Neubrandenburg (Low German Niegenbramborg or Bramborg for short)
is the district town of the Mecklenburg Lake District in
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. As one of the four regional centers,
the third largest city in the German state is the main town in the
southeast with around 65,000 inhabitants and a catchment area of
around 420,000. It is centrally located between the Baltic Sea and
the metropolitan areas of Stettin in the east, Rostock in the
northwest, Berlin in the south and Hamburg in the west.
Neubrandenburg is known for Europe's best preserved city
fortifications of the brick Gothic, its event and cultural landscape
including concert church and Neubrandenburg Philharmonic, as a
sports city and for the central Tollensesee in the Mecklenburg Lake
District. Around 2011 the city had the second largest economic power
per inhabitant of all cities in the new federal states. Major
branches of the economy are plant and mechanical engineering, high
technology, logistics, healthcare, IT and services. Thanks to its
high level of centrality, Neubrandenburg is also of great importance
as a shopping city. The city is home to several large schools and
has also been a university city since 1988. Because of the
distinctive four medieval city gates, Neubrandenburg officially
bears the name affix "four-gate city" since 2019.
On August 18, 1170, during the restoration of the Havelberg cathedral monastery, Duke Casimir I of Pomerania founded the Broda Monastery in what is now the Broda district in order to accelerate the Christianization of the local Slavic population. According to the latest research, construction of the monastery complex could hardly have started before 1240, so it immediately preceded the founding of the city of Neubrandenburg.
Neubrandenburg was founded on January 4, 1248 with a Latinized form
of name as Brandenborch Nova and mentioned as Brandenburg Nowa in
1259/1261.
The name of the city was derived from the mother
city of Brandenburg an der Havel, whose name changed from Brennaburg
(939) and Brendanburg (948) to Brandenburg (965). The name form
handed down by Widukind could be interpreted for the old Polish word
Brenna, i.e. for mud, clay or loam. But the Low German word burn in
the form of brand (e) as brand (e) (en) burg can explain the meaning
of the name. The origin of the name Brandenburg is still very
controversial to this day; there is no such thing as a “prevailing
opinion”.
The place name is often mentioned in historical
documents up to the early 20th century as Neu-Brandenburg, N.
Brandenburg or Brandenburg (in Mecklenburg).
Nygen
Brandenburg (1299), Nyen Brandenborch (1304) and Nyenbrandenborch
(1439) have been passed down as Low German forms of name. In the Low
German language, Nigen-Bramborg, Nigenbramborg or Bramborg are still
used today.
Since 2019, Neubrandenburg officially bears the
suffix “Vier-Tore-Stadt”, which was in use long before.
The city of Neubrandenburg was
founded on January 4, 1248 by letter of foundation from Margrave
Johann I of Brandenburg. Whether a member of the noble von Raven
family was actually involved or whether a Saxon knight Ehrhardt Rave
was the initiator, as an ancient legend claims, remains uncertain.
As the name of the locator, the founding document only mentions a
margrave vassal Herbord, to whom the gender name of Raven was only
assigned centuries later, without any solid evidence for this. The
settlement of the Franciscan order in Neubrandenburg soon after the
middle of the century has recently been seen as an indication of a
special function or outstanding position of the city among the
Ascanian margraves.
After the city was founded, the citizens
of Neubrandenburg remained tax-free for almost six years and had
various other perks. There is initially no talk of a city
fortification. The first news about a provisional, wooden weir
system or the intention of the Neubrandenburg residents to build one
can be found in a certificate from Margrave Otto III. von
Brandenburg from 1261. What was available was used for
fortification: wood, earth and water. A palisade-like fence,
surrounded by earth walls and moats, formed the first protective
belt. As this wooden weir system soon no longer offered adequate
protection, the oak plank fence was later replaced by a stone city
wall. However, the exact time when construction began has not been
recorded. Based on traditions from Friedland (Mecklenburg), it is
assumed that construction began soon after 1300. This assumption is
supported by the results of dendrochronological investigations of
wood from different city gates.
From around 1300 the
construction of three stone double gates was tackled, which
presumably gradually replaced older wooden structures. The brick
buildings of the older three city gates are all laid out in the same
way: In the course of the city wall there is a gate tower without
side structures on an almost square ground, in the course of the
outer wall there is an outer gate, combined with the inner gate by
connecting walls to form a closed gate castle. The fortifications
consist of an almost circular, double system of earth walls and
ditches, which could only be partially flooded, and the stone wall,
which was occupied by 54 Wiek houses (25 of them were rebuilt by
2015). Later attempts were made to strengthen the defensive strength
of the city by adding two towers that towered over the wall (one
collapsed in 1899). Initially only three gates led into the city,
later a fourth city gate ("New Gate") was built for traffic reasons.
In order to increase the natural protection, to secure the
previously vital water supply for the city and to be able to build
mills in front of the city gates, extensive hydraulic structures
were also implemented.
