Magdeburg

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This article is about the German city. For other uses, see Magdeburg (disambiguation).
Magdeburg
View of Magdeburg and cathedral, from the tower of the Johanniskirche
View of Magdeburg and cathedral, from the tower of the Johanniskirche
Coat of arms of Magdeburg
Magdeburg (Germany)
Magdeburg
Coordinates: 52° 8′ N, 11° 37′ E
Time zone: CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Administration
Country: Germany
State: Saxony-Anhalt
District: Urban district
City subdivisions: 40 borroughs
Lord Mayor: Lutz Trümper (SPD)
Basic Statistics
Area: 200.95 km² (78 sq.mi.)
Population: 229,980 (30 Nov. 2006)
 - Density: 1,144 /km² (2,964 /sq.mi.)
Elevation: 43 m  (141 ft)
Further Information
Postal codes: 39104-39130
Area code: 0391
Licence plate code: MD
Website: www.magdeburg.de
Magdeburg's center has numerous Stalinist neo-classicist buildings.
Magdeburg's center has numerous Stalinist neo-classicist buildings.

Magdeburg, the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, lies on the Elbe river and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe. Emperor Otto I lived during most of his reign in the town and was buried in the cathedral after his death.

Contents

[edit] History

Although settlement on the site had existed for centuries, the city is first mentioned in the Diedenhof Capitulary as Magadoburg, dating to 805 AD, by which the emperor Charlemagne he secured the small fishing and trading town. In 919 King Henry I the Fowler fortified it against the Magyars and Slavs. In 929 the city went to Edward the Elder's daughter Edith (Editha, Eadgyth) through her marriage with Henry's son Otto I, as a Morgengabe - a Germanic customary gift received by the new bride from the groom and his family after the wedding night. Editha had a particular love for the town and often lived there, and was buried in the abbey church crypt at her death. In 937 it was the seat of a royal assembly; the emperor also continually returned to it: he granted to the Benedictine abbey of Saint Maurice (later the cathedral) the secular tithes payable by Slavs taking refuge in three other fortresses and transferred to this his favourite foundation the bannus and the castlework services owed by the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside, which were his by imperial right. Later he was also buried in the cathedral.

The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was founded in 968 at the synod of Ravenna, Adalbert of Magdeburg receiving consecration as its first archbishop. It included the bishoprics of Havelberg, Brandenburg, Merseburg, Meissen, and Zeitz-Naumburg. The archbishops played a preeminent role in the task of German colonization of the Slavic lands east of the Elbe river.

In 1035 Magdeburg received a patent giving the city the right to hold trade exhibits and conventions, the basis of the later family of city laws known as Magdeburg rights. Many visitors from many countries begin to trade in Magdeburg. In 1118 a fire almost destroyed it.

Magdeburger Reiter.
Magdeburger Reiter.

In the 13th century Magdeburg became a member of the Hanseatic League. Together with Brussels, Antwerp, Cologne, Nuremberg, Lübeck, Padua, Mantua, Cremona, Verona, Piacenza, Milan, Genoa, Florence, Metz and Strasbourg, Magdeburg was one of the cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants in the Holy Roman Empire. The town had an active maritime commerce on the west (towards Flanders), with the countries of the Baltic Sea, and maintained traffic and communication with the interior (for example Brunswick). The city had an autonomous administration form, known as Magdeburger Recht (Magdeburg Right), that later was adopted by many cities of Eastern Europe. The citizens are constantly in struggle against the archbishop, becoming nearly independent from him by the end of the 15th century.

In 1524 Martin Luther was called to Magdeburg, where he preached and caused the city's defection from Catholicism. The Reformation had found speedy adherents in the city, where Luther had been a schoolboy. Emperor Charles V repeatedly outlawed the unruly town, which had joined the Alliance of Torgau and the Schmalkaldic League. Because it had not accepted the "Interim" (1548), the city, by the emperor's commands, was besieged (1550-1551) by the Elector Maurice of Saxony, but retained its independence. The rule of the Archbishop was replaced by that of various administrators, taken from Protestant dynasties. In the following years Magdeburg gained a reputation as a stronghold of Protestantism and becomes the first major city to publish the writings of Martin Luther. Matthias Flacius and his companions write their anti-Catholic pamphlets and the Magdeburg Centuries, in which they argued that the Roman Catholic Church had become the kingdom of Anti-Christ.

In 1631, during the Thirty Years' War, imperial troops stormed the city and commit a massacre, killing about 20,000 inhabitants and burning the town in the sack of Magdeburg. The city had withstood a first siege in 1629 by Albrecht von Wallenstein. After the war only a population of 400 remained (see Sack of Magdeburg). According to the Peace of Westphalia (1648), Madgeburg was assigned to Brandenburg-Prussia after the death of the current administrator (a Saxon prince), as a semi-autonomous Duchy of Magdeburg. This occurred in 1680.

Interior of the Cathedral of Magdeburg, looking towards the Grave of Otto I.
Interior of the Cathedral of Magdeburg, looking towards the Grave of Otto I.
The cathedral's twin spires, seen from the courtyard.
The cathedral's twin spires, seen from the courtyard.
Unser Lieben Frauen Monastery.
Unser Lieben Frauen Monastery.

