History of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
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The history of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania traces the development of one of the German federal states that emerged from previously independent units after the Second World War in the course of territorial changes in Germany.
→ For the history of Mecklenburg and Pomerania before 1945 see main article: History of Mecklenburg and History of Pomerania .
1945 to 1952: As a country of the Soviet Zone and GDR
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Today's state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was founded on July 9, 1945 after the end of the Second World War on the orders of the Soviet military administration in Germany within the Soviet zone of occupation . It was formed from the former state of Mecklenburg and the part of the Prussian province of Pomerania to the west of the Oder-Neisse line , the new German-Polish border, and the former Hanoverian office of Neuhaus .
The exact course of the demarcation line between the Soviet occupation zone of Germany and the German areas in the Szczecin area placed under Polish administration was still unclear for a few weeks, so that the Soviet Union initially refrained from handing over Szczecin , west of the Oder, to the Polish authorities. On July 5, 1945, however, Stettin was transferred to Poland by the Soviet occupying forces - in contradiction to later Allied agreements, which provided for a border course "immediately west of Swinoujscie and from there along the Oder to the confluence of the western Neisse" . The new German-Polish border west of Stettin was established in the Schwerin border treaty between the Soviet Union and Poland on the Altwarp - Friedrichsthal line . The city of Stettin with its important Baltic Sea port, the lower reaches of the Oder, the island of Wollin and the eastern end of Usedom with the district town of Swinoujscie became Polish. The evacuation of Wollin and Swinoujscie began on October 5, 1945.
A further area adjustment took place a few months later by changing the zone border between Great Britain and the Soviet Union in the so-called Barber-Lyashchenko Agreement of November 13, 1945. The neighboring communities Ratzeburgs Ziethen , Mechow , Bäk and Römnitz became the Duchy of Lauenburg on November 26, 1945 slammed. Until then they belonged to the Mecklenburg district of Schönberg (part of Mecklenburg-Strelitz until 1934 ) and came to the British zone in exchange for the Lauenburg communities of Dechow , Thurow (now part of the community of Roggendorf ) and Lassahn .
Shortly after the end of the war, the Soviet leadership initiated a comprehensive land reform , in the course of which, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, large landowners who operated more than 100 hectares and who were classified as war criminals, NSDAP members and opponents of communism were expropriated .
In 1946 the occupation authorities established a consultative assembly as a pre-parliament. As part of the state elections in the Soviet Zone in 1946 , the first state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was elected on October 20, 1946 . While this election offered the opportunity to choose between the parties and organizations standing for election, the second Landtag was determined in the Landtag elections in the GDR in 1950 according to unit lists.
Reference by name to the areas east of the Oder-Neisse border was soon seen in the Soviet Zone as backward and even revisionist. For this reason it was decided in public usage u. a. to eradicate the name "Pomerania", which is why from 1947 only the name "Land Mecklenburg" was valid, which now had an area of 22 893 km². In 1950 territorial exchanges were carried out with the state of Brandenburg , for example the Fürstenberger Werder came to Brandenburg with the city of Fürstenberg .
On October 7, 1949, the Provisional People's Chamber put the constitution of the GDR into force, which established the German Democratic Republic , of which the state of Mecklenburg was now part.
On July 25, 1952, as part of the administrative reform and the transformation of that republic with federalist features into a centralized unitary state, the states were divided into districts and the previous state institutions dissolved. The state of Mecklenburg thus effectively ceased to exist. The members of the Länderkammer of the GDR were determined once again in 1954 by the district assembly that met for the last time in each country - in 1958 the Länderkammer was also abolished as the last remnant of the Länder in the GDR. The three districts of Neubrandenburg (the south-east), Rostock (the coast) and Schwerin (the south-west) emerged in the area of Mecklenburg . The south-easternmost tip of Western Pomerania came to the Frankfurt (Oder) district (today's Gartz (Oder)), the Schwerin district received parts of the Brandenburg Prignitz and large parts of the Uckermark , also previously Brandenburg , were assigned to the Neubrandenburg district.
1952 to 1989: From the dissolution of the state to the turnaround
The popular uprising of June 17, 1953 , which was a reaction to the far-reaching Sovietization of the young GDR, was one of the most decisive events in the former and future territory of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Political repression and an increase in production norms, among other things, solved the problem. a. At the Rostocker Neptunwerft , the Warnowwerft Warnemünde and the Volkswerft Stralsund, strikes and further political demands, which were violently suppressed by Soviet troops and the People's Police .
Despite the unrest of 1953, Rostock, as the largest coastal city in the GDR, quickly became its most important port. This circumstance, as well as large-scale expansion measures of the Rostock port, led to a certain economic and industrial upswing, which is why the city and its entire surrounding area experienced a significant increase in population. In 1959 the largest district office of the Stasi including an extensive detention complex was set up in Rostock .