Neubrandenburg also remained an important central location when
the city came into the hands of the Mecklenburgers with the Stargard
rule in 1298 and with this, from 1347, finally belonged to the
princes, dukes, and finally grand dukes of Mecklenburg as an
imperial fief. Since the late Middle Ages, Neubrandenburg has been
one of the most important administrative centers of the Mecklenburg
inland along with Güstrow and Parchim. In the 14th and 15th
centuries, the city was the main residence of the Duchy of
Mecklenburg-Stargard. As the front town of the Mecklenburg
provincial towns in the Stargardian district, Neubrandenburg had
direct influence on the provincial administration within the
framework of the Mecklenburg provincial estates, which were united
since 1523. Their mayors were among the highest-ranking politicians
in the old Mecklenburg corporate state.
Already in 1523
Johann Berckmann from Stralsund preached the Lutheran doctrine with
ducal help in Neubrandenburg. The important Franciscan monastery,
which has existed since the city was founded, was secularized around
1552. Even the monastery head (Guardian) had converted to
Protestantism.
17th to 19th century
In the spring of 1631
the fortified city was conquered and devastated by imperial troops
of the Catholic Alliance under General Tilly. Hundreds of people
were tortured, tortured and murdered, churches and houses were
robbed and destroyed. Even the inside of the church offered no
protection to the defenseless population. Centuries later, these
events were still present in people's everyday lives as days of
horror in the city's history. In November 1991, human skeletons were
discovered during earthworks at the Friedländer Tor. Nearby, Tilly's
troops had cut a breach in the city wall. The bones were documented
and recovered in an emergency excavation carried out by employees of
the Neubrandenburg Regional Museum. Due to the location of the site,
traces of violence on some bones and the discovery of a uniform head
from the 17th / 18th centuries. In the 19th century it was assumed
that it was a mass grave that was created in the course of the
conquest of Neubrandenburg by General Tilly. At the end of 2009 the
skeletal remains were examined anthropologically. All of the at
least 13 individuals were men who had died between the ages of 15
and 44 years. The average height was 170 cm. The condition of the
teeth suggested a good, meat-rich diet. Very frequent inflammatory
diseases of the roof of the skull and the paranasal sinuses as well
as traces of oral mucosal inflammation indicated extremely poor
hygienic conditions, parasite infestation and inadequate living
conditions. There were multiple consequences of various acts of
violence. Three skulls showed traces of blunt violence in the form
of extensive debris fractures. Two skulls showed signs of sharp
violence, each with several blows. Gunshot wounds were found on two
skulls as bullet holes. The analysis of the origin by the
anthropologist and human biologist Gisela Grupe suggests that all
burials were residents of Neubrandenburg.
Seven graves
unrelated to a regular cemetery were discovered on the 2nd
Ringstrasse in spring 2015. They probably come from the time of the
Thirty Years War. The skeletons were examined by the anthropologist
Bettina Jungklaus. Of the six adults, four were men and two women
who died between the ages of early 20s and late 60s. A newborn was
also found. The body heights corresponded to the typical time
average. The disease burden was unremarkable and there were no
injuries to the bones that had occurred around the time of death. It
can therefore be assumed that the buried people were not involved in
the fighting or the attack in March 1631. Both women had a very high
level of tooth decay. One of the men who died young probably
suffered from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The reasons for the irregular
burial of the deceased at the city wall could not be clarified.
As a result of the Thirty Years War, Neubrandenburg was the only
Mecklenburg city to file for bankruptcy in 1671. It took more than a
century and a half before Neubrandenburg gradually recovered from
the aftermath of the war. As recently as the 18th century,
individual house plots were lying desolate in the main streets of
the old town or were temporarily used as gardens.
City fires
in 1676 and 1737 destroyed large parts of the historical building
fabric. From the end of the 1730s, all the now distinctive buildings
were built, which, along with the medieval fortifications and
churches, shaped the image of the old town until 1945. This included
a late baroque town hall designed by the ducal court architect
Julius Löwe as the center of the central market square.
The choice of the princely main residence and capital of the
(partial) duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, which was newly formed in
1701, failed due to the pride of the Neubrandenburg residents and
led to the founding of the new residential town of Neustrelitz,
where from then on all authorities of the (grand) ducal state
administration were located. The superintendent of the Stargard
parish, which has been based in Neubrandenburg since the
Reformation, was also relocated to Neustrelitz in the middle of the
18th century.
After the beginning of the 18th century,
however, the role of Neubrandenburg as the Vorderstadt and political
center within the constitutional system of the old Mecklenburg state
consolidated. The formal enthronement of new rulers in the Strelitz
part of the country, carried out according to old custom by the
"handshake" (i.e. the oath of allegiance) of the knight and
landscape, was traditionally celebrated in Neubrandenburg. The
parliamentary bodies also met here and it remained the seat of their
district authority until the end of the monarchy.
In the
second half of his reign, Duke Adolf Friedrich IV revived
Neubrandenburg's medieval residence city function. From 1774 a
princely residential palace was built directly on the market square
(traditionally referred to as a palace in Neubrandenburg, in
municipal ownership since the 1920s and partly used as a museum
before the destruction in 1945). Every year during the summer
months, the city became the center of court life in the small part
of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The modest splendor of monarchical splendor
that is typical of the country ended in 1794 with the Duke's death.
