Neubrandenburg, Germany

 

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.

 

History

Prehistory

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.

 

Name

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.

 

Middle Ages and early modern times

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.

 

Weimar Republic, National Socialism and World War II

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.

 

Destruction of the city in 1945

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.

 

Prison camp in Neubrandenburg-Fünfeichen

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.

 

Development after 1945

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.

 

Geographical location

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.

 

City structure

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).

 

County seat

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.