Oranienburg

Oranienburg
Schloss Oranienburg
Oranienburg
Coordinates
Administration
Country Germany
State Brandenburg
District Oberhavel
Town subdivisions 9 districts
Mayor Hans-Joachim Laesicke (SPD)
Basic statistics
Area 162.37 km2 (62.69 sq mi)
Elevation 34 m  (112 ft)
Population 41,810 (31 December 2010)[1]
 - Density 257 /km2 (667 /sq mi)
Other information
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate OHV
Postal code 16515
Area code 03301
Website www.oranienburg.de

Oranienburg is a town in Brandenburg, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Oberhavel.

Contents

Geography

Oranienburg is a town located on the banks of the Havel river, 35 km north of the centre of Berlin.

Division of the town

Oranienburg consists of 9 districts

History

The original name of Oranienburg was Bötzow. The town was founded in the 12th century and was first mentioned in 1216. Albert the Bear is believed to have ordered the construction of a castle on the banks of the Havel. Around the castle there was a settlement of traders and craftsmen.

In 1646, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg married Louise Henriette of Orange-Nassau (German: Oranien-Nassau). She was so attracted by the town of Bötzow, that her husband presented the entire region to her. The princess ordered a new castle to be built in the Dutch style and called it Oranienburg or Schloss Oranienburg. In 1653, the town of Bötzow was renamed Oranienburg.

One of the first Nazi concentration camps was built in Oranienburg in 1933. In 1935 it was replaced by the Sachsenhausen concentration camp which continued to operate until the end of the Nazi regime; 100,000 people were killed in Sachsenhausen before the liberation of the camp by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.

Oranienburg was also the center of Nazi Germany's nuclear energy project and according to military historian Antony Beevor, the launching of the Battle for Berlin by Stalin was motivated by his desire to acquire that facility.[2] It has also been claimed that the preemptive destruction of these facilities by the USAAF Eighth Air Force on March 15, 1945, was done so as to prevent it from falling into Soviet hands.[3]

International relations

Main article: List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany

Oranienburg is twinned with:

Public institutions

The Zehlendorf transmission facility, a large facility for broadcasting in longwave, medium wave and FM-range, is located near Oranienburg, at Zehlendorf.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Bevölkerung im Land Brandenburg am am 30. Dezember 2010 nach amtsfreien Gemeinden, Ämtern und Gemeinden. Gebietsstand: 31.12.2010" (in German). Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg. 31 December 2010. http://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de//Publikationen/OTab/2011/OT_A01-04-00_124_201012_BB.pdf. 
  2. ^ Antony Beevor Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5 Preface xxxiv
  3. ^ Richard G. Davis,Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945 Alabama: Air University Press, 2006, page 518

External links

Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Oranienburg Oranienburg] at Wikimedia Commons
Towns and municipalities in Oberhavel