Today only the ducal stables and the playhouse, the oldest preserved
theater building in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, tell of this time
in the city's history.
Despite appearances, the economic
basis of life remained meager. The decline of the country during the
Thirty Years' War, the location in one of the most sparsely
populated areas in Germany, but above all the continuation of the
state constitution in Mecklenburg until 1918, put a lasting hold on
the city's development. In addition to the self-sufficiency, the
economic importance of Neubrandenburg was essentially limited to
local market functions for the surrounding area. Industrialization
began only slowly in the 19th century. Processing plants for
agricultural products emerged, iron foundries and mechanical
engineering factories produced for agricultural businesses in the
surrounding area. However, Neubrandenburg horse and wool markets
were widely famous. The last public execution took place in
Neubrandenburg in 1770 (Goethe was 21 years old when people still
“wheeled” in Neubrandenburg).
The accession of both parts of
Mecklenburg to the North German Confederation made the connection to
the modern age possible. In 1863 the gate and customs barrier was
lifted. In 1864 Neubrandenburg received a railway connection, in
1867 operations began on the Lübeck – Stettin line, followed by the
Berlin – Stralsund line in 1877. There was brisk construction
activity in the city. In the old town, old half-timbered buildings
have often been renovated or replaced by new buildings. At the same
time, the city grew rapidly beyond the medieval wall. Efforts were
made in the 19th century to repair the medieval defensive
structures, which had long since become damaged, and to shape them
according to the historicist taste of the time. Above all, these
achievements in the past for the preservation of monuments in
Neubrandenburg created the prerequisites for the city to have a
well-preserved medieval fortification. At this time there was also a
lively tourism in and around Neubrandenburg. The “Augustabad” was
created on the east bank of Lake Tollensee, a sophisticated
residential area with guest houses, the Behmshöhe observation tower
and the spa hotel, which opened in 1895 and attracted famous guests
such as Theodor Fontane to Neubrandenburg.
A Jewish community
formed in Neubrandenburg around 1864. The rapidly increasing number
of members led in 1877 to the construction of an elaborately
oriental-style synagogue on (today's) Poststrasse. By the turn of
the century, the traditional exclusion of Jews in Neubrandenburg had
ceased and Jewish fellow citizens - especially merchants - hardly
differed from other residents of the city. In 1914 Neubrandenburg
became the seat of the Jewish state community of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the only Jewish community in this part of the
country, with responsibility for all Jews living here. However, the
proportion of Jewish citizens in the city population of
Neubrandenburg remained low.
Although the National Socialists in the agricultural north had a
growing following since the 1920s, anti-Semitic propaganda began
comparatively late in Neubrandenburg, only after the election
victory of the NSDAP as a leading political force. From then on,
however, it hardly differed from typical processes like everywhere
in the empire.
Between 1933 and 1945, around 900 houses with
around 1900 apartments were built in Neubrandenburg, mostly outside
the historic old town. These new buildings survived the end of the
war without major losses.
On the night of May 31st to June
1st, 1933, three weeks after the "Action against the un-German
spirit" by the German student body, a book burning took place on the
market square, organized by the local NSDAP, whose local group
leader also gave the main speech . After numerous families
emigrated, 15 Jewish residents were still living in Neubrandenburg
in 1938. During the Night of the Reichspogrom (1938), an SA man set
the synagogue on fire. The fire brigade let them burn out and only
prevented the flames from spreading to the neighboring houses. The
Neubrandenburg press contributed to the anti-Semitic agitation by,
among other things, demanding signs on the entrance doors of shops
prohibiting Jews from entering. In 1940, under National Socialist
pressure, the Jewish community finally renounced the right to lease
their burial site at the end of Scheunenstrasse in front of
Friedländer Tor and agreed to its abandonment. The National
Socialist press hailed the relocation of the Jewish cemetery, where
a military barracks was built in 1941. The existing graves were
reburied in the so-called old cemetery, later relocated to another
part of the cemetery due to construction and finally abandoned
completely in the 1980s. During the clearing of the cemetery without
documentation, almost all of the surviving tombs from Neubrandenburg
bourgeois families were destroyed, the master stonemason Dassow
ensured that at least the remaining Jewish tombstones were
preserved.
During the armament of the Wehrmacht,
Neubrandenburg was expanded as a military base from 1933. In 1936
the Trollenhagen air base was built, in 1938 the tank barracks in
the south of the city and in 1940/1941 the torpedo testing facility
on and on the Tollensesee. Various armaments factories were also
established, such as B. from 1935 onwards the company Curt Heber,
originally based in Berlin-Britz (later Mechanische Werkstätten
Neubrandenburg (MWN)), Bomb dropping devices produced. During this
time the population of Neubrandenburg rose to 20,000. Since 1939
Neubrandenburg, separated from the district of Stargard, was an
independent city with a special status.