In the course of the Napoleonic Wars, the fortress surrendered to French troops in 1806. The city was annexed to the French-controlled Kingdom of Westphalia. King Jérôme appointed Count Heinrich von Blumenthal Mayor (his statue still to be seen in the Nordpark). In 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, Magdeburg was made the capital of the new Prussian Province of Saxony. In 1912 the old fortress was dismantled.

Before the World War II Magdeburg was the seat of the German section of the Watchtower Society. During the war Magdeburg (then a city of about 340,000 inhabitants) suffered near total destruction from Allied firebombing. The very impressive Gründerzeit suburbs north of the city, called the Nordfront, were destroyed as well as the city's main street with its Baroque buildings. It was the second most devastated city in Germany; only Dresden suffered more. American and Soviet troops occupied the city; however, the Americans soon left, leaving the city under Soviet stewardship.

In the postwar years, many of the remaining pre-World War II city buildings were destroyed, with only a few buildings near the Cathedral restored to their pre-war state. Prior to Reunification, many surviving Gründerzeit buildings were left uninhabited and, after years of degradation, waiting for demolition. From 1949 on until German reunification on 3 October 1990 Magdeburg belonged to the German Democratic Republic.

In 1990 Magdeburg became the capital of the new state of Saxony-Anhalt within reunified Germany. The city center was rebuilt almost exclusively in a modern style.

[edit] Main sights

[edit] Cathedral

Main article: Cathedral of Magdeburg

Magdeburg's most impressive building, the Cathedral of Saints Catherine and Maurice, has a height of 104 m: the highest church building of eastern Germany. It is notable for its beautiful and unique sculptures, especially the "Twelve Virgins" at the Northern Gate, the depictions of Otto I the Great and his wife Editha as well as the statues of St Maurice and St Catherine. The statue of St Maurice (ca. 1250) is one of the few where Maurice is correctly displayed as a black man with African features holding a sword and wearing chainmail. It is in fact the oldest depiction of a black person in Europe. St Catherine is dressed like a young teenage girl from the time of the statue's creation would have been - the equivalent to a girl in jeans and T-Shirt today. (Quite a scandal then.)

The predecessor of the cathedral was a church built in 937 within an abbey, called St. Maurice. Emperor Otto I the Great was buried here beside his wife in 973. St. Maurice burnt to ashes in 1207. The exact location of that church remained unknown for a long time. The foundations were rediscovered in May 2003, revealing a building 80 m long and 41 m wide.

The construction of the new church lasted 300 years. The cathedral of Saints Catherine and Maurice was the first Gothic church building of Germany. The completion of the steeples took place only in 1520.

While the cathedral was virtually the only building to survive the massacres of the Thirty Years' War, it nevertheless suffered damage in World War II. But it was soon rebuilt and completed in 1955.

The place in front of the cathedral (sometimes called "new marketplace", Neuer Markt) was occupied by an imperial palace (Kaiserpfalz), which was destroyed in the fire of 1207. The stones of the ruin served for building the cathedral. The presumptive remains of the palace were excavated in the 1960s.

[edit] Other sights

  • Unser Lieben Frauen Monastery (Our Beloved Lady), 11th century, containing the church of St. Mary. Today a museum for Modern Art. Home of the National Collection of Small Art Statues of the GDR (Nationale Sammlung Kleinkunstplastiken der DDR).
  • The Magdeburger Reiter ("Magdeburg equestrian", 1240), the first equestrian sculpture north of the alps. It probably shows Emperor Otto I.
  • Town hall (1698). This building stood on the marketplace since the 13th century, but was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War; the new town hall was built in a Renaissance style influenced by Dutch architecture. It has ben renovated and reopened in Oct 2005.
  • Landtag; the seat of the government of Saxony-Anhalt is a Baroque palace built in 1724.
  • The city has monuments depicting emperor Otto I (old marketplace, 1240) and Otto von Guericke (1907).
  • Ruins of the greatest stronghold of the former kingdom of Prussia.
  • Rotehorn-Park.
  • Elbauenpark containing the highest wooden tower in the world.
  • Hundertwasser-Building, finished in 2005.
  • Johannischurch
  • The Magdeburg Water Bridge, Europe's longest water bridge

Magdeburg is one of the major towns along the Elbe Cycle Route (Elberadweg).

[edit] Trivia

  • The Magdeburg hemispheres were a device created in 1654 by Otto von Guericke: it consisted in two hollow shells with rings for attaching ropes, put together with grease; the air was evacuted from within through a pump that he had invented some years before. Sixteen horses failed to pull the hemispheres apart.
  • SC Magdeburg is the only German handball club to have won the Champions-League.
  • 1. FC Magdeburg is the only East German football club to have won a European club football competition.
  • Georg Philipp Telemann, Otto von Guericke and SPD politician Erich Ollenhauer were from Magdeburg.
  • FDP politician Burkhard Hirsch is from Magdeburg.
  • One currency of Magdeburg is the local Urstromtaler (as well as the euro)[1]
  • In Eric Flint's 1632 series of novels, Magdeburg becomes the capital of the Confederated Principalities of Europe and later the United States of Europe, largely as a symbolic and morale building gesture after the city's destruction by Tilly and Pappenheim.

[edit] People

[edit] Twin towns

[edit] External links

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This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
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