Ratzeburg (Low German Ratzborg) is a small town in Schleswig-Holstein, near the border with Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Ratzeburg is the district town of the Duchy of Lauenburg district. It is known as a climatic health resort and due to the location of its old town in the middle of the Ratzeburg Lake and its connection with the mainland, which only runs over three dams, it is also an "island town". In addition to the old town island, St. Georgsberg, Vorstadt and Dermin also belong to the urban area.
The name goes back to the prince Ratibor
/ Ratse, who was at the head of the Obodritischen sub-tribe of the
Polabians. He resided here in the early 11th century in a ring wall.
The “Racesburg” is mentioned in 1062 in a recipient certificate
issued by Heinrich IV in Worms, but not handed over. According to
the document, he gave the castle to Ordulf, Duke of Billung. Adam
von Bremen also mentions the then Slavic Ratzeburg in 1076 in his
description of the death of Ansverus on July 15, 1066 on the
Rinsberg near Einhaus above Lake Ratzeburg: Ansverus monacus et cum
eo alii apud Razzisburg lapidati sunt. Idus Iulii passio illorum
occurrit. (The monk Ansverus and others with him were stoned near
Ratzeburg. Their martyrdom took place on the Ides of July.) The
Ansverus cross can still be seen today on the edge of the forest in
Einhaus near Ratzeburg. Christianization took place in three
attempts, the city was founded and the diocese was finally
established in 1154 by Heinrich the Lion (see also the article in
the diocese of Ratzeburg). A memorial stone erected after 1163
commemorates Heinrich von Badenide, the first Count of Ratzeburg.
The stone on the cathedral island bears the (Latin) inscription:
“During the times of King Conrad and Duke Heinrich of Saxony,
Count Heinrich came to Ratzeburg and was the first to give
Christianity a solid foundation. Rest his soul in peace. Amen."
While the city later belonged to the
Duchy of Saxony-Lauenburg, the later Prussian district Duchy of
Lauenburg, the monastery area with the cathedral courtyard came into
the hands of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1648 through the Peace of
Westphalia as the Principality of Ratzeburg and in 1701 it became
part of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
The city, which was heavily
fortified by Duke Georg Wilhelm von Braunschweig-Lüneburg in 1692,
aroused the displeasure of the Danish King Christian V, who more or
less completely reduced Ratzeburg to rubble and ashes except for the
Cathedral Island in 1693, so that a complete reconstruction in the
baroque style the example of the city center of Mannheim became
necessary. The last fortifications were removed by the Danes in
1816.
On the market square in front of the Alte Wache, the
more than 300 year old Ratzeburg Peace Linden tree, which has been
designated as a natural monument since 1935, commemorates the
destruction of Ratzeburg. This linden tree was supposed to give way
to a new marketplace in 2010, but has been preserved after violent
public protests. Ratzeburg is generally known for its stock of old
linden trees, which the romantic writer Victor Scheffel already
described in the summer of 1848 on his trip with Reich Commissioner
Carl Theodor Welcker.
From 1705 to 1976 Ratzeburg was the
seat of the (state) superintendent of Lauenburg. It was followed in
1977 by the Duchy of Lauenburg Church District and in 2009 by the
Lauenburg Provost in the Lübeck-Lauenburg Church District.
Equipped with a recommendation from the poet Friedrich Gottlieb
Klopstock, the English romantic Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent the
winter of 1798/1799 in Ratzeburg with the local pastor. He describes
the city and its surroundings with very flattering words (“The whole
has a sort of majestic beauty, a feminine grandeur”), but
criticizes: “The only defect in the view is, that Ratzeburg is built
entirely of red bricks, and all the houses roofed with red tiles. To
the eye, therefore, it presents a clump of brick-dust red. "
On September 26, 1865, Prime
Minister Otto von Bismarck appeared for the first time to accompany
the Prussian King Wilhelm I in Ratzeburg. He wanted to receive the
hereditary homage to the knights and landscape in the Petrikirche.