In April 1943, the
first 200 female prisoners from the Ravensbrück concentration camp
were deported to the mechanical workshops for forced labor. The
prisoners were initially locked in an empty factory hall at night.
The East Barracks Camp in the Ihlenfelder Vorstadt, in which East
European forced laborers of the MWN were housed, has now been
gradually evacuated and expanded into the largest satellite camp of
the Ravensbrück concentration camp. In August 1944, around 5,000
female concentration camp prisoners were interned in this so-called
“city camp”. It has now been divided, and a second satellite camp
(called "Silviculture Camp") was created in a forest area between
Neubrandenburg and Neustrelitz. At the end of the war, around 7,000
female prisoners were interned in these two camps. In January 1945,
200 male concentration camp prisoners were also imprisoned in the
factory. In the underground silviculture warehouse, the production
of the MWN was to be protected from Allied air raids. In the last
weeks of the war, however, production had to be stopped and the
prisoners were forced to work on entrenchments around
Neubrandenburg. Abuses by SS guards and guards were commonplace. To
date, there are no precise figures available about how many
prisoners died in Neubrandenburg. Most of the sick concentration
camp inmates were deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and
died there.
When the Red Army approached, most of the inhabitants of
Neubrandenburg had hidden in the surrounding forests. In addition,
women and children had been evacuated on April 28, 1945. On April
29, 1945, shortly before the end of the Second World War, the Red
Army took Neubrandenburg as an almost deserted town without
resistance or significant fighting. Then Red Army soldiers burned
80.4% of the historic old town. Almost all public buildings of the
city administration as well as the entire development on and around
the market square, including the well-known grand ducal palace and
the city art collection housed in it, were destroyed. The Soviet
troops are said to have claimed that they were moving into a burning
city. It was later proven that the SED had falsified these reports.
Neubrandenburg thus experienced a fate as almost all cities in
eastern Mecklenburg and the bordering Uckermark (e.g. Friedland,
Gartz (Oder), Malchin, Prenzlau or Woldegk), where central parts of
the old towns also went down in flames in 1945.
On May 5,
1945, the main building of the Torpedo Research Institute (TVA)
burned down in the Tollensesee. The fire was not started by the
Soviet occupiers. It is not clear who started the fire.
The
latest research was able to specify the number of victims at the end
of the war for Neubrandenburg. According to this, a total of 2052
deaths can be proven for Neubrandenburg between the end of May and
the end of September 1945, including 382 German and 263 Soviet
military personnel. The number of suicides between April 29 and May
1, 1945 in Neubrandenburg was 115 people. After years of
manipulation by German war propaganda and the attacks by the Soviet
victors, many people saw no other way out.
In 1939 the prisoner-of-war camp
"Stalag II A" was built on the site of the Fünfeichen estate, an
expansion within the Stadtfeldmark of Neubrandenburg. Planned and
built for 10,000 prisoners, 20,000 prisoners of war were housed in
the camp in 1944. A total of around 120,000 prisoners of war from
ten countries were registered in the prison camps between 1939 and
the end of April 1945.
After the end of the war and the
closure of the prisoner-of-war camp, the main camp in
Neubrandenburg-Fünfeichen was used as a repatriation camp for
liberated concentration camp inmates, prisoners of war and forced
labor from early summer to autumn 1945, and later continued to be
used as an internment and special camp of the NKVD under the name
“Special camp No. 9”. Interned almost exclusively were Germans who
were mostly arrested without investigation, no convicts and no
prisoners of war. Among them were many young people who were mostly
innocently accused of belonging to the "werewolf". By the time the
camp was closed in 1948, there were around 18,000 internees, of whom
over 5,000, more than a quarter died from prison conditions. The
peak was in September 1946 with 10,679 registered prisoners. The
Soviet camp was a taboo subject in the GDR. In 1993 a memorial was
inaugurated, two grave fields are accessible.
The consequences of the war were no less dramatic for Neubrandenburg than for other German cities. The arson in 1945 destroyed a large part of the housing stock in the city. The transport infrastructure had collapsed. Trade, handicrafts and businesses were largely on the floor. At the same time, an army of war-related refugees and displaced persons streamed through the city from the east and south. A peculiarity in Neubrandenburg may have been that numerous long-established Neubrandenburg families left the city to the west after the total loss of all their belongings and with them they lost civic pride and awareness of tradition that had grown over the centuries.
Medical care was also very poor. Diseases, especially typhoid,
spread. From August 29, 1945, all new diseases had to be reported so
that further spread could slowly be combated. A protocol of measures
was also adopted that regulated the cleanliness of the houses and
thus combated the vermin that accelerated the spread, such as B.
lice, rats and mice. As a further measure, in addition to the
epidemic ward of the hospital, the “Tannenkrug” restaurant was
declared an infection house, in which typhus patients could be
treated. The lack of staff was still a problem, as only four doctors
were practicing in the city. After all these measures, the number of
infected people fell to 14 typhus patients by April 17, 1946. After
that, tuberculosis diseases increased and the "pine jug" was
declared a TB ward. The medical situation eased from 1953 and
medical care was intact again by 1962.