Like almost all cities in the GDR, Stralsund, Greifswald and Wismar in particular were characterized by the lively creation of new living spaces in the form of inexpensive prefabricated buildings. In the meantime, however, their historic old towns fell into disrepair due to the state's persistently poor financial situation. Greifswald represents an extreme case of this development. Together with Gotha and Bernau, it became one of the model cities for the "socialist reconstruction" of a grown old town at the beginning of the 1970s. Almost the entire northern old town was completely torn down and rebuilt with adapted prefabricated buildings. Similar redesigns followed in the 1980s in Rostock, Schwerin and to some extent also in Stralsund. In Schwerin , a demolition of the entire inner city and the construction of numerous new prefabricated buildings were planned at the end of the 1960s, but this could not be implemented due to lack of financial means.
In the early autumn of 1989 Rostock, Stralsund, Schwerin and other large cities in the region, although they did not belong to their nucleus, quickly became an important center of the Thursday and Monday demonstrations , which heralded the political turnaround in the GDR and paved the way for the later German reunification .
Since 1989
Foundation and reunification
After the democratic re-election of the People's Chamber of the GDR , the constitutional law for the formation of five federal states from the previous districts was passed on July 22, 1990 (→ Land introduction law ). a. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania should be re-established after more than 38 years. Through the unification treaty countries founded but was brought forward to October 3, the day of German reunification when the GDR in the form of the five reformed countries of the Federal Republic joined . Schleswig-Holstein and the Hanseatic City of Hamburg were partner countries of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania when the new administrative structures were set up.
The Hanseatic city of Rostock initially preferred a small-state solution, as in Bremen , Hamburg and Berlin . But the twin city of Bremen advised the Rostockers against it, which then wanted to become the state capital as the largest city in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .
The decision to choose Schwerin as the state capital of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was preceded by a competition with the Hanseatic city of Rostock , in which Schwerin won the race. The criteria were the historical role of Schwerin as the seat of the Mecklenburg dukes , the state parliament from 1948 to 1952 and existing buildings that could be used for offices, ministries and the government. In addition, Rostock saw the potential to become a science and economic center even without the status of a state capital. Private individuals also campaigned for Schwerin as the capital; the flower woman Bertha Klingberg alone collected 17,000 signatures for it.
The newly founded federal state was roughly the same territorial extent that Mecklenburg had when it was dissolved in 1952. The former GDR districts were merged: Neubrandenburg (excluding the Templin and Prenzlau districts ), Rostock and Schwerin (excluding the Perleberg district).
Since, for example, the former Mecklenburg Fürstenberger Werder with the city of Fürstenberg had already been incorporated into the state of Brandenburg in 1950 and a return to Mecklenburg was not politically feasible, this area remained, as did the area around Gartz (Oder) near Brandenburg. Other communities such as Dambeck and Brunow as well as the districts of Pampin and Platschow of the community of Berge moved again from the state of Brandenburg to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1992 after a referendum . In return, on August 1, 1992, the municipalities of today's Lenzen-Elbtalaue district came to the Brandenburg district of Perleberg , which in turn became part of the Brandenburg district reform on December 6, 1993 in the Prignitz district. The city of Strasburg (Uckermark) , which historically always belongs to Brandenburg , decided in a referendum to remain in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Also in 1993, on June 30th, the Neuhaus an der Elbe office was attached to the Lower Saxony district of Lüneburg , to which it had belonged until 1945.
As part of the GDR national park program, three national parks ( Jasmund , Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft , Müritz ) as well as a biosphere reserve and a nature park were designated in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in autumn 1990 shortly before reunification . The then Federal German Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer referred to this and other nature reserves of the GDR as "silverware of German unification" on October 3, 1990.
As a German state
The first government after the re-establishment of the state was from October 28, 1990 to March 19, 1992 a CDU / FDP coalition under Alfred Gomolka . Berndt Seite followed until November 2, 1998 as Minister President of a CDU / FDP and then a CDU / SPD government. On November 3, 1998, the first SPD / PDS coalition at the state level in Germany came to power under Harald Ringstorff . The country has been ruled by an SPD / CDU coalition since 2006, headed by Erwin Sellering from 2008 to 2017, and since then by Manuela Schwesig .
Since 1990, the constituency of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been in power since 2005, has been in the northeast of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, her constituency office is in Stralsund. The former Rostock pastor Joachim Gauck was the German Federal President from 2012 to 2017 and, like the Chancellor, holds regular events in the country.
