Drakenburg

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 52 ° 41 ′  N , 9 ° 12 ′  E
Basic data
State :	Lower Saxony
County :	Nienburg / Weser
Joint municipality :	Heemsen
Height :	24 m above sea level NHN
Area :	11.72 km 2
Residents:	1760 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	150 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	31623
Area code :	05024
License plate :	NI
Community key :	03 2 56 005
Association administration address:	Wilhelmstrasse 4 31627 Rohrsen
Website :	www.drakenburg.de
Mayoress :	Ute Paczkowski ( SPD )
Location of the community Drakenburg in the district of Nienburg / Weser

Aerial panorama

The Drakenburg community is a member of the Heemsen joint community in the Nienburg / Weser district in Lower Saxony . It calls itself a spot .

Town center with church

Drakenburg barrage in the Weser

geography

Drakenburg is located on the east bank of the Weser , just north of the district town of Nienburg .

history

Old names of the place are 1025 Demeborg, 1227 Drakenburg, 1288 Drakenburg and 1294 Drakenburch. The word part "Drake" could be derived from " dragon ". However, since dragons rarely appear in old names, it is more likely that it refers to the old first name “thraka” - “fight, rush, strength” or “dirt” in the sense of “morass, swamp”. Most likely it comes from the Central German “Drake, Dragge” - “anchor, clip”. That would mean that the castle would be understood as an "anchor castle" or "Klammerburg".

The medieval Drakenburg ( Low German for Drachenburg ), which gave the place its name, was a castle complex located directly on the Weser. Almost nothing is known about their appearance. It was owned by the Counts of Wölpe , who temporarily resided here until they moved their headquarters to Neustadt am Rübenberge in the 13th century . Drakenburg was owned by the Counts of Hoya after the Counts of Wölper died out in 1302 . The castle was probably built in the 12th century. It was destroyed in the 14th century during the Mandelsloh feud , probably in 1390. The extent to which the castle was rebuilt afterwards is unknown. The castle is mentioned in the sources until around 1450. There is no clear evidence of the castle's continued existence after 1450. It is very unlikely that the castle still existed at the time of the Battle of Drakenburg in 1547. The few mentions of the castle in sources from 1390 to 1450 and its silent "disappearance" speak against its special significance after the destruction in the Mandelsloh feud. In any case, at the time of the Thirty Years War, the castle no longer existed. Its remains were removed at an unknown time, probably by a flood of the Weser in the 17th century together with the ground on which it stood. Their location can no longer be clearly localized, as the corresponding area today belongs to the course of the river Weser.

In 1547, after the imperial siege of Bremen was broken off during the Schmalkaldic War, the battle of Drakenburg took place . The troops of Duke Erich II of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and those of the Schmalkaldic League under Count Albrecht von Mansfeld met in an open field battle near Drakenburg near the Weser .

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  Battle of Drakenburg 1547, on the right the Weser , in the background the town with the castle

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  Drakenburg, Matthäus Merian 1654

In addition to the medieval Drakenburg, there was a three-winged palace complex, probably built by Heinrich Rantzau , who had become lord of the largest manor in Drakenburg through his marriage to Christine von Halle . It was burned down by the Danish defenders of Nienburg in the Thirty Years' War in 1627, as was Drakenburg during the second siege of Nienburg by Tilly. This was to prevent Tilly from being able to lodge in Drakenburg, as was the case with the first siege of Nienburg. However, this measure could not prevent the capture of Nienburg by the imperial. The castle was hit by another fire in 1790. The Renaissance-style courtyard gate (magnificent Drakenburg portal) and a wing of the main building have been preserved.

religion

The Evangelical Lutheran St. John's Parish in Drakenburg was merged with the St. Michaelis Parish in Heemsen on February 1, 2012 to form the Evangelical Lutheran Parish Drakenburg-Heemsen.

politics

Municipal council

The council has eleven elected members, including the mayor elected by the council. The following parties have belonged to it since the local elections in September 2016:

• SPD : 5 seats
• CDU : 3 seats
• Flat share : 3 seats

Mayor

Mayor is Ute Paczkowski (SPD).

Culture and sights

Church: tower and west gable

Buildings

church

Medieval parish church Johannis-der-Täufers stands in the middle of the town center. There are two almost contradicting versions of the history of the building, which in particular assess the style and age of the choir differently: According to the older theory, a small chapel, today's Romanesque choir, was built and later the Gothic nave was built on it . According to the brochure of the Weser-Hunte Regional Association about village churches in the districts of Nienburg and Diepholz, written by the building historian Stefan Amt in 2003 , the nave was first built and later expanded to include a late Gothic choir. The four corners of the wall of the sacristy, visually reinforced with stone blocks, indicate that today's extension was originally free. The south-east wall of the polygonal choir has a pointed arch that has become superfluous due to the current window opening.

In any case, the tower was subsequently placed in front of the west gable, asymmetrically, so as not to hide its beautiful blind arcades . Historically interesting and of high artistic quality are grave slabs from the late Gothic and Renaissance periods of aristocratic families living in Drakenburg

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  Southwest of the nave with grave slabs

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  Nave with choir from the southeast

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  Church nave from the north, left sacristy ( sandstone on all four corners), next to it walled up choir window

Burgmannshöfe and manors

• Schlossgut, a historically significant building complex of the Weser Renaissance
• Kirchhofsgut
• Western Wesergut

Local museum

• Ole Schüne (old barn), today a local museum

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  Castle estate with the magnificent portal in the Renaissance style

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  Heimathaus with memorial stone for the Battle of Drakenburg

Green spaces and recreation

• Wassarium , information park on the topic of drinking water

Personalities

Sons and daughters of the church

• Hermann Benjes (1937–2007), nature photographer, writer, landscape gardener and inventor of the Benjes hedges
• Jan Timke (* 1971), politician (STATT, Schill, BIW), chairman and co-founder of the right-wing populist voter association Bürger in Wut (BIW), founded in 2004, and member of the Bremen citizenship

literature

• Ernst Andreas Friedrich : If stones could talk. (The magnificent portal of Drakenburg), Volume II, Landbuch-Verlag, Hannover 1992, ISBN 3-7842-0479-1
• Bernd Ulrich Hucker : History of the Drakenburg patch. Ed .: Heimatverein Drakenburg, Verden, 2000

Web links

Commons : Drakenburg  - Collection of Images

• Website of the municipality of Heemsen

Individual evidence

1. ↑ State Office for Statistics Lower Saxony, LSN-Online regional database, Table 12411: Update of the population, as of December 31, 2019  ( help ).
2. ^ Jürgen Udolph (research): The "place name researcher". In: website NDR 1 Lower Saxony . Archived from the original on January 26, 2016 ; accessed on August 3, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Ecclesiastical gazette for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover 2/2012, p. 61ff.
4. ↑ https://wahlen.kdo.de/content.php?kunde=sg_heemsen&wahlverz=sg_heemsen/web/201609_K__Gemeinderatswahl_Drakenburg_11.09.2016&wahlname=Gemeinderatswahl_Drakenburg_11.09.2016&atei=160901135507338_0_1_txt_p_.http
5. ↑ St. John the Baptist Church Drakenburg.
6. ↑ Medieval village churches in the districts of Diepholz and Nienburg / Weser. In: Website Landschaftsverband Weser-Hunte. 2013, accessed on September 1, 2019 (PDF; 3.2 MB).