The reconstruction or
rather rebuilding of the city center from 1952 took place in
Neubrandenburg until the early 1960s with high design standards. The
historical street grid was largely retained. The rebuilding of this
time took into account the fortifications of the Middle Ages.
Efforts were made to quote outstanding structural forms from the
historical cityscape in the new buildings and thus to keep the
memory of the destroyed old cityscape alive. The Neubrandenburg city
center received a new face in the course of this rebuilding. At the
same time, this Neubrandenburg development achievement is
increasingly gaining recognition and appreciation among experts.
From the 1960s one turned away from this form of socialist
classicism; the subsequent modernist urban development hardly took
the historical urban structure into account and is therefore much
more criticized. In the course of the reconstruction, the market
square was reduced by about a fifth. Many buildings that shape the
cityscape were not rebuilt. For example the old town hall, which had
stood as a dominant solitary building in the middle of the market
square since the 18th century and which in 1945 burned down to the
surrounding walls. The (grand) ducal palace or city palace, which
bordered the east side of the market square for around 150 years and
the remains of which were barely recognizable after the fire in
1945, and numerous other buildings that shaped the cityscape, which
were destroyed in the major fire in 1945, were also not
reconstructed.
From 1957 the headquarters of the command of
the military district V (also called "Military District North") of
the land forces of the NVA was in Neubrandenburg.
From 1952
to 1990, Neubrandenburg was again the administrative center and seat
of the authorities - now the district of the same name in the GDR,
(until 1968) at the same time as the district town of the district
of Neubrandenburg of the same name and, since January 1, 1969, as an
independent city with a mayor as mayor (from the 1930s to In 1946
Neubrandenburg had a mayor as head of the city).
The aim was
to further develop the city into an economic and political center in
the north of the GDR. In addition, an expansion to at least 100,000
inhabitants and the settlement of numerous industrial companies were
planned. Since the mid-1960s, the East and West urban areas, the
Datzeberg with around 3,500 apartments, the Reitbahnviertel with
around 3,000 apartments and the expansions of the southern urban
area, among others, have emerged as large new development areas with
typical prefabricated buildings. around the district of Lindenberg.
Industrial plants were expanded or newly built, including a tire
plant and the Neubrandenburg repair shop, a military technology
repair shop, the VEB Ölheizgerätewerk Neubrandenburg as well as a
container station with corresponding handling systems.
In
addition, an area was separated on the Lindenberg, which from 1981
onwards was the seat of the district administration (BV) of the
Ministry for State Security (Stasi) for the Neubrandenburg district.
In 1987 the associated remand prison (now JVA Neubrandenburg) was
relocated from the previous BV location in Neustrelitz to
Neubrandenburg. The area was extensively secured with watchtowers
and bunkers by around 220 soldiers from the "Feliks Dzierzynski"
guard regiment.
Neubrandenburg grew to a little more than 90,000 inhabitants at
the end of the 1980s and, despite the declining population, is still
the regional center and third largest city in Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania for several years. In 1989 a college of education was
opened in Neubrandenburg, which was re-profiled from 1990 to become
the more broadly based Neubrandenburg University.
After 1991,
the renovation of the historic city center with the theater was
started as part of the urban development funding and the
reconstruction of the Marienkirche, which has been ongoing since the
1970s, continued with a changed concept and was brought to a close
in 2001 with the opening as a "concert church". The prefabricated
housing estates - above all the northern Vogelviertel, the
Reitbahnviertel, the Oststadt and the Datzeberg as well as the
Nordstadt with the Ihlenfelder Vorstadt - have been upgraded
considerably since 1993 and 1999 through programs for urban
redevelopment and the "social city".
As a result of the
district reform in 2011, Neubrandenburg changed from an independent
city to the district town of the newly formed district of
Mecklenburg Lake District, the largest district in Germany.
Neubrandenburg is located in the southeast of Mecklenburg at a
height of 18 meters above the NHN (city center) on the north bank of
the Tollenseesee lake, which belongs to the city, and in the river
valleys of the Tollensee and Datze that begin here and the linden
tree that flows into the Tollenseesee, as well as the surrounding
elevations of the ground moraine plates about halfway between Berlin
and the island of Ruegen. In addition to the Tollensesee, the Lieps,
which is connected to it in the south, is also part of the city's
area, this lake is part of the Nonnenhof nature reserve. The closest
metropolitan areas are Stettin 90 km to the east, Rostock 110 km to
the northwest, Berlin 140 km to the south and Hamburg 250 km to the
west.
In addition to the Rostock regiopolis, the state
capital Schwerin and the two Western Pomeranian cities of Stralsund
and Greifswald, Neubrandenburg is one of the regional centers of
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and is therefore important for the
entire south-east of the country. The city has been a member of the
transnational federation of the Euroregion Pomerania since 1995.