Since the political change , large parts of numerous cities throughout the country have been extensively renovated as part of urban development funding. Particularly noteworthy are the historic cores of the Hanseatic cities here Wismar and Stralsund , which in 2001 shared the German World Heritage Foundation founded and "a year later as Stralsund and Wismar Historic Centers " in the list of UNESCO - World Heritage site were taken. Both this and the three national parks in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which were designated shortly before reunification, contributed enormously to the tourist profile of the state. In the course of the development of the East , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania also benefited from the so-called Transport Projects German Unity (VDE). Worth mentioning here are VDE No. 1, which has been expanding the railway line from Hamburg via Schwerin and Rostock to Stralsund since 1994, as well as VDE No. 10, the new construction of the Baltic Sea motorway A 20 between Lübeck and Stettin , which was completed in 2005 .
In 1995, several districts and municipalities of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania took part in the establishment of the Euroregion Pomerania in the context of European integration in order to bring the separate areas of Western and Western Pomerania closer together again. Poland's accession to the Schengen area at the end of 2007 and Poland's future accession to the euro area also help to overcome the dividing line between today's parts of Pomerania.
In June 2007, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania saw itself in the limelight of the world when the 33rd G8 summit took place in Heiligendamm . The conference cost the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 68 million euros and was followed by massive demonstrations with up to 80,000 participants. a. in nearby Rostock, as well as accompanied by equally large-scale security measures. So who was the airport Rostock-Laage locked during the summit for commercial flight operations and it was a huge exclusion zone around Heiligendamm built, which in addition to 16,000 police officers by the German Navy and Air Force was monitored.
Like other federal states in north-east Germany, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has been confronted not only with a far-reaching structural change, but also with a considerable demographic change since the fall of the Wall. Emigration and the decline in the birth rate led to a steady decline in population. Although this trend is common in many cities, e.g. B. Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald , and Wismar, could be stopped or even partially reversed shortly after the turn of the millennium, the state government responded as early as 1994 with a comprehensive district reform , which was followed by a second in 2011 . Since 2013, for the first time since 1990, there have been more arrivals than departures in the country . Despite the now positive net migration, the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania population will continue to decline slightly due to the excess of deaths.
Prime Minister since 1990
| Surname | Reign | Political party |
|---|---|---|
| Alfred Gomolka | 1990-1992 | CDU |
| Berndt page | 1992-1998 | CDU |
| Harald Ringstorff | 1998-2008 | SPD |
| Erwin Sellering | 2008-2017 | SPD |
| Manuela Schwesig | since 2017 | SPD |
See also
- History of Mecklenburg
- History of Pomerania
- History of water management in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
literature
- Michael North : History of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57767-3 .
- Dieter Richter, Carsten Höppner (Red.): 1995 - Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania celebrates 1000 years of Mecklenburg. The book for the festival . 2nd edition Laumann-Verlagsgesellschaft KG, Dülmen / Westf. 1995, ISBN 3-87466-245-4
Individual evidence
- ^ Communication on the Tripartite Conference of Berlin ("Potsdam Agreement")
- ↑ Arnd Bauerkämper (Ed.): Junkerland in peasant hands? Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06994-1
- ^ Martin Broszat, Gerhard Braas, Hermann Weber: SBZ-Handbuch , 1993, ISBN 3-486-55262-7
- ↑ Federal Council compact: 1952–69 : The Reconstruction and Cold War ( Memento of December 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ NDR.de - Remembering June 17: Lenin veiled ( Memento from June 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Anne Kaminsky (ed.): Places of remembrance. Memorial signs, memorials and museums on the dictatorship in the Soviet occupation zone and GDR , Bonn 2007, pp. 263–266.
- ↑ Bernfried Lichtnau, inner city renovation : "old town- compatible prefabricated building" . In: Horst Wernicke (Ed.), Greifswald. History of the city , Schwerin - Thomas Helms Verlag 2000, pp. 503–506
- ↑ B. Kasten and J.-U. Rost: Schwerin. History of the city. Thomas Helms Verlag, Schwerin 2005, ISBN 3-935749-38-4 , p. 257.
- ↑ The Land Introduction Act , DHM
- ↑ thvo: Capital dispute 1990: Why Schwerin won against Rostock | svz.de. Retrieved June 4, 2020 .
- ↑ History of the National Park program on natur-mv.de, accessed on January 3, 2014
- ↑ NDR Online : " G8 summit allegedly 30 million euros more expensive " ( memento of the original from January 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , June 13, 2007 11:03 am
- ↑ Netzeitung: " Around 1000 injured in Rostock " ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Information from Rostock-Laage Airport on air traffic during the G8 summit ( memento of the original from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Tagesschau.de: Mass prisons and soldiers for the protection of the G8 (tagesschau.de archive), accessed on May 11, 2007
- ↑ Reversed trend: MV becomes Immigrant Land ( memento from December 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), NDR, February 6, 2014, accessed on November 4, 2014
- ↑ Demographic change in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania - data, facts, trends
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