The Duchy of Lauenburg had been linked to the Kingdom of Prussia in
personal union since 1865, and Bismarck negotiated on behalf of the
Prussian King (as Minister for Lauenburg) with the Lauenburg estates
in order to achieve full integration into Prussia (in 1876 it became
a Prussian district). In 1871, as thanks for his role in the
unification of the empire, Bismarck received part of the property in
the Schwarzenbek office that had fallen to the Prussian king in
Lauenburg (including the Sachsenwald), which the king raised to a
knighthood. Bismarck was also awarded the duchy of Lauenburg when he
left in 1890, but he did not use the title.
He came into
contact with the Lauenburg Jäger Battalion No. 9 for the first time
during the Franco-Prussian War, when it moved into a bivouac behind
St. Ingbert on August 9 while advancing from the Saar.
It was
not until November 30, 1890 that Bismarck returned to Ratzeburg, now
as former Reich Chancellor, to inspect the monument before it was
unveiled. He then visited the officers 'corps' casino.
He was an honorary citizen of Ratzeburg and appeared several
times at the meetings of the district council, in which an armchair
with the coat of arms of the first chancellor of the German Reich
remembered him.
Close relationships developed between the
battalion and Bismarck in Friedrichsruh, about an hour away by
train. This culminated when the battalion band congratulated the
prince with a morning serenade on his 80th birthday.
Moltke
had never officially been in Ratzeburg. But he had visited his
sister who lived there several times. One of his favorite walks
there was the path around the small Küchensee to the Waldesruh
restaurant. In the immediate vicinity of the restaurant, a monument
was erected in a large granite boulder on a field stone
substructure. It shows the gold-plated inscription: Field Marshal
Graf Moltke's favorite place. 1853-1888. The year numbers reminded
of his first and last visit to Ratzeburg.
On September 26, 1890, the ceremonial unveiling
of the imperial monument took place on the Ratzeburg market square.
The construction of the monument was made possible by committed
citizens of the city through collections of voluntary donations. The
total cost of the monument was around 34,000 marks.
This 310
cm high statue of the deceased monarch, created by the Berlin
sculptor Robert Bärwald and cast bronze by the bronze foundry of the
Aktiengesellschaft [former] Hermann Gladenbeck & Sohn in
Friedrichshagen near Berlin, stood on a pedestal made of red Swedish
granite. On the front of the base was the dedication: "DEM EINIGER /
DEUTSCHLANDS / KAISER WILHELM I. / DEM SIEGREICHEN / DAS THANKBARE
LAUENBURG."
The reverse bore the inscription: "The king of
Prussia paid homage / the Duchy of Lauenburg / on September 26,
1865."
Round relief medallions by Bismarck and Moltke made of
bronze were attached to the left and right of the base.
The
statue and the reliefs were victims of the metal donation by the
German people in 1944; the empty base was removed after 1945.
Unlike the rest of the city, the
Domhof was for a long time under the rule of the bishop and had
belonged to Mecklenburg-Strelitz since 1803. Only with the Greater
Hamburg Law in 1937 did the cathedral district become part of the
municipality. When it was reorganized in 1937, the cathedral
courtyard was also part of the Prussian province of
Schleswig-Holstein. The parish of the cathedral remained part of the
Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Mecklenburg; After the end of
the war, the cathedral archives kept the collection of older church
registers from (almost) all Mecklenburg parishes, which have since
been returned to the Schwerin regional church archive. Ratzeburg has
been the seat of the Luther Academy since 2003.
At the end of
the Second World War, the population of Ratzeburg grew considerably
due to refugees and displaced persons from the former German eastern
regions. In mid-March 1945, a trek control center was therefore set
up in Ratzeburg. Ratzeburg was overcrowded and many of the refugees
had to be transported on, only the sick remained. Not every refugee
survived the rigors of their flight. In the cemetery on Seedorfer
Straße, 191 graves of refugees, including 25 of children, testify to
this suffering.
On May 2, 1945, Ratzeburg was occupied by the
British without a fight. On the same day the executive government
fled from the Eutin-Plön area 50 kilometers further north to
Flensburg-Mürwik. Only two days later, all German troops in
northwest Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark were surrendered.