck and Lauenburg part) has the postcode 23628. The telephone code is 04508.

It is also strange that the Klein Grönau district (addresses: Hauptstrasse 65a – 65e and 70c – 70e), which consists of only a few houses, can only be reached by road via the Lauenburg community of Groß Grönau. The postal code 23627 and the telephone code 04509 have been taken over from Groß Grönau.

03/04: Beyond the railway tracks in St. Lorenz-Süd follow the two districts of Buntekuh and Moisling, which are characterized by apartment blocks from the 1960s. In Buntekuh there are also extensive industrial areas along the A 1. In contrast to Buntekuh, Moisling can look back on centuries of history. As early as the 17th century there was a settlement here, which at that time still belonged to Denmark and was mainly inhabited by Jews. There is still a Jewish cemetery here today. The district of Buntekuh owes its name to a rural estate that existed here until the end of the 1950s. The estate in turn was named after the Hanseatic cog "Bunte Kuh", which led the attack on the pirate Klaus Störtebeker in 1401.

 

05/06: West of the Holsten Gate are the two suburbs of St. Lorenz-Nord and St. Lorenz-Süd, which are separated by the railway line. It is named after the St. Lorenz church on Steinrader Weg, which dates back to the chapel of a plague cemetery from the 16th century. A suburb for the lower and middle classes was built here in the middle to the end of the 19th century, and a developed working-class culture soon established itself there. Willy Brandt was born in 1913 on Meierstrasse in St. Lorenz-Süd. Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, one of the Lübeck martyrs during National Socialism, worked at the Luther Church in St. Lorenz-Süd. Apartment buildings and industrial operations (Drägerwerk) still dominate the two districts today. There are only a few green spaces.

07: The suburb of St. Gertrud, directly adjacent to the old town in the north, is characterized by classicist summer houses and Wilhelminian style villas around the city park and the Wakenitz. Further to the east there are some Wilhelminian-style and more modern residential areas for all social classes. The fishing village of Gothmund, which is well worth seeing, is located on the Trave with some thatched fishermen's cottages. This is also where Lübeck's Lauerholz forest is located, in which the former border with the GDR can be traced further south.

08: Beyond the Lauerholz municipal forest is the small district of Schlutup, which is characterized by its fishing port on the Trave. It is changing into a modern paper transshipment port. Before the fall of the Wall, the northernmost border crossing point between the Federal Republic and the GDR was in Schlutup: the transit route to Rostock and Sassnitz on the B 105.

09: North of the Trave is Kücknitz, the old industrial quarter of Lübeck. Up until the 1980s, pig iron, coke, cement and copper were produced here at the metalworks. The Museum of Workers' Culture in the Herrenwyk history workshop is a reminder of this. Adjacent to the industrial site there are still residential buildings on the factory estate. Otherwise, the district is characterized by row buildings and residential houses from the post-war period in the “Roter Hahn” residential area, as well as older and newer single-family houses. An important part of the port of Lübeck is located in Kücknitz, which includes a newly built container terminal. The Flenderwerft, the traditional shipyard in the district, filed for bankruptcy in 2002. Since 2006 there is a ferry terminal of the Lehmann Group on the former shipyard of the Seelandkai of the Lübeck port company.

10: At the mouth of the Trave lies Travemünde, which was acquired by Lübeck in the 14th century and has been recognized as a seaside resort since 1801. In addition to the old town center around the St. Lorenz Church, there are villas built in the seaside resort architecture from the time before the First World War. Broad sandy beaches of the Baltic Sea are located in the north of the village and on the opposite side of the Trave on the Priwall peninsula, the southern part of which is a nature reserve, while the northern part was extensively developed for tourism in the 2010s. Until German reunification, the Priwall bordered the GDR in the east and could only be reached by ferry. South of the Priwall lies the Pötenitzer Wiek, a large bay on the Trave, which, due to its proximity to the border, has been preserved as a species-rich area. The Skandinavienkai, the largest Baltic Sea ferry port in Germany, is located in the south of Travemünde. From there ferries go to many Baltic ports such as Trelleborg, Helsinki and Ventspils.