Gardelegen

Gardelegen

Coat of arms
Gardelegen

Coordinates: 52°31′35″N 11°23′33″E / 52.52639°N 11.39250°E / 52.52639; 11.39250Coordinates: 52°31′35″N 11°23′33″E / 52.52639°N 11.39250°E / 52.52639; 11.39250
Country Germany
State Saxony-Anhalt
District Altmarkkreis Salzwedel
Government
 • Mayor Mandy Zepig (SPD)
Area
 • Total 632.43 km2 (244.18 sq mi)
Elevation 43 m (141 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)[1]
 • Total 23,148
 • Density 37/km2 (95/sq mi)
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes 39638, 39649
Dialling codes 03907, 039004, 039006, 039056, 039085, 039087, 039088
Vehicle registration SAW, GA, KLZ
Website www.gardelegen.de

Gardelegen (German pronunciation: [ˈɡaʁdəleːɡən]) is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Milde, 20 m. W. from Stendal, on the main line of railway Berlin-Hanover.

History

Under the direction of an American soldier, German civilians from Gardelegen carry wooden crosses to the site where they were ordered to bury the bodies of concentration camp prisoners killed by the SS in a barn just outside the town. It had been widely reported that members of the local population provided support to the SS during the operation

Gardelegen is a very old town originating in the ancient period. When the Romans arrived the area 2000 years ago they named the settlement "vicum indidem isidis" or "vicum Isis“. Later on the map of Ptolemäus it has been named “Galegia”. In the Middle Ages it was renamed “Gardelege”, which was its first name mentioned in a document of 1196. It means “the law of Gar” or “The law of year”. Gardelegen is located within the historical Saxony and the green rhombusgarland in the Saxon arms is called “Garland”. The medieval land Gardelegen was the Garland with Gardelegen in its centre. In the west of the contemporary Gardelegen was Old-Gardelegen and to the west of it Gahrenburg was located. First mentioned in a document however it has been called Jaremburg, which means Springcastle. In former times they determined the beginning of spring with it, which was elementally significant for the calculation of the calendar. Therefore the calendar might have been called originally Garländer. In the Middle Ages Gardelegen was the headquarters of the Knights of the Temple. Inside of the Isencastle, which now a days is called Isenschnibbe, you could find a epitome of this calender in form of an ornamented column. This ornamented column of the Crodos was later construed to the column of Roland, which then got a completely different meaning so far. This has happened in a time when the Order of the Temple got exterminated. The last Knights of the Temple searched for shelter inside of the Lindencastle. This castle was located at the southern border of the medieval land Gardelegen. Its status of a free town Gardelegen lost in 1478 probably, in consequence of the consolidation of power of the Hohenzollern. [2]


It has a Roman Catholic and three Evangelical churches, a hospital, founded in 1285, and a high-grade school. There are considerable manufactures, notably agricultural machinery and buttons, and its beer has a great repute. Gardelegen was founded in the 10th century (first named 1196), and was for a long time the seat of a line of counts. In 1358 Gardelegen became a city of the Hanse. It suffered considerably in the Thirty Years' War, and in 1757 barely avoided being burned by the French.[3] On the neighboring heath Margrave Louis I. of Brandenburg gained, in 1343, a victory over Otto the Mild of Brunswick.

On 13 April 1945, 1016 concentration camp prisoners were burned alive by the Germans in the Isenschnibbler Feldscheune. Today this area is the site of a memorial for the dead.

At the height of the cold war, a USAF RB-66 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by Soviet fighters near the town on 10 March 1964. Her crew bailed out and was rescued and eventually handed back to West-Berlin by Soviet forces.[4]

After having incorporated 18 neighboring towns and villages in 2011, Gardelegen is now Germany's third largest city by area, trailing only Berlin and Hamburg. It is actually the largest municipality in area in what was formerly East Germany.

International relations

Gardelegen is twinned with:

Personality

Sons and daughters of the town

Joachim Lange around 1750
Otto Reutter

Associated with the town

References

  1. ↑ "Bevölkerung der Gemeinden – Stand: 31.12.2015" (PDF). Statistisches Landesamt Sachsen-Anhalt (in German).
  2. ↑ Thomas Stahl: Gardelegen oder Das Gesetz des Gar (Kurzfassung). Gardelegen 2017; ASIN: B073PD9DD3; S.3, S.6, S.18ff, S.26f, S.30, S.53ff, S.112, S.119 und S.163.
  3. ↑ Becker, H. (2011). Gardelegen: tausend Jahre einer Stadt. Sutton Verlag GmbH
  4. ↑ Dejá vu in Gardelegen by Wolfgang Preisler

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gardelegen". Encyclopædia Britannica. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 459. 

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