Urban areas and urban areas according to the official urban
division of October 5, 1995:
City center (with Jahnviertel)
The historic old town of Neubrandenburg, known today as the inner
city, which until the middle of the 19th century (with a few
exceptions) offered living space to the entire city population, is
still the cultural and tourist heart of Neubrandenburg today. Today
around 3800 people live here (as of 2018).
In the almost
circular city center, designed as a planned city, the streets are
arranged in a right-angled pattern from north to south and from east
to west in parallel and continuously. All streets were laid out on
lines of sight to each other in interaction with the city wall, the
city gates, defensive towers and Wiek houses. This concept was only
deviated from after the reconstruction after the Second World War
with the new buildings of the police station and the House of
Culture and Education (HKB), the remaining streets were largely
retained, but the street width was mostly significantly expanded.
Shortly before the end of the Second World War, more than 80
percent of the buildings in the old town, which mostly came from the
18th and 19th centuries, were destroyed by systematic fire by the
Red Army. The major fire on 29./30. In April 1945, all public
buildings in the old town and most of the bourgeois residential and
commercial buildings within the city wall fell victim, including the
(grand) ducal palace (city palace) and the old town hall on the
market square.
Only smaller ensembles and a few significant
individual buildings have survived from the former townscape, above
all the medieval fortification with town wall, four Gothic town
gates, one (of originally two) defensive towers (Fangelturm) and so
far 25 (of once 56) newly built timber-framed Wiek houses. In
today's third-generation Wiekhouses from the 1970s and 1980s, the
outward appearance was only roughly based on previous buildings; the
spatial concepts broke completely with those of the previous
buildings and followed modern functional requirements. Three
Wiekhäuser were reconstructed as defensive structures in their
medieval original state in the early 20th century according to
existing building finds. Second-generation Wiekhäuser, as they were
built for residential purposes as simple, plastered half-timbered
buildings in the city wall since the 17th century, partly existed
until the 1950s. All today's Wiek houses in half-timbered
construction are new buildings from the 1970s and 1980s with visible
frameworks, which are externally based on the previous buildings and
pursued new design and space concepts on the inside. Mostly, but not
always, the places where they are built into the city wall are
historical at today's third generation Wiekhäuser.
The former
monastery complex (the north wing is now part of the regional
museum) with the monastery church of St. Johannis, the former main
parish church of St. Mary (used as a concert church after
reconstruction since 2001), the playhouse (Mecklenburg's oldest
preserved theater building), and some in the south of the old town
Ensembles with baroque and classicist houses preserved (Große
Wollweberstraße, parts of Pfaffenstraße, Neutorstraße and Stargarder
Straße).
The reconstruction and rebuilding of the inner city since the
1950s fundamentally changed the cityscape. Most of the residential
buildings date from the GDR era. The historicizing new buildings
that were loosely based on the baroque and classicist pre-war
architecture of the Mecklenburg city and built in the 1950s were
characteristic. They were built in accordance with the cultural
program of that time from 1951 onwards in accordance with the “16
principles of urban development” in a “national cultural heritage”
architectural style, which is also known as socialist classicism in
cultural and historical terms.
Some buildings were added
later, such as the Kaufhof (Centrum Warenhaus) in the 1960s,
individual residential buildings and the modernist "House of Culture
and Education" (HKB) with the 56 meter high tower. From 1990
onwards, almost all buildings in the city center were gradually
renovated from the ground up. A city district bordering the market,
which was reserved as reserve space for cultural buildings in GDR
times, was built on with a shopping center. Decentralized fallow and
demolished areas were mostly filled with small-scale new buildings
(example: Fischerstraße district).
There are shopping
opportunities in the city center with the Marktplatz-Center, newly
built in 1998, on the western side of the marketplace and two
department stores as well as small shops, which are mainly in the
pedestrian zone Turmstraße ("Boulevard"), Wartlaustraße and along
the Stargarder and in the part of the near the marketplace Treptower
Strasse are located.
The market square was renovated in a
modernist way by 2009 and equipped with water features and a new
lighting concept. In the course of this work, the city center also
received an additional underground car park under the market square.
During the construction work, all remains of the palace and medieval
predecessor buildings of the town hall on the market were cleared
after archaeological investigations. Only the foundations of the old
town hall from the 18th century remained in the ground.
In
the immediate vicinity of the old town are the train station in the
north (once connected by the 19th century station gate) and the bus
station, in the east the New Town Hall and in the south the entrance
to the cultural park with the adjacent Tollensesee.
In the
west and north-west bordering Jahnviertel (also known as the night
jacket district by the people of Neubrandenburg), representative
town houses from the Wilhelminian era and the years between 1875 and
1914 dominate, supplemented by new buildings from the
post-reunification period. Outside of the old town center, it is one
of the few quarters in the city that is partly characterized by
urban perimeter blocks. The official name of the district is derived
from the centrally located Jahnstrasse, which, together with the
Jahn memorial standing there, commemorates the time as tutor of
gymnastics father Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in Neubrandenburg. The term
night jacket district, on the other hand, indicates that this area
of the city was an attractive residential area for the better-off
in earlier times, because the villa owners are said to have appeared
at the door in their “night jackets” later in the morning.
