Braunschweig
Braunschweig is a city of 245,500 people , located in
Lower Saxony,
Germany . It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the
North Sea via the rivers
Aller and
Weser.
The historic English name for Braunschweig is Brunswick, or
Brunswiek,
Low Saxon.
Encyclopedia
Braunschweig is a city of 245,500 people , located in
Lower Saxony,
Germany . It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the
North Sea via the rivers
Aller and
Weser.
The historic English name for Braunschweig is
Brunswick, or
Brunswiek,
Low Saxon.
History
The date and circumstances of the town's foundation are unknown. Tradition maintains that Braunschweig was created through the merger of two settlements, one founded by Bruno II, a
Saxon count who died before 1017 on one side of the river Oker and the other the settlement of Count Dankward, after whom the still surviving Castle is named. The town's original name of
Brunswik is a combination of the name Bruno and
wik, a place where merchants rested and stored their goods. The town's name therefore indicates an ideal resting-place, as it lay by a ford across the Oker River. Documents from the St. Magni Church from 1031 give the city's name as
Brunesguik. Another explanation of the city's name is that it comes from
Brand, or burning, indicating a place which developed after the landscape was cleared through burning.
In the
12th century Duke
Henry the Lion made Braunschweig the capital of his state and built
Brunswick Cathedral. He became so powerful that he dared to refuse military aid to emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa, which led to his condemnation and fall.
Braunschweig was a member of the
Hanseatic League from the
13th century to the middle of the
17th century. In the
18th century Braunschweig was not only a political, but also a cultural centre.
Emilia Galotti by
Lessing and
Goethe's
Faust were played for the first time in Braunschweig.
Braunschweig was a duchy until 1918, and afterwards a state within the
Weimar Republic. It achieved an inglorious fame by making
Adolf Hitler a German citizen, which allowed him to become a candidate for the German
Reichstag and become Head of Government . Hitler was employed by the Braunschweig State Government in February 1932 and thereby obtained German citizenship. The later site selection of the
Volkswagen plant in nearby Wolfsburg was likely a thank-you gift for this granting of citizenship.
During
World War II, Braunschweig was a Sub-area Headquarters of Military District XI. It was also the Garrison Town of the 31st Infanterie Division, which took part in the invasions of Poland, Belgium, France, and Russia. It was one of the units that was destroyed during the withdrawal from Russia at the end of the war. As a result, it was severely damaged by Anglo-American aerial attacks. The air raid on October 15, 1944 destroyed most of the
Altstadt , which consisted of half-timbered houses, as well as most of the churches. Only the Cathedral, which was changed into a
National shrine by the
Nazi-Government, withstood the bombs.
After the war, the Cathedral was turned into a Protestant church again. A small section of the old centre of town did survive the bombing and remains quite distinctive. Much of the remainder, including the historic "Alte Waage" have been restored and now appear again in their pre-war glory.
Sights
- The beautiful Burgplatz , comprised of a group of buildings of great historical and cultural significance: the Cathedral , the Burg Dankwarderode , the Neo-Gothic Town Hall , as well as some picturesque half-timbered houses, such as the Gildehaus , today the seat of the Craftsman's Association. On the centre of the square stands a copy of the Burglöwe, a Romanesque statue of a Lion, cast in bronze in 1166. The original statue can be seen in the museum of the Castle Dankwarderode. Today the lion has became the true symbol of Braunschweig.
- The Altstadtmarkt , surrounded by old town hall , and the Martinikirche .
- The Kohlmarkt , a very nice market with many beautiful historical houses and and a fountain from 1869.
- The Magniviertel , a remainder of ancient Braunschweig, lined with cobblestoned streets, little shops and cafés, centered around the 13th-century Magnikirche . Here is also the Rizzi-Haus, a highly distinctive, cartoonish office building designed by architect James Rizzi for the Expo 2000.
- The Gothic Aegidienkirche , built in the 13th century, with an adjoining monastery, which is today a museum.
- The "Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum", an important art museum and the oldest museum in Germany
- The Palace of Braunschweig is in the state of reconstruction. The original has been destroyed in World War II.
Recommended Day Trips:
- Celle: beautiful town with few old half-timbered houses and a castle.
- Hildesheim: beautiful medieval town famous for its UNESCO-cultural heritage cathedrals, market place and old half-timbered houses.
- Hameln: the beautiful town is famous for the folk tale of the Pied Piper of Hameln
- Wolfenbüttel: the Residenzstadt of the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg for several centuries, is home to a Wasserburg and the Bibliotheca Augusta housing the largest collection of medieval manuscripts in Europe. The city is historically important also for its numerous half-timber houses, many of which date back several centuries since Wolfenbüttel was left largely untouched by WWII.
Twin Towns
Miscellaneous
Braunschweig has been an important industrial area.
Today it is known for its University and research institutes, mainly the Federal Agricultural Research Centre and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt . The PTB Braunschweig maintains the
atomic clock responsible for the
DCF77 time signal and the official German time.
Also located in Braunschweig is the "Martino-Katharineum" , a secondary school founded in 1415. It had such famous pupils as
Carl Friedrich Gauss,
Hoffmann von Fallersleben,
Richard Dedekind and
Louis Spohr.
Brunswick is the home of two
piano companies, both known worldwide for the high quality of their instruments: Schimmel and Grotrian-Steinweg . Both companies were founded in the
19th century.
Braunschweig is famous for
Till Eulenspiegel, a medieval jester who played many practical jokes on its citizens.
It also had - and still has - many breweries, and still a very peculiar kind of
beer is made called
Mumme, first quoted in 1390, a malt-extract that was shipped all over the world.
Near Braunschweig at Cremlingen-Abbenrode, there is a large medium wave transmitter, which transmits the program of "Deutschlandfunk" on 756 kHz, the Cremlingen transmitter.
The Braunschweig-Wolfsburg Regional Airport is located north of the city at 52.19. 09N - 10.33.22E, elev. 295 ft.
Braunschweiger
liverwurst is named after the city.
Many other geographical names are named after Braunschweig such as
New Brunswick in Canada due to the Personal Union of the Duchy of Hanover with Great Britain and the United Kingdom from 1714 to 1837 . For a list of places named after Braunschweig see Brunswick.
External links