Katharinenviertel
The Katharinenviertel is to the east of the
city center. With almost 3,200 inhabitants (as of 2018), it is the
smallest quarter of the city. In this urban area are among others.
the former citizens' school (today: Regional School Middle “Fritz
Reuter”), the communal cinema “Latücht”, the district music school
Kon.centus, the adult education center (formerly the District
Office) and the New Catholic Church. From the “old cemetery”, the
first decentralized main cemetery of the city, which was inaugurated
in 1804, gradually abandoned from the 1960s and fully developed in
the 1980s, only the cemetery chapel built according to plans by
Friedrich Wilhelm Buttel and a last family grave immediately next to
it remain.
From the Katharinenviertel you can get directly to
the Mühlenholz forest in the Lindetal nature reserve. There is also
the Hinterste Mühle, a historical area in the middle of nature with
a petting zoo, nature trails, horse farm and leisure activities for
children and young people. There is also the site of Dirt Force
Neubrandenburg, Northern Germany's largest bike park. On the edge of
the Katharinenviertel is the “Phönixeum”, a high-rise office
building with an unusually colorful design.
City area west
(with Rostock quarter, Broda and Weitin)
The West urban area is one of the largest urban areas, along with
the East urban area and the Reitbahnviertel. Around 8,700 people (as
of 2018) live here in partly seven-storey, mostly renovated
prefabricated buildings, but also in single or multi-family houses
(Broda, Weitin). In the Rostock district of the Weststadt there is
the residential and shopping district Oberbach-Zentrum and other
shops. The Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences has its
headquarters here on a campus site. The Rostock district is located
near the Tollensee directly on the Oberbach, an artificial outflow
of the Tollensee that was created in the Middle Ages. However, the
Tollensesee itself belongs to the Lindenbergviertel under
administrative law. The traditional and successful sports club
Neubrandenburg (SCN) is located in the west of the city. The
canoeists train regularly on the Oberbach and Tollensesee.
The former villages of Weitin and Broda belong to the west of the
city. Broda (West Slavic: ford, place on the ford) was a medieval
ferry place on the north bank of the Tollensesees and at the same
time the name for the Broda monastery of the Premonstratensian
order, which was of central importance for the colonization of this
region. After the secularization of the monastery in the middle of
the 16th century, it became a ducal Mecklenburg administrative
office, which was dissolved shortly before 1800. Of the monastery
complex, only a few cellars remain under the former tenant house,
which are only accessible by prior arrangement or during occasional
guided tours (see also prehistory).
From the development for
family and terraced houses in the 1990s, the residential areas are
divided into Broda, Broda-Dorf, Brodaer Höhe, Am Brodaer Holz,
Broda-Neukrug and Broda-Stadtkoppel.
Broda also includes the
Brodaer Holz, the Brodaer Strand on the Tollensesee, and the Brodaer
Teiche landscape park. The landmark and most famous building of the
western part of the city is the Belvedere, which is located on the
steep bank of the Tollensee and can be seen from afar, on the site
of the former ducal summer house.
Bird district
The
Vogelviertel extends between the city center and the
Reitbahnviertel, directly north of the train station, and is home to
around 4500 people (as of 2018). Mainly red brick row houses from
the 1930s, simple old new buildings from the 1950s and some (mostly
renovated) prefabricated buildings as well as a few row houses from
the 2000s characterize the picture of the second smallest district
of Neubrandenburg.
With a few exceptions, the streets of the
Vogelviertel bear the names of bird species, such as the centrally
located “Kranichstraße”. The largest grammar school in the city, the
Albert Einstein grammar school, is located in the east of the city.
The Evangelical Lutheran parish “St. Michael “their seat.
Reitbahnviertel
The Reitbahnviertel is located north of the
Vogelviertel and the city center. In the 1980s, 3,033 prefabricated
apartments for over 7,500 people were built here. Around 4200 people
currently live here (as of 2018). Since 1993, the residential
environment in the district has been improved and the apartments
have been renovated as part of the urban development subsidy.
Another urban redevelopment followed from 2003 and in the 2010s.
City area east (with Oststadt, Carlshöhe, Fritscheshof, Küssow)
With around 15,300 inhabitants (as of 2018), the Oststadt is the
largest district of Neubrandenburg. At peak times, around 25,000
people lived here. It is a residential area with over 8,700
apartments in mostly renovated prefabricated buildings (built
between 1970 and 1989) and residential estates. In the Oststadt
there are several schools, the Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Klinikum
Neubrandenburg, the Lindetalcenter shopping center, the two
municipal cemeteries (Neuer Friedhof and Waldfriedhof) and, on the
outskirts of the city, larger industrial areas. With the Ihlenpool,
Oststadt has a recreational area with its own small pond. The first
GDR-wide prefabricated building block of the type WBS 70 was erected
in the East of Neubrandenburg in 1973 at Koszaliner Straße 1.
The former extensions (today residential estates) Carlshöhe and
Fritscheshof as well as the incorporated village of Küssow, a small
town with a medieval church ruin, border the eastern part of the
city. One of the largest allotment gardens in Neubrandenburg is
located in Küssow and is operated by five different allotment garden
associations.
City area south (with Südstadt, Fünfeichen)
The southern part of the city is located south of the city
center. Its appearance is characterized by old new buildings from
the early 1960s and a number of high-rise buildings from the 1970s
and 1980s (directly on the B 96 towards Berlin). The city area,
which has around 7,000 inhabitants (as of 2018), includes the sports
high school, other schools and kindergartens, the municipal swimming
pool and the headquarters of the Neubrandenburger Stadtwerke. Part
of the culture park also belongs to the Südstadt.
The
district of Fünfeichen emerged from a former manor and today, in
addition to some residential buildings, mainly houses the barracks
of the Bundeswehr telecommunications battalion stationed there. On
the subject of the prisoner of war or special camp in
Neubrandenburg-Fünfeichen see the article main camp Neubrandenburg /
Fünfeichen.
Lindenbergviertel (with Lindenberg, Tannenkrug
and Landwehr)
The Lindenbergviertel forms the southern end of the
Neubrandenburg urban area. While in the northern part of the
Lindenberg a typical GDR new building area with predominantly
six-storey prefabricated buildings was built, the residential area
was expanded after the fall of the Wall with small-scale residential
developments and as a commercial site and administrative
headquarters. In 2018, more than 7200 people lived here.
Datzeviertel (with Datzeberg)
The Datzeviertel, to which the
"Datzeberg" belongs in particular, is located on a hill north of the
city center and is named after a small river at the foot of the
mountain. Towards the end of the 1970s (completion of the first
block of flats on March 6, 1978), a typical GDR new building area
with seven high-rise buildings with 14 floors and mainly five-story
prefabricated buildings with a total of 3474 apartments for around
10,000 people was built. It also comprised three polytechnic high
schools (19th, 20th and 21st POS), an HO department store and
various service facilities. It was connected to the city center and
other parts of the city by several bus routes.
Since 1993,
the residential environment in the Datzeviertel has been improved as
part of urban development funding and apartments have been
renovated. Another urban redevelopment followed in 2003. Many
prefabricated buildings have been and are being demolished or
dismantled, at the same time some new buildings are being built.
After the population fell sharply in the 1990s, the number of
people living in the Datzeviertel has stabilized at around 4800
people (as of 2018).
Industrial district (with Ihlenfelder
Vorstadt, Monckeshof)
The urban area of the industrial quarter
comprises a mixed area northeast of the old town, in which since the
beginning of the 19th century various, now largely disappeared
industrial companies (brewery, energy combine, tire factory) had
settled. The current part of the city district of Ihlenfelder
Vorstadt grew northeast of the old town as part of the expansion of
Neubrandenburg from the early 19th century.
The Monckeshof
urban area goes back to a so-called expansion (an agricultural
property within the Stadtfeldmark), which was founded on the lands
assigned to him after the separation of the Stadtfeldmark (1865) by
the miller's son Julius Moncke (1841–1901). During the GDR era
mainly prefabricated buildings were built here, some of which were
reduced in size or demolished after the fall of the Wall and
supplemented by single-family and row houses. The urban area
currently has around 6,000 inhabitants (as of 2018).
Surrounding area and urban region
As a regional center,
Neubrandenburg fulfills a particularly prominent function for its
region. The region immediately surrounding the city is referred to
in the regional spatial development program of 2011 as the
“city-surrounding area”. The municipalities organized in it should
coordinate their planning closely with one another (e.g. housing,
commercial development, transport / public transport, education,
culture, tourism, leisure activities - coordinated by the Lower
State Planning Authority). Housing construction projects, for
example, should in future concentrate on the interior areas of the
communities.
The following 14 municipalities or districts
belong to the Neubrandenburg city-surrounding area: Alt Rehse
(Penzlin), Blankenhof, Burg Stargard, Groß Nemerow, Groß Teetzleben,
Holldorf, Neddemin, Neuenkirchen, Neverin, Sponholz, Trollenhagen,
Woggersin, Wulkenzin and Zirzow. Other basic centers close to the
core city of Neubrandenburg (radius max. 30 km) besides Burg
Stargard and Penzlin are Altentreptow, Friedland, Stavenhagen and
Woldegk, the closest medium-sized centers are Neustrelitz, Demmin
and Waren (Müritz).
According to the decision of the state parliament on April 5, 2006, as part of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania district reform in 2009, there should be a Mecklenburg Lake District with the district town of Neubrandenburg from October 1, 2009. This great district should include the previous districts of Müritz, Demmin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz as well as the previous independent city of Neubrandenburg. After the judgment of the state constitutional court of July 26, 2007, the reform law could not be implemented as incompatible with the state's constitution. With the resolution of the state parliament of July 7, 2010, the "Law for the creation of sustainable structures in the districts and independent cities of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (district structure law)" was adopted, which ordered the formation of a district of Mecklenburg Lake District with the district seat in Neubrandenburg.